What do you think WotC should be making?

[Allandaros]

Hmm. I would personally like to see boxed sets, because of the little goodies that it's possible to throw into a boxed set which add flavor to the module/setting. Though if WotC is going through rough times obviously that might not be costefficient.

I miss the boxed sets though.

Ahem. I'll echo a call for books tailored around specialized playstyles (swashbuckling campaign) and for one-shot reissues of 2e campaign settings.

Adventure modules, generic setting (drop 'em in anywhere!).

DM advice books. Sort of a compilation of GM tricks and tips - heck, it might not even be tailored to D&D; sort of a generic compendium for mass-market appeal.

 

[Set]

A single hard-cover for each of the currently fallow settings. I don't want one setting, whether it be FR or Eberron, developed to the point where there isn't anywhere left to go or anything left to do, or anything that I, as GM, could possibly spring on my players without them knowing better than me what lies over yonder hillside...

*Greyhawk
*Al-Qadim / Zakhara
*Kara-Tur
Spelljammer
Sigil / Planescape
Mystara (that one might require a seperate bestiary...)
Ravenloft
Dark Sun
Gamma World (just kidding, although a non-fantasy d20 setting that wasn't as lifeless and limp as the d20 Modern setting could be interesting)

*personal favorites, although I'd likely buy the Spelljammer and Mystara settings as well, and perhaps the others, if they contained some interesting content that I could port over to other settings.

Finally, the WotC people could snap up rights to other AD&D settings and / or rules-sets, from other publishers, and 3.5 'canonize' them.

The Scarred Lands setting
The Midnight setting
Conan's Hyperboria
Empire of the Petal Throne (Midkemia and / or Kelewan)
The Arcana Unearthed classes and magic system

Each product would be a fat hardcover, not these little loser specialized niche products like Complete Class-No-One-Plays or Twinkle: City of Setting-Dependent-People-You-Can't-Really-Use-Anyway.

More "prestige" monster books, like Draconomicon, Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness. I want to see a detailed, lavishly illustrated book on fiends and their society, and other iconic monster types like fey and giants would also be interesting. And there's certainly enough aberrations out there for Lords of Madness II.

Yes, with the caveat that I *don't* want to see yet more new monsters and races in each new book. When I picked up Lords of Madness, I didn't want to see the Tsurlochar, or whatever, I was picking it up to learn more about Aboleth, Illithids, etc. Same with the Races of... books, the *weakest* point of which, IMO, is the new races. Races of the Wild was supposed to be about Elves, not bird-people. And it isn't like the game was starving for bird-people, so why the heck did they invent a brand new one? Same with Goliaths in Races of Stone. Make Half-Ogres, or Half-Giants, interesting, flesh out what *already exists* instead of constantly strapping yet more stuff on. Oh, it's a human, with floaty symbols over it's head, so we need 20 pages taken away from the humans, half-elves and half-orcs the book was ostensibly going to be about to detail their floaty head-symbols and completely new pantheon of gods that nobody ever heard of before now, since lord knows there aren't enough competing dieties running around the planes...

Complete beastie books are, IMO, a step in the right direction. With Libris Mortus, I get a resource I can use in *any* campaign that involves undead. With Five Nations of Eberron, or Complete Chosen of Mystra, it's a niche product that I *might* find a few pages I can mine to use in another campaign, and probably have to tweak to 'de-setting-ize' in any event.

Of course, they could always come up with another name that says "book containing monsters".

Critter Compendium? Creature Codex? Big Book 'o Beasties? Librum of things that are gonna die and be Looted?

Seriously though, I'd rather more focus on the pre-existing 'classic' monsters, a la the Lords of Madness sort of thing, than heaps of yet more annoying evil humanoids or tentacly weirdos or dragons that breathe out swarms of rabid badgers or pelting cones of rainbow-colored candies. 'Cause that horse has been beaten to death, re-animated, and destroyed by a Cleric.

 

[Hussar]

(3.5) Monster Manual Second Edition

Take the current version of the Monster Manual, toss out the 2nd rate monsters. Expand the entries on the rest to a minimum of a page each. Include notes on environment, breeding, society, and how to effectively run the monster in an adventure, encounter, or series.

What skills does it have, what feats and abilities? Where does it live, and how does it make its living? How does it deal with threats? What threat, if any, does it pose to adventurers?

Would this sell? Do it right and it would sell gang-busters.

And Mythus Mage predicts the MMIV to a T. Well done him.

 

[Vlad Le Démon]

I'd like to see them return to the days of books with INDEXES.

Better: The Great Book of Indexes. A book with all the indexes from the other books...

 

[Frostmarrow]

Not going to happen. I had a very informatitive email conversation with Andy Collins. Best bet, chase the secondary market....

That said, I'm buying a case of Underdark and I haven't bought a single mini

This is a mad idea. What about a randomized warband box? In it you get a warband but you can't tell which one. Let's say there is a line of twelve different warbands; skeletons, gnolls, goblins, orcs, adventurers, dragon spawn, et c. That solves the problem. The shops will still just keep one article in inventory and gamers can easily trade warband per warband with each other. Other than that, you can quickly collect an army of orcs, for instance. Tell Andy I said so.

 

[Venator]

A Greyhawk campaign book.

yes please.

 

[James Heard]

Actually the one thing I DON'T want is another WOTC monster book.

I'd buy a revised Epic Handbook and maybe even a Complete Epic book with additional options. If I MUST be barraged with another WOTC monster book I'd say plop it right down into that same series with an Epic Folio and focus on providing a whole book devoted to REALLY scary monsters.

Further, I think that the lack of Jungle and Mountain terrain book in the Stormwrack and Sandstorm vein is a mistake. The whole terrain series doesn't have universal appeal, but by simply adding the books they're suggesting whole new themes for game play.

While I'd truly appreciate a devastating huge Greyhawk hardcover book, I think that would be a mistake to simply put a product out like that. Instead I think something like a Greyhawk-heavy, megamodule hardcover product that operated more like the terrain books in that it was a tightly focused review of a specific area with a specific problem/issue/adventure opportunity and everything you needed to run a game in that part of Greyhawk would work better. You'd spread your appeal across three gamer hankerings: modules, setting information, new crunch. If you added in a nostalgia aspect without coming across as a watered down version of a years worth of Dungeon Adventure Path then you'd pretty much hit everything spot on.

They could also perhaps make a few bucks off of revising their core books with the new errate, changing the covers, not altering the 3.5 text, and persuading some people to buy additional new books at minimum effort and cost. It's not like they'd be altering an awful lot or the books need a real revision before 4.0, but some people are suckers for completeness and WOTC should prey upon them.

They might also make a buck off of a Complete Alternate Magic book, that provided a follow up to some of the exotic spellcasting classes that have been introduced. Warlocks, True Namers, Spirit Shamans, etc; it would be the product that dished out support for some of the fringe spellcasters that don't always get a lot of love in other books. I think it would have to have some particularly snazzy stuff in it to work though, and seeing as how many of those classes there are I think it could be a little unfocused and not enough of any single class to provide a lot of benefit for anyone who didn't use all of them.

I also personally want them to bring back Al Qadim. It's just personal, because the artists for Al Qadim were so good they made me salivate uncontrollably occasionally. If they can't get the same artistic style? Let it rot.

 

[Ghendar]

Essentially what RPG products do think they should produce to achieve the most profit?

Have every book contain the words "Dragon" or "Magic" in the titles.

Seriously though, I have no idea what books would provide the best sales and WotC certainly won't tell us that info. However, what would get me to buy books would be more generally useful stuff like monster and spell books and less optional rules crud (imo) like Incarnum, etc.

 

[delericho]

If we're talking about pure money-making, then it's time for 4th Edition. Nothing else in the RPG line will generate as much money as quickly. If, however, they feel it's too soon for 4th Edition, then they would do well to do another range of 'Complete' books and 'Races of' books. Monster Manual V (or Fiend Folio II) is also a near certainty. And a PHBIII and/or DMGIII seem likely candidates.

Plus, of course, there's always the minis.

If, however, we were talking about what I think Wizards 'should' produce in the next year... well, I've actually been quite pleased with their output in the past year, so would like more of the same, please. In particular, I would like to see more adventures (and more new adventures - I know nostalgia is a powerful force, but I'm getting a bit burned out on it). Keep producing them, and keep the quality up, and I'll continue buying.

Some particular products I would like to have, that I think might actually have a chance of being made:

High-level Campaigns: a how-to guide on expanding your campaign into high levels (13 - 20), with especial focus on making the DM's job easier, flowcharts for quickly and effectively advancing monsters and NPCs, analyses of different types of monsters and their roles in the game, advice on managing the complexity of dozens of sourcebooks, etc. Some or all of this may have already been covered in "Power of Faerun".

An environment book for Swamps and/or Jungles.

A 'monster' book on Giants.

Another monster book on Orcs, Goblins, and other 'classic' humanoids.

A Feat compendium. Possibly a Prestige Class compendium too.

And some 'dream products' that I would very much like to have, but I don't think will ever exist:

Heroes of the Ages: A guide to running multi-generational campaigns, following the exploits not just of a PC, but an entire adventuring dynasty across centuries of game-time.

A very good, very easy to use PC application for quickly and easily advancing monsters and NPCs. Must include all data from all WotC books to be useful, and must allow the DM to implement his house rules in a meaningful manner. (As I said, products I don't think will ever exist.)

Dungeons & Dragons, Encyclopedia edition: Take the core 3.5 rules and put them in a volume. Likewise, gather all the PC races, base classes, prestige classes, and so on. The monsters would take multiple volumes, but once done the entire game would be present in about 25 volumes, all fully gathered and cross-referenced. Of course, the major downside of this product is that it would be the very last thing I would ever buy for 3rd Edition. (Heck, even if it's just a big subset of the rules, gathered to offer the fullest 'classic' version of the game, I would buy... but it would need to include psionics, although Incarnum, Epics, Tome of Magic/Battle and Weapons of Legacy could be omitted in my copy )

 

[Cor Azer]

While I'd truly appreciate a devastating huge Greyhawk hardcover book, I think that would be a mistake to simply put a product out like that. Instead I think something like a Greyhawk-heavy, megamodule hardcover product that operated more like the terrain books in that it was a tightly focused review of a specific area with a specific problem/issue/adventure opportunity and everything you needed to run a game in that part of Greyhawk would work better. You'd spread your appeal across three gamer hankerings: modules, setting information, new crunch. If you added in a nostalgia aspect without coming across as a watered down version of a years worth of Dungeon Adventure Path then you'd pretty much hit everything spot on.

I think that's a great idea. Revisit the old campaign settings as megamodules focusing on some portion of the old settings. That's pretty much what I've always wanted in adventure modules - give me mostly a series of adventures/encounters, but feel free to introduce some new crunch like prestige classes, feats, spells, and monsters (particularly updated/fleshed out existing ones - I one of those few who liked MMIV) and I think it'd be gold.

Also, as has been said - a good giant specific book ala Draconomicron. Giants are an iconic D&D monster, and just never seem to get the love. (I recall FR tried a novel series focusing on giants once, but that didn't really up their visibility I don't think)