Which of these would you like to see in 2015 from WotC?

[Alarian]

I must say I am very happy to see more rules in second to last place. Nothing made previous versions worse than heaps of rule splat books.

 

[Uchawi]

OGL and more rules and/or content go hand in hand. And with that stated, I would not mind the OGL be extended to 4E, but that is really reaching.

 

[WitchyD]

I voted for more rules, as that was the closest thing to what I wanted: modules that were promised but didn't seem to make the cut for the DMG or weren't ready. I'm still hopeful for the mass combat rules, kingdom management, etc. so I can more easily run a game with those elements.

Also, those of you who are touting early modules leaving the story for the DM: would you please name some of those? I've not been exposed to much of them (except Keep on the Borderlands) and I think I might like to try them.

 

[Rune]

Um... Then I have no idea what you mean by "...Adventures don't actually have any business including stories".

I mean that plot is not the DM's job; it's the players'. It's the DM's job to provide the scenarios and NPCs with which they can. And that's what an adventure module should do.

Also, I'm failing to see the difference between a targeted campaign and a prescribed one. I mean, within the context of an AP.

A campaign can be targeted through its hooks without expecting PCs to follow up on them. Such a campaign is targeted because it's NPCs still have motives and the world still reacts to the PCs' actions (or lack thereof). There just isn't a pre-scripted plot.

This is extraordinarily difficult (if not impossible) with an AP, because an AP expects all of its component adventures to be run, in sequence, and can't really compensate for deviation.

Campaigns are campaigns because they have direction. You could just run 20 adventures, one per level, but connecting them with a common thread makes it a Campaign. Writing them down before the first adventure makes that an AP. But, the players certainly have every option available to them during either type (or any type) of adventure, with maybe the only difference being the scope and buy-in level of your players.

There is, indeed, a difference between writing a set of thematically related adventures before beginning a campaign and prescribing a string of sequential adventures bound by a pre-scripted (and, therefore, non-PC-driven) plot.

Options aren't really the issue. The issue is what role the players take in making the story. My problem with APs is that, in them, that role is "central" instead of "defining."

 

[Agamon]

Yes, there are some definite turds in the 1e pile, but I'd still rather have a 1e style module over a glitz-n-glamour railroad'ish "new style" module any day of the week. As a DM, I want to be able to use a module as an "adventure backdrop"...I don't want to use it as a "story to follow".

It's not a old/new style. There are old 1e glitzy railroads (DL series) and new backdrop adventures (Legacy of the Crystal Shard). Len Lakofka's adventures were fantastic, but most 1e adventures were not of similar stock.

 

[aramis erak]

It would be feasible and profitable to bring it back in print. They're Wizards of the Coast, any printer would likely do Dragon and Dungeon at or below cost just for the Magic the Gathering contract. Instead of messing around with magazine circulation, sell it direct on the site or partner with someone like Amazon who lives by diversity.

The "Electronic age" as far as print media goes isn't a factor, primarily because E-books aren't doing all that well. In the first half of 2014 Ebooks made up 23% of sales, Hardcovers were 25%, and paperback was 42%. Not doing print is a catastrophic mistake as it means they're selling to only 1 out of 4 customers at best, and very possibly 1 out of 5. Doing .pdfs only pretty much leaves most of the money on the table.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/ebooks-print-books-outsold_n_5940654.html

Do you understand the disincentives for print? I doubt it; few really do unless they've worked in book/magazine sales (especially as management), or in getting magazines printed and sold.

• buyback expectation. Avoided with direct sales only, reduced with aggregators like Amazon.
  Retailers have the expectation of being able to get a refund on unsold "stale" magazines, Magazine distributors also have the same expectation. So, really, you want to put the funds into escrow until the buyback window is closed
• Glossy full-color full-bleed - most on-the-shelf mags need to be full color full bleed to sell well, and that steps up the ink costs. Glossy paper also ups the costs. (I've been checking price quotes recently.) Neither relates to the content quality, but people still expect it. PDF dumps the issues of ink onto the end user.
• Paper in general - paper costs have continued to climb. What used to be $1/ream is now $4, and that's for letter-size. Larger sizes have gone up proportionally more; 11x17 went up from about $3-$4 to $13-$18+. And its not getting better. The cost of paper has climbed faster than the relative value of the dollar. (The old prices I'm citing are about 1990. The 1990 US dollar's buying power was about 1.8x the current US dollar.)
• Bookstores & gamestores - there are measurably fewer now than in 1990. Of both. The transition to eBooks has not been the revolution yet, but it's definitely an insurgency with casualties. Fewer places to sell to does mean reduced circulation.
• Advertiser revenue - is down across the board for magazines. This has been cited in the last year by several magazines I've read, including Scientific American, Astronomy, and another one I don't recall specifically (It may have been Forbes).

Trust me, I understand the desire for dead tree - but the only way we're likely to see it is as POD. The costs have gone up, the readership has gone down, and the advertisers are expecting the same prices.

I think I could see following the lead of Amarillo Design Bureau, tho - roughly quarterly magazine-like external-advertisement-free products, subject to reprinting, with the rights contracts negotiated to prevent repeats of the Dragon CD debacle.

And POD is only just getting to the point it's really viable.

 

[TheSwartz]

I voted for OGL although I admit I don't understand the consequences of it.

Look at this from WOTC. Kinda messed up, Hasbro is certainly a ruthless business first and foremost. But I think we can understand the need to protect IP.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123f

The references for the wikipedia page are interesting too btw

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License

 

[Henrix]

Are we talking the last year of print or digital? I'd had a subscription since #105, but let it slide just before they went out of print (I think my last was maybe #336?), I know I missed at least some of the last year because it'd just gotten so banal. I remember #356's cover, but I think my subscription had lapsed by then. Just curious if I'd missed a "revival" of the magazine.

We were talking about the Paizo era, so that's print.

I do agree it had a very uninteresting period for a while, but I think they recognised that and started taking it seriously.
Can't recall which issues exactly, but toward the very end. I remember thinking like you that it was rather uninteresting for a while before that.

Dragon had a long tradition of splatbooks in 3e, the system sort of invited that.
And the Paizo people do seem to like splatbooks.

 

[delericho]

Do you understand the disincentives for print? I doubt it; few really do unless they've worked in book/magazine sales (especially as management), or in getting magazines printed and sold.

<snipped list>

Yep. Plus, restarting Dragon/Dungeon as a print mag would effectively be the same as launching a new magazine - it doesn't get its place back because of the name; it has to fight for its place with all the other newcomers.

Back when the magazines were first cancelled, the Paizo guys spoke at length about what this meant. There was a lot of stuff worth reading, if you can be bothered finding.

But the bottom line was pretty stark: as soon as Dragon #360 and Dungeon #151 failed to appear on the newsstand, that was it. Game over, man. Game over.

 

[Staffan]

I voted for a setting book other than FR, a new setting, another genre, and an adventure path.

I'd love to see Mystara or Greyhawk as these have been neglected for quite a long time. As for a new setting, this combines with my desire for a new genre. I'd love to see a modern fantasy setting or even a sci-fi/fantasy setting.

Unfortunately, I think the chances of Mystara or Greyhawk coming back are fairly low, because of their similarity to FR. The same goes to a lesser extent for Dragonlance and maybe even Eberron (though Eberron has a fairly strong identity of its own).

There are very few things you can do with Mystara/GH that you can't do with FR. Sure, the countries are different, but they're all still fundamentally "basic D&D-style fantasy" settings. Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, and Al-Qadim (just to take some of the stronger flavors) all have their own hooks: Planar travel + Sigil, Savage deserts/sword & sandals-style, SPACE!!!, Gothic horror, and 1001 nights-style Arabia.