D&D 5E Will 5e D&D re-claim its campaign settings.

[PatriotofKarrnath]

Try being a

1. Dragonlance Fan,

Or even worse,

2. An Oriental Adventures Fan.


They gave us hope about 1 in the playtest (kender and all) and then took it all away.

With Oriental Adventures...we had official 3e support, but not really a hint in 4e and nothing in 5e thus far (of any real support for it). This is something that has a fantasy background for almost a third of the world's population (more than the European portion of the world which is the basis of D&D's default fantasy settings) and yet...no support for us (probably with good reason though, not enough sales=not as much support most likely).

If they released Dragonlance, OA, or Dark Sun (DS WAS supported in 3e to a limited degree, and in 4e, so no complaints there) I'd snatch it up in an instance.

But they have to think about what will have the greatest appeal to the greatest number of people (aka sales), especially with the limited amount of releases they are doing.

From what I gathered on the DLNexus site, 5e will never do official dragonlance and WOTC is deliberately keeping DL down so as to prop up FR. I recommend going over to those forums, Weiss and Banks post there somewhat regularly and the gist of it is, they and WOTC are not on good terms. So yeah I can feel some empathy for DL fans on that one. With DL being a direct competitor style fantasy to FR I could see it if that were true, but Eberron is no threat whatsoever, we are just large enough to have a presence, but not large enough to draw fans away ( but that seems a lame argument since WOTC gets all those dollars anyway. so that makes me skeptical of it) FR focus has been what has made us just go back to 4ed. Don't like it, wont play it. If Eberron ever gets something real for 5e, may give it a try, but not at all interested in FR.

 

[RotGrub]

I really don't understand why WotC is worried about their own brands competing against each other. Does it really mater what campaign setting people are playing? Many gamers I know don't play in only one particular campaign setting. My group likes to change it up all the time. IMO, DL has just enough flavour to make it feel refreshing without changing the basic fantasy setting too much.

If it's true that Weiss and Banks are at odds with WotC, then it certainly sounds like there might be too much politics for these campaign settings to return. Of course, that makes me wonder if they'll beg Monte Cook to return for a Planescape update - yeah right... lol.

 

[Azurewraith]

I really don't understand why WotC is worried about their own brands competing against each other? Does it really mater what campaign setting people are playing? Many gamers I know don't play in only one particular campaign setting. My group likes to change it up all the time. IMO, DL has just enough flavour to make it feel refreshing without changing the basic fantasy setting too much.

If it's true that Weiss and Banks are at odds with WotC, then it certainly sounds like there might be too much politics for these campaign settings to return. Of course, that makes me wonder if they'll beg Monte Cook to return for a Planescape update - yeah right... lol.

Sounds like grounds for a petition! Re-instate Monty cook!

 

[Mercule]

From what I gathered on the DLNexus site, 5e will never do official dragonlance and WOTC is deliberately keeping DL down so as to prop up FR.

Wow. That... just... sucks. I'm pretty neutral on DL, but I've come to resent any effort WotC makes to promote it. As much as I think 5E is probably the best version of the D&D rules, to date, the "Realms first" policy has me wanting to walk away. I'd rather see them support no setting than the Realms.

 

[Mecheon]

Wow. That... just... sucks. I'm pretty neutral on DL, but I've come to resent any effort WotC makes to promote it. As much as I think 5E is probably the best version of the D&D rules, to date, the "Realms first" policy has me wanting to walk away. I'd rather see them support no setting than the Realms.

The Realms is literately a fantasy kitchen sink, though. So they can shove anything in there and say it works. Dragonlance especially has baggage attached that doesn't really make it work for that

I mean they tried to move away from it with the Points of Light setting in 4E, but, well.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The RPGs have got two parts, the game rules, and the IPs, the background. Today the IPs (intelectual property) are very important because they can be used for another business like books, toys, comics...or movies (and tv cartoons)!!

* Dragonlance is wonderful for books, for horrible for games because it is too "small" with all new things from last editions.

* Birthright could be perfect for a RTS videogame, like a Warcraft III.

* Greyhawk is the original Gary Gygax's work. It's a world can't be changed easily without killing its original spirit or essence.

* Mystara has been fogorten for long time ago.

* Kara-Tur could come back, but it needs a good work by WotK designeers.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

* Mystara has been fogorten for long time ago.

That is a touch of an overstatement.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I really don't understand why WotC is worried about their own brands competing against each other. Does it really mater what campaign setting people are playing?

Why do you think it has something to do with not "competing against itself"? I mean let's be honest... thus far in the past two years they've released just 4 adventure books. 3 were in the Realms, 1 is now Ravenloft. They really haven't had the opportunity to compete against themselves even if they wanted to, based upon their publishing strategy.

Let's not forget... we're still just coming up on the end of Year Two of what I suspect was meant/hoped to be AT LEAST a 5 year (if not 6, 7, 8) publishing plan. If we're looking at the overall timeline of 5E... there's still *plenty* of time for them to slide over to an Eberron book, and/or a Greyhawk book, and/or Planescape or whatever. If we knew that their next 3 books following Curse of Strahd were going to be in the Realms, then sure, we'd be able to look at it differently and with a little more of a critical eye. But right now we're not even halfway (if even a third of the way) through 5E's life cycle. Time is on our side.

But if everyone's still getting up in arms right now even though they've just released a "Non-Realms" book, and for all we know have another "Non-Realms" book on the docket for release next (which is entirely possible-- heck, CoS just dropped in a Greyhawk Easter Egg, which could easily be a route back into GH if we follow the egg)... then people are getting bent out of shape prematurely and unnecessarily.

Not that... I'm really... surprised... by that of course. We *are* talking about gamers after all.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Thing is, it is possible for D&D settings to compete against themselves. That's part of what killed TSR in the 2E era. (Not the only thing that killed them, of course, but it was a factor.)

Here's the thing. It requires X resources--money, time, labor, etc.--to produce a D&D book. A D&D book must make Y sales to recoup that investment.

Every detail of that book that segments the target market is, potentially, a mark against doing it.

Not all D&D gamers are interested in all settings. A FR book is only going to get a percentage of the sales that a "generic" D&D book will get. A Dark Sun book is only going to get a percentage, a Ravenloft book is only going to get a percentage, etc. And the less popular a setting is, the smaller that percentage is.

Furthermore, every book in a setting line after the core book has an even smaller percentage. An Eberron or Dark Sun supplement beyond the core book is a fraction of what is already a fraction.

When you're pouring resources into supporting multiple lines, you are by definition getting less return than you would get pouring those same resources into generic books, or into one or two of the most popular setting lines.

It sucks--I'm a huge fan of multiple settings, and many of them are among the less popular--but it's a simple fact of the business. Hopefully WotC and 5E are doing well enough that they decide they can eventually take a few steps down the road, throwing the fans a bone as it were, but it will never be something they can afford to do with anything approaching older editions' regularity. (That's why the 4E model was "three in and done." No lingering lines to support. And even that may not have worked as well as they hoped; I don't have numbers to know one way or the other.)

 

[pkt77242]

Why do you think it has something to do with not "competing against itself"? I mean let's be honest... thus far in the past two years they've released just 4 adventure books. 3 were in the Realms, 1 is now Ravenloft. They really haven't had the opportunity to compete against themselves even if they wanted to, based upon their publishing strategy.

Let's not forget... we're still just coming up on the end of Year Two of what I suspect was meant/hoped to be AT LEAST a 5 year (if not 6, 7, 8) publishing plan. If we're looking at the overall timeline of 5E... there's still *plenty* of time for them to slide over to an Eberron book, and/or a Greyhawk book, and/or Planescape or whatever. If we knew that their next 3 books following Curse of Strahd were going to be in the Realms, then sure, we'd be able to look at it differently and with a little more of a critical eye. But right now we're not even halfway (if even a third of the way) through 5E's life cycle. Time is on our side.

But if everyone's still getting up in arms right now even though they've just released a "Non-Realms" book, and for all we know have another "Non-Realms" book on the docket for release next (which is entirely possible-- heck, CoS just dropped in a Greyhawk Easter Egg, which could easily be a route back into GH if we follow the egg)... then people are getting bent out of shape prematurely and unnecessarily.

Not that... I'm really... surprised... by that of course. We *are* talking about gamers after all.

While I agree get where you are coming from and even partly agree with you, if they wait till year 5 to release a setting, that is a long time for fans of that setting to wait. It would be nice to see some kind of support, such as a short PDF of updates, especially if they don't plan on doing an AP anytime soon for that setting. It doesn't mean that they couldn't still do an AP for it in the future, just something to keep fans happy, the cash flowing, and still leaves them the option of hitting it later for an AP.