WotC: Stop sitting on Rich Burlew's setting (you own the rights!) - publish it for 5E too!

[Olive]

But, in a similar vein to yourself, I don't want to see them do anything with them that would take them away from other priorities - with the days of the 3e/4e release schedule being so definitively gone, we have to hope for the very best utility from every one of the products they do publish.

Yes, that too

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Personally, the only setting that really ever grabbed me was Eberron, distantly followed by Planescape and Ravenloft. I don't know that they need to release anything for the settings, as some people have already mentioned that the actual lore and stories are system agnostic. I mean sure, there are mechanical blindspots in the current edition for things like the Artificer and psionics, but I don't know that a whole book would need to be devoted to any settings.

Where I think things could be good is if WotC opened the settings up for development in the DMSGuild. Keith Baker has been saying for years on his website that he has more to add to the setting and explore, and I think that would be the ideal place to release such content. You keep it niche and allow community support, while collecting a percentage, without diluting the primary market of the hardcover sales.

I would npt be surprised of keith baker is already in the boat. He did some 5e stuff a while ago and then suddenly stopped and IIRC mentioned talks with wotc.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Other than the $10,000 they were each paid for creating their setting bibles, you mean?

Winner got $100K. Two and three got $10K. That may not make you rich, but it's not nothing, especially in this industry.

I did not remember that they were paid, in that case this is a non-point.

 

[pukunui]

Campaign setting books are also largely edition neutral. If they were such great sellers, why didn't they keep releasing them between the editions? Easy money between 4e and 5e...

They more or less did just that, via the DMs Guild’s predecessor, D&D Classics.


Since we’re talking about wish fulfilment in this thread, I personally would like to see Chris Perkins revive his Valoreign campaign. The whole Feywild-destroying Night of Wild Magic, with its table of random power-ups, was a cool concept. I briefly toyed with my own adaptation of it, but neither it nor the actual campaign ever got off the ground.

 

[gyor]

Oh, you may be right. Great, then I call for both runners-up to be released.



Still, if the upcoming settings are going to be short-ish PDF releases (like the Magic: The Gathering D&D PDFs), or just chapters in a multi-setting book, then gleaning from a 100-page document is doable. Similarly, the existing settings will need only a certain amount of work to distill and convert them into 5E.



That is possible, but unlikely. Even if a few themes or locales from the other two winners were incorporated into Eberron, surely the original concepts had completely different themes than Eberron. It's unlikely that WotC chose *three* pulp-fantasy settings. And even if there are some shared features, it's not so different than how the Keep on the Borderland and the Tomb of Horrors officially exist in several D&D worlds (Oerth, Toril, Nerath), or how there's a vampire nation named Boldavia in Mystara, which is not so different than Barovia in Ravenloft.





Jayzus! If I never heard this "truism" again in my life, I'd be happier for it. Ever since Ryan Dancey offered this nugget of wisdom back in 2000, it's been automatically repeated over and over. It was certainly true in regard to TSR's business model, but times have changed. Even Dancey and his immediate successors released (or licensed out) a ton of different settings during the post-TSR 3E era: Eberron, Diablo II, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Warcraft (D&D branded), Wheel of Time, Dragonlance, Blackmoor, Gamma World, and probably others I've forgot. And Hasbro likewise released some settings for 4E: FR (which, if you'll remember, wasn't the core setting in 4E), Eberron, and Dark Sun. All of this happened after that "truism" was well known. Presumably these settings weren't total losses from a business perspective

Even recently, WotC has found a way to make Ravenloft profitable: released as a one-shot, iconic campaign sampler. Even Adventurer's League visited Ravenloft through a world-hopping adventure which leaves from Toril and then comes back to Toril at the end. The same could be done for all the D&D worlds. And 5E has already gone so far as to actually list the names of all the classic worlds in the PHB and DMG, and to give conversion notes for several of the worlds in some of the 5E adventures.

And...one big difference between Paizo and WotC is that WotC does hold a wealth of different settings in its stable, which still possess the power of nostalgia. This is an untapped asset. That's why even WotC's rep recently posted: "people want settings!"

Look - my understanding (and the existing products and teasers affirm it) is that the goal is to present the D&D Multiverse as a unified meta-setting (via Planescape+Spelljammer+Chronomancer), but with Forgotten Realms as the central home base. If Magic: The Gathering can successfully leverage multiple worlds within a meta-setting, then so can D&D. Once you get that meta-setting in place, then the more worlds, the merrier!



Ever, O Delerechio, is a long time.

I agree, I don't buy that truism either, there we're a lot of other factors that effected TSRs and failure and if you count 3rd party settings there are more RPG settings now then there was then and that doesn't count edition splitting.

I think the key to minimize fractoring of the market is increasing the interactions between D&D settings, perhaps an adventure that links several together, portals and other connections between settings, and other stuff that increase setting interaction.

 

[delericho]

I agree, I don't buy that truism either, there we're a lot of other factors that effected TSRs and failure...

I'm certainly not claiming that that was the only factor, or even the key one!

But it is true that most D&D players don't play in any published setting, and it is true that only a very tiny subset use more than one. When WotC want every book to shift 100k units, publishing anything other than the biggest settings is not a good strategy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Okay, a few points:

1) Most 5e publications have been "setting neutral" rather than Forgotten Realms specific. Even the SCAG has suggestions for using the material in different settings.

2) Digital publication gets round the "must shift 100k units" issue.

3) How many players move on to different RPG systems because they are bored with GenericFantasyLand(TM) after five years or so?



Back on the original topic, If Eberron came first, I can't say that I'm in any hurry to see something that was deemed inferior to it...

 

[gyor]

Okay, a few points:

1) Most 5e publications have been "setting neutral" rather than Forgotten Realms specific. Even the SCAG has suggestions for using the material in different settings.

2) Digital publication gets round the "must shift 100k units" issue.

3) How many players move on to different RPG systems because they are bored with GenericFantasyLand(TM) after five years or so?



Back on the original topic, If Eberron came first, I can't say that I'm in any hurry to see something that was deemed inferior to it...

That is very subjective.

 

[Umbran]

That is very subjective.

Yes, but it may still be relevant. We are talking about a niche product that isn't likley to be attractive to everyone in the niche.

Especially when advocates probably don't just want a setting book. They want setting support going forward, right? Adventures and things like the Sword Coast Adventurer's guide, no? To make that worthwhile, the setting has to be pretty darned compelling, now doesn't it? Is a setting that wasn't top notch last time around really going to be that compelling?

 

[delericho]

Back on the original topic, If Eberron came first, I can't say that I'm in any hurry to see something that was deemed inferior to it...

Ah, one nit that I feel compelled to pick there: when judging the contest, it's likely that raw quality was probably not their only criterion - they'll also have been considering the scope for spinning out a whole product line (including tie-in products such as the minis and video games), how it fit in with their strategy, etc.

So the runners-up might well have been every bit as good, just less marketable (or, indeed, less marketable at that time).