TSR settings sales numbers from Ben Riggs, starting with Lankmar, Maztica, Al-Qadim and Planescape!

[bedir than]

What was the second Golden Age of D&D.

Now

 

[humble minion]

The problem with the Horde, Maztica, and almost all the post 2nd edition campaign settings that were released was TSR's obsession with recreating what they did with Dragonlance - a big ol' event with RPG material, adventures, novels etc. But they didn't stop to pay attention to what the "multimedia" event of Dragonlance did to Dragonlance.

It killed the setting as an RPG. The release of the Dragonlance novels began Dragonlance's transformation from a series of railroading 1st edition modules to a best-selling novel line that happened to have a vestigial RPG appendage dangling off it for the next twenty odd years. Dragonlance as a role playing setting died and was resurrected over and over again, but never recaptured its success. Dragonlance as a novel line sold well throughout TSR.

Trying to shoehorn that model for Maztica and the Horde (and the Avatar Trilogy in FR) gave rise to the dreaded metaplot, where module writers started effectively writing fiction, changing settings underneath the feet of players and DMs. It left D&D players feeling they had to keep up with a mountain of lore to play in any of these settings, and, worst of all, that their characters were overshadowed by NPCs developed in novels. WoTC's decision to blow up FR in 4th edition was a belated and wrongheaded attempt to kill the metaplot related problems.

The thing is, I think TSR actually was aware of the problems they’d caused themselves with the tension between the novel and game lines in Dragonlance. You can kinda see what appears to be their attempts to find solutions to the dilemma in later lines, though it’s not a problem they ever really solved.

The big complaint about the dragonlance novels was that they duplicated (spoiled?) the story, so anyone playing through the modules knew what was going to happen, and it was weird having your dwarf rogue pc or whatever playing through an iconic scene that Sturm or someone did in the novels.

You can sorta see the solutions they tried.

In Dark Sun the setting was released first and then the novels - but the novels turned the setting upside down and invalidated the actual boxed set within months of release, and the modules basically had the PCs running around doing second-string b-plot stuff while novel characters were the heroes. Which everyone hated, of course. Troy Denning came out later and claimed that the intention was that the novels wouldn’t be canon within the game line and were just intended to be an example of a Dark Sun story that COULD be told in the setting. But to be honest, I don’t believe a word of that. The modules and the novels were being written at the same time, and if this claim were true, the modules wouldnt have been tied as tightly to the novels as they were.

In Maztica, the events of the novels happened and became canon in the game line, and PCs were assumed to be adventuring in the aftermath. So at least the boxed set wasn’t instantly invalidated, though this was of course unsatisfactory because once again, the PCs were understudies for novel characters and everything that made the setting interesting had been thoroughly blown up by the time the PCs actually got there.

Probably the most successful solution they came up with was in FR, with novels like the earlier Drizzt books, or the Arilyn/Danilo books by Elaine Cunningham (I think the Brimstone Angels books followed this template too, though I haven’t read them) Books in which the stakes were smaller and more personal, so they could act as examples of the sort of story that could be told in a setting, and which could be canonical without actually damaging or radically changing the setting itself. But TSR never managed (or bothered) to make this philosophy policy, so this sort of FR novel was greatly outnumbered by the sort (the Avatar books, the Horde, Rage of Dragons, Threat from the Sea, Shadow of the Avatar, Spellfire, Cormyr/Putple Dragon etc etc etc) where some apocalyptic threat arose and was put down and left the game line floundering in the wake of the metaplot. Again. And over time, this led to a huge overpopulation of powerful novel heroes running around in the setting, and a steadily diminishing number of unresolved plot hooks from the sourcebooks as authors mined them and had novel characters solve all the problems.

And of course there were lines like Planescape and Al-Qadim which had minimal or nonexistent novel lines, but given TSR was losing money on game material and only kept afloat by novel sales at this point, this strategy (while artistically satisfying) wasn’t exactly commercially viable.

 

[Stormonu]

One of my beefs with Kara-Tur, Maztica, Al-Qadim and Horde was tying them to FR. I wish they hadn't done that, and each had been its own world (Horde and Kara-Tur may have shared some space, but that's about it).

I've always been fascinated with the material from above, but if they do reapproach these realms, I hope they drop the "historical plopped into a supernatural setting" to unique, fantastic realms divorced of real-life baggage.

 

[bedir than]

One of my beefs with Kara-Tur, Maztica, Al-Qadim and Horde was tying them to FR. I wish they hadn't done that, and each had been its own world (Horde and Kara-Tur may have shared some space, but that's about it).

I've always been fascinated with the material from above, but if they do reapproach these realms, I hope they drop the "historical plopped into a supernatural setting" to unique, fantastic realms divorced of real-life baggage.

You should enjoy Radiant Citadel

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The thing is, I think TSR actually was aware of the problems they’d caused themselves with the tension between the novel and game lines in Dragonlance. You can kinda see what appears to be their attempts to find solutions to the dilemma in later lines, though it’s not a problem they ever really solved.

The big complaint about the dragonlance novels was that they duplicated (spoiled?) the story, so anyone playing through the modules knew what was going to happen, and it was weird having your dwarf rogue pc or whatever playing through an iconic scene that Sturm or someone did in the novels.

You can sorta see the solutions they tried.

In Dark Sun the setting was released first and then the novels - but the novels turned the setting upside down and invalidated the actual boxed set within months of release, and the modules basically had the PCs running around doing second-string b-plot stuff while novel characters were the heroes. Which everyone hated, of course. Troy Denning came out later and claimed that the intention was that the novels wouldn’t be canon within the game line and were just intended to be an example of a Dark Sun story that COULD be told in the setting. But to be honest, I don’t believe a word of that. The modules and the novels were being written at the same time, and if this claim were true, the modules wouldnt have been tied as tightly to the novels as they were.

In Maztica, the events of the novels happened and became canon in the game line, and PCs were assumed to be adventuring in the aftermath. So at least the boxed set wasn’t instantly invalidated, though this was of course unsatisfactory because once again, the PCs were understudies for novel characters and everything that made the setting interesting had been thoroughly blown up by the time the PCs actually got there.

Probably the most successful solution they came up with was in FR, with novels like the earlier Drizzt books, or the Arilyn/Danilo books by Elaine Cunningham (I think the Brimstone Angels books followed this template too, though I haven’t read them) Books in which the stakes were smaller and more personal, so they could act as examples of the sort of story that could be told in a setting, and which could be canonical without actually damaging or radically changing the setting itself. But TSR never managed (or bothered) to make this philosophy policy, so this sort of FR novel was greatly outnumbered by the sort (the Avatar books, the Horde, Rage of Dragons, Threat from the Sea, Shadow of the Avatar, Spellfire, Cormyr/Putple Dragon etc etc etc) where some apocalyptic threat arose and was put down and left the game line floundering in the wake of the metaplot. Again. And over time, this led to a huge overpopulation of powerful novel heroes running around in the setting, and a steadily diminishing number of unresolved plot hooks from the sourcebooks as authors mined them and had novel characters solve all the problems.

And of course there were lines like Planescape and Al-Qadim which had minimal or nonexistent novel lines, but given TSR was losing money on game material and only kept afloat by novel sales at this point, this strategy (while artistically satisfying) wasn’t exactly commercially viable.

A lot of that makes sense to me. I think the best for canon novels is, as you say, low stakes stuff that doesn't change the setting, or in essence, novels that set the scene for the setting portrayed in the material, ie, how did the world get to the situation its in, and then no novels set after the campaign premise. (Except low stakes). See it allows the novels to support the setting in the best way, by providing flavour and background material for your games, not destroying what was already there.

FR's Avatar novels/modules were another example of poor handling - the NPCs become gods while you get to do stupid errands.

 

[Demetrios1453]

One of my beefs with Kara-Tur, Maztica, Al-Qadim and Horde was tying them to FR. I wish they hadn't done that, and each had been its own world (Horde and Kara-Tur may have shared some space, but that's about it).

I've always been fascinated with the material from above, but if they do reapproach these realms, I hope they drop the "historical plopped into a supernatural setting" to unique, fantastic realms divorced of real-life baggage.

The Hordelands were (mostly) in Greenwood's pre-TSR Realms.

D&D General - Ed Greenwood's Original Forgotten Realms Map

That entire northeastern section (everything east of Thay and north of Raurin) makes up about 70% of the area covered in the Horde boxed set.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

The thing is, I think TSR actually was aware of the problems they’d caused themselves with the tension between the novel and game lines in Dragonlance. You can kinda see what appears to be their attempts to find solutions to the dilemma in later lines, though it’s not a problem they ever really solved.

The big complaint about the dragonlance novels was that they duplicated (spoiled?) the story, so anyone playing through the modules knew what was going to happen, and it was weird having your dwarf rogue pc or whatever playing through an iconic scene that Sturm or someone did in the novels.

You can sorta see the solutions they tried.

In Dark Sun the setting was released first and then the novels - but the novels turned the setting upside down and invalidated the actual boxed set within months of release, and the modules basically had the PCs running around doing second-string b-plot stuff while novel characters were the heroes. Which everyone hated, of course. Troy Denning came out later and claimed that the intention was that the novels wouldn’t be canon within the game line and were just intended to be an example of a Dark Sun story that COULD be told in the setting. But to be honest, I don’t believe a word of that. The modules and the novels were being written at the same time, and if this claim were true, the modules wouldnt have been tied as tightly to the novels as they were.

In Maztica, the events of the novels happened and became canon in the game line, and PCs were assumed to be adventuring in the aftermath. So at least the boxed set wasn’t instantly invalidated, though this was of course unsatisfactory because once again, the PCs were understudies for novel characters and everything that made the setting interesting had been thoroughly blown up by the time the PCs actually got there.

Probably the most successful solution they came up with was in FR, with novels like the earlier Drizzt books, or the Arilyn/Danilo books by Elaine Cunningham (I think the Brimstone Angels books followed this template too, though I haven’t read them) Books in which the stakes were smaller and more personal, so they could act as examples of the sort of story that could be told in a setting, and which could be canonical without actually damaging or radically changing the setting itself. But TSR never managed (or bothered) to make this philosophy policy, so this sort of FR novel was greatly outnumbered by the sort (the Avatar books, the Horde, Rage of Dragons, Threat from the Sea, Shadow of the Avatar, Spellfire, Cormyr/Putple Dragon etc etc etc) where some apocalyptic threat arose and was put down and left the game line floundering in the wake of the metaplot. Again. And over time, this led to a huge overpopulation of powerful novel heroes running around in the setting, and a steadily diminishing number of unresolved plot hooks from the sourcebooks as authors mined them and had novel characters solve all the problems.

And of course there were lines like Planescape and Al-Qadim which had minimal or nonexistent novel lines, but given TSR was losing money on game material and only kept afloat by novel sales at this point, this strategy (while artistically satisfying) wasn’t exactly commercially viable.

You over state your case, the majority of FR novels aren't realms shaking events, and for every plot hook resolved in a novel, a dozen open up else where in other novels and supplements.

Yes FR has a lot of powerful Hero NPCs, but they are out numbered by the shear volume of powerful villians by orders of magnitude and a lot of them are too busy doing things like research, governing, etc... To spend all their time adventuring and monster slaying.

 

[darjr]

 

[Guest 7034872]

^ This is the one I'm really waiting on.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

^ This is the one I'm really waiting on.

Yeah, that and Spelljammer. I think those two outsold all the minor settings so far discussed by a good bit, with maybe the exception of DL. Some Dark Sun numbers would be interesting as well, though maybe they have been published somewhere else already, I dunno.