WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[LuisCarlos17f]

Forgotten Realms is the superstar of the company but we should try to avoid an oversaturation to avoid boring the consumer

Isn't "New Capenna" urban fantasy, and "Dark*Matter", a setting of d20 Modern?

Today isekai and chuānyuè are very popular fantasy subgenre and WotC should seize the opportunity creating a new setting as a hook for manga/manhwa/manhua readers.

I suspect WotC is working into some new setting but it a secret project.

Maybe WotC wants a new world for a fantasy wargame style "Warhammer" but this could need a lot of work and my theory is the true goal would be the videogame.

Other option could be a new world designed to be a D&D-Transformer crossover but this could sound a fool idea. It wouldn't be so usefult to sell books but mainly more toys.

 

[Reynard]

Maybe you SHOULD care if any new setting line (assuming book and maybe some adventures and other support) is sustainably profitable, in no small part because we've seen the effect of too many product lines that weren't sustainably profitable on D&D's publisher. TSR's problems may have been compounded by inflexible production schedules, but a core issue was too many products chasing markets divided up into too small niches. 5e's bigger customer base may help with increasing the number of lines that are sustainable, but it's still a factor that WotC has to be aware of.

The multiple lines TSR created did not cause its demise -- they were a symptom of what was actually killing the company (Williams' playing financial games with the distributor). TSR needed stuff to ship in order to abuse that relationship for financial gain, so TSR designers creates a bunch of awesome settings (and some lesser ones, admittedly).

I agree that it would be totally possible for WotC to shoot themselves in the foot with too active a release schedule. But there is a huge excluded middle there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Maybe you SHOULD care if any new setting line (assuming book and maybe some adventures and other support) is sustainably profitable

Why?

 

[Azzy]

Gawds I hated Taladas...

Personally, I loved it. It was, IMO, a better and more imaginative setting than Ansalon.

 

[Reynard]

Personally, I loved it. It was, IMO, a better and more imaginative setting than Ansalon.

Sure. But why put it on Krynn?

 

[billd91]

Why?

Because if it's not, you're not going to get it. Or if you do get it, it may undermine the company's ability to continue to produce the products you like.

 

[Azzy]

Sure. But why put it on Krynn?

To cash-in on the Dragonlance brand, primarily (but there's narrative reasons as well, with the Cataclysm looming large on the continent, as well as the Greygem). I'm not saying that that's a good reason, but it was probably the only way that the setting would have ever been published.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Surely they have room to experiment and target niches now

Why would you market to 1 million people when you can market to 10 million?!

3PP covers the niche markets, that suits the 3PP and that suits WotC.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why would you market to 1 million people when you can market to 10 million?!

3PP covers the niche markets, that suits the 3PP and that suits WotC.

Unless, of course, their existing settings are the niches, by today's standards.

Go to your local book store and look at the fantasy fiction shelves. The stuff that looks like the kind of settings WotC produces is probably collectively a little more than half of what I see at my local Barnes & Noble. And that means there's a lot of popular fantasy fiction that WotC isn't putting out any stuff for.

Also, third party 5E settings are typically grimdark or Spelljammer-done-right a lot of the time, which isn't exactly wildly different than what WotC is producing. There are big exceptions, though, like Obojima, which is definitely an area WotC should be looking at, IMO.

 

[Minigiant]

WOTC should make new settings because

There are setting ideas that are too niche that 3rd parties cannot afford to gamble and try to do a decent job with a decent expenditure of resources.

Literally some ideas are good but too risky without the financial and marketing power behind the maker.