D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

[Hussar]

So products with setting material and cool inspiration are bad for the industry. Hard to wrap my head around that.

Really?

We know that putting a product in a specific setting, in the past, meant decreased sales. Erik Mona talked about any Dungeon or Dragon issue that was setting specific basically sold about half as well as a generic magazine.

Why would it be surprising that lots of setting books would be a bad idea? Paizo’s primary product is adventure paths with linked in lore. Ten or more years now of material for a single setting. It’s not like they have multiple settings.

WotC doing the same thing.

I want stuff I can use right now. I don’t buy books for “inspiration”. I buy books so I don’t have to do the grunt work running a game. For me, I’ve never bought setting books. They’re a fun read I suppose, but they’re largely not much use at the table.

Heck the last setting book I bought was Primeval Thule and that’s about ten years ago.

Nope. For me, give me AP’s or smaller modules and the odd monster book and I’m pretty content.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really?

We know that putting a product in a specific setting, in the past, meant decreased sales. Erik Mona talked about any Dungeon or Dragon issue that was setting specific basically sold about half as well as a generic magazine.

Why would it be surprising that lots of setting books would be a bad idea? Paizo’s primary product is adventure paths with linked in lore. Ten or more years now of material for a single setting. It’s not like they have multiple settings.

WotC doing the same thing.

I want stuff I can use right now. I don’t buy books for “inspiration”. I buy books so I don’t have to do the grunt work running a game. For me, I’ve never bought setting books. They’re a fun read I suppose, but they’re largely not much use at the table.

Heck the last setting book I bought was Primeval Thule and that’s about ten years ago.

Nope. For me, give me AP’s or smaller modules and the odd monster book and I’m pretty content.

Back in the day, I would buy setting books for inspiration and because they were a good read. If WotC still produced them, I would still buy them.

 

[Hussar]

Back in the day, I would buy setting books for inspiration and because they were a good read. If WotC still produced them, I would still buy them.

I get that, but, back in the day, you had, what, a couple of book stores that carried fantasy and SF? Compared to today where you have F&SF available in a bajillion different forms and media? I get that that's what you liked to do. Fair enough, but, you expressed surprise that setting books are bad for the industry. My point is that the market for "inspiration material" is so much bigger than it was then.

Never minding that so much of the setting material was just random name dropping without any extra material. I mentioned earlier about using the Shining Citadel material that I found for my campaign. Ok, great. But, the Shining Citadel is a couple of paragraphs in the entire Manual of the Planes for 3e. That's it. I really would never buy a 300 page book so I could use a single entry. And that's what setting books are for me - 99% wasted space for that 1% I'll actually use in game.

I don't find the notion that setting guides are largely not great sellers to be surprising at all. How many books should I buy that I only use 1 page out of? Take a couple that I actually like - 2e's Faith's and Avatars and Powers and Pantheons. Both Forgotten Realms setting books (although with a LOT of crunchy bits too) with tons of setting material. I really enjoyed reading them. One of my all time favorite characters is a priest of Kossuth. Fair enough. But, I also realize that that priest is the only thing I've ever actually used from these books. They just sit on my shelf gathering dust.

My criteria for game books is that they do not sit on my shelf. If all they do is sit on my shelf, then they were a waste of money.

 

[Parmandur]

I get that, but, back in the day, you had, what, a couple of book stores that carried fantasy and SF? Compared to today where you have F&SF available in a bajillion different forms and media? I get that that's what you liked to do. Fair enough, but, you expressed surprise that setting books are bad for the industry. My point is that the market for "inspiration material" is so much bigger than it was then.

Never minding that so much of the setting material was just random name dropping without any extra material. I mentioned earlier about using the Shining Citadel material that I found for my campaign. Ok, great. But, the Shining Citadel is a couple of paragraphs in the entire Manual of the Planes for 3e. That's it. I really would never buy a 300 page book so I could use a single entry. And that's what setting books are for me - 99% wasted space for that 1% I'll actually use in game.

I don't find the notion that setting guides are largely not great sellers to be surprising at all. How many books should I buy that I only use 1 page out of? Take a couple that I actually like - 2e's Faith's and Avatars and Powers and Pantheons. Both Forgotten Realms setting books (although with a LOT of crunchy bits too) with tons of setting material. I really enjoyed reading them. One of my all time favorite characters is a priest of Kossuth. Fair enough. But, I also realize that that priest is the only thing I've ever actually used from these books. They just sit on my shelf gathering dust.

My criteria for game books is that they do not sit on my shelf. If all they do is sit on my shelf, then they were a waste of money.

The 5E approach, of making "genre boosters," seems to be working well.

 

[Hussar]

The 5E approach, of making "genre boosters," seems to be working well.

"Genre boosters" --- I like that phrase.

But, yeah, when 3e first came out, I was buying books left right and center. Then, I realized that I wasn't actually using most of the stuff I bought, so, I scaled WAYYYY back. My primary buying criteria became "Will I use enough of this book to justify it being on my shelf?"

Although, to be fair, I did have a Dragon sub for quite a few years... Hey, you can't go cold turkey and there is no better bathroom reading.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I get that, but, back in the day, you had, what, a couple of book stores that carried fantasy and SF? Compared to today where you have F&SF available in a bajillion different forms and media? I get that that's what you liked to do. Fair enough, but, you expressed surprise that setting books are bad for the industry. My point is that the market for "inspiration material" is so much bigger than it was then.

Never minding that so much of the setting material was just random name dropping without any extra material. I mentioned earlier about using the Shining Citadel material that I found for my campaign. Ok, great. But, the Shining Citadel is a couple of paragraphs in the entire Manual of the Planes for 3e. That's it. I really would never buy a 300 page book so I could use a single entry. And that's what setting books are for me - 99% wasted space for that 1% I'll actually use in game.

I don't find the notion that setting guides are largely not great sellers to be surprising at all. How many books should I buy that I only use 1 page out of? Take a couple that I actually like - 2e's Faith's and Avatars and Powers and Pantheons. Both Forgotten Realms setting books (although with a LOT of crunchy bits too) with tons of setting material. I really enjoyed reading them. One of my all time favorite characters is a priest of Kossuth. Fair enough. But, I also realize that that priest is the only thing I've ever actually used from these books. They just sit on my shelf gathering dust.

My criteria for game books is that they do not sit on my shelf. If all they do is sit on my shelf, then they were a waste of money.

I loved those books too. Reading and enjoying them is use enough for me. In fact, I'm very glad I still have most of them, since the concept has apparently gone the way of the dodo.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The 5E approach, of making "genre boosters," seems to be working well.

If you like what they put out, sure.

Oh, you were just talking about money. Nevermind then.

 

[Parmandur]

If you like what they put out, sure.

Oh, you were just talking about money. Nevermind then.

Enjoying them is nice, but without money the whole enterprise falls apart. Fortuitously, I do enjoy them, as well, and frankly their commercial success nothing more or less than an epiphenomenon of people enjoying them.

 

[Hussar]

If you like what they put out, sure.

Oh, you were just talking about money. Nevermind then.

Maybe he was, but I wasn't.

See, the trick is, lore has never been the primary draw for me for buying a book. Lore is, by and large, the lowest priority because, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I won't use most of it. Give me a book of lore, and I might use a page or two, and then it's off into my own stuff, either drawing on other sources, or going my own direction. Like I said, a major element of my current campaign is the Shining Citadel. But, the sum total of lore for that is about a paragraph. All the stuff that I've added - I'm going to assume my players aren't reading this - that the Shining Citadel was a weapon used to destroy the Primordial Zargan (borrowing lore from WAYYYYY back, but, also some 4e goodies I found when perusing the wiki about the Dawn War), created by ancient beings in collaboration with Asmodeus and Vecna.

Now, none of that is remotely Forgotten Realms canon. And, the notion that I'd need to buy a 20 year old, out of print, 3e book just to FIND the only piece of Forgotten Realms lore (well, Shadowfell lore to be exact) means that I would never have done this in the past.

But, what's the point of adding yet more lore here? Filling in the blanks? Piling on yet more stuff?

See, changing mechanics makes sense. We play the game, we, as in all the D&D gamers playing the game, use the mechanics and problems or issues get identified. If enough people are having problems, then, well, we go back and rework the mechanics and send out the newly revised mechanics into the wild to see if they survive. So, we get slimmed down caster stat blocks because enough players are having difficulties with caster stat blocks that make them hard to use.

But lore doesn't work like that. Lore is sticky. It's forever. Put something out in the wild and it must never, EVER be changed less we disrespect the canon. Lore is valued for its place in the history of the game. So, we cannot ever change lore without massive reactions. And, because lore is almost entirely subjective in its quality, any new lore is automatically rejected because it didn't come first. All putting out setting book after setting book does is paint creators into smaller and smaller corners because heaven forbid they change anything. Doesn't matter if the changes are good, bad or in between. All change to lore is automatically bad.

I totally do not blame WotC at all for being up front about not being setting material creators. They've basically washed their hands of it because it's always a losing proposition to even try.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I interpret it differently. I take it as basically proof that the level of detail offered in AD&D and d20 supplements is much deeper than is actually useful.

The idea a role-playing game should simulate a full reality has been thoroughly debunked. Focusing only on what's strictly necessary for the story and action has proven a much more practical approach.

In other words, what if your golden age is only a stone age of senseless minutiae and the current age is D&D's second golden age after the first early years without campaign bloat?

No.

Products that people don't want are bad for the industry. They can even clog up the works for books that people do want.

It hasn't been debunked at all and you've provided no evidence that it's been debunked.

The most popular setting in D&D is also it's most lore intensive setting by far, the Forgotten Realms, so to pretend the depth of it's lore had nothing to do with it's success is extremely disingenuous.

 

[JEB]

The most popular setting in D&D is also it's most lore intensive setting by far, the Forgotten Realms, so to pretend the depth of it's lore had nothing to do with it's success is extremely disingenuous.

I mean, we can't say that deep lore did explicitly contribute to its success, either. It could have, but we don't know. (Would be an interesting poll, though.)

However, it does seem that the Realms having deep lore hasn't hurt the setting's longevity. It's been an actively supported setting since the 1980s, and folks still play in it, and it's outcompeted the game's original default setting (Greyhawk).

 

[Hussar]

No.

It hasn't been debunked at all and you've provided no evidence that it's been debunked.

The most popular setting in D&D is also it's most lore intensive setting by far, the Forgotten Realms, so to pretend the depth of it's lore had nothing to do with it's success is extremely disingenuous.

Correlation does not signify causation.

Is it the most successful because of the depth of lore? Well, how does that explain it's initial popularity then? After all, when Forgotten Realms came out in 1987, it wasn't this deep pool of lore. There was some lore there from Dragon magazine and whatnot, but, it certainly wasn't the ocean that it is now. Yet, in 1987, it was very successful then immediately sales tanked (just like every other product):

So, is depth of lore the secret to FR's success? After all, it follows the exact same sales trajectories as every other setting. If lore was the key to a successful product, shouldn't those later boxed sets and setting guides become evergreen products?

 

[teitan]

So products with setting material and cool inspiration are bad for the industry. Hard to wrap my head around that.

That’s quite a take on what was posted as in what was posted isn’t what your take is. What was said was that deep lore material was selling to DMs and not to players so had a limited audience which wasn’t profitable for the company when they were printing to the whole audience. When product then clogs the shelf because it isn’t selling new product that might sale better can’t be placed on the shelf because there isn’t any space this hurting overall sales. The findings are that player facing product sale better than DM facing product, character options, new spells, new races etc. while fluff material is seen as the purview of the DM by the audience and wasn’t necessarily being picked up by the majority of the audience.

You can be upset by this if you like but this is a take based on data and has proven since 3.x era to be factual as the game has consistently sold better than the 2e era even during 4e following the model of player options being forward.

5e has improved on that model with player and DM options being integrated into the rules expansions that have been released so far including monster supplements. Sprinkling lore into the adventures like the explorations of Waterdeep, Baldur’s Gate and Chult etc in their respective adventures gives just enough lore to the respective DMs to not overwhelm but also provide information to DMs not using the adventures.

Is it a model I like? Not necessarily as much as some but I see the benefit and how it can boost sales and be beneficial. I’d like to see WOTC either reprint the material or make it available in POD on DMSguild in a single book at some point without the adventure content.

It’s just facts though that Sean Reynolds explored in the early 3e days when the Silver Marches book came out and sales data was being analyzed indicating that crunch books outsold fluff books by a wide margin and he was asking people to buy Silver Marches as way a to demonstrate to the Hasbro bean counters that fluff books can sell and it was the reason people bought Forgotten Realms books. Obviously the book didn’t sell as well as the crunchier D&D books and so FR product changed with the rest of the 3.x era releases being much more crunch heavy.

 

[teitan]

Really?

We know that putting a product in a specific setting, in the past, meant decreased sales. Erik Mona talked about any Dungeon or Dragon issue that was setting specific basically sold about half as well as a generic magazine.

Why would it be surprising that lots of setting books would be a bad idea? Paizo’s primary product is adventure paths with linked in lore. Ten or more years now of material for a single setting. It’s not like they have multiple settings.

WotC doing the same thing.

I want stuff I can use right now. I don’t buy books for “inspiration”. I buy books so I don’t have to do the grunt work running a game. For me, I’ve never bought setting books. They’re a fun read I suppose, but they’re largely not much use at the table.

Heck the last setting book I bought was Primeval Thule and that’s about ten years ago.

Nope. For me, give me AP’s or smaller modules and the odd monster book and I’m pretty content.

Yep there is a reason that Golarion is essentially a smashed together Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk with modern sensibilities in regards to representation and culturally sensitive approaches.

 

[teitan]

The 5E approach, of making "genre boosters," seems to be working well.

Theros is probably the best setting book they’ve done since the 2e era in my opinion. It’s exactly that, genre boosting.

 

[teitan]

Correlation does not signify causation.

Is it the most successful because of the depth of lore? Well, how does that explain it's initial popularity then? After all, when Forgotten Realms came out in 1987, it wasn't this deep pool of lore. There was some lore there from Dragon magazine and whatnot, but, it certainly wasn't the ocean that it is now. Yet, in 1987, it was very successful then immediately sales tanked (just like every other product):

View attachment 255848

So, is depth of lore the secret to FR's success? After all, it follows the exact same sales trajectories as every other setting. If lore was the key to a successful product, shouldn't those later boxed sets and setting guides become evergreen products?

I’m going with novels and video games being the secret to FR’s success myself. Especially Driz’zt. He hit the New York Times best seller list and by himself is a huge character, more popular than any other D&D character out there and more recognizable. There is a reason Hasbro went with him for their first D&D action figure. There is a reason Del Rey licensed to publish more Driz’zt novels. He sells and his novels bore the FR logo. This translates to sales for those who got into the game and wanted to play in the world Driz’zt was from.

Does it explain the initial success? I think what explains the initial success was Dragon Magazine’s hype machine and the fact it was a new setting and they were even then pushing it as AD&D’s new world that would be fully supported with a full range of novels and products that was not seen before in the game.

That boxed set is still a benchmark in gaming that I don’t think has been beat on how to present a game world and make people want to play in it from the cover to the maps and the writing style. The only thing that I feel comes close is the Critical Role Wildemount and new Tal’dorei books. Is it as beautiful as Planescape? No. Is it as unique as Dark Sun? No. Is it as operatic as Dragonlance? Nope. Is it innovative? Nope.

It’s just a very well presented, written and flavorful world and the FR series that followed on to provide more depth to the region you selected to play in was pretty cool. Dwarves Deep and the Waterdeep books really stand out to me as being well done.

But nowadays, as much as I love the OGB, it is too much! I don’t want that much detail. I mostly play Starfinder and DCC. Starfinder has a setting but they give each planet a page. That’s cool with me. DCC has its own world but outside of a city name, really, they don’t give much detail and the old 3.x and 4e era products aren’t a piece of the pie now for DCC. So Punjar is my Punjar. Aereth is my Aereth. Bobugbubilz is my… bobguakfhajfuanvd. I can riff all day long with these things and as long as I am internally consistent enough, we have fun.

 

[Malmuria]

The forgotten realms were also the setting for most dnd videogames, from the gold box series to baldur's gate, icewind dale etc.

 

[Maxperson]

Back in the day, I would buy setting books for inspiration and because they were a good read. If WotC still produced them, I would still buy them.

I still go through my old 2e/3e settings for inspiration.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, we can't say that deep lore did explicitly contribute to its success, either. It could have, but we don't know. (Would be an interesting poll, though.)

However, it does seem that the Realms having deep lore hasn't hurt the setting's longevity. It's been an actively supported setting since the 1980s, and folks still play in it, and it's outcompeted the game's original default setting (Greyhawk).

The lore is the major reason I have run and continue to run 95% of my campaigns in the Forgotten Realms since 1e.

 

[Swordsage]

I'm discovering that some people need to be told how to be creative in step-by-step instructions, I guess.


Once again, being facetious because I disagree so deeply with this premise

In a published "name" setting like the Realms or GH you shouldn't disagree. For a generic kitchen sink, no name setting that exists solely to showcase the game mechanics, you can. People lean on the published lore for a number of reasons - convenience, because some of it is really good, because it provides a foundation for them to showcase their own ideas - and when that lore is inconsistent, changed for no reason, changed for the worst reason ("I'm X the famous game designer. Y the famous game designer in 1999 wrote Z but my idea is soooo much better and I can't be bothered integrating their work, so I'm going to ignore it ..."), it just creates dilemmas, albeit minor, for harried DMs. While Jackson had his way with the LotR, he still kept true to a substantial chunk of it. All of the fandoms that nod to the "old stuff" and weave it in cleverly receive a decent amount of fan approbation and approval. Using the Realms as an example, the D&D crew saw what Star Wars did re canon and went in that direction too. But did they do it because of bloat, inconsistencies and because it impeded their grand vision? If so, I'd love to see what that grand vision is. Going by the cycle, I think we are due for drow again ...