[Ampersand] Bill Slavicsek on campaign settings

[ZetaStriker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun

Aw, you're no fun. I always enjoy hearing stuff like this directly from a fan, rather than resorting to Wiki. Hearing it in... well, 'short form', I guess you could call it, just adds something to what's being told. Ah well. I'll read it anyway.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Aw, you're no fun. I always enjoy hearing stuff like this directly from a fan, rather than resorting to Wiki. Hearing it in... well, 'short form', I guess you could call it, just adds something to what's being told. Ah well. I'll read it anyway.

That's certainly fair. I'm not up to typing it all out right now (since frankly, it's 4 am here and I shouldn't even be on ENWorld at all, as I'm trying to finish rewriting a chapter before going to bed ), but maybe someone else will.

That said, when you hear about Dark Sun from a fan, make sure you ask which "side" they're on, since the individual preference will dramatically inform what they tell you of the setting. A lot of fans (myself included) vastly prefer the original boxed set, and the setting as it was before any of the fiction made drastic changes to it. Others prefer the second boxed set, and the world after the fiction.

They're wrong, of course, but they're entitled to their opinion.

 

[Mirtek]

By trying to dance in all weddings, WotC will create so-so products that don't really serve well any one setting.

That's what I think too.

I bought all FR supplements up to [n]. If there were more FR supplements I only bought [n] of them. If there were only [x]<[n] FR supplements I bought [x] and took the rest of my money elsewhere to things that are not D&D (like movies, dinners, ...)

So if there were 6 FR books, I bought all 6 of them. And there were also 6 Eberron books and player X bought all of them. So WotC sold 6 books to me and 6 books to player X, however they had to publish 12 books to do so.

If they now only prints 3 FR supplements and 3 Eberron supplements they hope that I will just buy the 3 Eberron supplements to fill out for the 3 FR supplements I can no longer buy (and that player X will do vice versa).

So they still sell 6 books to each of us but now need to publish only 6 books to do so.

For me it won't work, I will just buy 3 books instead of 6 and spend the saved money on Non-D&D/Non-WotC things. I won't buy extre Eberron to fill the gap, I won't buy extra core to fill the gap the gap will just be there while I am buying something entirely else

By producing the Arcane Power book, WotC provides a so-so gaming experience to both of us;

Indeed.

None of the Complete [...] was ever as satisfying as the setting specific books. Complete Divine had many cleric PrCs that could be abducted to Faerun yet the cleric PrCs from Faiths&Pantheons were still nicer.

I don't think you can do both generic and setting specific. Well, you can't do it well.

QFT. It works, but it doesn't work as well.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm pretty sure combining the orange text and the red text is impossible to do in any satisfying way. How, exactly, is every product released for D&D supposed to be fit into Ravenloft or Dark Sun while allowing them to be Ravenloft or Dark Sun. How could you add all the rules from the "Divine Power Splatbook" into either of those settings? Of course the answer is: you can't. The only way you can be "unique and interesting" is by including and excluding certain rules and options found in "core" D&D.

These are pretty much my thoughts on this, as well. Imho, to create a unique setting requires restricting yourself to a disctinct subset of the available options. There are exceptions to this rule (I'm thinking of Over the Edge right now) but generally if you mix and match things all willy-nilly you'll end up with an undefined hodge-podge of 'stuff' without any common theme.

I can understand what they're trying to achieve though and it does have a very positive side-effect:
They can (re)introduce any number of settings, both old favorites and new innovative ones without having to dedicate a lot of resources to them, thus avoiding the trap that killed TSR.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I'd love to see Birthright redone... with both bloodline specific and "core" rules for creating political, mass-combat, and realm-ruling oriented campaigns. And if they need a freelance writer for it... I'm available

I am so with you on this - it was a fantastic idea for a setting and I'd love to see it worked on, improved a bit and set up again.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

This has been addressed, but, it appears the message isn't taking.

The 3 setting books will be full of all sorts of setting goodness. However, what you won't have is a multitude of books covering the same topics, just for different settings. Instead of Serpent Kingdoms, for example, you'll get a Scaly Folk supplement that details creating your own adventures using Serpent people.

Then, you simply use the setting books as a guide to tweaking the Scaly Folk book and designing adventures.

And, for you Realms/Eberron/Whatever goodness, there will be Dragon.

I agree that this seems to be the meaning of the article - that there will specific material for each campaign world, but there won't be book-after-book-after-book of it that makes you feel like a failure if you don't buy all of it...

I agree that it seems kind of pointless to detail every facet of every group / monster / class in a book designed only for players of a particular setting, when you can make that material available to everyone (with a note in the intro saying, perhaps, "this group is most famous as the Red Wizards of Thay in the Forgotten Realms, but works well in most campaign settings") and thus help gamers by reducing the number of books published, and therefore hopefully raising the quality.

 

[TheSleepyKing]

Can I take the Red Wizard and apply it to my Birthright game? Sure. But I would be better served by a Wizards of Anduria book, and the guy playing FR would be better served by a Red Wizards of Thay book than by a Red Wizard class in the Arcane Power book. By producing the Arcane Power book, WotC provides a so-so gaming experience to both of us; if they produced The Red Wizards of Thay, they would make a better game experience for the guy playing FR, and the guy playing Birthright could harvest ideas and mechanics from it about as well as it could from the generic Arcane Power book.

I don't think you can do both generic and setting specific. Well, you can't do it well.

Totally agree.

It seems to me that WoTC is pretty much saying, “here’s this complex world with detailed and unique cultures, places, villains, gods and political circumstances. Now ignore all that: here’s a generic adventure/supplement that you could run anywhere.”

If that’s their model, I don’t know why they don’t just create a single core world and be done with it. I hope it’s not, and the whole “generic” thing is just a branding issue, much like the Expedition to… series. They happened on specific worlds in specific places (and were part of the official canon, at least when it came to Undermountain), but were not branded as part of the official line. So we'll still get FR or Eberron (or whatever) supplements; they just won't be branded as such.

 

[essenbee]

I find, in a game that is all about one's imagination, that this inability to think around what is presented, really baffling.

Ain't that the truth!

 

[The_Fan]

The problem is with campaign setting books, they run hard into the law of diminishing returns. The first couple books, which tend to be rather broad in scope, sell well. As it goes on, and the corners of the map are filled in, you get less room to play around in and the books become less interesting. By the time you're detailing a tiny region in the northeast where people fight over evergreen trees (bonus points if you get the reference), the utility to the average player/DM is questionable and the sales will reflect this.

In addition, if the campaign setting is supposed to be an indefinate run, important regions will not get the love they deserve in the main setting book. Look at Eberron as an example. The main book covered only about 1/4 of the world. If you wanted to adventure in the rest of the world, you pretty much had to wait for the required book to come out, otherwise you ran the risk of metaplot failure. Oh, so you had Sarlona being a relatively atheistic, futuristic, crystal spires and togas society? Whoops!

In short, I'd rather have three good books than a bunch of mediocre ones. I'd rather have large swaths of the world undetailed so I can put my own thing there. And yes, I'd like the ability to just take a random adventure, file the serial numbers off, and plunk it down anywhere in my setting of choice.

 

[DaveMage]

I love the fully fleshed out setting.

In 1E/2E I loved reading through the FR(X) series. Some great stuff in there.


Maybe they're trying this new strategy to make 5E look better.