[Ampersand] Bill Slavicsek on campaign settings

[Voss]

I don't like it. I don't think a future Complete Divine (-like product) would serve the players of Eberron as well as Faiths of Eberron. I don't think writing Faiths of Eberron to be appealing to players in FR would make the book better for players of Eberron. And so on. By trying to dance in all weddings, WotC will create so-so products that don't really serve well any one setting.

Considering how poor both products were, I don't think you're going to get anything good, either way.

For myself, I'm not really enthused or dismayed by this plan. Partly because I don't have much interest in their setting books or 'expanded material', but mostly because I don't think they're going to stick to it. If Setting [X] books sell well, they're going to make more. If the first Setting [Y] book bombs, they aren't going to make any more. Its exactly the kind of situation where the accountants step in and say, 'Yeah, you aren't going to be doing that'.

I'll be buying each book on a case by case basis- if it has 75+% usable (by me) material, I'll buy it. However, WotC has never, ever hit this mark with anything past the PH/DMG/MM I. To my eye they average roughly 25% usable material. So we'll see if they can raise the bar for 4e.

 

[Dronehound]

You should be able to shoehorn Birthright books into a CORE(TM) D&D experience.

The three unique points Birthright would bring to CORE(TM):
1- Domain and rulership.
2- Blooded characters, awnsheghlien. (Unique Paragon Paths / Epic Destinies)
3- Mass combat.

Three new 4E rules which would fit into Birthright
1- Shadow world and Feywild.
2- The split between Eldarins (civilized elves) and Elves (human hunters, The Elf)
3- Domain types splitted by power sources: Arcane/Shadow/Primal - Source; Divine - Temple; Martial - Guild.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

AND you'll still only NEED the PHB to play. If you're poor, cheap, or frugal it shouldn't take you any more effort to figure that out than it does now.

Fitz

It won't seem that way soon enough. With everything Core everything is needed to play the game by the "Official" rules. That was the great thing about 3.x Core Rules. The official policy of WotC was that you only needed the "Core" books to play. Now the official policy is that every book is Core including setting books and that players should buy all of them because all of them will have relevant information to every player. I would love WotC to come out and say that players will be fine just buying the PHB, but with them releasing a PHB2, PHB3, PHB4, PHB5, etc. I just don't see that. Now they expect players to buy 3 campaign books a year as well, including ones for settings they are not interested in because those books will have generic material useful to everyone. I might change my mind on the setting books if they republished the classes, powers, and feats from these books in later PHBs, but I don't see that happening.

 

[med stud]

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 enough people would buy supplements fleshing out settings, WotC would sell them. There is no inherent interest in WotC to screw with FR- fans, they sell what people will buy.

 

[Fifth Element]

Really? They honestly think that people who only bought FR stuff and never Eberron stuff (or vice versa) will start buying Eberron stuff just because they changed the color of the books?

Derren, is that you?

 

[Vempyre]

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.

I'm on the Dragon King's side all the way. Way better That slave freedom stuff is something to be played out in a campaign, not presented to you on a platter as "already happened while you wern't lookin'"

 

[el-remmen]

A great idea in my eyes I have never been one to discriminate based on setting, I will grab ideas and rules from anything I happen to like.

Then again, I have always rolled my eyes at books like "Dragons of the Realms" or whatever. . . Do we really need something that specific and that would keep those purists from buying it? Why not just have a book on dragons and then a paragraph or three in the FR core book that gives the DM ideas on how to modify the stuff from the general dragon book to give it FR flavor?

 

[hexgrid]

It won't seem that way soon enough. With everything Core everything is needed to play the game by the "Official" rules. That was the great thing about 3.x Core Rules. The official policy of WotC was that you only needed the "Core" books to play. Now the official policy is that every book is Core including setting books and that players should buy all of them because all of them will have relevant information to every player. I would love WotC to come out and say that players will be fine just buying the PHB, but with them releasing a PHB2, PHB3, PHB4, PHB5, etc. I just don't see that. Now they expect players to buy 3 campaign books a year as well, including ones for settings they are not interested in because those books will have generic material useful to everyone. I might change my mind on the setting books if they republished the classes, powers, and feats from these books in later PHBs, but I don't see that happening.

You're conflating two separate definitions of "core." It doesn't always mean "required to play the game." All of the non-campaign setting books were classified as core in 3e, too.

The situation in 4e will be no different than it is in 3e, when it comes to what you need to play the game.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If every campaign setting was brought in by what was the most unique things they had to offer, Greyhawk, Birthright and Mystara would be in danger of not being brought in. Except that I'm 95% sure that Greyhawk will be coming back, since I don't see them abandoning that setting for 4e.

Out of those 3 Mystara probably has the least chance of coming back.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

You're conflating two separate definitions of "core." It doesn't always mean "required to play the game." All of the non-campaign setting books were classified as core in 3e, too.

The situation in 4e will be no different than it is in 3e, when it comes to what you need to play the game.

No in 3.X Core was the PHB, DMG, and MM. They said "Core" on the front cover. The definition of core was that they were all that was needed to play the game. In 4E "Core" has been stated by WotC to be expanded and that they now consider all books and DDI information to be "Core" does that mean that you can't play with just the 4E PHB, DMG, and MM, probably not (but with certain races, classes, and monsters intentionally left out to be put in future books I am not sure). But WotC is sure trying to make everyone think that they need everything else now or they wouldn't have expanded the definition of "Core".