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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mattcolville" data-source="post: 5282947" data-attributes="member: 1300">I think the issue is a little more complex. But only a little.That there were too many settings is, I think, both accurate and obvious. I don't mean obvious in a pejorative sense, I mean "looking back, it was clear."Also, the 90s were a bad time for D&D as TSR had no real idea of what people were playing, what they were spending their money on, or what they wanted. A lot of gamers were trying other games.The setting was not designed for D&D, it was the setting for a novel, and D&D was grafted onto it and, I feel, it showed.The idea of running a kingdom is a great idea, in fact it's part of the original endgame for D&D. But the reality is; not everyone is interested in that idea. A lot of gamers hear that and their first reaction is "sounds like a lot of work." A lot of work that doesn't directly relate to killing things and taking their stuff.The rules for running a kingdom were *incredibly* complex in play. On paper, it made sense, but having each province in every country have 4 different *categories* of faction fighting over them, and then different organizations *within* each faction was, I felt, unplayable as written. It had to be mostly ignored. It reeks of "a computer should do this" which is to say, bad design.In other words, for those who haven't played it, you might have a Kingdom, which you were in charge of, with 11 provinces. Each of those provinces had1: Several Thieves Guilds competing to see who'd be the dominant Guild in the province.2: Several Churches competing to dominate.3: Several wizards competing for the provinces magical energy4: Possibly different Lords competing to control the martial resources.Made sense, especially back in the AD&D2 model of 4 classes. But in play? Are you kidding? I suspect most GM's never used this, at all, and then a few used it a little. Then, on top of all of this, there was Warfare. Running a kingdom was it's own thing, and fighting a war was its own thing. And not a lot of fun. It breaks a lot of rules I don't think any D&D game should break and at the end of the day, there are a lot of players who don't *want* to wage war. Who don't think it's cool.So;A: A lot of settings. Too many.B: Of that fraction of D&D gamers who might be interested in Birthright-the-setting, only a fraction of those would be interested in actually running a country. As opposed to just adventuring in Cerilia.C: Of those who were interested in Birthright-the-setting, AND running a country, only a fraction would be interested in fighting a war. Favoring politics and plotting instead.I've spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff, I ran Birthright for many years and designed and published a couple of warfare solutions for fantasy games. I think D&D4 could support a very robust system for all of this, and one that felt way more D&D4 than Birthright's warfare felt like AD&D2. But I don't think there are really that many players who care about running a realm and fighting wars.</blockquote>

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