Chris Perkins: Reintroducing Settings in Ways that Surprise People

WotC's D&D Story Manager, Chris Perkins, was the subject of an interview by a chap called Chris "Wacksteven" Iannitti. One of the topics covered is campaign setting books; Perkins says that they want to reintroduce settings in "surprising" ways, and that they're not guaranteed to be books. (thanks to Mistwell for the scoop)

The video is below, but if you can't watch it right now, here are the highlights as listed by pukunui on WotC's website:

• He can't talk about products that haven't been announced yet
• They value all of their worlds, as each one has "tons of fans"
• They are focusing on specific areas within settings to detail and "codify" via their story bibles
• Their goal is to "challenge people's expectations" re: sourcebooks
• They're "not interested in releasing books for the sake of releasing books anymore"
• They want book releases to be events that will "surprise and delight people"; they also want to put out books that people will actually use rather than books that will just get put on a shelf to "stay there and slowly rot"
• "One of our creative challenges is to package [setting] material - reintroduce facts and important details about our worlds - in a way that we know that DMs and players are going to use, that's going to excite them, that's actually going to surprise them. We may get that content out, but I'm not going to guarantee it's going to be a book. I'm not going to guarantee that it's going to be anything that you've seen before. But it will be something."

[video=youtube;alnwC34qUFs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alnwC34qUFs&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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[Flexor the Mighty!]

If I were a share holder, I'd be seriously troubled if I thought WotC actually wanted that.

As a non shareholder I'm fine with it.

 

[graves3141]

The impression I get is that they will do everything except producing campaign setting books. Adventure paths, videogames, novels, and probably other stuff. Basically things they should be creating on top of the basics, not in place of the basics.

I totally agree, I feel like they got it backwards.

 

[rosing-bull]

I've said it before, but I really liked the way they did the Murder in Baldur's Gate and Legacy of Crystal Shard adventured: a book of adventure events and a longer book of detailed history, characters and locations describing where the adventure takes place. I much prefer these micro-level views of areas, giving a real sense of location and character that can inform my game over overlong explanations of histories and famous people the characters will never meet and who live on the other side of the world. Hopefully what he's describing will lean more towards that.

 

[graves3141]

A social studies teacher who teaches world history must select topics from a wide range of events that occurred throughout human history. One way to teach such a course after you've picked out what you want to teach (say, industrial revolution for one unit) is to "zoom in" on that era by talking about it in a specific way. Like, for the industrial revolution, you could talk about how it effected London in the 1840s in terms of pollution, ecology, employment, culture, etc...

I mention this because that's how I see the APs going in the future. Instead of producing a setting book which covers the whole world (or at least a lot of it like we're used to), the AP will only "zoom in" on a specific region of that world.

Take Eberron, for example, let's say the next AP takes place in Sharn. The player's guide for that would cover player specific stuff like warforged, new backgrounds, maybe a general overview of Sharn and how it relates to the rest of Eberron, etc... in addition to other races and classes. Then, you could have the adventure book itself with locations in Eberron (Sharn) and NPCs that are relevant to the adventure.

I'm not sure I like this approach but this is how I see it playing out in the future.

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[Von Ether]

A social studies teacher who teaches world history must select topics from a wide range of events that occurred throughout human history. One way to teach such a course after you've picked out what you want to teach (say, industrial revolution for one unit) is to "zoom in" on that era by talking about it in a specific way. Like, for the industrial revolution, you could talk about how it effected London in the 1840s in terms of pollution, ecology, employment, culture, etc...

I mention this because that's how I see the APs going in the future. Instead of producing a setting book which covers the whole world (or at least a lot of it like we're used to), the AP will only "zoom in" on a specific region of that world.

Take Eberron, for example, let's say the next AP takes place in Sharn. The player's guide for that would cover player specific stuff like warforged, new backgrounds, maybe a general overview of Sharn and how it relates to the rest of Eberron, etc... in addition to other races and classes. Then, you could have the adventure book itself with locations in Eberron (Sharn) and NPCs that are relevant to the adventure.

I'm not sure I like this approach but this is how I see it playing out in the future.

Yeah, that would be what I meant by an Iconic City/Campaign book.

These seem to work best when every location has one or two mini-adventures, a few adventure hooks and some notable NPCs. For a change of pace, some mini-adventures are blown out into D&D players would recognize as a Dungeon Magazine sized module (like a prisoner rescue or heist gone wrong.) On top of that there would be several "Campaign Turning Points" adventures that have triggers "Player get's X item, the party is X levels now and etc."

So these set ups work best where you have lots of locations and a reason for the PCs to go sandboxing, like exploring a new urban environment, working a trade route or a string of hidden bases that need patrolling.

That's why I thought two such books would be best. I think just a city book, while it could work, has a focus that would be more narrow than D&D fans would expect.

And you know how we loved to grumble when something doesn't meet our expectations.

 

[JeffB]

Coming in 3rd quarter 2015...... setting content via Tweets from Elminster and Drizzt, , and a Authors Live Roundtable on Twitch.



Surprise!

 

[Queer Venger]

My only regret after reading this thread is not picking up the 3rd Ed FR Silver Marches book!

Regret not, I picked up a barely used copy ( w/ map) on eBay. I guess I correctly assumed that CS books are a thing of the past and have been building my FR collection slowly since getting into 5e.

 

[Mistwell]

The impression I get is that they will do everything except producing campaign setting books. Adventure paths, videogames, novels, and probably other stuff. Basically things they should be creating on top of the basics, not in place of the basics.

Again, I do not understand how you can watch that video and come away with the impression that the only support for settings will be video games and novels. His entire thesis is the opposite of that. He goes to pains to express just how much he knows people support those settings and how they want to support them too and deliver content for them. Video games and novels doesn't seem anywhere near the realm of the stuff he's talking about.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Regret not, I picked up a barely used copy ( w/ map) on eBay. I guess I correctly assumed that CS books are a thing of the past and have been building my FR collection slowly since getting into 5e.

But I and it in my hands, in some crappy South London mall!

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Again, I do not understand how you can watch that video and come away with the impression that the only support for settings will be video games and novels. His entire thesis is the opposite of that. He goes to pains to express just how much he knows people support those settings and how they want to support them too and deliver content for them. Video games and novels doesn't seem anywhere near the realm of the stuff he's talking about.

Bingo, we simply might be looking at a new approach. Times have changed.