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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[JeffB]

In the end, I just don't have confidence that WotC has the slightest clue of what they have or how to use it. They have been chasing the same basic strategy with only minor variations since they bought the brand, and it hasn't worked yet. I don't see that many changes to their strategy this time around, and I don't really foresee any better results given the implementation we've seen so far. They may still surprise everyone, but it's becoming less and less unlikely with every interview like this that has lots of promises but not much else.

Amen.

As I have stated elsewhere, at this point I believe tabletop D&D is peanuts and a Dinosaur to Hasbro, and no longer matters in the grand scheme of things. Going forward the app/electronic game, movies, and novels will become The Brand, and this likely will be the last print edition, barring a sale to a company who actually gives a crap.

 

[Warbringer]

If I were a shareholder, I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, Dungeons & Dragons, that's cute. Tell us again about the 2015 projections for Magic: the Gathering."

... And why I'm investing dollars elsewhere (dnd) that could be spend growing the MtG brand

 

[HobbitFan]

It's frustrating. They don't give straight answers to simple questions.

 

[graves3141]

I just cancelled my preorder of PotA. I'm not sure I want the APs if they aren't going to be supported with traditional campaign setting books. I might consider buying it later on down the road after I get some more information from WotC about their future plans. For now, the core books are enough.

 

[Charles Rampant]

This was an interesting interview. The interviewer was pretty useless, not realising that nobody was watching the interview to hear about his experiences as a DM; he should have been able to get another question in, if he'd just kept on topic and not tried to impress Chris Perkins. On the subject of Mr Perkins, he came across as a really nice guy, who had a clear idea of what was going on. Judging from the other comments, people don't like how vague he was, but it is clear that WotC have developed a new idea for how to develop and make use of their intellectual property, and that we shouldn't refer to 3rd edition products for comparison to what those might be.

I wonder if the suggestion upthread about an app is what we might expect; like you can buy a licence within the D&D app to get Realms information on your phone (probably for relatively cheap, to entice the whole table to buy into it), with a stream of small but interesting bits to keep it fresh? Otherwise, I think that something much more player focused might be the correct answer, such as a 100-page book that addresses 'who can you play in Plotania, and what do adventurers from Plotania think about the world'. I don't know; but I suspect that WotC have sat and considered sales numbers and overall brand growth, before making any decisions about upcoming books.

 

[Jester David]

They might have been planning to merge their world support with the DungeonScape app.
That way they can regularly expand the content as needed and with every adventure, while also not being constrained by page counts and the like. And they can support multiple settings quickly without having to worry about how production or printing costs, or competing against themselves.

Traditional books have their disadvantages when it comes to campaign settings, since it's hard to cross reference; sometimes you might come across a reference to another nation or event and be curious and investigating is slow and potentially awkward. An app has all the advantages of a wiki with portability.

But that's just one thought, going off the "surprising ways" line.

 

[fjw70]

As I have stated elsewhere, at this point I believe tabletop D&D is peanuts and a Dinosaur to Hasbro, and no longer matters in the grand scheme of things. Going forward the app/electronic game, movies, and novels will become The Brand, and this likely will be the last print edition, barring a sale to a company who actually gives a crap.

I can't really blame them for pulling back on the TTRPG. As far as I know no one has gotten rich off of TTRPGs. There just isn't a lot of money to be made there.

Sometimes I wonder if D&D would be better off in the hands of a smaller company but then I realise that 4e and 5e are THE best designed RPGs ever. Some ther companies have done some pretty good work but IMO no one can compete with WotC from a design standpoint. Sure having all the support that Pathfinder has would be nice but I'll take the better game design any day of the week.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Sometimes I wonder if D&D would be better off in the hands of a smaller company but then I realise that 4e and 5e are THE best designed RPGs ever. Some ther companies have done some pretty good work but IMO no one can compete with WotC from a design standpoint. Sure having all the support that Pathfinder has would be nice but I'll take the better game design any day of the week.

I think 5e is the best edition of D&D (and 4e had slightly better design integrity than prior editions, even if it isn't my cup of tea), but I don't think any edition of D&D has ever been the best designed RPG (expect perhaps OD&D when there was no competition).

There are thousands of RPGs, and I'd count several (perhaps even many) of them as better designed RPGs than D&D.

Opinion of course, but we are probably coming from very different criteria of judgment, since I doubt anyone would argue for D&D's design superiority if they were using the term the same way I am.

 

[fjw70]

P

I think 5e is the best edition of D&D (and 4e had slightly better design integrity than prior editions, even if it isn't my cup of tea), but I don't think any edition of D&D has ever been the best designed RPG (expect perhaps OD&D when there was no competition).

There are thousands of RPGs, and I'd count several (perhaps even many) of them as better designed RPGs than D&D.

Opinion of course, but we are probably coming from very different criteria of judgment, since I doubt anyone would argue for D&D's design superiority if they were using the term the same way I am.

What if we restrict the comparison group to D&D like games (e.g. Every D&D edition, Pathfinder, 13th Age, DCC, etc.)? Outside of that group it is harder to compare since they can be very different games. However, I still stand by my (completely subjective) statement.

 

[Staffan]

Sometimes I wonder if D&D would be better off in the hands of a smaller company but then I realise that 4e and 5e are THE best designed RPGs ever. Some ther companies have done some pretty good work but IMO no one can compete with WotC from a design standpoint. Sure having all the support that Pathfinder has would be nice but I'll take the better game design any day of the week.

In a perfect world, Peter Adkison would have had more business savvy when he started Wizards of the Coast and given himself a controlling share. He would then not have been forced by other shareholders to sell to Hasbro, so they would still be a large but independent company run by actual gamers. But unfortunately we don't live in that world.