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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[gweinel]

Ok, we don't know what it is and maybe this could be really awesome... but damn, i love big juicy campaign settings. In boxes with handouts and maps and the old good stuff. I had a hope to see again one of my favorite settings rereleased in that way with new stories and new fantastic art. To be able take the map and unfold it to my players, to take the campaign book beside my bed and read it before i sleep. Maybe i love too much the books as an object instead of a lets say the digital copy of the spells of Dragonlance or the the pdf of the plane of Acheron.

As i said at the start the new project might be awesome, and the compromises are really worth the lack of books, but i am feeling a bit of disappointed to not have something in print form.

 

[Mistwell]

What if it's a magazine format (perhaps online) that focuses on one aspect of a setting every week? Maybe articles on monsters, towns, encounter locations, dungeons, NPCs, history, stories, etc..?
Perhaps even multiple magazines, for different settings, and you can subscribe to the setting magazines of your choice?
And once every quarter, or every year or something like that, you'd get in the mail a giant wall map of that setting, or something else different in the mail?

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Ummm.... he gives a breakdown of his time in the video. You know, the video this thread is commenting on.

He says he spends 60% of his time in mandatory meetings. And, since he also comments that he's so busy that he hasn't been able to DM his game (either during lunch or the other free times we've heard of: the D&D team has noted they often work a couple extra hours each day and take a half-day Friday to game. Which also serves as valuable playtesting time) that means he's potentially working through lunch or pulling some OT. That implies he's spending more time in meetings than before, or his workload increased, or both.

Knowing that people working on D&D are potentially overworked IS our business. It affects the game and products we buy. And it establishes how the company is being managed and where they value time. If they're spending an unnecessary amount of time in meetings, so much so that it's having a detrimental effect on their jobs, then that suggests serious mismanagement in the company.

Keeping in mind I still haven't had the opportunity to actually watch the video yet, so if he outright implies the meetings are unnecessary, feel free to disregard the following...

That depends on Wizard's view of what he's being paid for, not yours or mine, doesn't it? Sure, if they're making the entire D&D team attend mandatory meetings forsixty percent of his day about changes to employee parking space assignments and which dishes to bring to the company potluck, that's mismanagement. But if they're requiring him to attend licensing meetings because they want Chris Perkins involved with the planning process and lore for as-yet-unannounced tie-ins, who is to say that's a less valuable use of his time?

In other words, is he spending "two hours a day doing the job he's paid to be doing", or does he spend all day doing exactly what he's being paid to be doing, of which only two hours a day are expected to be spent working on the actual tabletop game?

 

[Von Ether]

There's already a model for this, it's called a Plot Point, via Savage Worlds.

You get a setting and a mini-campaign of five or six mandatory adventures that move the story along. Otherwise, all of the other locations are local adventures related to the flavor of that spot. 50 Fathoms, along with its rules for ship/crew maintenance and trading, darn near runs itself.

At the end of a session, ask the players where they are headed for next week, read up on that little island and you're set. Keep notes of who you pissed off and who loves you and you practically have a living breathing world there.

And if you skip the 5 critical adventures, no one knows or cares as they explore the world sandbox style.

And what's wrong with rot? I know quite a few fellows who feel "cheated" because they can't bring their 20 year-old $25 book at the table. On the other hand, they look forward to spending oodle more on the next console and twice that on the latest video game.

Well, they can bring it, but they just can't use it. Oh wait, this is 5e, that might not be true anymore.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

One thing that bothers me is how this is going to work out for new players. Sure most of us on here either have all the campaign setting materials we want from decades ago, or know where to find them. But new players coming into D&D get focused setting details in an adventure path and then a little blurb that they can find more information on dndclassics.

If I were just getting into the game you can be darn sure I'd want to buy full-fledged campaign settings. I'd also probably be a bit frustrated that I had to scour the web to find out what to get and how to get them. And then I'd have to wade through all the mechanical information that is completely obsoleted now.

I mean--is wading through all that trouble something we anticipate a lot of new DMs doing? If so, then they really need to start selling those old settings and maybe use a tagline on the ad insert, "New Rules, Same Great Setting!" so people know what they are getting.

I hope that Chris Perkins was hinting at the idea that we may get some sort of setting almanacs in non-book format or something. There needs to be an accessible way for new players/DMs to get access to more of the setting than what is included in that year's organized play offerings.

As far as my personal needs, as long as I get updated 5e crunch (like the Eberron article from February) for the settings I'm interested in, I'm good.

 

[darius0]

What if it's a magazine format (perhaps online) that focuses on one aspect of a setting every week? Maybe articles on monsters, towns, encounter locations, dungeons, NPCs, history, stories, etc..?
Perhaps even multiple magazines, for different settings, and you can subscribe to the setting magazines of your choice?
And once every quarter, or every year or something like that, you'd get in the mail a giant wall map of that setting, or something else different in the mail?

This is precisely what I'd like to see. Like a version of Dungeon Magazine that focuses on settings (with some adventure content) instead of focusing on adventures (with some setting content).

 

[transtemporal]

This AP strategy could be a great way for dungeon masters looking for modules and dungeon masters looking for campaign settings to meet in the middle, but in order for that to happen the format has to change and we need to see more granular setting-specific content, not setting content that is so bland it could fit anywhere.

That's kind of the point. People don't just play campaigns in FR and they may want to run it in a different setting. Making it generic-ish gives them the flexibility to set it elsewhere.

Besides, people don't specifically need to know that the Elemental Evils were related to the Dawn Titans who fought the gods at the beginning of time yadda yadda, they can make that up and fill in that flavor for themselves. They don't need that world-building spoon-fed to them.

 

[Von Ether]

But new players coming into D&D get focused setting details in an adventure path and then a little blurb that they can find more information on dndclassics.

If I were just getting into the game you can be darn sure I'd want to buy full-fledged campaign settings. I'd also probably be a bit frustrated that I had to scour the web to find out what to get and how to get them. And then I'd have to wade through all the mechanical information that is completely obsoleted now.

I mean--is wading through all that trouble something we anticipate a lot of new DMs doing? If so, then they really need to start selling those old settings and maybe use a tagline on the ad insert, "New Rules, Same Great Setting!" so people know what they are getting.

I hope that Chris Perkins was hinting at the idea that we may get some sort of setting almanacs in non-book format or something. There needs to be an accessible way for new players/DMs to get access to more of the setting than what is included in that year's organized play offerings.

As far as my personal needs, as long as I get updated 5e crunch (like the Eberron article from February) for the settings I'm interested in, I'm good.

I also think that for old timer's, the idea of what's enough to run a setting on is a bit different from a newbie. Not saying that DnD is the only once that's done this in the past, but do GMs really need to know demographic break downs for each individual town? Sometimes I feel that more than a few RPG writers are frustrated historians who want to put their old degree to some use.

Better to do one chart of categories about City/Town/Village sizes with what you could buy there and move on. Then describe the actual location with evocative prose.

I'd think a fat tome for a setting is more off putting for new GMs and players. For my crew, Threshold and the surrounding wilderness was a world unto itself. We used to trust GMs to fill in the "gaps" that were described simply as an Orc country.

Back on the Plot Point idea, there is one challenge. DnD needs a lot more encounters for leveling than Savage worlds does, but seeing how PP settings are rarely over 170 pages and WotC loves it's huge books, that still might not be insurmountable for that format.

 

[aramis erak]

This would indicate that campaign settings are gone. They'll just focus on some area of a campaign setting in their APs.

That worked beautifully for WFRP 1E back in the 80's and early 90's... of course, they only had 3 paths, but what paths they were. TEW, Doomstones, and the other 3 adventures (Restless Dead, Lichemaster, and the corebook's adventure).

 

[not-so-newguy]

I hope that Chris Perkins was hinting at the idea that we may get some sort of setting almanacs in non-book format or something. There needs to be an accessible way for new players/DMs to get access to more of the setting than what is included in that year's organized play offerings.

Also, for the returning "new-old" player whose old books are rotting in an attic 300 miles away.