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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[Kramodlog]

WoTC may never get another cent from me, save replacing core books in the event of disaster. Seems like we are both cool with that.

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

 

[Von Ether]

Not one product is going to please everyone*. I ask that the next time you're in your FLGS, take a look at a Savage World's Plot Point Setting/Campaign book. A Plot Point framework is not the same as an AP.

Plot Point Campaigns are also a series of adventures, so here’s where it’s easy to say I’m playing semantic games, and argue there is no difference. The key exception is Plot Points contain Set Pieces. Big chunks of information or excitement are found within which propel the story forward, but are rarely designed to be played in rapid sequence. In fact, if one does so, they are often missing the entire point of the Plot Point Campaign. In such works as RunePunk, the characters cannot even progress to the next Plot Point until certain prerequisites/triggers are met. To underscore and explicate further, Plot Points are generally contingent upon triggers such as “once the character finds the map of Zurvan” or “after the characters visit the Red Temple” or can be “once the party’s average rank is Seasoned” and so on. -- Reality Blurs (http://realityblurs.com/wordpress/?p=2269)

To make a WotC Plot Point book, you'd just have to triple the size of the setting section and double the page count on the monster section. Thankfully, 5e hasn't blown out the class sections so the character section would stay about the same. And most of that is not for the sake of content (though that is the great side benefit), but also because WotC has use certain page counts for their particular economic model and DnD's format.

Not every Savage Worlds setting book is such a critter, but the big ones are:
50 Fathoms
Rippers
Slipstream
Necessary Evil Explorer's Edition
Necropolis 2350
Space 1889: Red Sands
Rippers
The Savage World of Solomon Kane
Sundered Skies
RunePunk

I'm not saying meetings are inherently evil. .

I have ADHD, I say that meetings are very, very evil. Nine times out of ten what gets accomplished at a meeting has nothing to do with the topic of the meeting. I don't have time for small talk, personal agendas that are overtaking the focus of the project and need of some people to put their two cents in on every decision to be discussed, especially when their espoused opinion can be narrowed down to "I agree but I need to be heard to be validated" Or pointless brown nosing. Just give me my assignments and let me go! ... That was a bit longer than rant than I planned. Apologies.

* When TLG decided to NOT make their CKG a series of smaller books, based on subject, I gave a weary sigh.

I'm sure that someone out there appreciated that half the book was about calculating the proper population numbers/ square footage for every village and city so it sounded like GM had done their research out of the Oxford Libraries.

I was not one of them.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

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

 

[variant]

If they just plan to keep producing adventure paths, that's completely neglecting a very large part of the market that play in the campaign setting and don't use adventures.

I understand not wanting to just keep producing setting books for the sake of producing them, but surely they will at least publish the basic campaign setting books for their various settings? Not everyone who plays 5e has access to the old setting material either, so I think assuming people do is a mistake. This is especially the case for campaign settings that aren't Forgotten Realms.

 

[Mistwell]

If they just plan to keep producing adventure paths

I can think of no rationale way to watch that video and come away with the impression that they plan to just keep producing adventure paths.

I truly am getting curious why people keep saying things like that.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

I have ADHD, I say that meetings are very, very evil. Nine times out of ten what gets accomplished at a meeting has nothing to do with the topic of the meeting. I don't have time for small talk, personal agendas that are overtaking the focus of the project and need of some people to put their two cents in on every decision to be discussed, especially when their espoused opinion can be narrowed down to "I agree but I need to be heard to be validated" Or pointless brown nosing. Just give me my assignments and let me go! ... That was a bit longer than rant than I planned. Apologies.

Ha, yeah, I do see experience some of that myself, I go to meetings where it ends up with some people going over and complaining about the same crap for an extra hour…no solutions, just a whinge-fest…yeah, uh, I just want to to go back to work…

 

[variant]

I can think of no rationale way to watch that video and come away with the impression that they plan to just keep producing adventure paths.

I truly am getting curious why people keep saying things like that.

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.

 

[Dire Bare]

I can think of no rationale way to watch that video and come away with the impression that they plan to just keep producing adventure paths.

I truly am getting curious why people keep saying things like that.

Selective hearing, I'd wager.

 

[graves3141]

I have ADHD, I say that meetings are very, very evil. Nine times out of ten what gets accomplished at a meeting has nothing to do with the topic of the meeting. I don't have time for small talk, personal agendas that are overtaking the focus of the project and need of some people to put their two cents in on every decision to be discussed, especially when their espoused opinion can be narrowed down to "I agree but I need to be heard to be validated" Or pointless brown nosing. Just give me my assignments and let me go! ... That was a bit longer than rant than I planned. Apologies.

You are absolutely right my friend. Meetings are evil, they go on forever because people go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the original purpose of the meeting (which, in itself, isn't always relevant to begin with). Way too much ass kissing, posing and trying to impress the other people at the table. Meetings are a waste of time because of the innate nature of human beings... I don't care about trivial b.s. Oh, and I just love the part at the "end" of a meeting where it looks like it's about to end and then some jackass brings up something that would be more appropriately discussed one on one with somebody and then the meeting goes on for another 30 or 40 minutes because of the comment. I HATE MEETINGS.

 

[Von Ether]

I can think of no rationale way to watch that video and come away with the impression that they plan to just keep producing adventure paths.

I truly am getting curious why people keep saying things like that.

I was just talking to some friends about gaming and our gaming "language" last night. We came away with two things.

1.) We eventually see all of our RPGing in how we gamed back when we were 12. If in the 80s, your gaming was all about narrative, you see things as potential "stories." If you gamed with simulationist, then you judge the game on it's "realism."
2.) We internalize phrases and their gaming actions much more than we realize. You can easily tell a bridge card player what "tapping" a card means and show it to them. It's a simple concept a 6-year old gets with Pokemon. But that bridge player will just stare at the card as if it had mutated and skittered away. The idea of doing more physically with a card than just hide it in your hand/reveal for points, boggles them way beyond the point that it should.

So the idea of a proper Setting/Mini-Campaign mash up for someone who's never read one before just confuses them. Settings go in setting books and adventures go in adventure books.

You might have an "intro adventure" in a setting book or you might have a detailed town in an Adventure Path, but to make it more of a 70/30 mix is just madness. Madness, I tell you. It's so mad that people don't even know what to call such a thing. AP sounds close enough, but then they shift over to thinking that it's just an AP and get confused again.

And truth be told, with these products reaching out to thousands and thousands of people, no mix will be spot on. And poor organization could also be a source of frustration.

In my wish list, most D&D settings would get two Plot Point style games. (I'm not saying that WotC is doing Plot Points, but it seems a way to go.) One book would be World Setting/Campaign and the other would be Iconic City/Campaign.