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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[Jeff Albertson]

The current low release schedule seems to make people who do not want to spend money on D&D happy. Those who want to spend money are disappointed. How is cattering to those who do not want to give you money a good business move? Seems reminiscent of 4e who turned away people who liked a more "traditional" D&D to catter to other gamers.

Hahahahaha…wow, I hope you have been drinking…

 

[DEFCON 1]

Such a position is reasonable for many GMs when considering adventure support - in which 5e is pretty darned slim. Not everyone has the time, energy, or desire to do their own adventure creation, and if a game doesn't have a sufficient string of adventure products in the works to keep them rolling, they have a legitimate reason to not engage with the game.

By my calculations, there are like five D&D Next playtest adventures to buy, and soon to be two full adventure path books to buy, a handful of adventures from other companies outside of WotC, as well as an entire website dedicated to selling old adventures for a game that was designed to be able to adapt to these modules with not a huge amount of investment in time and energy. If a person REALLY wanted to play 5E using nothing but existing adventure material, they could. Easily.

But they don't. For some reason... they AREN'T wanting to buy 5E until MORE things are available. But for some odd reason they keep hanging around WAITING for an announcement, all the while bemoaning the fact there's nothing THEY LIKE that they want to buy.

As opposed to just playing an RPG they already own, already have material for, and have worked the rules out exactly how they want it. Where they could go off and BE HAPPY. That's what I can't comprehend. Rather than just going off to play the game they can already play in exactly the manner they want... they keep popping up in various threads here MAD that this game they aren't playing isn't yet in a position that would make them want to play it, and that WotC isn't telling them WHEN that will eventually be. I mean come on! That is ridiculous. Especially when the complaints devolve down to "...and WotC is a bad company for not telling me when the game will reach a point where I'll be happy with it."

If you don't want to play 5E, don't play 5E! That's completely okay! But when you keep showing up in 5E threads making grand declarations about how you're not going to play 5E... that just says to me you're someone who's desperately looking for attention. And if that's the case, then I'm going to call you on it. You don't want to have it pointed out to yourself that people think you are being completely unreasonable? Don't come into 5E threads to pee in people's cornflakes. Cause you WILL called out for it. Hell... you could go into all the other non-5E boards here and complain about 5E and you might very well receive a lot of agreement, seeing as how they are on the other game boards I presume because they're happy playing those other games and don't want to play 5E.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So make another batch of core books as soon as you can. If the subsequent non-core books make profit, make them. A shareholder wants to maximize profits. Car makers make all sort of models even if they aren't all the #1 seller. 6e is just as tempting as MtG's next expension that is released, what, every 4 months? A psionic expension could play that role too. Not making any books is not going to generate any money. That is a certainty. Ok, they are making some books. Two lackluster APs a year..

Why are you so concerned about making sure WotC makes money? Are you a shareholder for Hasbro yourself? Are your stocks dropping in worth? If not, why does it matter to you that they're theoretically leaving money on the table?

 

[Umbran]

True, they might not be to everyone's cup of tea, but the same could be said about single adventures. Or maybe you mean something else?

I mean that there are very few choices. If you aren't a fan of APs, or don't like the two that are out there, you've got close to nothing.

I can see some reasons behind not putting a full open license for 5e, but they really, really ought to open up for 3pp adventures, imho. I, personally, don't use published adventures much for D&D. But I know of many, here and off the boards, who do. I think having them available would make the core game much more attractive.

 

[TwoSix]

But they don't. For some reason... they AREN'T wanting to buy 5E until MORE things are available. But for some odd reason they keep hanging around WAITING for an announcement, all the while bemoaning the fact there's nothing THEY LIKE that they want to buy.

Just out of curiosity, where are people who like 5e but also like official material supposed to go to commiserate? Isn't their dissatisfaction just as valid as your satisfaction? I'm not sure how complaining about the complainers is any more or less appropriate than complaining in the first place.

I do agree with you that complaints asserting that a release schedule that doesn't match the poster's personal desires is somehow proof of WotC's business incompetence are obviously useless.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Just out of curiosity, where are people who like 5e but also like official material supposed to go to commiserate? Isn't their dissatisfaction just as valid as your satisfaction? I'm not sure how complaining about the complainers is any more or less appropriate than complaining in the first place.

I do agree with you that complaints asserting that a release schedule that doesn't match the poster's personal desires is somehow proof of WotC's business incompetence are obviously useless.

And therein lies the rub. When people talk about products they would love to see made, that's cool. We all have wish lists. But as soon as those desires morph into the moral deficiencies and/or business acumen of Wizards of the Coast... how they obviously do not know what they are doing, or have no knowledge or plans and are just making things up as they go along, or are stupidly leaving money on the table, or deliberately shoving people who have money to give them off to the side, or that they don't care about their customers, or that they are running the game into the ground, or that they should just sell D&D off to another smaller company who actually cares about D&D because that company would see how obvious all of these requests are and actually put them into practice, or at the barest minimum tell all of us players exactly what they have on the docket for the next three years so that we all can plan for when those products will be released and thus let us know whether we should buy the game now and enjoy playing it or hold off until then... that's when the rest of us are going to pointedly comment back to you that your expectations are perhaps A BIT off the mark and that you are being a little unreasonable with your expectations.

Once your criticism of what you'd like to see moves into the realm of "WotC is stupid" or "WotC is evil"... you pretty much give up the chance for reasonable debate.

 

[TwoSix]

Once your criticism of what you'd like to see moves into the realm of "WotC is stupid" or "WotC is evil"... you pretty much give up the chance for reasonable debate.

Yea, it's tricky. I think you can make reasonable posts raising the point "I really like products like X, and I'm kind of annoyed that WotC doesn't seem interested in making those products." I also think you can make reasonable posts raising the point "I think WotC's current release schedule may prove detrimental to the game line in the long run, and here's why".

The issue is some posters lack the ... "nuance", we'll call it, to make both of those points without conflating the two, which ends up looking ridiculous.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yup... "nuance" is exactly how I would put it. And even if that lack of nuance was spoken on a general level, that usually wouldn't bother me or make me react. But for some reason... when it just so happens to be that the thing WotC is (or isn't doing) that makes them evil or stupid is the exact same thing the poster desperately wants... that's the lack of nuance that drives me insane. The poster basically states that what they want is what is the only right thing to do, and they know better than WotC. Their knowledge of WotC's business is better than WotC's knowledge of WotC's business.

Yeah, sorry. You don't get to make that leap without the rest of us pointing out how ridiculous that sounds.

 

[TwoSix]

Yup... "nuance" is exactly how I would put it. And even if that lack of nuance was spoken on a general level, that usually wouldn't bother me or make me react. But for some reason... when it just so happens to be that the thing WotC is (or isn't doing) that makes them evil or stupid is the exact same thing the poster desperately wants... that's the lack of nuance that drives me insane. The poster basically states that what they want is what is the only right thing to do, and they know better than WotC. Their knowledge of WotC's business is better than WotC's knowledge of WotC's business.

Yea, there's an unsubtle narcissism to it that's obviously off-putting.

Having said that, I do want new crunch books and I do think it's a mistake on WotC part's to not have some information on them.

 

[DongMaster]

Once your criticism of what you'd like to see moves into the realm of "WotC is stupid" or "WotC is evil"... you pretty much give up the chance for reasonable debate.

Oh, how I wish it was only once they did it.

@ Umbran, yeah that is one way that would make moer people happy, even though for me what they do right now is quite sweet bar the lack of source books (one for the Sword Coast or FR would do nicely).