D&D Brand Manager of Fluff

[Shemeska]

The Positive Material Plane[/i] -

...

To be honest, I think a book like this would either be a hit or a bomb.

That'd lead to some short games I might think, and hit or bomb of the product itself aside, the PCs would be the bomb when they explode like one and have their souls incinerated after perhaps a minute or two of unshielded exposure to the plane.

Single most hostile place I've ever had PCs go, but it was seriously fun admittedly.

 

[diaglo]

Psst. "Greg Nard" is a pun.

the heck you say.

he stood with napolean

 

[der_kluge]

A guide to world building

A practical handbook about how to build a rich custom setting at all scales (from the detailed tavern the PCs see all the time, to the whole layout of the land, universe and beyond) and maintain verisimilitude during a campaign. Includes focus on a few more difficult topics such as: consistent economy, large scale-politics and warfare, travel facilities in the setting, and the role of knowledge availability/education in the setting.

Expeditious Retreat Press already has a really good book on this - Ecology and Culture

1001 Tales - An adventures designer's treasure chest

Nothing but plot hooks, adventure schemes, interesting NPCs and locales...

I'd definitely buy this.

 

[Arnwyn]

I can't help but be amused by how many of the books suggested have already been done by 3rd party publishers.

Indeed. But for some books, there is significant value in (and preference for) WotC's IP (and rightly so). That's what holds value.

So, some topics work better than others for 3rd party books. For example, I love kingdom-building/rulership stuff, and that's been done very well by 3rd parties - I don't need WotC to do that.

But a book of 3rd party daemons? Pffft, whatever. Give me WotC's yugoloths, Great Wheel, and Planescape any day.

 

[Xyxox]

One thing I would do is introduce teh concept of "One-Shot Campaign Settings". Be upfront and put out a camaign setting that all customers understand at the outset are, by design, a single product with no further support. The idea being to put out something that, by design, is intended to have all future development conducted by the indivdual DMS. I'd tie that into the Gleemax site with specific areas for individual fans to post additional material.

 

[Athenon]

I would emphasize the real strengths of the fantastic Dungeons and Dragons IP.

I would harness Ed Greenwood to write Realms of the Heartland. This would be a Forgotten Realms sourcebook covering Cormyr and Sembia. Ed could mine the copious notes he has about these central areas of Faerun that have never gotten adequate coverage. I would point out that the Regional Sourcebooks featuring Ed's primary witing (Silver Marches, Serpent Kingdoms, Power of Faerun) have been the more enduring and well reviewed books in the 3E line. As Fluff Tsar, I'm going to emphasize Ed's gifts.

World of Greyhawk, a multi-volume project updating the lands of Greyhawk. This would be a massive relaunch with many potential sequel volumes. Most importantly, I would hire Eric Mona to head the project. I would also recruit Gary Gygax to write a great deal of the material, particularly expanding on unseen aspects of his original home campaign. This is one seriously neglected area of the D&D IP. Mona has proved he can do Greyhawk like nobody's business and Gary's involvement has been sadly lacking for decades.

The Pirate's Grimoire. This would be a volume detailing what it is to be a brigand of the high seas. It would also detail several pirate-ruled realms and sample islands to place in the campaign. Not delving too far into crunch, I would still take the opportunity to expand the nautical rules and ship to ship combat info.

Demonlands I would tap Eric Boyd and George Krashos to write a book detailing the Vassa, Damara, Impiltur & Narfell areas of Faerun. This could have a tie-in to an "Invasion of Demons"/Orcus adventure proposed above.

The Savage North, A Forgotten Realms book updating the situation around Silverymoon and the Kingdom of Many Arrows as well as the North at large. There are many changes in this area since the happenings of Rich Baker's and R.A. Salvatore's novel series were written. I would involve both authors in the writing of this (Salvatore's lack of involvement/ignorance of what was going on in Silver Marches greatly hurt the usability of the product.) I would also try to update many of the ideas put forward in the original FR5 Savage Frontier.

Lastly, I would produce a Knightly Orders book detailing many different orders of Knighthood, focusing on medieval analogues, secrets of these orders and fluff-centric entry requirements. I would create multiple knighthoods for generic fantasy/homebrew, FR and Greyhawk. Heck, I might even throw the Eberron folks a bone and create a knighthood just for warforged.

Maps of Greyhawk

Maps of Faerun

My 2cp.

Will

 

[tzor]

I have just hired you as the Brand Manager of Story, Settings, Funny Names, and Bardic Song Lyrics. I've cut Greg's line in half and given it to you. Tell me what books you are going to put out. You have eight titles this year.

I'll start by saying that you really can't live on pure crunch or pure fluff alone, so crunch books need to have some fluff and fluff books need to have some crunch. Note also that as this is off of the top of my head I'm sure the titles probably need fine tuning.

The Complete Village: Basically an echo of what others have suggested, this would cover various sample villages based on alignment and perhaps racial types with general descriptions on how to super size them to larger population models.

The Book of Discipline: (another way of saying law) Basically a book on the aspects of law in the design of a lawful character, with special emphasis on paladins and monks, but with broader implications for any charcter that might be covered under heirarchical structures and or codes of conduct.

The Book of Guilds: This would be on the aspects of guilds and societies from villages to that of major cities. From the classic thieves and assassin's guilds to adventuring guilds, this would cover how such guilds are structured and how they can have an impact on character role playing development.

The Tiny Book: (It's got some crunch ... a "little" crunch.) I've always been personally fascinated with tiny and diminutive creatures, going back to the old days of the 1E AD&D Lankhmar and the rats of Lankhmar Below to the famous "Book of Gnomes" (along with "Secrets of the Gnomes"). Unfortunately there is only a tiny amount of material on very small scale opponents or even very small scale player characters. One might be tempted to call it "Honey, I shrunk the characters" but for the obvious trademark issues.

The Dark Ages: Although one tends to associate the "dark ages" with a specific period in history (and were they really dark of just mostly cloudy) one can also associate a style of play in which technology is lost (the former glory of Rome has faded) and battles between order and chaos are common.

The Age of Merchants: That other reason to adventure ... from hired hands on a caravan across the desert sands to slow and fast ships on sea or even air various ways in which characters can have an impact on the economy of the land with and through merchants.

The Complete Barbarian: From the fury of the Norsemen, and other chaotic groups deliver us. Just because you're chaotic doesn't mean you have no structure; this book would detail the social life of barbarian tribes of various humanoids both player races and monster races.

The Book of Disease: (Bad title) Basically most diseases and even poisons tend to be reduced to pure crunch. Recall the old d20 joke as how a character's eyesight actually improves with age. Because simple diseases people normally get as a result of old age are not included in the standard set of diseases. You can also include "curses" such as lyanchropy and other famous afflictions that might be placed upon PC and NPC alike.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Angelic Voices: A Guide to the Seven Heavens.
Self-explantory; done in the vein of the old 2E “Guide to Hell”, and the old Dragon article “The Nine Hells” by Ed Greenwood.

Book of Artifacts.
Everyone knows ‘em, everyone loves ‘em.
This has been somewhat touched on in “Magic of Incarnum”, “Weapons of Legacy”, and”Magic Item Compendium”, but it would be nice to have the inconics all in one place, as they did in 2E. (Hand/Eye of Vecna, Sword of Kas, Mighty Servant of Leuk-O, Rod of Seven Parts, etc.)

Touring the Multiverse I: The Demiplanes

Straight and Narrow: A guide to alignment: One of the more ambiguous systems since it’s inception, this book attempts to put alignment into perspective How to choose your alignment, and what that means to the player and the characters. Rules for changing alignment.

The Eternal Struggle- Law vs. Chaos.
A companion to “BoED” and “BoVD”, as well as “Straight and Narrow” (see above.)
Puts the age-old struggle into perspective, showing how these tow forces affect the world and the characters.

Of King and Crown
(Companion to Frontier Justice)
A guide to nobility and ruling, including typical edicts and enforcement of said edicts. Contains several “model” Kingdoms, and fully statted NPC’s.

Frontier Justice
(Companion to King & Crown)
A guide to law and law-enforcement in fantasy worlds. Includes guidelines for common infractions and punishments, as well as sample enforcement officials, as well as “adventure hooks”.

Fee Fi Fo Fum: A Guide to Giantkind
(Heh, was toying with other titles, but I couldn’t resist!!!)
One of the notable “Missing” books thus far. (Lords of Madness and Draconomicon are tow of my favorite books from the D+D line!!)

Of course, I’d alos like to see “A Guide to Sigil”,as well. J

 

[WayneLigon]

Campaign Creation Handbook - How to create your own homebrew and not tear your hair out in the process. It's a little of everything, on how to make continents that don't suck to how cities and towns grow organically. Chapters would include

'A Place for Everything Doesn't Mean Everything In It's Place' - why you don't have to use all the monsters in the MM. AKA 'Creating a Monstrous Ecology'.
'Change is Good' - on how to take existing monsters, spells, etc, and change them to make them yours.

The Incomplete Adventurer - Similar to the Heroe's Guide for the old Star Wars d20, and the skimilar product for D&D - Show people how to use class combinations to create new 'classes', or fill different niches. A simple and basic book for the beginner.

The Code - a discussion of various Paladin codes and how to creat your own, and how to properly play the most controversial class in D&D.

A FR product of some type - I'm not familiar enough with FR to say what needs doing.

An Eberron product of some type. The one about Rising Nations above sounds excellent.

The High and the Low - The royalty and the scum. What both do, and how they do it.

The Lay of the Land - A basic quasi-middle-ages primer. What a castle is and what it does. What feudalism is. What a king can and cannot do. What are the various noble ranks? The rule of law vs the rule of man.

The Fantastic World - A primer for basic modern fantasy, a Cliff Notes version of the genre, what it is and is not, tropes, cliches, etc. Not quite a reprint of A Tough Guide to Fantasyland, without the sarcasm and mean-spiritedness. Why some genres and books work well in D&D and why some do not. This is for all the people that have no freakin' idea what a 'halfling' is and why it's in D&D.

 

[Tiberius]

I just want to understand why a Brand Manager is cranking out anything.

Isn't R&D supposed to do that?

Shut yer noise, you! Let the man get his free market research!