D&D Brand Manager of Fluff

[Yair]

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.

Boy, you're in trouble if you had to hire me

Nightmare & Dream: A setting-neutral book providing DMs with an evil organization invading reality from the plane of dreams. The book details the dreamlands, how the Shadow (?) corrupted them, and mechanics to allow the DM to insert the threat into his world. Ties are made with similar organizations in existing settings [especially those Eberron dudes, forgot their name], bringing the "reveal" that these are fronts and entry-ways for the greater Shadow threat. The goal is to create a piece of setting that can be shared across settings and so reduce fragmentation, and hopefully to create enemies as evocative as the Mind Flayers and their likes.

Faery Tales: A book to help the DM design and run adventures based around the classic structures and motiffs of fairytales. Complete with information on Arcadia (the faerie plane), faerie courts (Seeline and Unseelie), advice on recurring themes and plot structure, monsters, and magical locales.

Story Trope: Villains: A small book opening a line of similar products giving the DM advice and tools to handle specific issues in their games. The next product, planned for next year, would be "Prophecy". Depending on how these do, the line may continue with other products.

Faiths of Faerun: Detailing the churches and religions of Faerun, mimicking Faiths of Eberron in style of content.

Four adventures, continuing current adventure lines. If there is space, a single one devoted to Nightmare & Dream published together with the book itself.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Some of these have been mentioned already, but I'll reinforce:

FR Sourcebooks:

- Heart of Faerun: a sourcebook covering the Dalelands and Western Heartlands

- Other Lands: a sourcebook covering lands just beyond or far beyond Faerun: the Moonshae Isles, Maztica, Zakhara, and the far east -- basically a single book that rolls up the major fluff from when those areas were separate campaign settings.

- Politics of Faerun: a book that focuses on political maneuvering, different forms of government, who's who in varied and different forms of government. Yes some might overlap with Power of Faerun, but this needs to be focused at lower levels -- even low level characters can get into political intrigue whether in court of in the local village council.

Seelie Court -- the complete book of Fey (share credit with Greg as there will be some crunch).

Stone Axe and Bearskin -- a complete book of Giants (again, share credit with Greg, as there will be some crunch).

Greyhawk Campaign Setting -- an updated and expanded Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, updated to 3.5, incorporating material from the Living Greyhawk Journals.

Expedition to the Desert of Desolation -- 'cause this classic adventure series is due.

Bark, Squak, and Growl -- a complete guide to pets, familiars, animal companions, and beasts of burden. This is probably 50% crunch, so I'll share credit with Greg again.

Inhuman Societies -- extensive detail about the social organizations, politics, armies, etc of Monstrous Humanoids (esstentially a complete book of Goblinoids/orcs/gnolls/etc but without having to introduce new critters).

 

[Razz]

I really hate pure fluff books.

I could do with less fluff and more crunch. A balance of the two is ideal for D&D, but it's not looking that way lately it seems with books lately. I will suggest a few book ideas where I believe should have an equal balance of fluff and crunch because I do not like a book wholly of fluff. It'd appeal to me more if the book was for a campaign setting, but otherwise no.

FIENDISH CODEX III: Yugoloths: As some have stated here already, an FC3 on these guys would be what I would want to see.

FEY BOOK: This is long overdue. There is not one single book covering the Fey creatures in the years D&D has existed. It's about time to create a definitive book on the Fey creatures.

GIANT-NOMICON: You guys need to start doing "Creature" books again. The Giant one is what I would like to see, also, along with the Fey book.

BOOK OF PERFECT BALANCE: A book like Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness but covering the "neutral" alignments like Neutral, Neutral Evil, Neutral Good, Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral. This can finally bring more highlight to the Rilmani creatures, forgotten back in 3E Fiend Folio.

BOOK OF LAW: Similar to Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness

BOOK OF CHAOS: Similar to Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness

GIANTS OF FAERUN: I'd like to see this, similar to the way Dragons of Faerun was done.

BEYOND FAERUN: A book about the Kara-Tur, Al-Qadim, Maztica, and other lands in Faerun. I'd say a 224+ page book. Ideally, I'd want to see a book done seperately for each land, but I know WotC would never do that currently. So a book covering some of all of them would be just as good. Covering "The Sea of Night" in this book would be cool, too, and would be a nice tribute to Spelljammer.

MONSTER MYTHOLOGY: This would be a good fluff book. A book on all the monstrous deities such as the goblinoid pantheon, draconic pantheon, illithid, etc. Base it off the original Monster Mythology from 2E, with lore on how they fit in Eberron and Forgotten Realms. Also, be nice and put some "crunch" in it like new feats and prestige classes. Do it similar to the way Faiths&Pantheons was done.

FORGOTTEN REALMS REGIONAL BOOKS: You guys need to go back this, again, but cover areas never covered before or that haven't been covered for a very long time.

ANOTHER EPIC BOOK: Yes, we need more epic material. Just shut us up and give us a 224+ page book giving us new crunch and fluff for these sorts of games.

CHRONOMANCY: A book on something you guys covered only once but should do so again. Time travel, the Demiplane of Time, time creatures and gods, how to run a time-traveling campaign, how time travel affects other campaign settings like Eberron, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms, etc. Very famous movies and TV shows have been based on time-traveling and it'd be cool if a DM could have rules to run either his own time-traveling campaign or incorporate a little of it into his current campaign.

That's all I can think of for now. If I think up more I will post.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Sinister Schemes: A book showing a variety of nasty creatures as masterminds and how to insert them as villains and story hooks for a campaign. Focus on using lesser used or unusual creatures.

The Wizard's Guild: (Alternatively just Guilds) Show some standard guilds - Thieves' Guilds, Wizards Guilds, etc. The structure, personalities and some brief adventure ideas.

Fantastic Locations: Provide a list of unusual places which can be dropped into any campaign between adventures. Mythic and iconic locations, such as a wizard's tower, a mysterious castle, etc.

Seduction of the Innocent: Ideas on how to use villains who do not resort to violence (or do only rarely). Villains who manipulate, lie, seduce and confuse. Evil bards, succubi, king's advisers. etc. This would require PCs to find other ways to deal with bad guys.

Complete Guide to Decompression (or something like that) Between adventures sometimes players want something that explores their character - romance, mystery, intrigue , etc. as opposed to simple dungeoneering and dungeon crawling. This could set up ways to actually launch mini-campaigns that can be done between sword swinging and spell slinging adventures.

Ultimate Setting Guide: This would detail how to run different types of campaign and what kind of mood you want to try for. Horror, romance, high adventure, pulp, and intrigue could be some of the settings described.

Cults of the Damned: Evil religious fanatics are always great bad guys with wonderful motivations. There are enough demons and other powerful entities out there which can provide the basis for cults with designs that can run counter to the PCs.

The Complete Book of Flumphs: Honestly, does this even need an explanation?

 

[Morrus]

I have an important dinner with Russ Morrissey, Larry King, Stephen Colbert, Regis & Kelly, and Oprah a week from today at GenCon and I need short descriptions of each to give to them.

Look, Scott, what have I told you about your attempts to get me and Oprah together?

 

[diaglo]

you are putting me in charge of fluff.

whoa.

okay then.

first things first.

1. The Complete Idiots Guide to d02 Roleplaying
The book that teaches you how to have fun with the game. No mechanics included.

2. Dungeon Mastering for Dummies
The book to teach the Dungeon Master how to gauge his group. Sample surveys included. Again no mechanics involved.


3. Ye Olde Historye of thee Gamee
This is the fluff behind why we use Vancian magic. Why attacks of opportunity have always existed in the game since Chainmail. The Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How Come.

4. Follow the Yellow Brick Road
The way to get more story into your roleplaying. Ways to entice your fellow players to open up their imaginations. No more. I roll d20 and hit. miss. swing. I cast Magic Missile or attack the Darkness only.

5. Success or Failure The economics and physics of the game. NO MECHANICS included.

6. Because I Said So The Rule 0 of Rule 0. The means and the methods of getting the group to agree on the game you are playing.

7. The Beermiesters Stein: Homebrew Recipes This is Beer & Pretzels gaming.

8. Simple does not mean Easy Ways to cut the mechanics from a game but still have too much stuff to do.

 

[Razz]

you are putting me in charge of fluff.

whoa.

okay then.

first things first.

<snip>

You're pretty gung-ho on turning D&D into Amber eh?

 

[elijah snow]

It's been said:

1. Fiendish Codex III: Yugoloths
2. Complete Sigil, City of Doors: Begin with a city setting, then open some of those doors to adventures on other planes
3. Complete Greyhawk
4. The Book of Elementals

And:

5. Expedition to Dark Sun, the Burnt World of Athas
6. Complete Book of Unusual PCs: Epic Level, Savage Species, and Templates
7. Expedition Against the Giants
8. Expedition to the Worlds of the Eternal Champion: The Moorcock Campaign Setting (I can dream, right?)

 

[Kaodi]

The Planewalker's Eberron: The definitive guide to the planes of Eberron. Contains fifteen chapters, one for each of the thirteen orbiting planes, one for the transitive planes and one for the material plane, which would focus on the thirteen moons and Ring of Siberys, but would include notes on some of the other planets that may exist in Eberron. Also, an appendix would include a planar timeline, dating from the beginning of the Age of Giants to the present.

Earth's Children: I've never really gotten into the Forgotten Realms as a game setting, so I don't know if anything like this has been done before. This book would focus on the connection between our reality and the Forgotten Realms, and on the exploits of the men and women of Earth who would their way into the Forgotten Realms. Unless of course I'm completely mistaken about the relation between the two, if there is any, this would be the guide to why the Forgotten Realms are Forgotten.

I'd also do Heroes of Intrigue and Heroes of Mystery. As well, a book called Everyday Heroes (emphasis on Every) which would focus on the things you do in between traditional adventures, like leading the heroic life. The target audience of this book would be those for whom name level is important.

As an experiment, maybe the Complete Roleplayer, a book aimed at the player rather than the character.

Breakaway: A single book detailing the remaining nations of Khorvaire that gained their independance during the Last War, as well as the Demon Wastes. Format would be identical to Five Nations.

Secrets of the Ancients: The guide to Aerenal and Argonessen. Format would include elements of both Five Nations & Secrets of Xen'drik. Aerenal would be detailed similarly to the Five Nations, but Argonessen would be less precise on locations the further into the interior one goes, instead detailing encounters and adenture frameworks.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I would work with the author of an ENWorld Story Hour to create a free weekly (or bi-weekly) PDF download for the DI that chronicles an ongoing D&D campaign from the viewpoint of the characters (much like the Voyage of the Princess Ark). Such a thing could serve as a great way to bring non-gamers into the hobby by showing them how the game is experienced, rather than lining up yet another weak "Example of Play" script that reads like poor stage direction.

Hands down the best suggestion in this thread so far.