D&D Brand Manager of Fluff

[Jared Rascher]

I wouldn't want prcs for specialty priests. I'd want class variants done in the manner of the cloistered cleric to show more distinction at the start among priests of various deities.

I understand that, but part of the point is that only the major deities would be given these, and that the main emphasis would be on providing options to more closely model the old specialty priests. Some of them can be done fairly easily with a domain and some feats, or as you mention, alternate class features, but some had some very divergent abilities that can't really be modeled with the tools at hand, and some can be, but not in an efficient manner.

But I get what you are saying. Having a PrC for a Ilbrandlin cleric that doesn't know he worships Shar is probably going a bit too far, for example.

 

[stonehill_troll]

It'd be interesting to see count up to see how many times fey, giant, Zakhara/Kara-Tur/Maztica and some of these other books were suggested/requested.

Quite often, but does it provide a valid guessimate that said popularity translates into sufficient sales that WOTC should invest in the cost of developing, designing and printing said books. I believe it is very difficult to judge if a specific theme/topic has the potential sales for development based on internet feedback.

Take a look at Magic of Incarnum over on WOTC's board, from a poster's poll it would appear to be very popular. Yet Chris Perkins and other WOTC employees have stated at last year's GENCON and in recent threads a month or so ago, that Magic of Incarnum was the worst seller, something along the lines of "...this book was too niche and we do not want to repeat this again..." Compared this to MMIV which got many complaints (here and on WOTC's own boards) and yet was described as one of the best sellers and despite the many complaints the same general theme/outline was repeated in MMV. They did do some tweaking that probably will make it another best seller for them.

The same can describe Epic, Savage Species, and Psionics, niche theme topics, popular with a vocal group of posters, but did not translate into large number of sales. People that "really" want (or dislike) something are usually very vocal about it, but IME the great majority of potential customers are not quite so interested in themes/topics that vary too far from the baseline game (at least in my view). Also you would think since Epic and Psionics are in the SRD and not getting support from WOTC, 3rd party publishers would be flooding the market with adventures, monsters, feats, etc., yes early on there was 3rd party support for psionics, but it seemed to have died out and epic has seen little support 3rd party publishers. I believe there is less than a dozen PDF products for epic.

Internet feedback is very difficult to data mine for what actual sales might be. I look at my 2 groups of 15 players (30-40s, married people with good incomes, most have been playing for 20+ years) I can see that;

0 players are likely to purchase a Zakhara/Kara-Tur/Maztica (practically all games are homebrew, with homebrew adventures)
1 player will buy a Fey book
1 player is likely to buy a Psionic follow-on book
1 player is likely to buy FC3: Yugloths
3 players will buy the giant monster theme book (the 3 DMs, includes myself)
6 players will orc/hobgoblin monster theme book (the 3 DMs, and a few players to get the feats)
~8 players will buy Tome of Battle 2 (the more we play it the more we are finding it is a power boost...., we like the idea overall, but the game does not need any more power ups)
~10 players will buy Complete Warrior 2 (A year ago I could have said all 15, but the recent complete books have proven to be less than stellar, the feats that work from a baseline of encounter limitations versus a daily limit is one reason "I" chose not to purchase these books and don't allow in my campaign)
15 players will buy Feat Compendium
12 players will buy Class Compendium
10 players will buy Spell Compendium 2
....

It's pretty obvious in my view that the internet provides very conflicting feedback as to what people want, don't want, and what the masses will actually purchase and therefore profitable to design, develop, and publish.

This is not to say that WOTC should not "experiment" with new ideas. They mentioned at last year's GENCON that Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic, and Tome of Battle were experiments. Magic of Incarnum stank, Tome of Magic was a best seller for the year, and Tome of Battle was a sell out, had to go back for a second or more reprints I believe. I guess sometimes the consumer does't know they want something until they see it/play it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is sort of drifting away from the original topic, but is it just me or has "would also include some crunch", "this is actually crunch, but I want it" been heard many times so far?

Is this an indication that people don't really want fluff-only books?

It's an indication that WotC doesn't really put out fluff only books. Most people on this board have never even heard of the company's Practical Guide to Dragons and Practical Guide to Monsters. The Grand History of the Realms might be the only 100 percent fluff D&D book coming out in the 3E era -- Forge of War certainly had crunch -- and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they snuck a little crunch in.

 

[Sucros]

First of all, I'm going to echo the call for a FCIII. The book will have to be slightly different than the previous two, covering three planes in less detail (although still nine layers), and will require republishing a number of the classic yugoloths yet again. Ultraloth, arcanaloth, marreanoloth (perhaps with actual combat abilities beyond dumping the PCs in the styx), mezzoloth, nycaloth and cannoloth are all required, and should be stretched out over a 1-20 level range. Other new daemons should expand on the mercenary aspect of the yugoloth culture.

Sons of Gith: Should be modeled off of drow of the underdark. This book will go into the culture and society of the githzerai and githyanki to the greatest extent yet. The first two chapters should spend ample time exploring the culture, society, history, and territory of each race. Crunchy chapters should include some psionic content, including mind-flayer themed rules.

Lands of eras: This eberron location supplement will go into details about the nations of q'barra, the demon wastes, and the shadow marches, three relatively unknown locations on the eberron map. Besides covering the society today and the powerful organizations involved, room will be given to delve into ancient pasts of all three nations, giving dms and pcs access to information from the earliest eras of eberron's history.

Sigil, city of doors: along the same lines as waterdeep and sharn, Sigil will be a city sourcebook intended for D&D core, but drawing fully on the history and lore of planescape. To make this gripping and interesting, an ideal situation would be to reintroduce the absent factions and sects back to sigil, creating an open situation where the big fifteen and numerous upstarts vie for a fresh piece of the centre of the multiverse.

Planes of Eberron: This book should endeavor to make the planes more accessible to PCs in eberron. Plots, adventure seeds, and locations should be the center focus of the book, with a large stress on "getting there". By no means should this be a "manual of the eberron planes", encompassing everything, but rather a "secrets of xendrik" set on the planes.

Another campaign setting: Perhaps somewhere in between the scope of eberron and the scope of ghostwalk, either a sourcebook on a dead setting, or a campaign setting for something radically different but still D&D, much in the way dark sun and spelljammer were massive diversions from existing D&D.

The remaining two are pending editing sir.

 

[barsoomcore]

I loved my OA hardcover back in the AD&D 1E days, but "Oriental Adventures" still sounds like a porn site to me.

Good idea. Scott?

Oriental Adventures is very iconic for D&D and has strong potential.

Great news. But I meant the porn site. There's fluff with POTENTIAL.

 

[Jared Rascher]

Would these be new settings or current but fallow settings? For example would a 300 page Planescape, Ravenloft, or Dark Sun setting book be enough for everyone?

I understand that WOTC can't fully support a wide range of Campaign Settings, and my main interests lie in the Forgotten Realms, but a "Campaign Option" single shot book of Greyhawk, Planescape, Ravenloft, or Dark Sun would likely get some of my money as well. But I wouldn't be likely to follow a "full line" of any of them.

 

[marune]

The only products I get from WoTC is FR "fluff" so I'll give only FR suggestions :

Grand History of The Realms : oops ! You already did it ! That's great!

1. Faiths of Faerûn : Like many said previously, more details about each faith : the rituals, the orders, the holydays, etc. Also, at the end, an extended Temple/Shrine list of all faiths (start with the one available on Candlekeep).

2. Beyond Faerûn : Everyting you need to plan a trip for Faerunian adventurers to Kara-Tur, Zhakara, Maztica, Anachrome, Osse, etc.

3. Cities of the Heartlands : In FRA style.

4. Life in Faerûn : In PoF style, finally giving Ed Greenwood the space to talk about the common folks of the Realms and how they live.

5. Faces of Faerûn : An NPC book featuring the tons of NPC that can be found in Ed's notes and past game material, or NPCs that got a minor role in his (or others) novels. In other words, no Chosen, Drizzt nor "just created" NPC by randomly chosen designer. For example, look at Ed's answers on Candlekeep for his "top ten money bags in Faerûn".

6. Candlekeep's secrets : Firstly, a chapter about Candlekeep itself than a collection of written lore : Stories, mysteries, bard's songs, everything you want. Some "out of game" sidebars could be added if usefull.

From a previous poster :

7. The Howling Hordes : sourcebook on the goblinoids of Faerûn (goblins, orcs et. al.).

8. The Hidden City : sourcebook on the returned city of Rhymanthiin introduced in Steven Schend's 'Blackstaff' novel.


... and one I'm sure will never be done : A full art book that picture different landscape, cities & towns, famous NPCs (including monstrous ones), etc. Same kind of thing that was done for LoTR. Of course I know it wouldn't be cheap.

 

[Jared Rascher]

Also, while I'm thinking about it, while I like the "Campaign Option" books, I think you would have to be careful how many you release in a given year. You can easily glut the market and cut your own profit base if you threw a bunch of these into the same year, but if you slipped, say Planescape and Ravenloft into the same year, both of these can dovetail on a lot of other campaigns, and might not be as bad as if you released Dark Sun or Greyhawk as well at the same time.

I've really liked a lot of other ideas. I was trying to "play along" and not throw everything I want out of Faerun in at one shot, but I will also admit my list isn't 100% "by the rules," since I wouldn't advocate abandoning Eberron, but I couldn't seriously come up with anything for it given what I know of the place.

 

[3catcircus]

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting: A revision of the the classic D&D high fantasy setting for any edition of the game. No rules, just realmslore and maps. By Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, Sean K Reynolds and Rich Baker. 320 pages.

Greyhawk Campaign Setting: A revision of the the classic D&D fantasy setting for any edition of the game. By Erik Mona and Sean K Reynolds. 224 pages.

Mystara Campaign Setting: A revision of the the classic D&D High Fantasy setting for any edition of the game. By Aaron Allston & Bruce Heard (?). 224 pages.

Revised Manual of the Planes. A comprehensive guide to the planes for any edition of the game. By Wolfgang Baur, James Jacobs and Jeff Grubb. 224 pages.

Beyond Faerûn: The lands beyond Faerûn. By Ed Greenwood, Wolfgang Baur, Sean K Reynolds and Jeff Grubb. 224 pages.

Faith of Faerûn: A comprehensive look on the churches of Faerûn. By Ed Greenwood and Eric Boyd. 160 pages.

Cities of the Heartlands: Chapter 4 from Forgotten Realms Adventures (1990) updated and expanded. By Ed Greenwood, George Krashos, Jeff Grubb and Eric Boyd. 1648 pages.

Epic Adventures: Plot hooks and advice on running epic level adventures, with 3.5 conversion of the remaining epic character rules and fast monster advancement rules. By Wolfgang Baur and James Jacobs, with Bruce Cordell. 160 pages.

Remove SKR from the list of authors, and I'll buy every single title here. Sorry, I just find his seemingly-arbitrary not-good changes to some of the Forgotten Realms stuff to be unpalatable, especially the cosmology debacle.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Great news. But I meant the porn site. There's fluff with POTENTIAL.

And a whole different meaning for the word "fluff."