D20 Modern Spectaculars Canceled

[bolen]

We've heard from two seperate sources (one of whom is an industry muckety-muck) that Alliance says it's cancelled. Alliance may be making a mistake, but we've moved beyond the realm of unconfirmed rumor.

That's right if you hear something twice from two different sources it must be true!!!! (J/K)

 

[hobgoblin]

source critique i guess is a fitting word right now. i think that unless somone can point to something directly from WOTC, its are rumors so far...

 

[malladin]

From what I know in my (admintedly limited) experience of distribution channels, if a distributor publishes details about a book, they've got those details from the publisher.

There may be some miscommunication, or you might have the "false negative" sitaution occuring when the distributor has been told but it has slipped through their internal systems and they don't publish the information, but a flase positive I would have thought would be rare. I would only think that such things would occur if the distributor got misinformed by someone at Wizards, or if wizards themselve are deliberately putting out some misinformation about their products, neither of which I woudl say is likely.

I would have thought that it would be very bad business practice for a distributor to deal in rumours. There's certainly no benefit I can see in them doing so. You have to remember that their customers are the stores, not the fans. If a distributor messes about with schedules and dodgy information, they're just going to annoy their customers, who want accurate and up to date information.

From what I've seen of the way information gets passed around, the Distributors are normally the first to know. I found out the release date of Upload: Etherpunk (our latest Etherscope release) through a distributor website before Joseph emailed as the author (although that's a kind-of, as I did know roughly when to expect it before hand, but it does illustrate my point, I think).

I think in our day and age there's so many conspiracy theories that people are losing their ability to critically analyse all situations and just putting everything down to rumour, even when a source is equally reliable as any "official" announcement.

Ben

 

[Yuan-Ti]

I think in our day and age there's so many conspiracy theories that people are losing their ability to critically analyse all situations and just putting everything down to rumour, even when a source is equally reliable as any "official" announcement.
Ben

Nicely said.

 

[Bretbo]

Cancelled? KKKHHHAAANNN!!!

 

[hobgoblin]

right now for me its more a case that people seems to have info from two diffrent sources, but those again have it from the same source. now if it was two diffrent sources on that layer as well, i would concider it likely to be truth. but as its just one source, and not wotc, things become a bit foggy...

 

[Morgenstern]

Didn't d20 Modern come out before Spycraft?

WotC announced d20 Modern at the same GAMA we were putting Spycraft books in people's hands - about 3 months after we gave courtesy copies to WotC and about 8 months before Modern hit the shelves.

I am certainly curious about Spectaculars though. I was wondering what their take on super-y-ness might look like.

 

[jaerdaph]

Well, I guess opinions vary as to who does stuff better.

I'm not sure what you have in mind as far as "retreads"...with a generic modern system, there are certain books that are sort of a given --- a sci-fi supplement, post-apocalypse, a book of weapons, some popular historical eras, etc. Inevitably, if WotC doesn't get there quick, someone else will get there first.

Maybe the book got pulled because the whole line has been underperforming...that's plausable. But based on Kenneth Hite's recent Out of the Box article about the extent to which WotC dominates the industry, I'm skeptical about 3rd party games stealing d20 Modern sales --- and I say that as both a fan and a designer of third party d20 products.

True, it all comes down to personal opinion and preference. I think companies like Adamant and RPGObjects, to name just a two, have done a better job with similar subject matter, either before WotC got around to it after. Thrilling Tales and Sidewinder Recoiled come to mind as prime examples of such products for me. I'm not really in to post-apoc, but Darwin's World comes to mind as well. YMMV.

But d20 Modern doesn't have the brand name strength or longevity that D&D has. So when everyone and their brother puts out a fantasy RPG ships and the seas supplement, those all but get pushed to the side, no matter how good they are, when WotC puts out Stormwrack (or whatever it was called) for "official" D&D. I don't think that happens as much with d20 Modern.

What I'm not saying is that the WotC d20 Modern products are bad, but some are stronger than others, and there are parts that I like in each. The weaker ones tend to do too much in too little space (d20 Past, d20 Future Tech). The stronger ones concentrate on one subject (d20 Apocolypse. Sadly we'll never know about Spectaculars). I would rather have seen d20 Pulp, d20 Victorian Horror, d20 Spaceships and for those who are fans of the genre, d20 Mecha, rather than d20 Past and d20 Future Tech.

I am excited by the possibility of a d20 Modern Dark*Matter. If that is successful for them, I hope they follow up with d20 Star*Drive, d20 Top Secret, and more.

If anything, WotC isn't giving up on d20 Modern, but looking at a new direction to increase interest and ultimately sales. And that can only be a good thing.

Edit: And at the end of the day, I don't even need d20 Spectaculars to use d20 Modern for supers. I already have Blood and Vigilance and Four Color to Fantasy Revised.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

While I don't NEED Spectaculars, I'd have really liked to see what WotC did with it.

Hopefully we still will and this is just an unfortunate miscommunication of some sort.

--fje

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Or they may have cancelled the title, but not the product. Perhaps the new name might be Maelstrom...

*EDIT* The last D20 Modern supplement I bought was D20 Past, and it so disappointed me that I have not looked at another D20 Modern book since.

The Auld Grump