Dearth of Creativity?

[mythusmage]

Is this death of creativity or a new slang work I'm too old to know?

Dearth Lack, a deficiency. "The dearth of books meant the children had to share what texts they had."

 

[Gothmog]

I'm talking about the "straight" conversations such as has been done and posted on ENWorld. The Expedition to... books are cool (I've already got Ravenloft), but they are not straight "conversions" so much as "re-interpretations."




The biggest conversions involve NPCs and traps. Remember when a "Half-Orc 2nd level Fighter, AC 4, hp 24, Longsword +1 1d8+1" was good enough?




That *is* what I am referring to - Book of Nine Swords, Complete..., Monster Manual IV - they are all a bunch of drek. The only releases I've enjoyed have been the "DM-Centric" books like Lords of Madness, Libris Mortis, and the Fiendish Codexes. Almost *everything* that is player-centric is not just abuseable, but *is* abused. The individual pieces are ok, but when you start combining things, it quickly breaks the game.



Agreed.



Well - really what my observation was about is that it seems that there was a lot of initial fan enthusiasm to create stuff for use with d20 that has seemed to die down.

Yeah, I'd say you'd hit the problem on the head 3catcircus. There isn't much 3rd party support for D&D anymore- instead they are focusing their efforts in new directions or their own D20 games. Green Ronin came out with True 20 which I love, but that also means their conventional D20/D&D releases are cut back. Caliphate Nights came out from Paradigm Concepts for True 20, and is a great Arabian Adventures setting (better than Al-Qadim in many respects). FFG still makes Midnight which is a great setting and very high quality, but again, a niche market with their own variants.

WotC on the other hand hasn't put out anything that has made me stop and think WOW in years now. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was well done but not ground breaking, Fiendiesh Codex I and (to a lesser degree) II left me cold- how can they take something with as much potential as fiends and make them, well, DULL? Those books failed IMO because they focused on stats, feats, spells, items and telling you what was going on behind the scenes rather than tantilizing our brains with cool plot hooks, ideas, or "fluff" about the fiends. This has become something my friends and I call "WotC syndrome". Tome of Battle sucked, and Tome of Magic had some decent ideas, but poor implementation. Red Hand of Doom was ok, but very simplistic and below the quality of many 2nd edition modules. The recent Monster Manuals were bad, and my expectations for WotC and D&D are so low now that there is NOTHING in the next year being released for D&D that has me excited. So the answer is yes, for D&D there is a serious and noticable dearth of inspiring materials, and has been for a few years.

Now that does NOT mean there isn't some cool, new, exciting stuff being made by other RPG designerns, its just not for D&D/D20 in most cases. For example, some of the best RPG products I have bought in the last ten years have been by Pinnacle for their Savage Worlds system, including the awesome new Deadlands Reloaded. They are also coming out with Soloman Kane, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and other cool new settings, and every one of their books has the WOW factor D&D used to hold for me, but lost. Likewise, Black Library/Green Ronin's Warhammer FRP 2 has the wow factor as well- an awesome setting, incredible production values, really interesting new ideas, AND great mechanics. D&D hasn't had those things for a long time for me, or for many people I know and game with. My advice for you is branch out and try something different- we rediscovered the WOW factor in our games, but its VERY far away from D&D/D20.

 

[3catcircus]

The dearth of creativity comes from the fact that much of the territory I would like to see explored is hard to create (alot harder than creating new feats, PrC's, base classes, spells, magic items, monsters, and well all the content currently coming out) and even if done well is probably is too specialized to sell well because its only going to appeal to that narrow set of DM's that sees the need and wants to run a campaign where it is relevant. Most DM's and players don't.

Agreed. A couple of the biggest problems I see in this area really has less to do with feats, PrCs, etc. And more to do with campaign world and adventure information.

How come the FRCS and Eberron hardcovers don't have climate maps showing weather patterns or topographic maps showing mountain heights and ocean depths? What about lat/long? Kalamar and Harn do. In general, WotC products are extremely sparse on *useful* information that makes the DM's job easier.

Dungeons and cities are just as bad in terms of useful information. As a comparison - I can look at a Harn map and determine: type of construction of: walls (wood, wattle-and-daub, rubble-filled stone, etc.), floors: (wood, stone, packed earth, sand, etc.), ceiling heights and type (sloping, vaulted, etc.), door material and locking mechanism (wood or iron-bound wood, latched, bolted, barred, locked, etc.), guard posts (type and % chance of being manned), etc. Additionally, I can see every level of a structure - including roof construction, relationships between levels (i.e. if a portion of the building ends on level 2, level 3 will show a dotted outline of that portion).

As far as I am concerned - this type of useful information is the single biggest problem with WotC (and 3rd party) d20 products in general. The Kingdoms of Kalamar atlas is far and away better than anything in FRCS or Eberron, and the Harnic-style Interior map should be considered the standard.

 

[3catcircus]

Yeah, I'd say you'd hit the problem on the head 3catcircus. There isn't much 3rd party support for D&D anymore- instead they are focusing their efforts in new directions or their own D20 games. Green Ronin came out with True 20 which I love, but that also means their conventional D20/D&D releases are cut back. Caliphate Nights came out from Paradigm Concepts for True 20, and is a great Arabian Adventures setting (better than Al-Qadim in many respects). FFG still makes Midnight which is a great setting and very high quality, but again, a niche market with their own variants.

WotC on the other hand hasn't put out anything that has made me stop and think WOW in years now. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft was well done but not ground breaking, Fiendiesh Codex I and (to a lesser degree) II left me cold- how can they take something with as much potential as fiends and make them, well, DULL? Those books failed IMO because they focused on stats, feats, spells, items and telling you what was going on behind the scenes rather than tantilizing our brains with cool plot hooks, ideas, or "fluff" about the fiends. This has become something my friends and I call "WotC syndrome". Tome of Battle sucked, and Tome of Magic had some decent ideas, but poor implementation. Red Hand of Doom was ok, but very simplistic and below the quality of many 2nd edition modules. The recent Monster Manuals were bad, and my expectations for WotC and D&D are so low now that there is NOTHING in the next year being released for D&D that has me excited. So the answer is yes, for D&D there is a serious and noticable dearth of inspiring materials, and has been for a few years.

Now that does NOT mean there isn't some cool, new, exciting stuff being made by other RPG designerns, its just not for D&D/D20 in most cases. For example, some of the best RPG products I have bought in the last ten years have been by Pinnacle for their Savage Worlds system, including the awesome new Deadlands Reloaded. They are also coming out with Soloman Kane, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and other cool new settings, and every one of their books has the WOW factor D&D used to hold for me, but lost. Likewise, Black Library/Green Ronin's Warhammer FRP 2 has the wow factor as well- an awesome setting, incredible production values, really interesting new ideas, AND great mechanics. D&D hasn't had those things for a long time for me, or for many people I know and game with. My advice for you is branch out and try something different- we rediscovered the WOW factor in our games, but its VERY far away from D&D/D20.

I generally accept that I'm gonna end up with the big let-down when it comes to WotC products, even the adventures which so far seem to be pretty good.

I am more and more drawn to the idea of playing Harn, HARP, or even old-school Twilight:2000, Delta Force, or TORG - simply because they are different. They may not be better, just a change of pace. It doesn't even have to provide a "WOW" factor, just a solid bit of information that is *useful*. It does me no good to have a cool campaign setting where I don't know how high the mountains are or how deep the oceans are. Likewise, a dungeon could be layed out really cool and have interesting features, but if I don't know how it is constructed and how it gets ventilation, it does me no good.

 

[Psion]

Take a look at the thread about "products that haven't been done".

In it, Mouseferatu opines that he and CA Suleiman would LOVE to do some things mention, like an Arabian setting. But they just know to do it justice, they'd have to expend more time on the project than the public would pay for.

Therein lies the rub, really. The more esoteric the idea, the less people are going to buy into it, and as a result, the less people are going to take the time to do a quality job of it.

To it's benefit, the early d20 era brought us a TON of creative material that pushed back the boundaries of fantasy gaming. The market wave that those products rode in on is gone.

But the products are still there.

If you are looking for creativity, consider the products that you have passed up. Or even, that you might have on your shelves but haven't used.

Gladly, many of these products that are hard to find now can still be had through PDF.

So browse around. Do a retrospective. See what people were excited about 2, 3, 4 years ago.

Me, I just finished scrounging up the last Oathbound book I was missing, have 2 more books to pick up for Scarred Lands, and am looking forward to using several products that I have yet to use that I bought long ago, like Libram Equitus Compiled (it looks like the cult of Corean will finally make an appearance) and Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptra.

 

[Turjan]

Is this death of creativity or a new slang work I'm too old to know?

"dearth
c.1250, derthe "scarcity," abstract n. formed from root of O.E. deore "precious, costly" (see dear). Originally used of famines, when food was costly because scarce."

I'm not good with slang from 1250, either .


My general feeling is one of saturation. Most relevant topics are done, and everything that comes out for 3.5 must necessarily be on the fringe. If you want to get exciting treatments of central topics, you are basically calling for a new edition.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

If you are looking for creativity, consider the products that you have passed up. Or even, that you might have on your shelves but haven't used.

I second that!

 

[Odhanan]

If you are looking for creativity, consider the products that you have passed up. Or even, that you might have on your shelves but haven't used.

Gladly, many of these products that are hard to find now can still be had through PDF.

So browse around. Do a retrospective. See what people were excited about 2, 3, 4 years ago.

This is great advice indeed.

 

[Turjan]

If you are looking for creativity, consider the products that you have passed up. Or even, that you might have on your shelves but haven't used.

What's the fun in that? Then I would not need to buy anything new till the end of my days.

 

[Psion]

What's the fun in that? Then I would not need to buy anything new till the end of my days.

Take your wife/gf/SO out on a date.

I think that overcoming the reluctance to use material that we buy bit is a bit too different is was sort of the point of buying it in the first place. So might as well take advantage of the fun you'd already paid for.