Do you enjoy open-ended campaign settings?

[S'mon]

I like my campaign settings the way I like my comic books: multiple plot-lines, interesting characters, open ended stories, slow and gradual changes, continual updates, and continuous support, so I always have something to look forward to next month (or week, or year, etc... )

I think that works better if you're not actually running a regular game in the setting. Otherwise the metaplot can heavily constrain your PCs' freedom of action, they become extras in somebody else's tv show.

 

[Nightfall]

I liked Scarred Lands because it's the Scarred Lands, not because of the number of books.

 

[Wombat]

Most campaigns that I have worked with over the years have been open-ended, in that they have no specific number of episodes and probably only a vague goal, at least at the beginning. Over time they often develop a specific goal, as desired by the players.

So, sure, open-ended is fine with me.

 

[Kaodi]

I certainly want Eberron to have a finite number of supplements. I buy every one. :\

Of course, if you can theoretically afford to completely collect one thing in your life, I could probably do worse than Eberron. Comic books, with all of their attached products, are probably a lot more expensive, and I've seen a few of those people on Space, hehehe...

 

[Imaro]

I think the difference with a game like Promethean: The Created or Changeling: We Don't Know Yet is that, while Promethean will only ever be a five-book line, it's located within the World of Darkness.

Okay I can kinda see your point, but...

Not only is there a line of "core" World of Darkness supplements that can be used in a Promethean game - Mysterious Places, Antagonists, Armory, Second Sight, 13th Precinct, and so on - but the more unified approach to the setting means that quite a bit of material found in supplements for Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage can be used in your Promethean game. You don't need to be a werewolf to have a problem with spider-spirits that burrow into people's brains and take over their bodies, after all.

There are also a line of "core" D&D books. Books like Antagonists, Second Sight etc. serve the same purpose as the Complete books, Monster manual etc. They don't give you more options specifically for what encompases the Promethean mythos, instead they give you general options for your game that can optionally be added. You don't have to play a Duskblade to face one in a campaign, or supplant an order that features them in a setting.

With a D&D setting, we lack an overarching "meta setting" like the World of Darkness for the various lines. We used to have Spelljammer and Planescape, of course, but even those were much more concerned with their own material than adding to the existing settings. The basic reason they were all tied together was so you could bring characters from one into the other.

Isn't Eberron basically a "meta-setting"? Anything published by WotC has a place in Eberron. Greyhawk is also a meta-setting, since it is (supposedly) defined by anything in the rules.

Games with a limited set of supplements and no meta setting to connect them to other games have their upside, but from the point of view of a company's cashflow their major effect is to force the company to keep coming up with fresh and different products - if you refrain from expanding upon what you've already sold your customers, you have to come up with something new they, or a new slice of the market, wants.

Allright I totally see it from a cashflow perspective, but what if there is only a limited print run? I often wished WotC would do this for some of the 2nd ed. settings. Mongoose is doing this for Lankhmar and (I believe)the Eternal Champion books. The model is something like this...1 major campaign book(overview of world and detailed write-up of major places), a second campaign supplement(fills in the rest of the general world info and includes a scenario), finally a book of adventures and scenarios in the world. I think something like this for the Planescape, Dark Sun and (Not sure what the third most popular is) would be a cool thing, especially if new races, classes, feats and rules were included in the campaign books. That way it would offer something for those who aren't that interested in the actual world, and a limited print run would probably cause people to rush out and buy it just to have it.

The Forgotten Realms and Eberron keep getting supported with new books because it's simpler and more effective for your new releases to build upon books your customers have already bought.

Agree. But I wonder at what point the diminishing returns on even a setting such as Forgotten Realms reaches the point that it's books are selling at the same level or below something such as Promethean or Lankhmar. Just a thought, that's all.

Games like Blue Rose and Promethean are limited lines because they're of limited appeal in the market. It's literally not worth the effort to support them past a certain point because the returns don't justify it in comparison with other projects.

All that means is that Green Ronin and White Wolf ought to be congratulated for putting out something that serves a niche market for as long as they did - it shows a willingness to make "poorer" business decisions in order to please players.

I agree here as well. I just wish WotC was willing to do the same, even once in a while. I remember when adventures were considered "not worth it" but WotC has suddenly started producing regular adventures and even mega-adventures. With them revisiting classics, I am totally behind this idea. Picked up Ravenloft, gonna grab Demonweb(just cause its got Planescape goodness in it), and also the Greyhawk one.