Steel_Wind
Legend
Actually, on the whole setting issue - I think Erik is doing the right thing, overall.
To be clear, they have not said they will be dumping generic content; only that they will be featuring more setting specific content.
This makes perfect sense, when you think about it.
In the good old days, harken back to #39's "Good Hits and Bad Misses" mentioned above, The Dragon was the only game in town:
In other words, things like Out on a Limb (reader mail) was as close as we got to an ENworld community feel, short of chatting it up at a con. Most importantly, we didn't get new rules at all other than what was leaked out in The Dragon over time. So yeah....
No wonder that was the golden age of Dragon.
Fast forward to 2005:
So the good old days of Dragon as being the sole purveyor of community and crunch are long gone.
Adventures are for Dungeon - and they are doing it well.
So what are you left with?
Some crunch, to be sure, but in the main the best thing to sell is something that is in demand and not available anywhere else:
And that means fluff - and protected IP fluff at that.
Focussing on more material about WotC specific settings, not so much via crunch treatment but in respect to a Volo's approach to fluff is something that Dragon can do and no one else can. It's also something that makes sense in terms of a need in the marketplace.
Too much 3E Greyhawk setting material about? I think not. Eberron? Nope (not yet at any rate). FR? - maybe. But the FR is a very large place and 3E wise - the surface has been barely scratched on a lot of places in the Realms.
(I presume that DragonLance, while a "supported" setting in the sense that WotC published the DLCS - it not likely to get much attention. DL seems to be in a special category of it own.)
Anyways - looking at it from the sense of what there is some demand for and what Dragon can do to fill a niche - that does make a fair bit of sense. And I'm sure that generic material will continue; moreover, there isn't much from GH or FR that you can't kitbash to your homebrew in any event.
To be clear, they have not said they will be dumping generic content; only that they will be featuring more setting specific content.
This makes perfect sense, when you think about it.
In the good old days, harken back to #39's "Good Hits and Bad Misses" mentioned above, The Dragon was the only game in town:
- There was no internet;
- TSR was lucky to put out a new Rules supplement once every 12-18 months, let alone one or two new hardcovers a *month*
- The OGL D20 license was, instead of something embraced, something TSR spent a fair bit of effort expunging;
- there was no pdf market nor a pdf black market, either
In other words, things like Out on a Limb (reader mail) was as close as we got to an ENworld community feel, short of chatting it up at a con. Most importantly, we didn't get new rules at all other than what was leaked out in The Dragon over time. So yeah....
No wonder that was the golden age of Dragon.
Fast forward to 2005:
- Dragon is no longer the community "meeting place for gamers" and never will be again. To the extent that place exists for D&D players - you happen to be reading it now;
- WotC official rules come out at an unimaginable fast speed compared to then;
- Third party rules come out faster than you can literally read them;
- We are, fairly stated, floating in an absolute excess of crunch.
So the good old days of Dragon as being the sole purveyor of community and crunch are long gone.
Adventures are for Dungeon - and they are doing it well.
So what are you left with?
Some crunch, to be sure, but in the main the best thing to sell is something that is in demand and not available anywhere else:
And that means fluff - and protected IP fluff at that.
Focussing on more material about WotC specific settings, not so much via crunch treatment but in respect to a Volo's approach to fluff is something that Dragon can do and no one else can. It's also something that makes sense in terms of a need in the marketplace.
Too much 3E Greyhawk setting material about? I think not. Eberron? Nope (not yet at any rate). FR? - maybe. But the FR is a very large place and 3E wise - the surface has been barely scratched on a lot of places in the Realms.
(I presume that DragonLance, while a "supported" setting in the sense that WotC published the DLCS - it not likely to get much attention. DL seems to be in a special category of it own.)
Anyways - looking at it from the sense of what there is some demand for and what Dragon can do to fill a niche - that does make a fair bit of sense. And I'm sure that generic material will continue; moreover, there isn't much from GH or FR that you can't kitbash to your homebrew in any event.
