Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Dragon Talk Interview with Kate Welch re Ghosts of Saltmarsh
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Volund" data-source="post: 7575274" data-attributes="member: 6872597"><p>Today's <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_katewelch" target="_blank">Dragon Talk podcast</a> interview with Kate Welch, lead designer of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, offered a few more nuggets about this upcoming release. I pre-ordered GoS so I'm eager for any specifics about it. Some of this may be common knowledge, but here are some highlights that were new information for me.</p><p></p><p>Kobold Press was responsible for updating the old adventures to 5e.</p><p></p><p>The port city of Saltmarsh gets its own chapter. Best exchange of the podcast: "So what can you tell me about the town of Saltmarsh? ...Well, Saltmarsh is a pretty s#!tty place." There are different crime families and enterprises that are vying for control over Saltmarsh as well as law-abiding sailors. There will be "plenty of colorful new NPC's."</p><p></p><p>There will be stat blocks for ships, which we already got in the UA Of Ships and the Sea, and also more robust rules for underwater adventures than are found in the DMG.</p><p></p><p>For me, the most interesting part of the interview was about Greyhawk. If you are a fan of Greyhawk, and were hoping that GoS was a sign that WotC will be devoting a future release to exploring this legacy setting, Kate Welch's cavalier attitude about Greyhawk will break your heart. If her comments reflect the overall philosophy of the D&D team (aside from Mike Mearls) then we won't be seeing any Greyhawk updates ever.</p><p></p><p>Kate Welch: I saw a little bit of sadness in the community that it isn't a pure Greyhawk book, ha ha, and I know that Greyhawk has a ton of fans and a lot of fondness and nostalgia. I will say that Saltmarsh originally was a town from Greyhawk and we have extricated it from that setting and made it agnostic so you can put it in whatever setting. However, we have lots of little nods in there still to fans of Greyhawk who are excited about aspects of it. I think Tharizdun is a Greyhawk deity that we've got, and there is an adventure that has to do with him, so if you want to set this in Greyhawk this will be a wonderful time for you to do that and please feel free. But since so many people in 5e have been setting their campaigns in the Forgotten Realms, we didn't want them to feel that, "this is a book that is not useful for me"...</p><p>Until we actually do a robust Greyhawk setting book which - who knows - then it just makes more sense [to have agnostic settings] because like I said there is just so much FR campaigning that's going on in 5e that we want to make sure that everybody feels like they have stuff that is exciting to them in these books...</p><p>But I honestly don't know much about Greyhawk either...</p><p>It's easy to find people who are running in those vintage settings, so if it's something that's exciting to you those resources are definitely available. I don't know how much Greyhawk material is on the DMsGuild but that's probably where I would start looking if I wanted to find Fifth Edition old Greyhawk stuff, like if the Saltmarsh just wets your palette and you want to know more about that setting then you can definitely get out there and find stuff.</p><p></p><p>Greg Tito: You don't need to go in with a lot of lore or setting knowledge to enjoy D&D. I think there is a portion of the audience who enjoys that sort of stuff, and I am one of those people, but at the table it is not really necessary. I think the philosophy for 5e has been that from the get go, it's been like here's the setting of Forgotten Realms but you can do it anywhere.</p><p> </p><p>Kate: That's partially because we wanted 5e to be more new-player friendly, and also that having a barrier to playing D&D, and that barrier being you have to know a lot about the history and the lore, that's a gate. That's not something that a lot of people have time for or even interest in, so the idea of gating anything behind this sort of vintage knowledge, certainly knowledge that I don't have, so if that had been a requirement of this job I definitely wouldn't have been sitting here. I did research it. I researched everything. The Forgotten Realms is just the most popular setting, and that's all there is to it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Volund, post: 7575274, member: 6872597"] Today's [URL="http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_katewelch"]Dragon Talk podcast[/URL] interview with Kate Welch, lead designer of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, offered a few more nuggets about this upcoming release. I pre-ordered GoS so I'm eager for any specifics about it. Some of this may be common knowledge, but here are some highlights that were new information for me. Kobold Press was responsible for updating the old adventures to 5e. The port city of Saltmarsh gets its own chapter. Best exchange of the podcast: "So what can you tell me about the town of Saltmarsh? ...Well, Saltmarsh is a pretty s#!tty place." There are different crime families and enterprises that are vying for control over Saltmarsh as well as law-abiding sailors. There will be "plenty of colorful new NPC's." There will be stat blocks for ships, which we already got in the UA Of Ships and the Sea, and also more robust rules for underwater adventures than are found in the DMG. For me, the most interesting part of the interview was about Greyhawk. If you are a fan of Greyhawk, and were hoping that GoS was a sign that WotC will be devoting a future release to exploring this legacy setting, Kate Welch's cavalier attitude about Greyhawk will break your heart. If her comments reflect the overall philosophy of the D&D team (aside from Mike Mearls) then we won't be seeing any Greyhawk updates ever. Kate Welch: I saw a little bit of sadness in the community that it isn't a pure Greyhawk book, ha ha, and I know that Greyhawk has a ton of fans and a lot of fondness and nostalgia. I will say that Saltmarsh originally was a town from Greyhawk and we have extricated it from that setting and made it agnostic so you can put it in whatever setting. However, we have lots of little nods in there still to fans of Greyhawk who are excited about aspects of it. I think Tharizdun is a Greyhawk deity that we've got, and there is an adventure that has to do with him, so if you want to set this in Greyhawk this will be a wonderful time for you to do that and please feel free. But since so many people in 5e have been setting their campaigns in the Forgotten Realms, we didn't want them to feel that, "this is a book that is not useful for me"... Until we actually do a robust Greyhawk setting book which - who knows - then it just makes more sense [to have agnostic settings] because like I said there is just so much FR campaigning that's going on in 5e that we want to make sure that everybody feels like they have stuff that is exciting to them in these books... But I honestly don't know much about Greyhawk either... It's easy to find people who are running in those vintage settings, so if it's something that's exciting to you those resources are definitely available. I don't know how much Greyhawk material is on the DMsGuild but that's probably where I would start looking if I wanted to find Fifth Edition old Greyhawk stuff, like if the Saltmarsh just wets your palette and you want to know more about that setting then you can definitely get out there and find stuff. Greg Tito: You don't need to go in with a lot of lore or setting knowledge to enjoy D&D. I think there is a portion of the audience who enjoys that sort of stuff, and I am one of those people, but at the table it is not really necessary. I think the philosophy for 5e has been that from the get go, it's been like here's the setting of Forgotten Realms but you can do it anywhere. Kate: That's partially because we wanted 5e to be more new-player friendly, and also that having a barrier to playing D&D, and that barrier being you have to know a lot about the history and the lore, that's a gate. That's not something that a lot of people have time for or even interest in, so the idea of gating anything behind this sort of vintage knowledge, certainly knowledge that I don't have, so if that had been a requirement of this job I definitely wouldn't have been sitting here. I did research it. I researched everything. The Forgotten Realms is just the most popular setting, and that's all there is to it. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Dragon Talk Interview with Kate Welch re Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Top