D&D General Fall of Netheril- The Return of the Arcane Age Subsetting

[Henadic Theologian]

Why do you think that there will be a ton of "DLCs"?

I think that if they announce 3, then you can expect 3.

I also think that there being DLCs is just someone's idea of how to monetize material that was developed for the books, but didn't fit.

Apparently, it's common that they develop a ton of material for each book, but have to make a lot of cuts when they get down to final page counts. All it would take, IMO, is for some exec to wonder about the wasted development expense, and they get to polish the cut content for DLCs (as Digital content isn't beholden to page counts in quite the same way).

While it would have taken extra development to make the cut content "ready for prime time", it would take much much more effort to make even more "DLCs".

I mean, if it's a success, we will probably see this again for future products, but I doubt we will see more related to these products. (Unless, of course, a future product is itself related to these books).

Except this isn't overflow material at all. They made it clear that that material too niche to ever be considered the two books. There was never any way Astarion's Book of Hunger was ever considered for those books, I mean it has what 18 vampire themed feats, way too focused on a niche subject. And Netheril is way in the past when these books are hyper focused on the present. If these DLCs are profitable they will do more of them.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I suspect that the stuff that will be low cost DLC will be the stuff that almost makes it to the final lay out pass. That stuff that was commissioned before they decided on the final focus of a book. Given that they discard 50% probably means that there are whole chapter in near publishable state sitting on their archives that never see the light of day because it did not fit thematically of tonally with other submissions for a project.

Except if you look at the two known DLCs that are too niche too fit your theory.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Except this isn't overflow material at all. They made it clear that that material too niche to ever be considered the two books. There was never any way Astarion's Book of Hunger was ever considered for those books, I mean it has what 18 vampire themed feats, way too focused on a niche subject. And Netheril is way in the past when these books are hyper focused on the present. If these DLCs are profitable they will do more of them.

Shrug.

I think that if you have material that was, in early development, meant to go in a book, but it's decided that it will be offered as a "DLC" (why are we still calling it that?) then you're also given permission to go further out than you otherwise would.

Sure, this is speculation, but I could easily see how what starts as a history chapter on Netheril can easily morph into a Netheril time-travel adventure.

The truth is probably somewhere in between - some material might come from outtakes, and others developed for "DLCs" directly.

Either way, this is almost certainly an experiment. We'll only see more of them if they're successful.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We can't forget one point: if the time-travel is canon in the cosmology of the D&D multiverse then there is some possibilities of alternate timelines, for example the worlds of Greyhawk, FR and Dragonlance being invaded by the Vodoni empire (Spelljammer faction).