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I think TSR was right to publish so much material
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<blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 5301030" data-attributes="member: 158"><p>From my perspective:</p><p></p><p>1) Because what I write for the setting won't be contradicted by later material causing any setting purists who know about the discrepancy to scoff. There's less fuss if there isn't any setting info to contradict, say, if Lord Winter turns out to be a 1000-year-old shapeshifter in human form.</p><p></p><p>2) Eventually, most campaigns die, due to either changing schedules, a burned-out DM, or simply interest in a new game system or campaign setting. A select few have multi-year campaigns running, but for most average gamers, why buy reams and reams and reams of material if, a year from now, you probably won't be playing it, and likely won't return for another two or three years?</p><p></p><p>3) Players need to usually be hooked into a setting in just a few paragraphs. If you want a new player to be invested in a setting, handing them a whole gazetteer is a strong way to turn them off from a setting. In most cases I've ever seen, the only people in D&D who want to read tons of setting material are the DMs, and usually DMs who spend more time reading the material than actually prepping or gaming with the material.</p><p></p><p>Now, that said, there definitely IS a place for huge involved settings - When prepping for my Eberron 4E games, I still like reading older books for ideas, even if I don't strictly need it to make a fun game session. However, from a business standpoint, it's VERY hard to get a larger number of players interested in supporting a game setting line for more than a half dozen products in it. Paizo has a subscription base, which helps them out. However, they're also not supporting anything but Golarion. They're sticking with one setting, its rule support, and little else. personally I'd be kind of bored with playing one setting for years on end, which leads into my point #2, above. After about six to eight months of playing one campaign, I'm ready to wrap it up and move on, using just a mini-arc from 1 to 10, or 5 to 13, etc.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Henry, post: 5301030, member: 158"] From my perspective: 1) Because what I write for the setting won't be contradicted by later material causing any setting purists who know about the discrepancy to scoff. There's less fuss if there isn't any setting info to contradict, say, if Lord Winter turns out to be a 1000-year-old shapeshifter in human form. 2) Eventually, most campaigns die, due to either changing schedules, a burned-out DM, or simply interest in a new game system or campaign setting. A select few have multi-year campaigns running, but for most average gamers, why buy reams and reams and reams of material if, a year from now, you probably won't be playing it, and likely won't return for another two or three years? 3) Players need to usually be hooked into a setting in just a few paragraphs. If you want a new player to be invested in a setting, handing them a whole gazetteer is a strong way to turn them off from a setting. In most cases I've ever seen, the only people in D&D who want to read tons of setting material are the DMs, and usually DMs who spend more time reading the material than actually prepping or gaming with the material. Now, that said, there definitely IS a place for huge involved settings - When prepping for my Eberron 4E games, I still like reading older books for ideas, even if I don't strictly need it to make a fun game session. However, from a business standpoint, it's VERY hard to get a larger number of players interested in supporting a game setting line for more than a half dozen products in it. Paizo has a subscription base, which helps them out. However, they're also not supporting anything but Golarion. They're sticking with one setting, its rule support, and little else. personally I'd be kind of bored with playing one setting for years on end, which leads into my point #2, above. After about six to eight months of playing one campaign, I'm ready to wrap it up and move on, using just a mini-arc from 1 to 10, or 5 to 13, etc. [/QUOTE]
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I think TSR was right to publish so much material
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