D&D 5E Is the "setting guide" format defunct?

[Manchu]

knowing the destination has always been antithetical to the point of D&D, the very reason for table top roleplaying at all (versus, say, a CRPG)

I have no evidence but it certainly seems that CRPGs are a key influence on APs.

 

[DMZ2112]

Point stands: FR qua campaign setting arose from play. We're getting off-track with hairsplitting again.

Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about FR, but we do seem to be arguing the same point from different angles.

It wasn't intended to be a permanent thing. The intent by the Planescape design crew was to eventually bring the Factions back into Sigil, advancing the setting metaplot through future products. However the setting was folded back into core, as opposed to a setting of its own, by TSR and those planned products never progressed past the conceptual stage.

Without knowing more about exactly how that was going to pan out I'm hard-pressed to admit that I'm wrong or prosecute my point. So I'll just let it be before the discussion gets too far off topic.

Personally I love the complexity of post-FW Sigil and the fact that you get to still play with the remaining factions, new ones, and the remnant believers of disbanded ones all trying to get back in or retain power in any way outside of calling themselves a faction. Plus you get to play with the power vacuum it all creates which is really a place where PCs can shine in helping or hindering those seeking to fill the factions' place, or seeking to fill it themselves.

Big ups.

That said, I tend to gloss over DVD as ever having happened in my home campaigns (incorporating the slender amount of 4e material on Sigil where it fits and discarding material that clearly only makes sense in the 4e cosmos).

DVD was 2nd Edition into 3rd. Or am I misunderstanding you?

I'd give a lung to be able to work on a 5e Planescape guide. Seriously. Dream project right there.

Why not just write your own, Shemeska? S'what I did, and you've actually got the industry chops to distribute yours in a meaningful fashion. Hell, I'd read it.

knowing the destination has always been antithetical to the point of D&D, the very reason for table top roleplaying at all (versus, say, a CRPG). Just so it's clear, I am speaking of my own opinion and preferences, not making an authoritative statement of fact.

Clearly!

I'll reiterate just for giggles: old material on a subjectl do not obviate the need for new materials on the same subject. If absolutely nothing else, new authors will create a fresh perspective.

Man, I am /tired/ of buying the same material over and over again, new perspective be damned. If that doesn't resonate with you I barely know from where to come at this argument.

A well written RPG book IMO (as a writer of them, btw) includes adventure seeds and inspirational ideas in every paragraph.

...Did you seriously just do that?

I have no evidence but it certainly seems that CRPGs are a key influence on APs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

To hypothetically apply this idea, would you (as a customer, DM or PC or both) prefer a Ravenloft AP or a Ravenloft setting guide?

I would want an adventure path.

Setting guides are 95% story elements, which are edition-neutral. If there is a setting guide in existence already for a particular setting, and I *know* of the setting enough to want to buy it... the only reason I'd buy an updated setting guide would be if the story of the setting had changed enough to invalidate a large percentage of the previous guide. If it doesn't, and it is obvious WotC isn't putting the man-hours and work into producing a comparable product to the older edition's guide... then I have no need or desire to buy it. I'll buy the bigger, better, more comprehensive guide from the previous edition and just update any mechanical needs to 5E myself.

I made that mistake in 4E-- buying the 4E Eberron player and DM books before realizing there was nothing in them that was better or more useful than the fantastic 3E Eberron campaign setting guide... it was pretty much a less-detailed rehash of material I already had. All I really got out of it was "official" rules on the game mechanics of specific Eberron bits-- races, classes, dragonmarks etc, but that wasn't worth the money to either produce or buy the product as far as I'm concerned.

At least with an AP, I'm getting something new. A new campaign arc to either use straight or stripmine for parts, along with a few new bits of story to the setting. I find those much more useful than a new setting guide that repeats information already available from previous guides, but in a probably much smaller and less detailed scale because WotC isn't spending the money to design and develop something bigger.

 

[Manchu]

I totally agree about the difference between 3E and 4E Eberron campaign guides -- but that gap was even worse when it came to FR. (IMO, the 3E FR setting book was one of the best products across all of 3E.) Now FR is the default setting of D&D and there's not even a setting book of 4E quality. This regression -- from good (in 2E), to excellent (3E), to poor (4E), to nothing (so far in 5E) -- is one of the reasons I wonder if the format itself is out of favor, to be replaced by the outsourced semiannual HC AP.

As much as I love setting books, I think the AP format has a lot to offer -- especially in terms of a demi-setting like Ravenloft. By demi-setting, I mean a setting which turns on a single genre conceit; in this case, Gothic Horror. Pathfinder basically did this in their Carrion Crown AP, which fleshed out the Ustalav region of Golarion (i.e., the Haunted House of the Pathfinder theme park).

 

[DEFCON 1]

I totally agree about the difference between 3E and 4E Eberron campaign guides -- but that gap was even worse when it came to FR. (IMO, the 3E FR setting book was one of the best products across all of 3E.) Now FR is the default setting of D&D and there's not even a setting book of 4E quality. This regression -- from good (in 2E), to excellent (3E), to poor (4E), to nothing (so far in 5E) -- is one of the reasons I wonder if the format itself is out of favor, to be replaced by the outsourced semiannual HC AP.

As much as I love setting books, I think the AP format has a lot to offer -- especially in terms of a demi-setting like Ravenloft. By demi-setting, I mean a setting which turns on a single genre conceit; in this case, Gothic Horror. Pathfinder basically did this in their Carrion Crown AP, which fleshed out the Ustalav region of Golarion (i.e., the Haunted House of the Pathfinder theme park).

I am using the 3E campaign guide and Silver Marches book for my Hoard of the Dragon Queen campaign precisely for this reason. Every time the players go off the beaten path, both books provide so much more specific information to use than would have been provided by any 5E FR campaign guide update I could imagine WotC would have produced.

Did I have to decide to set the campaign in 1372 (3E time) rather than 1489 (5E time)? Yup. Did I lose anything by doing so and not running in the "present day"? Not as far as I can tell.

And as far as Ravenloft specifically... if I really wanted to play a full Ravenloft campaign, why would I ever want to rely on a single (probably rather short or less-detailed) 5E book that WotC would produce, rather than going to dndclassics.com and grabbing anywhere from 5 to 8 much-more-detailed 2E PDF products for what would essentially end up amounting to probably the same cost?

 

[Manchu]

So you think if WotC did make a FR setting guide for 5E it would be more like the 4E one than the 3E one?

If so, that's kind of my feeling as well. As much praise as I have heaped on 5E since release ... as far as the level of background detail is concerned, 5E feels very superficial to me.

Another reason an AP makes sense for Ravenloft is once you are in a Dread Domain, you are pretty much stuck there until you have accomplished X, Y, and Z. If ever a setting was perfect for published adventures ...

 

[Reynard]

Man, I am /tired/ of buying the same material over and over again, new perspective be damned. If that doesn't resonate with you I barely know from where to come at this argument.

It is actually pretty simple: you don't have to buy it, just like I don't have to buy an AP. We vote with our dollars.

...Did you seriously just do that?

Do what, express an informed opinion based on actual experience? Yes, I think I may have.

 

[Staffan]

I don't personally think APs are a particularly good form of adventure. At the minimum, they assume far too much of the campaign real estate -- with most assuming the AP *is* the campaign.

That's sort of the point of adventure paths - a one-stop (or six-stop, as the case may be) shop for a whole campaign. They generally do that very well.

But that's not the only kind of adventure I personally would want to see - I'd like some smaller stuff as well, and maybe some shorter adventure series (perhaps a trilogy getting from 5 to 10 or something like that).