Listen to the full Gamehole Con Panel from WotC's Mearls, Perkins, and Crawford

Much of the information which has filtered through here to the community has been from reports of snippets from the panel held by WotC's Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, and Chris Perkins. Now, the whole panel has been released in full by Gaming and BS RPG Podcast. It's a couple of hours long -- "Recorded at Gamehole Con 2016, a tabletop gaming convention held in Madison, Wisconsin, this bonus episode features Mike Mearls, Christopher Perkins and Jeremy Crawford from Wizards of the Coast. This is the unedited seminar that they hosted. They discuss Volo’s Guide to Monsters, the differences in settings and the design approach to each one, field Q&A’s from the audience where someone asks about their own home rules that they use in their own D&D games." Thanks to Sean P Kelley for the scoop!

Much of the information which has filtered through here to the community has been from reports of snippets from the panel held by WotC's Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, and Chris Perkins. Now, the whole panel has been released in full by Gaming and BS RPG Podcast. It's a couple of hours long -- "Recorded at Gamehole Con 2016, a tabletop gaming convention held in Madison, Wisconsin, this bonus episode features Mike Mearls, Christopher Perkins and Jeremy Crawford from Wizards of the Coast. This is the unedited seminar that they hosted. They discuss Volo’s Guide to Monsters, the differences in settings and the design approach to each one, field Q&A’s from the audience where someone asks about their own home rules that they use in their own D&D games." Thanks to Sean P Kelley for the scoop!

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Dire Bare

Legend
Fantasy Flight Games, Obsidian Path. Both churn out the books! I broadly agree with your points overall, but thought that I'd chime in with this counterpoint.

Okay, name THREE companies . . . I kid! :)

Actually, I don't think either company quite matches TSR's output in its heydey, but these two would probably come the closest. And the way the both publish their RPGs makes the comparison a bit tricky, IMO.

For Obsidian Path (inheritors of White Wolf's catalog, mostly), they are doing a pretty good job of actively supporting (somewhat) the classic World of Darkness games, the "new" World of Darkness games (or, Chronicles of Darkness), Scarred Lands, and Exalted games (and the Trinity games too maybe?). Is the World of Darkness one RPG line or seven (or more)? For me, the various WoD games are different enough I consider them separate games, even though they share a rules system and story universe.

Obsidian is obviously making very good use of Kickstarter, but to my observation they are (somewhat) developing these many games lines serially, rather than simultaneously. And that's the difference right there.

I used to play a lot of WoD games in my youth in the 90s, but both then and now, I've never felt able to "keep up" with the spate of releases, as awesome as all of the individual games and supplements are.

Fantasy Flight has some amazing games in their back catalog, but to my knowledge they are only actively supporting their Star Wars games right now. Although, it wasn't long ago when it was both Star Wars and Warhammer 40K lines. Like Obsidian Path, is Star Wars one game line or three? Was the recently canceled WH40K games one line or five? Despite the similarities to the White Wolf/Obsidian Path model, I tend to look at both of those game lines as singular games with multiple focuses. But either way, Fantasy Flight has never kicked out books at the same pace as TSR back in the day, I'm fairly certain.

One of the reasons I'm NOT playing the new Star Wars game (maybe not so new at this point) is the feeling that I can't keep up with the three strands of that game and their supplements, I'd consider it if they wrapped them all into one core book . . . The only WH40K game I purchased was the Deathwatch RPG, because I love me some Sphes Mahrines.

Both of these companies however, are certainly putting out more content than WotC is for D&D right now. Is this making these games more profitable? Perhaps, but none of these companies will release sales figures, we may never know.
 

Corpsetaker

First Post
One of the reasons I'm NOT playing the new Star Wars game (maybe not so new at this point) is the feeling that I can't keep up with the three strands of that game and their supplements, I'd consider it if they wrapped them all into one core book . . . The only WH40K game I purchased was the Deathwatch RPG, because I love me some Sphes Mahrines.

This part of your argument is what I have a problem with. What exactly are you trying to "keep up with"?
 


MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
Fantasy Flight has some amazing games in their back catalog, but to my knowledge they are only actively supporting their Star Wars games right now.

Only listing hardcopy, non-POD products in the Star Wars lines:

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire
2012: Beginner Game
2012: Core Rulebook
2012: Game Master's Kit
2013: Suns of Fortune
2013: Enter the Unknown
2013: Beyond the Rim (adventure)
2014: Lords of Nal Hutta
2014: Far Horizons
2014: Dangerous Covenants
2014: The Jewel of Yavin (adventure)
2015: Fly Casual
2015: Mask of the Pirate Queen (adventure)
2016: Special Modifications

Star Wars: Age of Rebellion
2014: Beginner Game
2014: Core Rulebook
2014: Game Master's Kit
2014: Onslaught at Arda I (adventure)
2014: Stay on Target
2015: Desperate Allies
2015: Lead by Example
2015: Strongholds of Resistance
2016: Forged in Battle
2016: Friends Like These (adventure)

Star Wars: Force and Destiny
2015: Beginner Game
2015: Core Rulebook
2015: Game Master's Kit
2015: Nexus of Power
2015: Keeping the Peace
2015: Chronicles of the Gatekeeper (adventure)
2016: Savage Spirits
2016: Endless Vigil

A number of RPGs now released by FFG are pdf-only on DriveThruRPG...

Cheers!
 

gyor

Legend
Okay, name THREE companies . . . I kid! :)

Actually, I don't think either company quite matches TSR's output in its heydey, but these two would probably come the closest. And the way the both publish their RPGs makes the comparison a bit tricky, IMO.

For Obsidian Path (inheritors of White Wolf's catalog, mostly), they are doing a pretty good job of actively supporting (somewhat) the classic World of Darkness games, the "new" World of Darkness games (or, Chronicles of Darkness), Scarred Lands, and Exalted games (and the Trinity games too maybe?). Is the World of Darkness one RPG line or seven (or more)? For me, the various WoD games are different enough I consider them separate games, even though they share a rules system and story universe.

Obsidian is obviously making very good use of Kickstarter, but to my observation they are (somewhat) developing these many games lines serially, rather than simultaneously. And that's the difference right there.

I used to play a lot of WoD games in my youth in the 90s, but both then and now, I've never felt able to "keep up" with the spate of releases, as awesome as all of the individual games and supplements are.

Fantasy Flight has some amazing games in their back catalog, but to my knowledge they are only actively supporting their Star Wars games right now. Although, it wasn't long ago when it was both Star Wars and Warhammer 40K lines. Like Obsidian Path, is Star Wars one game line or three? Was the recently canceled WH40K games one line or five? Despite the similarities to the White Wolf/Obsidian Path model, I tend to look at both of those game lines as singular games with multiple focuses. But either way, Fantasy Flight has never kicked out books at the same pace as TSR back in the day, I'm fairly certain.

One of the reasons I'm NOT playing the new Star Wars game (maybe not so new at this point) is the feeling that I can't keep up with the three strands of that game and their supplements, I'd consider it if they wrapped them all into one core book . . . The only WH40K game I purchased was the Deathwatch RPG, because I love me some Sphes Mahrines.

Both of these companies however, are certainly putting out more content than WotC is for D&D right now. Is this making these games more profitable? Perhaps, but none of these companies will release sales figures, we may never know.

Onyx Path, not Obsidian Path, that gave me a laugh.

Its crazy how many gamelines Onyx Path has right now.

Scion

Scarred Lands (both 5e and Pathfinder verisons)

WOD 20th anniversary edition and their is talk of a WOD 5e.

Within WoD you have Werewolf, Mage, Vampire, Wraith, Changeling: The Dreaming

CoD (Chronicles of Darkness basically New World of Darkness 2e)

Within CoD you have Mage, Werewolf, Vampire, Demon, Giest, Promeathan, Godmachine Chronicles, Changeling, Beast (darkest game in CoD, even darker then Vampire: Reqiuem or Changeling: The Lost, I mean in Beast you can literally play Hell with a Horror roaming it, and you feed by brutally terrorizing people or watching other Supernatural creatures like Vampires hunt and feed like voyuer).
 

gyor

Legend
Paizo and Pathfinder has a ton of books and they are planning Starfinder as well.

WotC should lience out the settings they don't have plans for right now, like Mystara, Ravenloft (I doubt they're going back to Ravenloft any time soon to do it right), Darksun, ect...
 
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Parmandur

Book-Friend
Paizo and Pathfinder has a ton of books and they are planning Starfinder as well.



WotC should lience out the settings they don't have plans for right now, like Mystara, Ravenloft (I doubt they're going back to Ravenloft any time soon to do it right), Darksun, ect...


They have licensed out Ravenloft, to the people. The crowd-sourcing experiment of the DMsGuild is far more innovative; I am sure other settings will follow.
 

Barantor

Explorer
Okay, name THREE companies . . . I kid! :)

Games Workshop was churning out a lot back in the day too, but I think it has as much to do with the economy as anything nowadays. I remember when there was a Games Workshop official store in a lot of major cities... but I digress.

I said they killed them off, I stand by that. They had to kill them off to funnel down to one setting which they could focus on. I'm wondering now if they are going to change their tune or do something that surprises us all, but I would rather them not just dump everything in Forgotten Realms. Hopefully Ravenloft showed them that they don't have to.

Most of the guys I game with are younger than I am and don't even really remember Greyhawk that much. Two of them remember that there was a Living Greyhawk campaign, but weren't involved in it. Most of them have more exposure to D&D through video games than anything else and the only modern Video Game not set in Forgotten Realms is D&D Online, which now has a portal to..... Forgotten Realms lol.

Even if it was just "Here is a book with all those other settings" or hell even a UA article on them, people like me would eat it up. Right now I'm reading through Volo's and a lot of the monster lore in the beginning feels like it is cemented in Forgotten Realms fairly solidly. To me that is a pity as even though it is an interesting read, I will probably have to change it and they didn't even pay lip service to other settings with an appendix like they have in the past.

I'm not asking for much at this point, just would be nice to add in stuff about Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Mystara and Dragonlance.
 


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