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General Tabletop Discussion
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Mechanics of Revived Settings; your thoughts?
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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7394229" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>As a tangential thought, I will say that they seem to be at least tweaking it. The plan for 2 or 3 AL seasons per year has been reduced, and Xanathar's Guide to Everything as almost entirely a crunch book is something they seemed initially reluctant to try.</p><p></p><p>Despite Xanathar's selling really well, it doesn't seem to have been received as well as Volo's Guide to Monsters, which seems to have been very well received.</p><p></p><p>And of course, now Mordenkainan's Tome of Foes is coming out as another VGtM style book. If it does as well, I expect that type of product is going to keep coming out. Lore + Character options (races) + Monsters seems to be working for most people. (No complaints from me, because I agree that VGtM is one of the best 5e products.)</p><p></p><p>I'm sure they will put out more (non-race) crunch, since they're still putting it out there for playtesting in UA articles, but I'm guessing they'll put it out in a different format--probably in a book that includes more lore. Maybe something similar to the VGtM format, but with crunch other than races in that section.</p><p></p><p>Moving along my stream of consciousness thoughts...</p><p></p><p>SCAG was interesting as an experiment that didn't do so well. There was too little Forgotten Realms in it for people who wanted a FR setting book, and too little not-necessarily-FR (by page count) for people who didn't. Of course, if you aren't counting by <em>pages</em> literally none of the crunch in the book is FR specific, except Ghostwise Halflings. Duergar and Svirfneblin are classic D&D (not FR specific), as is Battlerager and Bladesinger, and even the FR-specifically titled Purple Dragon Knight subclass had an alternative title "banneret" for non-FR usage. The non-human deity charts near the beginning of the book are also not FR, nor are the descriptions of the deities in the racial sections later in the book.</p><p></p><p>I think the biggest problem with the non-FR stuff in SCAG was that people new to the game couldn't tell what actually <em>is</em> FR stuff (like sun elves or gold dwarves) and what isn't. And of course, the page count issue for that stuff compared to the actual FR stuff. For me, the book is absolutely worth it for all the classic D&D stuff crammed into it that probably isn't going to be republished for 5e elsewhere for quite some time (as well as some gems like <em>green flame blade</em>), but that's in spite of the fact that probably 75% of the pages in the book are of little or no value to me, since even when I do FR, I run it in 2e/3e era rather than 5e era.</p><p></p><p>Probably the more effective way to handle settings for WotC is to create books that aren't setting specific, and then address setting details in sidebars. OR, to make a book that gives us information on multiple settings, while also including setting non-specific stuff.</p><p></p><p>A book with a bunch of crunch (and suggestions for where it could fit into multiple settings) and then chapters on different genres with example settings given--skillfully woven together in such a way that people who want to play "pulp fantasy" can get a lot out of that section, even if the Mystara-specific example isn't of much use to them, for instance. Basically, that's the sort of book they could publish the mechanics for various settings in and still hit a wide market. </p><p></p><p>Of course, they wouldn't have much room for monsters. They'd need to make some sort of monsters of the multiverse book to include the various setting monsters. They could include tables at the back listing which of the monsters were traditionally found on which worlds.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 7394229, member: 6677017"] As a tangential thought, I will say that they seem to be at least tweaking it. The plan for 2 or 3 AL seasons per year has been reduced, and Xanathar's Guide to Everything as almost entirely a crunch book is something they seemed initially reluctant to try. Despite Xanathar's selling really well, it doesn't seem to have been received as well as Volo's Guide to Monsters, which seems to have been very well received. And of course, now Mordenkainan's Tome of Foes is coming out as another VGtM style book. If it does as well, I expect that type of product is going to keep coming out. Lore + Character options (races) + Monsters seems to be working for most people. (No complaints from me, because I agree that VGtM is one of the best 5e products.) I'm sure they will put out more (non-race) crunch, since they're still putting it out there for playtesting in UA articles, but I'm guessing they'll put it out in a different format--probably in a book that includes more lore. Maybe something similar to the VGtM format, but with crunch other than races in that section. Moving along my stream of consciousness thoughts... SCAG was interesting as an experiment that didn't do so well. There was too little Forgotten Realms in it for people who wanted a FR setting book, and too little not-necessarily-FR (by page count) for people who didn't. Of course, if you aren't counting by [I]pages[/I] literally none of the crunch in the book is FR specific, except Ghostwise Halflings. Duergar and Svirfneblin are classic D&D (not FR specific), as is Battlerager and Bladesinger, and even the FR-specifically titled Purple Dragon Knight subclass had an alternative title "banneret" for non-FR usage. The non-human deity charts near the beginning of the book are also not FR, nor are the descriptions of the deities in the racial sections later in the book. I think the biggest problem with the non-FR stuff in SCAG was that people new to the game couldn't tell what actually [I]is[/I] FR stuff (like sun elves or gold dwarves) and what isn't. And of course, the page count issue for that stuff compared to the actual FR stuff. For me, the book is absolutely worth it for all the classic D&D stuff crammed into it that probably isn't going to be republished for 5e elsewhere for quite some time (as well as some gems like [I]green flame blade[/I]), but that's in spite of the fact that probably 75% of the pages in the book are of little or no value to me, since even when I do FR, I run it in 2e/3e era rather than 5e era. Probably the more effective way to handle settings for WotC is to create books that aren't setting specific, and then address setting details in sidebars. OR, to make a book that gives us information on multiple settings, while also including setting non-specific stuff. A book with a bunch of crunch (and suggestions for where it could fit into multiple settings) and then chapters on different genres with example settings given--skillfully woven together in such a way that people who want to play "pulp fantasy" can get a lot out of that section, even if the Mystara-specific example isn't of much use to them, for instance. Basically, that's the sort of book they could publish the mechanics for various settings in and still hit a wide market. Of course, they wouldn't have much room for monsters. They'd need to make some sort of monsters of the multiverse book to include the various setting monsters. They could include tables at the back listing which of the monsters were traditionally found on which worlds. [/QUOTE]
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