D&D 5E Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Anime/JRPG-style conceits don't work at all well with Crawford et al's keen-ness on with full caster supremacy (even if it's no longer anywhere near LFQW) and martials as being forced to be this sort of "grounded" slightly lesser alternative who just don't get to do anything dangerously cool even if they can sometimes have "big numbers". It's also why we have multiple half-arsed "fighting casters", but no full-on spellblade-type class.

I don't know. WotC has 45 million different MTG worlds. I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have one with Final Fantasy aesthetics (I suspect they already have several) and then WotC could take the most D&D-like one, adapt it like they have the other settings, by making it adhere more to D&D ways of doing things, and be most of the way there.

As you say, the aesthetics are the big thing, but creating a human-centered campaign setting with lots of critters that would feel at home in a JRPG and with art that's somewhere between Breath of the Wild and Princess Mononoke seems like something WotC could do without breaking a sweat.

There is a huge audience out there that "undermonetized" WotC isn't engaging with. I'd rather they spread their wings (and make a more sincere effort to court the Asian market) than try to monetize with more expensive products and lower page counts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

@Whizbang Dustyboots

Thanks for this! Looks very interesting, although I agree with the sentiment that BotW is a better fit for D&D than Ghibli. Maybe it’s more an aesthetic?

Well, the art shows teen witches loading up a pick-up truck and waiting for a supernatural train, so I'd say there's definitely Ghibli ideas in the mix.

But yes, leaning more on Zelda would be a lot easier fit for a conventional 5E rule set.

However, did you not make a thread discussing how to do a Zelda/Ghibli setting not so long ago? I’d do a quick sweep for listening devices!

These people have been advertising on my Facebook wall for months, along with Bloat Games' various Zelda and other videogame RPG bestiaries, so it's been on my mind.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Has anyone run or played any of the adventures from Eyes Wide Open? Did the Ghibli-ness of it all mesh well with D&D? I see that some of the adventures are set in the Forgotten Realms and Eberron, which feels like a pretty good test of how the vibe stands up to conventional D&D.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another way to avoid the superheroics of 5E is to have the campaign adventures only be very low level, where the mismatch of expectations isn't obvious.

It sounds like the campaign in the book comes down to some sort of spiritual pollution in the waters just off shore that is causing problems on land as well. That could easily be an adventure that could cap out around level 5 (so that being able to breathe underwater would be a resource management issue the players would have to pay attention to).

And that's probably fine. Not all settings need to support level 20 play. Humblewood, to invoke Hit Point Press again, probably doesn't work beyond Tier 1 and maybe 2, either, for instance.

 

[beta-ray]

Obojima Tales From The Tall Grass: A 5E Campaign Setting​

Well, this looks wild. They kind of underplay the fact that there's a witch loading stuff into the back of a pick-up truck. I wonder how they're going to incorporate technology into D&D along with the fantasy elements the book is bringing to the mix. Maybe this is post-apocalyptic?

Either way, this looks interesting. I don't love that estimated delivery is September 2024, which makes me wonder how much is actually done on this project.

I've been watching this since I first saw it listed. The technology stuff surprised me a little, but it isn't out of the range of an anime setting. Though not exactly the same, it is amusing this is being kickstarted shortly after the anime version of Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon just started this season…

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(I suspect they already have several)

Amazingly, they don't, they don't even have anything close (Kamigawa being extremely not-that). Weirdly there are a whole bunch of MtG mangas, and in 2022 they did 16 manga-artist-drawn cards, but they are really at the start of this, rather than it being something they can just pull out.

EDIT - I read the are also 45 cards which are anime art variants of existing cards, also from 2022.

There is a huge audience out there that "undermonetized" WotC isn't engaging with. I'd rather they spread their wings (and make a more sincere effort to court the Asian market) than try to monetize with more expensive products and lower page counts.

For sure.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Don't say it too high. If Hasbro listens you, then we have "reborn as a Transformer Vending Machine, and now I fear the rust monsters".

If WotC wanted, they could create a "domain of delight" mixing Eberron and Ghibli.

 

[MichaelSomething]

$350k the first day. I think we may see another member of the $1 million Kickstarter club here.

This again raises the question of why WotC hasn't ever bothered to throw any bones to fans of JRPGs, anime or Studio Ghibli more specifically, given how many third party projects like this are out there and Eyes Wide Open being a Mithril seller on DMs Guild.

It's because lots of people don't want anime influence in their D&D. Look at 4E to see how well that turned out.

 

[humble minion]

It's because lots of people don't want anime influence in their D&D. Look at 4E to see how well that turned out.

I've got bad news for them about the monk then.

Seriously though, settings aren't meant to appeal to everyone. If you're not interested in Greek myth style gaming, then Theros is probably not for you, and if you don't like Gothic horror cliches, probably best to steer clear of Barovia. When you create and market a setting book, you do that in the knowledge that it's not going to appeal to everyone. Which, I suspect, is why WotC doesn't really do much of that any more, and releases setting books that are more adventure instead. But there's a lot of setting books on kickstarter for instance, that are very niche but which have been extremely successful (by kickstarter standards mind you, not necessarily by WotC standards)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know how many sales a book has to have for WotC to consider it a success. It would be interesting to see how many of the top Kickstarter books would quality as a success in their eyes, if we could get that target number. (I assume there's at least a loose number, even if variables affect when a given project is considered successful or not.)