Ok, now i'm REALLY CONFUSED. AKA, do any of you think you know what WotC is doing?

[Holy Bovine]

You know, I find Paizo pretty impressive in some ways. It's too bad that I loathe 3.x with unbridled hatred, because it would be really cool to be a customer of such an excellent company.

Adventure ideas, plot and npcs are universal. Their adventures have always been their strongest suit and plugging in encounters (ie stats) for your game of choice is simple.

 

[Adso]

You know, I find Paizo pretty impressive in some ways. It's too bad that I loathe 3.x with unbridled hatred, because it would be really cool to be a customer of such an excellent company.

Hey, man, there's a whole campaign setting you might want to take a look at. That not doing it? We have some game aid products that might float your boat. My other screen is filled with the mock-up of an upcoming Flip-Mat. So far I think it's pretty cool. Okay, maybe I'm biased.

Point is, there are plenty of ways you can become a customer!

 

[eyebeams]

With respect, I think you're confusing a one-sentence description of a planet in a world book, or even a two-paragraph description of same in an article in a Pathfinder AP volume with the sum total Paizo will ever do with the Red Planet, which would be a huge mistake.

We're in it for the long haul. Just because we make an off-hand reference to something once doesn't mean we're done talking about it, or that that one sentence conveys all the depth a given concept might get over the course of the campaign setting's life.

Back in 2003, I heard Ed Greenwood and Ken Hite rattle off five or six sentences describing an engaging campaign that somebody should write at least half a million words about (I call in "The Drow Are Right" and plan to run it some day). And I've read millions of words that nobody should have written, like Cthulhu Mythos homages in things that are not Call of Cthullhu (the old World of Darkness was terrible for this). Throwing wordcount at something which reads as so unambitious will not necessarily improve it -- it will just be unambitious and *long.*

If you look at the PHB1e's planar Abyss, what do you see? References to pulpy hell and sorcerous dimensions from its inspirations, sure, but these have been so transformed by transportation to D&D that the end result fires the imagination instead of simply leaving the reader feeling clever for getting it. What lives on 666 planes? Are these worlds or dungeon levels? It's awesome stuff, and it was once sentence and a picture in the context of two pages outlining the concept.

I also think you're guilty of a little hyperbole on the campaign setting issue in general, though I think a lot of your other observations are quite astute. To wit: There is a middle ground between doing "no setting," or a setting that is so light on detail that it might as well not exist, and doing six or seven concurrent campaign settings, all of which lack distinction from one another.

Did I call for six or seven concurrent campaign settings? Nope. I called for one that anybody would care about for something besides it being an iteration of the fandom-defined values of D&D and its associated scenes, which nobody but the shrinking base of existing customers cares about anyway.

That said, letting multiple worlds have a knife fight at low levels of investment and taking the victors to the next level is probably not a bad idea, and I am sceptical that multiple settings is so terrible as long as you exercise discipline in cutting what doesn't sell (which these days would involve a handoff to a community).

 

[tomBitonti]

D&D Absorbed by Traditional Games

Hi,

Been a while for me for posting.

I would imagine that Hasbro, as a "Game" company, meaning, toys, board games and the like, are in the process of cannibalizing D&D to create board games, toys, and high margin collectibles. From a sheer volume point of view, I find it hard for the D&D brand to survive being overwhelmed by any successful toy or board game. Probably, the IP is considered more valuable than the game system itself, and is a great mine for board and card games.

That's from a corporate point of view (I work for one of the US's larger corporations, and I don't see how a lesser performing brand won't get eaten alive by other brands.)

Thx!

T

 

[Erik Mona]

Fortunately the cosmos we have outlined thus far is sufficiently diverse to include both planetary romance locales and more avant garde possibilities. To tie this sliver of the conversation back into the larger issue of campaign setting diversity, one option between the extremes of too few or too many is to create a single campaign world capable of supporting a variety of thematic tastes and campaign styles.

 

[Jack99]

pukunui:
Try e-mailing him directly. Wizards e-mails are all typical firstname dot lastname at wizards dot com

Except Bill's, his is


B.S.[MENTION=17465]Wizard[/MENTION]s.com

 

[shadzar]

Fortunately the cosmos we have outlined thus far is sufficiently diverse to include both planetary romance locales and more avant garde possibilities. To tie this sliver of the conversation back into the larger issue of campaign setting diversity, one option between the extremes of too few or too many is to create a single campaign world capable of supporting a variety of thematic tastes and campaign styles.

The problem I see with that is with one world, if the playstyles and thematic tastes are say on different continents, then you are missing large parts of the world, if they are connected as such for all. Travel to those other continents would mean switching the playstyle or thematic taste you prefer so are confined to jsut the continent that houses your style/tastes.

Now, if you took a world, and mapped it out for people and made sure they KNOW that anyplace on this map/globe/atlas can be altered for yourself, and then use that world and plug into it various societies then it MIGHT work. So that everyone has a world to play on, but can take those thematic tastes and playstyles across the different "dimensions" of that world.

You probably already understand what I am saying, but just in case, and for others...

Take a round planet(oid), give it its needed moon(s), the water and land, set some cities up, some kingdoms, and some "dungeons".

With this world you would develop the equivalent of a DragonLance setting, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, all using the same world.

One world book with all the places on it as basically your games atlas. Then fluff books for the different settings so your setting C would have the city of Blahhaven, and settings D and H would have it in the same place.

Using your core set of monsters and sucj you fill it normally, but just have your factions, deities, NPCs for the individual worlds, but keep them small enough for gaming purposes, not expanding them into bloated canon for novels. Have enough places on the world that people could travel all over, and you can have adventures (paths) all over the place that don't have to connect, but could easily move from one to the other. Have the settings as a NOW, not a big past and future that will be detailed...just adventures.

It would pretty much be, in D&D terms, Toril that had different settings in different locations but the entire world would be one setting, and the world would be re-used for other settings as it were.

If it looks too closely like you are making Toril with Kara-Tur, Faerun, Maztica, and the rest, then it make instantly feel the backlash from all the Realms canon, and realms shaking events, since it resembles it.

REusing the same planet and locales for the different thematic tastes and playstyles though means no matter what setting you are playing in, you can relate to where others are playing, and the players would be able to bring them and merge things better should they want to mix-and-match settings as the worlds they come from would be the same for the most part, at least topographically.

This gives a large area to play around in for designing game material,a dn for players to make their own, and when they find an adventure they like they can travel there on the world and use it in any of the settings.

Except Bill's, his is


B.S.[MENTION=17465]Wizard[/MENTION]s.com

Are you B.S.-ing us?

 

[Reigan]

I suspect Hasbro are demanding a higher turnover than the p&p rpg market can really bear. This is forcing WotC to try one strategy after another to try to meet these targets. I think the next strategy will be to stop wasting money by competing with itself (as ddi and printed books do now), make player content exclusively ddi and only make things that are difficult to do electronically (like board games and game aids).

 

[Ourph]

As far as I can tell, WotC is producing a game that I like to play. They may have done some things that don't appeal to me (I just let my DDI subscription lapse because I don't like what they are doing with the CB and MB), but they are still doing a lot of things right as far as I'm concerned.

They also seem to be giving people who are looking for something to complain about a lot of ammunition lately. So it appears they are making everyone happy.

 

[mudbunny]

True Story:

I used WotC's online communication method to send an enquiry to Bill Slaviscek. I put his name in the subject and body field. I wanted to let him know my opinion on some of the things he'd recently announced. I received the auto confirm that my enquiry was sent.

A day later, I received a response from a person that indicated my communication was being forwarded to the "Magic the Gathering Online Team" for resolution.

If you are comfortable with it, PM me what you want to send to Bill, and I will try to get it to him through the channels I have available to me.

If you are not, could you at a minimum let me know the drop-down categories that you chose so that I can make sure that Customer Service knows that something went wrong??

Another option is to add more info to your ticket and let them know that you wanted it to go to Bill S, not Magic Online.