One new setting a year?

[Irda Ranger]

FR, Greyhawk, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance...I see no problem with one setting a year.

I do. I don't want to wait 5 years for Dragonlance.

What I'm afraid of is that WotC will sit on a license they want to develop, but they don't get around to it for 3-5 years because they're busy releasing other stuff. Sure, Eberron 4E would be cool for a lot of people, but I want my Dragonlance, Dark Sun and Planescape; and I don't want to wait for it!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think Sigil could still work. For starters, it could have a set of linked planes attached to it that move through the Astral as their own miniature multiverse, along with connections to the Abyss, Mount Celestia and the Nine Hells.

Even without that, planar arrogance is really just the sort of parochialism one finds in a major metropolis, even in the real world; I've met New Yorkers who have never lived outside the island of Manhattan who felt qualified to pass judgment on every other location in the world.

If anything, in a multiverse with more and more mysterious planes, the City of Doors would be even more intriguing, since the sense of familiarity of how the planes work would be gone.

Heck, Sigil could even be a survivor of a multiversal disaster and have residents who remember how it used to be, and are now explorers of a strange new multiverse that "has always been." That'd be a heck of a fun hook for a campaign, IMO: Refugees from a multiverse that's been swept away, trying to find out if anything that they knew survives -- and if it remembers them.

 

[Hussar]

I have no idea what that adventure is.

Sorry, the adventure is from the Savage Tide AP. Ok, could I run STAP in Ravenloft without doing major work?

I think Mona and company are as swell as the next guy, but I don't think even they would say they're infallible.


"This dungeon is on a world you reach via spelljamming. Done."

So, I'm going to run a vanilla adventure, with absolutely no spelljamming material. And that's a Spelljammer adventure? So, stuffing Dragon's of Despair (Dragonlance) into Oriental Adventures is perfectly acceptable? Or Dark Sun?

Who needs settings then? What good are they? If all you're going to do is run the same generic adventures, why would you remotely bother with a new setting? Complete and utter waste of time and money.

Sorry, I'll stand by that. If you don't support a setting with adventures, the setting dies. Look at EVERY setting that didn't get module support - Ghostwalk (what's that?) Oriental Adventures (Yeah, that's popular - so popular the licensee dumped the license), Scarred Lands (Bazillion splatbooks, died in 3 years), on and on.

Look at the settings that are doing pretty well. Dragonlance - modules. Eberron - several modules. Forgotten Realms - 4, 5? modules this year alone. On and on.

Modules make DM's want to run settings. If DM's don't want to run the setting, the setting doesn't get run.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sorry, the adventure is from the Savage Tide AP. Ok, could I run STAP in Ravenloft without doing major work?

Zombies, pirates, worship of dark powers, depraved beasts from deep within the earth? Yeah, I'm pretty confident that I could. Obviously the Abyssal stuff would need to be addressed, probably as a nested series of darker domains.

So, I'm going to run a vanilla adventure, with absolutely no spelljamming material.

Well, you'd swap in appropriate races, gods and other fluff. Let's be honest, most modules, even the ones for a given setting, are pretty interchangeable once you sand off that stuff. It's the hooks to the fluff, for the most part, that make an X adventure different from a Y adventure.

And that's a Spelljammer adventure? So, stuffing Dragon's of Despair (Dragonlance) into Oriental Adventures is perfectly acceptable? Or Dark Sun?

Depends on what "perfectly acceptable" means. Is it doable? Yes. Is it likely to be totally recognizable as Dragons of Despair? Maybe, maybe not.

Who needs settings then? What good are they?

They're the source of all the fluff, character concepts and options and all the stuff that happens between modules, which can either be very little time for some groups, or the majority of the campaign for others.

If all you're going to do is run the same generic adventures, why would you remotely bother with a new setting? Complete and utter waste of time and money.

YMMV. My campaign isn't adventure-adventure-adventure. In that scenario, yeah, I think settings are pretty worthless, and I'd go with a generic PoL setting, or something very simple and adaptable, like Thunder Rift (TSR) or Darkmoon Vale (Paizo).

Look at EVERY setting that didn't get module support - Ghostwalk (what's that?)

A setting that was always intended to be a single sourcebook. It sold and was well-liked by its fans. It succeeded at what it was intended to do.

Oriental Adventures (Yeah, that's popular - so popular the licensee dumped the license)

It's a little more complex than that, given that Rokugan had a preexisting fan base and its own rule set.

Scarred Lands (Bazillion splatbooks, died in 3 years), on and on.

Scarred Lands had adventures.

Look at the settings that are doing pretty well. Dragonlance - modules. Eberron - several modules. Forgotten Realms - 4, 5? modules this year alone. On and on.

Neither of us have access to the sales figures that would let us fairly compare how well MWS' Dragonlance books did compared to WWGS's Scarred Lands did, especially as Dragonlance was the bread and butter for MWS, while WWGS has many lines to pay attention to.

Modules make DM's want to run settings. If DM's don't want to run the setting, the setting doesn't get run.

That's certainly true of some DMs. I'm guessing you're one of them, for one.

It's not true of others. Most of the nations and regions of Mystara never had a module set there -- I suspect most were in Karameikos, if you totaled them all up -- but people have been playing campaigns there that have lasted 20 or more years. Ditto the World of Greyhawk and most regions of the Forgotten Realms.

It is accurate to say that module support for a setting is very important for you. It is not accurate to say it's important in general -- that's a matter of opinion at best.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Heck, Sigil could even be a survivor of a multiversal disaster and have residents who remember how it used to be, and are now explorers of a strange new multiverse that "has always been." That'd be a heck of a fun hook for a campaign, IMO: Refugees from a multiverse that's been swept away, trying to find out if anything that they knew survives -- and if it remembers them.

I'd be heck of interested in a setting like that (PS4e is one of the first things I'm doin' with the system and I'm not scared of ditching all that's come before), but you'd have plenty of annoyed purists. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when they're also your target audience...

PS fans would, in general, expect everything to be the same but have slightly new rules. Most old setting fans, I think, would want the same. Trying to incorporate clerics into Dark Sun in Dragon Magazine promoted outcries a-plenty, IIRC. Making a Planescape without a missing layer of Arborea and a clockwork Mechanus filled with Modrons would be tantamount to heresy there too, I'd imagine.

And, personally, I'd have much more confidence in "4e-ifying" the setting from the crack web teams of things like PS and DS than I generally would from WotC anyway. I mean, they put out the Planar Handbook, one of the stinkers of 3e....

It could have worked for 3e. Enough tidbits were around to let you know the Great Wheel was still the Great Wheel, and 3e would have done well to explore it as one of those iconic urban D&D landscapes. I'd LOVE for it to work in 4e. But knowing what we do now, it would either require (1) ignoring the CORE setting in favor of the Great Wheel, which is less meaningful if it's not attached to an expansive Prime that includes the core setting, or (2) using Sigil and changing it for "points of light."

But that's all speculation. Either way, I don't think it's high priority for Wizard's when they have a chance to drive up interest by running a Setting Search every few years online. I know *I'll* have a PS4e campaign, regardless of what they do.

In fact, I think I would adore a chain of books on the "iconic" D&D cities, including Sigil and Greyhawk and Waterdeep and Sharn and other great urban centers...but then, I'm a huge fan of urban fantasy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I hear you on the urban adventure. I love that Paizo even has a distinct line of them. (Even if they're a line of one released one, one on the way currently.)

 

[cougent]

Ghostwalk, anyone?

Exactly!
Hey, wait a minute, am I the only one who liked Ghostwalk? Hello? Anybody here? Where did everybody go?

The DI and Dungeon give them the ability to support any new setting with a complete run of adventures, while not flooding the bookshelves with tons of modules that don't sell very well.

The best justification and selling point for DI and the Ezines yet. Digital production, while not free, is so much cheaper than printed production that this is such a no brainer. It also eliminates that warehouse full of unsold / returned products... it might be one server full of products but they can afford that.

 

[Hussar]

It's not true of others. Most of the nations and regions of Mystara never had a module set there -- I suspect most were in Karameikos, if you totaled them all up -- but people have been playing campaigns there that have lasted 20 or more years. Ditto the World of Greyhawk and most regions of the Forgotten Realms.

True, particular nations may not have, but, there were a slew of modules set in Mystara. Several dozen at least. It's not like the setting lacked any module support.

Ghostwalk was popular? Really? I've been on these boards for a while and I cannot recall a single thread about it. I'm sure they are out there, but, I'm thinking the setting was perhaps not terribly successful.

Scarred Lands had exactly three modules. Ooo, that's definitely supporting the setting well there. Sure. Come on, be serious.

Put it another way. Show me a successful setting that DOESN'T have module support.

 

[Hussar]

Zombies, pirates, worship of dark powers, depraved beasts from deep within the earth? Yeah, I'm pretty confident that I could. Obviously the Abyssal stuff would need to be addressed, probably as a nested series of darker domains.

So, the fact that there's no undead, or any sort of gothic horror present in the modules has no effect on using Ravenloft as a setting?

Again, if I'm going to use a given setting, shouldn't the adventures I run in that setting show off that setting? If I'm using Spell Jammer, then shouldn't we be facing Spell Jammer enemies and flying on space ships? Is an Underdark adventure really fitting in this setting?

Again, looking at Paizo, they've spent a fair bit of time and several pages on conversion notes for each AP. And that's just to convert to vanilla settings like Forgotten Realms. Let's see you run Savage Tide in Dark Sun or Oriental Adventures.

You mention that the module wouldn't even be recognizable if you convert it - the example was Dragons of Despair in Oriental Adventures. If you have to do that much work - about all you could salvage would be the map, that's no really any less work than doing it yourself.

If you want inspiration for a new setting, read a novel. Watch a movie. Otherwise, why bother?

 

[SSquirrel]

Ghostwalk had the bad luck of being the last 3E book released prior to the 3.5 launch. I have seen lost of people on here praise it, but I've never picked it up myself.

Modules>Pre-made adventures don't sell me on a setting, the setting sells me on teh setting. Dark Sun was amazingly cool sounding when it was released and I did buy all 5 of teh modules in the Prism Pentad, even ran the first couple, but my group had serious ADHD problems and we never seemed to stay on any campaign too long. The adventures were never the reason I wanted to run/play in the setting, all the things I thought were neat about it were. Lots of good source material was released too, so that kind of stuff jsut fuels the imagination more.

If adventures are what get you goin for a setting, then more power to ya. I don't think that is really the end all be all for most folks tho.

I still say release single books (2-300 page campaign setting books) with other companies lined up to support w/more supplements. Maybe they release a single book 200 pg setting book for a reimagined Spelljammer and Paizo signs up to support it. Future supplements and adventures all come from them. Obviously, you'd only see companies with proven track records probably getting those deals, but it wouild get old settings back in the fans hands in updated fashion.