One new setting a year?

[Imaro]

I would define a successful setting as one which continues to be supported. A setting that has fallen by the wayside, is, by definition, not successful, since, if it were successful, it would be popular enough to receive continued support.

I would beg to differ with this opinion. Such games as Blue Rose, The Savage Worlds Plot Point Setting Books(Rippers, Necessary EVil, etc.), Scion (Which has been so succesful WW is contemplating releasing more books for it), Promethean, Changeling, etc. all show that a limited run/setting can be succesful without endless books for it. In fact, as I grow older I find these types of games more appealing that the sourcebooks unto infinity model. It also allows a company to decide to further support a book that does better than they expected (ie Scion).

To me, the best 1/year campaign book would be 300 pages long. About 100 pages of setting background and material and 200 pages of adventures. That's enough for about 8 good length adventures, which should last about a year. Next year rolls around, I pick up the next setting book and start again. Fantastic.

We already know the average campaign lasts about a year, why not sell settings based on that idea? Sending orphan settings out to perish in the wilderness without any support is a complete waste of time.

These are basically what Savage Worlds does with it's plot point books. You get a setting, the new rules needed to play in the world and a campaign worth of adventures in one book. And I agree it's a good model.

I don't think limiting a setting to a certain amount of books initially is sending them out to perish. It can also serve as a gauge for how succesful the line could/would be and products could be produced if it sells well.

A published book of Darksun Planescape for 4e would GUARENTEE my buying 4e Core books

Fixed for me...

Someone hasn't been listening. At all.

The "new PHB every year" isn't a replacement PHB. It's a new PHB, with new material. Just like 3E had a PHB and a PHB2.

The 4E PHB(1) is titled "Martial, Arcane, and Divine Heroes." So a second PHB might introduce new classes and powers and what-have-you based on new power sources, as well as new races more appropriate to those classes.

So no, your '08 PHB won't be obsolete in '09, any more than any of the 3.5 supplements made your 3.5 PHB obsolete.

This isn't news, RR. This is something that's been talked about almost since GenCon.

The only thing I worry about with this model is if new rules that become integral to the base game are published in these new PHB/DMG's and not made available through the SRD or as a free download. An example of this in 3.5 would be the swift actions that were introduced outsside the 3 corebooks, but became an integral part of the actual base game.

 

[Baby Samurai]

The only thing I worry about with this model is if new rules that become integral to the base game are published in these new PHB/DMG's and not made available through the SRD or as a free download. An example of this in 3.5 would be the swift actions that were introduced outsside the 3 corebooks, but became an integral part of the actual base game.

I doubt they will release new rules such as that, I think it is more that the PHB will provide new power sources, races and classes, the DMG will provide more DM options, and the MM, well, that's pretty self explanatory.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think it's perhaps more likely we'll see something like a PHBX: Oriental Adventures that happens to introduce ki, and a PHBX: Psionic Heroes that introduces psionics, because these are big enough for their own books. I'd love it if the PHB's had tighter themes, so that when the nature comes up, it could be something like PHBX: Heroes of the Planes including the Fey, Shadow, and Natural power sources (for instance).

 

[Ranger REG]

Someone hasn't been listening. At all.

The "new PHB every year" isn't a replacement PHB. It's a new PHB, with new material. Just like 3E had a PHB and a PHB2.

The 4E PHB(1) is titled "Martial, Arcane, and Divine Heroes." So a second PHB might introduce new classes and powers and what-have-you based on new power sources, as well as new races more appropriate to those classes.

So no, your '08 PHB won't be obsolete in '09, any more than any of the 3.5 supplements made your 3.5 PHB obsolete.

This isn't news, RR. This is something that's been talked about almost since GenCon.

Ah, I got it.

FWIW, I'm glad WotC dropped the silly "Complete..." title.

As for the secondary title of PHB I, wouldn't it be better to say "Core"? The future PHB Universal Supplements can have whatever theme they want ... hopefully there will be "Oriental Heroes," "Arabian Heroes," etc.

 

[KingCrab]

Okay, how about PHB II: Incarnum, Nature, and Shadow Heroes?

That sounds much better.

 

[cougent]

Okay, how about PHB II: Incarnum, Nature, and Shadow Heroes?

I'm holding out for PHBx: Ghostwalk

[and the room grows quiet again]

 

[Baby Samurai]

I'm holding out for PHBx: Ghostwalk

[and the room grows quiet again]

*once again I walk up and stand next to you in support of Ghostwalk*

 

[PeterWeller]

Hussar, it sounds like you want your campaign books to be like Mysteries of the Moonsea or Flashpoint: Brak Sector,which is one of my favorite source books and infinitely adaptable BTW. I get the impression you want a campaign book that provides you with just about everything you need to run a campaign. I like books like this, but I don't think this should be the model setting books follow. I think setting books should give you the tools to create campaigns in their world. They should provide background and hooks from which you and your players can develop a story. The kinds of books you want are, in my opinion, better off as supplements to main setting books. Here's where Mysteries of the Moonsea is a good example; it develops a corner of the larger setting and provides a fairly detailed framework for a campaign in that region. This works really well in a limited area, but I don't think it's the best way to handle entire settings, especially those as large as Faerun or Eberron. Also, if WotC decides to release single book settings and they contain a campaign's worth of fairly detailed adventures, this runs the risk of making them essentially one use books. Granted, a year's worth of gaming from a single book is a pretty good deal.

 

[fabneme]

Please, please, high executives of Wizards of the Coast, do not release a new set of core books each year, focused on that year's setting.

This is the worst idea since the atomic bomb.

It's ridiculous, absurd, simply awful to even think about buying a Player's Handbook with rules on abilities scores, races, classes, skills, feats, combat, equipment, description, magic and spell list and, on the next (or the year that follows the next, whatever) year, since I'd probably would like to run FR and Ravenloft, for example, buy a NEW PHB, with a whole bunch of rules that I already got on the first one and the small tibits specifics of that setting.

Not to mention buying a new DMG, with tips, tricks, experience tables, magic items lists and all the rest and, good lord, a new MM!

Sets of PHB, MM and DMG were supposed to be different from each other, with new rules, new crunch, new fluff and new monsters, not the same thing over and over with just some tweaks to fit a specific setting.

Please, please on cherry on top, do not release a set of core books each year specially dedicated to a specific setting. What in the world happened to sourcebooks? Weren't they supposed to give us specific (why not centered on a specific setting?) information, so we would have more options for the game? Why are they suddenly became wrong? Wrong is paying 2, 3, even 4 times for the same rules on skills, feats, combat, etc!

So, I beg a third time: please, Bruce, Mike, Andy or anyone at WotC that reads this boards: do not, I repeat, do not release a new set of core books each year dedicated specially for a given setting. It's just dumb and needlessly expensive. Just release something like "Complete Ravenloft", with all the information that's specific to that setting and that's it!

 

[Gundark]

Please, please, high executives of Wizards of the Coast, do not release a new set of core books each year, focused on that year's setting.

This is the worst idea since the atomic bomb.

Atomic bomb a bad idea???? You just say that cause you don't have any