One new setting a year?

[Ranger REG]

I'm betting that by 2010 there will be enough product released for the "core" 4e setting that WotC could create a new campaign setting drawing from that material. Sort of like how the Known World was born out of the early D&D products.

Oh, great. An Eberlancehawk Realms setting.

Or what I would call it: The World of Dowisetrepla.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think 3rd edition showed that numerous settings don't dilute the market or cause companies to loose money...unless they suck. Let's see...we've had Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Scarred Lands, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Iron Kingdoms, Wilderlands, Midnight, Oathbound, Kalamar, etc....and this isn't even counting all the succesful D&D settings or those produced as OGL games (Conan, etc.) that have been succesful.

The significant thing is that of those, only two are produced by WoTC. TSR's failure was that they themselves produced FR, Ravenloft, Al-Quadim, Planescape, Kara-Tur, Birthright, etc etc etc. This led to the company effectively competing with itself.

There's a thing called Brand Dilution. Simply, it's over exposure. Brand Dilution occurs when a new product bearing a brand is perceived as not being very different from previous products. Remember Dacey's letter about how TSR created a dozen variants on the same damn thing? This is brand dilution. TSR was trying to sell different variations of the same thing to the same pool of customers; they assumed that people would buy anything with the TSR name on it regardless if it was just the same old pig kitted out in different makeup and let's make no mistake: there simply isn't a lot of difference between the various game worlds. In face, with Spelljammer and the like, TSR actively sought to make them more the same.

Later on, it looks like they tried to reverse this by creating things that were at least trying to address different segments of the gamer market with Alternity and Amazing Engine. It was pretty much 'too little too late' at that point, though. This would have been Brand Extension, which is a good thing: by recognizing that there are different sorts of customers, you target brands to those customers. You target the rules-light crowd with Amazing Engine, you target the SciFi or Generic Genre gamers with Alternity, etc.

This comes back to the central reason TSR failed: they didn't listen to their customer base.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

On the one hand, a Mystara release might be enough to get me really jazzed about 4E; on the other hand, I'm not sure there's anyone working for (or even freelancing for) WotC at the moment who I think would do a good job with it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I say this as a MML member (why, Shawn wrote me the other day about restoring some of my old stuff to the Vaults of Pandius!): WotC should skip Mystara. Sure, redo Castle Amber, redo Isle of Dread and some of the B modules, but stick a fork in Mystara. Mystara fandom has the same sort of ridiculous squabbles that Greyhawk fandom has, but with far fewer fans. It's just not worth it.

Pillage the setting for the good stuff -- and I'd say Thunder Rift and Glantri are portable enough to be worth publishing as standalone supplements, in addition to the many great modules -- but leave the setting behind.

If WotC is going to risk the wrath of angry grognard fans, it should have a lot more financial upside than Mystara 4E would.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I think the refrain of "OMG settings killed 2e!!111" is very much overblown. See the Mongoose example below.

Over-support of settings may have hurt 2e - but so did terrible business decisions at every level, little to no understanding of or interest in what amounted to an increasingly small market, fad-level corporate spending and production after the fad had faded, lack of market research, competition from multiple new forms of entertainment, and expensive packaging and production values. To say nothing of an aging and overall not very good system.

Did it really hurt 2e more to fragment the market by producing, each month, one new product for core D&D and up to five new products for five settings? Wouldn't it have hurt nearly as much - if not as much - to produce six new products for "core" D&D? TSR flat-out overproduced, to the point what they were producing was almost secondary.

Very few people were going to buy all those books, regardless of what name they had on the cover; if anything, more successfully separating the various game lines (see Mongoose, below) might have helped. Carefully investigating the sales of each line and pruning the size of production lines and product schedules accordingly definitely would have helped. By explicitly marketing these lines to different people, and understanding that they were marketing to different people, they might have turned the inevitable market segmentation in RPGs from a weakness into a strength.

EDIT: Let me just take this settings dilute argument a little further...how does a company like Mongoose survive? Runequest, Lankhmar, Elric, Hawkmoon, Conan, Lonewolf, Babylon 5, Starship Troopers, etc. Their fanbase should have splintered to nothing by now...

Because Mongoose doesn't market those products as facets of a single line. They don't have, or want, a unified fanbase - they want as many fanbases (note the plural) as they can get.

For 2e, TSR marketed all its D&D settings as part of 'D&D.' D&D was the big brand, Dragonlance or Spelljammer or Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun or Planescape - those were small brands attached to the big one.

Mongoose doesn't roll that way, at least with their d20 products. Conan is its own setting - but also its own core book. You don't need to buy, say, Lone Wolf to play Conan, nor do you have to buy D&D. So, if you're a fan of Conan, all you buy is Conan. If you're a fan of RPGs in general, you can pick and choose. But if you want, you can buy exclusively into one line and not be punished for it. Caveat: I'm not sure if this is the case with the RuneQuest lines such as Lankhmar and Hawkmoon.

Regardless, I'm willing to bet Mongoose keeps VERY careful records of what lines are selling, and how much they're selling, and thus how much to produce. Not all Mongoose lines get the monthly treatment, for example. TSR didn't do anything like that, and even if they had, the technology (much less their infrastructure) wasn't in place for them to adjust product lines with anywhere near the dexterity a tight ship like Mongoose can today.

Mongoose, incidentally, doesn't just 'survive' this way - by most measures I've seen, they're the third biggest-selling RPG company in the world after just six years of operation.

Or better yet White Wolf: nWoD (mortals), Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Promethean, Scion, Exalted, etc. all of these are different settings.

Arguably, only Exalted and nWoD are truly 'different settings' - nWoD Mortals, Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Promethean and, I believe, Scion all take place in the same world (the titular 'World of Darkness') and can theoretically be mixed. In fact, the nWoD rules were redesigned in part to make playing cross-line work better. Not that you can't run them individually, mind...

 

[Imaro]

...

Mongoose doesn't roll that way, at least with their d20 products. Conan is its own setting - but also its own core book. You don't need to buy, say, Lone Wolf to play Conan, nor do you have to buy D&D. So, if you're a fan of Conan, all you buy is Conan. If you're a fan of RPGs in general, you can pick and choose. But if you want, you can buy exclusively into one line and not be punished for it. Caveat: I'm not sure if this is the case with the RuneQuest lines such as Lankhmar and Hawkmoon.

Regardless, I'm willing to bet Mongoose keeps VERY careful records of what lines are selling, and how much they're selling, and thus how much to produce. Not all Mongoose lines get the monthly treatment, for example. TSR didn't do anything like that, and even if they had, the technology (much less their infrastructure) wasn't in place for them to adjust product lines with anywhere near the dexterity a tight ship like Mongoose can today.

Mongoose, incidentally, doesn't just 'survive' this way - by most measures I've seen, they're the third biggest-selling RPG company in the world after just six years of operation.

Well the Runequest line is a little complicated. Some games based off it like Lankhmar require the runequest core rules...while others like Elric use the Rubequest rules but are a complete corebook.

Bolded Mine: This IMHO has much more to do with running this model successfully than the blanket statement that too many settings will cause the death of a game line.

Arguably, only Exalted and nWoD are truly 'different settings' - nWoD Mortals, Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Promethean and, I believe, Scion all take place in the same world (the titular 'World of Darkness') and can theoretically be mixed. In fact, the nWoD rules were redesigned in part to make playing cross-line work better. Not that you can't run them individually, mind...

Actually I would argue that each of the nWoD splats is a different setting, with a different feel, structure, anatgonists and area of exploration. Vamps don't deal with the spirit world...but for mages and werewolves that's an integral part of the setting. Mages don't deal with hunting humans for nourishment, or live in fear of the True Fae like changelings. Werewolves aren't seeking to become human like prometheans. The rule set is the same, but the actual setting (ie place and things that PC's interact with is totally different for each gameline.) It's the same difference between Eberrron and FR...use the same rules but the "setting" is different. The difference is White wolf uses a microcosm and D&D uses a macrocosm model.

NOTE: Scion is truly a seperate world, not set in the WoD.

 

[Blastin]

I believe that someone from WoTC had stated that the plan with the "one setting a year" was to produce the core book and then place any supplements/support material onto the DI or the online Dragon (except for FR). That way the fans of a particular world could buy the source book, sign up for the DI and get the supplements they want. The overhead of producing print copies of support materials goes away and it gives potential customers another reason to sign on for the DI. The fan of the once dead setting is happy, and WoTC is happy that they can add another $10 a month to their revenue stream.
Doesn't seem like too bad a deal to me to get some of the old settings back in print.

 

[Dragonblade]

I sincerely hope they *don't* release a new setting every year. It will significantly dilute the brand and split the market.

This is one of many things that killed 2e.

Not quite. It was releasing multiple campaign settings simultaneously with a veritable library of material for each setting that fragmented the market.

 

[Asmor]

I would love to see mini-settings... Heck, publish 3 (maybe-- MAYBE-- even 4) a year.

Imagine something like Ghostwalk, only published regularly... Just a single book, with it clear that it is not intended to be a supported setting.

 

[Gargoyle]

Giving the 4e treatment to 'retired' settings like Dark Sun and Birthright with one hardback book each year (with a different setting every year, I mean) would be incredibly cool for the fans of those settings, and I think that's what they'll do.

If a setting is popular, say the Mystara book sells very well, then they could consider licensing out the setting to a third party. It's the best solution for WoTC, the industry, and the fans.