One new setting a year?

[Doug McCrae]

WotC's market research showed the average campaign lasts a year so the idea is probably that groups will play a Forgotten Realms campaign in 2008, Eberron in 2009 and so on.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

Personally I would like to see WotC do an african based setting in the vein of Nyambe or Svimohzia from KoK. This could really vibe with their core points of light motto. This is probably unlikely, but I can hope.

You and me both, Imaro. I get tired of seeing settings with a big European area and an Asian area for flavor--let's have some settings that tap into other myth traditions. And if there's ever an Aztec/Maya/Inca inspired setting released, I will buy four copies and bronze one of them.

 

[The Little Raven]

I hope that they revive them through Dragon and Dungeon magazine, or possibly licensing to 3rd party companies once more. I don't want to see WotC try and juggle 11 campaign settings, like TSR attempted to.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I would love to see at least a couple of the old settings come back, I miss the structured layout of the anywhere/anywhen that is Planescape. (Also I lost my old books so can't effectively re-create it)

One of the things I do hope to see with the new settings is DIFFERENT DESIGNERS. Yes, the greats are greats, but we need different flavours of D&D, not just "Heres a Brand new setting by the people who brought you Eberron... we know it looks the same, but trust us, it's realy different... honest"

As far as 3rd party goes: Make your own books you lazy bastards! Though I apreciated White Wolf's Sword & Sorcery's take on WoD D20 Ravenloft, you could have instead made your own setting that would have sold just as good! (And maybe had more support too).


jeez, I sound more and more bitter with each post... I wonder why that is?

 

[Mouseferatu]

As far as 3rd party goes: Make your own books you lazy bastards! Though I apreciated White Wolf's Sword & Sorcery's take on WoD D20 Ravenloft, you could have instead made your own setting that would have sold just as good! (And maybe had more support too).

They did. It was called Scarred Lands. Started out really strong, but sales eventually fell below a sustainable level.

Turns out that maybe Ravenloft and other classic names do have some selling power, huh?

 

[Minicol]

Oh, great. An Eberlancehawk Realms setting.

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

Isn't it the case of a lot of homebrew worlds ?

Cheers

 

[The Little Raven]

As far as 3rd party goes: Make your own books you lazy bastards!

If Ravenloft had come out from Wizards, it would have been one book, ala the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, instead of the full line of products (with a new Tarokka deck, no less) that we received from S&S.

And honestly, Ravenloft is a pretty narrow setting compared to the melting-pot settings of Forgotten Realms and Eberron, and thus would attract a significantly smaller audience.

Though I apreciated White Wolf's Sword & Sorcery's take on WoD D20 Ravenloft, you could have instead made your own setting that would have sold just as good!

Ravenloft and WoD are incredibly different. Ravenloft has never been about the introspective, personal horror that is WoD's specialty, and they directly addressed that concern in the core book. The only real difference between Ravenloft d20 and 2e is that d20 finally made it a separate setting, instead of being the bastard child that steals things from other settings. S&S's version sold pretty well, even with some of the stumbling at the beginning of the line, and I presume those sales have inspired WotC to publish Ravenloft novels once more (one from our very own Mouseferatu!).

 

[Minicol]

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.


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

Well I beg to disagree with you on some level : these settings were different ! Widely so in fact. And the compatibility was ... which compatibility ?

So I think it is a wholly different reason.

Would you say that Today Eberron and FR are the same thing ? I don't think so.

There could have been other reasons than that, you know, like the ever-favourite "short on cash", or "not enough time to play in multiple campaigns". Not everybody cared to spend my D&D budget at the time. it was just too expensive, just like now.

 

[The Little Raven]

Well I beg to disagree with you on some level : these settings were different ! Widely so in fact.

From Greyhawk to Mystara to Birthright, the majority of their settings are just western fantasy with a gimmick (descendants of exploding gods, etc.). They're not really different from eachother. They all resemble medieval Europe in their culture and appearance, and feature all the same basic staples: elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, wizards, clerics. Most of them never tried to do anything unique, just a slightly different spin on the same old thing.

Would you say that Today Eberron and FR are the same thing ? I don't think so.

While FR and Eberron operate from the same premise (everything in core D&D in here), their execution is vastly different from eachother (FR is the more traditional, medieval world; Eberron is the rise of the "industrial age" combined with the aftermath of the War to End All Wars).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

From Greyhawk to Mystara to Birthright, the majority of their settings are just western fantasy with a gimmick (descendants of exploding gods, etc.). They're not really different from eachother. They all resemble medieval Europe in their culture and appearance, and feature all the same basic staples: elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, wizards, clerics. Most of them never tried to do anything unique, just a slightly different spin on the same old thing.

Heck, I'll go further than that: Greyhawk, Mystara, the Forgotten Realms and Birthright could all be different regions of the same world and nothing would fundamentally change (Mystaran cosmology aside, which is really only an issue at the higher levels, for the most part).

As cool as the Birthright setting and named monsters are, the rulership aspect of the game could almost just be a separate sourcebook for any setting.

And, in fact, instead of WotC trying to support all four settings in 4E -- and I don't believe that they will -- I'd prefer if they just picked one or two (Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, realistically) and just gave us the coolest parts of the other settings in books that aren't setting-specific. If Castle Greyhawk is officially able to appear in any setting now (as per the end of Expedition), Castle Amber, the Isle of Dread (which has already been uprooted by Paizo), the Keep on the Borderlands (already uprooted by TSR) and other classic venues should be, too.