One setting per year?

[Doug McCrae]

As for what I'd like to see, a new setting that takes advantage of the "Astral Sea" in the new cosmology to combine elements of Spelljammer and Planescape into some sort of "Sailing between the worlds to lands beyond imagination" sort of thing.

Planejammer! Awesome idea.

 

[Terramotus]

Why is WotC even doing this? Didn't having a bunch of settings segment their market in the 2e days? I specifically remember reading how they wanted to not repeat that in 3e by keeping the official line down to 2.5 settings (FR, Eberron, plus random GH content through RPGA and other venues).

I can't believe that the market realities have changed that much. That, and that would mean WotC will have to compete with itself plus all the third party OGL settings like Scarred Lands (is it being updated?) et al.

Even if the market realities haven't changed, there are ways to tie the settings in with normal products so that people who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in the setting might make the purchase. For example, if you put out books of mostly crunch and some fluff - let's assume the 4E Psionics Handbook, 4E Bo9S/Oriental Adventures, and the 4E Book of Vile Darkness - you can put out each book with rules to run the concepts and fluff to help to integrate the new rules into the existing setting / assumed PoL setting.

However, if you put out a new setting book roughly conciding with each of these, you can piggyback on them with settings that take those rules ideas and put a spotlight on them or extend the ideas to their logical conclusion, along with some setting-specific crunch that expands on interesting ideas in the core books.

So Dark Sun or Eberron might be tied to the Psionics Handbook, and might generate more sales. Similarly the Bo9S with Kara-Tur and BoVD with Ravenloft. I can guaruntee it already happened to an extent with psionics and Eberron and, earlier, high magic and the Forgotten Realms. I know that I bought the early FR books for just that reason when I woudn't have otherwise.

Planejammer! Awesome idea.

Dude, totally. They can call it, "Sailors on the Seas of Fate". They can even tie in Stormbringer Blackrazor as an artifact.

 

[Najo]

I actually don't think the polls that Ryan worked from are completely accurate. I think the settings were a good thing and that the reason they divided the markets were more than just to many worlds:

1) I think that TSR made to many DM materials and not enough player ones, at least with campaign setting material. Most of the player tools were books like the complete series and player kits. The books for the campaign settings gave DMs more material to work from and actually were bad purchases for players as they held monster stats, adventure seeds, npcs etc. This was mistake one. As WOTC has been doning, make your products for the players (mostly) and then put in additional DM material.

2) Duplicating sourcebook themes and producing to many books. TSR put out way to many books for each setting, and half the time books that could easily have been a dragon article or gathered with other settings into one book (like the Book of Artifacts) could have worked fine. I think this hurt, and gave the impression of to many products existing.

Why I believe the settings are sorely wanted, is look at the most succesful dragon and dungeon issues, they are the ones that tie to the settings. The articles for settings are much more interesting. They have points of reference, adventure ideas and mythology without floating in a vacuum.

If WOTC plays it smart, they will make sourcebooks for the settings that give material to both players (of all classes) and DMs, and then are given guidelines using that material in other campaigns but most of the material focuses on the campaign it goes to.

Also, I think instead of doing boring sourcebooks like sandstorm, they do the Dark Sun setting and give the expanded desert rules, desert adventuring etc there. Planescape can focus on playing with the planar realms as your native plane, and adventuring in the realms of demons, celestials and gods. It can give support to those types of games, as well as supporting its own setting.

I think most of us miss the worlds, reading about them, mining for ideas from them, and all we really want is the option to play in them or within parts of them or take things from them and put them in our own worlds. The D&D with no worlds was very dry and boring at times.

 

[Najo]

Even if the market realities haven't changed, there are ways to tie the settings in with normal products so that people who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in the setting might make the purchase. For example, if you put out books of mostly crunch and some fluff - let's assume the 4E Psionics Handbook, 4E Bo9S/Oriental Adventures, and the 4E Book of Vile Darkness - you can put out each book with rules to run the concepts and fluff to help to integrate the new rules into the existing setting / assumed PoL setting.

However, if you put out a new setting book roughly conciding with each of these, you can piggyback on them with settings that take those rules ideas and put a spotlight on them or extend the ideas to their logical conclusion, along with some setting-specific crunch that expands on interesting ideas in the core books.

So Dark Sun or Eberron might be tied to the Psionics Handbook, and might generate more sales. Similarly the Bo9S with Kara-Tur and BoVD with Ravenloft. I can guaruntee it already happened to an extent with psionics and Eberron and, earlier, high magic and the Forgotten Realms. I know that I bought the early FR books for just that reason when I woudn't have otherwise.

I agree with this 100% I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I would be surprised if Dark Sun and the Psionic Handbook didn't release at the same time and if the planar handbook/ manual of the planes and Planescape didn't either.

 

[cougent]

We had this thread once already (I fact I started it). I think that thread title was the same even. Anyhow I suspect they may release new settings rather than their old ones. Remember the setting search? WotC bought the rights to 2nd and 3rd place too (if memory serves).

That said I could see some of the more popular settings coming back (Dragonlance?)

Yes, we did, you mean this thread which covered much of the same ground, BUT some new ideas have popped in here so it's all good.

Like I said before I think this had way more to do with how TSR was run as a whole than too many settings being the root cause or even a serious factor.

If you read Dancy's post really carefully he says the same thing as well.

Terramotus may be onto something.

I will give WotC credit that they are trying to do something new and different, not just rehash the same old thing again in a new wrapper. It remains to be seen if this pays off for them or not, but it is a bold attempt. So the idea of a new setting a year fits in with the new mindset. One off setting (experiment) books that get either a horrid / mediocre / or fantastic reception then determine what happens next. Horrid means we never see it again. Mediocre means we get some of the ideas originally developed for this setting put in core books as alternates. Fantastic means they either produce more "setting books", possibly the way Terramotus suggested; or license the entire setting out to another party.
[They might even license out horrid and mediocre if some third party wants to run with it.]

Rather than splitting the existing market, this may be yet another way to bring in new people off the streets who don't like the traditional settings.

 

[Minicol]

We had this thread once already (I fact I started it). I think that thread title was the same even. Anyhow I suspect they may release new settings rather than their old ones. Remember the setting search? WotC bought the rights to 2nd and 3rd place too (if memory serves).

That said I could see some of the more popular settings coming back (Dragonlance?)

Yeah sure, and it was interesting too, but you know we don't necessarily have the time to go back and re-read all the old threads and resurrect them. It allows those who may have missed them to take part in the discussion.

For the setting search, I think the second was published : was it not "Morningstar" by Goodman Games ?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Rather than splitting the existing market, this may be yet another way to bring in new people off the streets who don't like the traditional settings.

It also helps that 3E and, presumably, 4E settings give you more than 2E did.

I mean, when I bought something like Oathbound for 3E I knew that I wasn't just getting setting I was also getting prestige race subsystem and some freaky species I could use anywhere.

2E settings had some of that, but the emphasis on flavor meant that mostly you got some flavorful spells and some kits that might or might not be so good for plug and play.

 

[Mortellan]

I rather dread them releasing a GH 4E book because I have a feeling once they get past FR and Eberron all these other books will be are one shot sourcebooks with no follow up. Then it will be another round of wishing and whining about no-support until 5e comes along.

 

[Cyronax]

I rather dread them releasing a GH 4E book because I have a feeling once they get past FR and Eberron all these other books will be are one shot sourcebooks with no follow up. Then it will be another round of wishing and whining about no-support until 5e comes along.

I am right there with you about a GH book after FR and EB. I doubt it'll come to pass. I think GH will be relegated to online publishing for DDInsider. A full blown book probably would be more than Wotc would support .... I mean even with the 'default' setting status in 3e, GH only received 4 real books for it (LGG, small Gazetteer, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and the Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk). Slim pickings for a world as grand as that.

Online official support would be cool though IMO since I love Greyhawk.

 

[Cyronax]

I agree with this 100% I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I would be surprised if Dark Sun and the Psionic Handbook didn't release at the same time and if the planar handbook/ manual of the planes and Planescape didn't either.

I still think it'll be an Eberron - Psionic Rules pairing. That said, I love Dark Sun as well. Both worlds have strong following and evoke cool mental imagery.

The Eberron world has so many options for potential rules-crunch material that I think WotC will continue to develop in that direction.

With regards to Dark Sun however, how has the online fan content / 3e conversions been received? I hadn't followed it closely, so if that is really popular, then maybe I am wrong about Eberron.

C.I.D.