Only the Lonely: Why We Demand Official Product

[Sword of Spirit]

Usually, the arguments ensure because of the more common fan issues that we see in anything from Star Wars to Forgotten Realms; canon and validation. People strongly identify with D&D, people love D&D, and because of that love for D&D (and/or particular things within it) they have strong beliefs as to what should be included. Or even what a campaign setting should look like.

One important factor that I think you may be losing inside your categories of canon and validation is shared experience. That’s pretty much why that stuff matters to a lot of people. Contrary to what might be assumed, rather than being a belligerent gate-keeping attitude, it can actually be about wanting to bring people in and finding it no longer a simple proposition.

Nobody wants to start up a conversation about D&D/Star Wars/Star Trek/Etc, and have to stop and ask, “Wait a minute, which D&D/Star Wars/Star Trek/Etc, are we talking about?”

It isn’t about wanting to be better than others, it’s (sometimes literally) wanting to be on the same page as others. Sure it can get ugly, but the root drive is an inherent desire for socialization. And the problems arise when this was once easy and assumed, and then some corporate entity changes the identity of a product so that instant connection you used to be able make with complete strangers isn’t possible anymore. I mean, I’m sure some people just want to be jerks, but I don’t intentionally associate with them, and the friends I have that are passionate about things like canon generally want to be inclusive and bring new people into a hobby.

The world of fandom would probably be a better and more civil place if corporations would just avoid reusing the same name for a revised product.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of this Dungeons & Giants game, but I haven’t played before. Sure, I’ll join your group and give it a try. I do play another similar game by the same company called Dungeons & Dragons I could run sometime later if you guys are interested.”

 

[Umbran]

So the long and the short of it is ... people will want official product because that's what people do.

I was away for a week, and I'm not likely to read 20 pages of thread, so this may already have been noted, but...

Beware selection bias.

"People" want this. How many? As compared to how many people pay the game cruising along just fine without new official settings? We don't know.

We see some number of people complain that they want official product... because they aren't satisfied, so they complain. But, if someone is satisfied, they are unlikely to start a thread about it. We do not hear from those people - they are in general not engaging in discussion of exactly how satisfied they are, and if they do, it is without vehemence and tenacity, so they don't tend to stick in the mind....

 

[Zardnaar]

Also don't listen to forums as a game developer. That's how we got 4E.

Most players are casual types, probably don't play high level, probably don't play multiple edition and probably don't care to much about campaign settings.

 

[Hussar]

And if I don't want to do that?

Wasn't saying you should. Just something that came to mind because I had just done it.

But, it does make the argument that "oh, it's too much work" kinda look silly when all it takes is about 15 seconds to do it on your own.

No.

You like and want what you like and want, and I will do the same.

Fair enough. But, you already HAVE what you want. Forgotten Realms has more information than most encyclopedias. We HAVE a setting that is completely detailed out. Do we really need more than one?

Never minding that as soon as you ignore the whole "official canon" thing, there is a frigging MOUNTAIN of Greyhawk material out there. I should know, I've been wading through it for my Saltmarsh campaign. You want to know about the area? The history? The NPC's? It's a Google search away. Every possible detail that you want to know is RIGHT THERE. And, again, if you ignore the "official canon" thing, there's classes, monsters, and adventures GALORE for 5e set in Greyhawk.

The argument that you don't have time to make it yourself kinda falls flat when all the work has already been done for you. The only thing missing is that WotC seal of approval. Frankly, if you're running Greyhawk, I cannot imagine that anything WotC has to say really matters to you.

 

[ChaosOS]

I sold my Eberron book so don't have the exact figures, but I'll take your word for it. On a broader note, most D&D settings have the same problems - the cities are too large, but the countries and regions have too few people. Basically the urban/rural population proportions are WAY off. If Waterdeep is 2 million, then the Sword Coast should be 70 million or more. A lot of setting designers are using post-Industrial demographics to determine population. Paris might have been around 100,000 in the Middle Ages, but France was 17 million.

The only Eberron book that had extensive demographic information was the original ECS, but the numbers in it gave Khorvaire the population density of Siberia. Based on Keith comments the going theory is someone took a pen to the map scale towards the end of editing to dramatically upscale the continent and didn't bother to fix the population numbers while they were at it.

Fun fact, the scale of the map has changed every edition. Khorvaire went from 5k miles across to 3k in the 3e to 4e jump (One of the handful of changes that seems to be universally popular), and Rising made it a tiny bit smaller again (This change is more suspect just because of the way the 5e map is put together, there's speculation it wasn't intentional)

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

It's made of (I assume) professional staff who do their jobs as directed to.

Isn't that a sell out? A professional who takes direction and works on someone else's project?

 

[Maxperson]

Wasn't saying you should. Just something that came to mind because I had just done it.

But, it does make the argument that "oh, it's too much work" kinda look silly when all it takes is about 15 seconds to do it on your own.

Except not. That's by far not the only thing that needs updating and most of it won't be that simple. Also, for some people, apparently it's very important. For you and myself, 1 level isn't a big deal.

Fair enough. But, you already HAVE what you want. Forgotten Realms has more information than most encyclopedias. We HAVE a setting that is completely detailed out. Do we really need more than one?

I'm not suggesting that as much info on GH be released as we have on the Realms. I'm saying that a book like The Sword Coast Adventure Guide is warranted.

Never minding that as soon as you ignore the whole "official canon" thing, there is a frigging MOUNTAIN of Greyhawk material out there. I should know, I've been wading through it for my Saltmarsh campaign. You want to know about the area? The history? The NPC's? It's a Google search away. Every possible detail that you want to know is RIGHT THERE. And, again, if you ignore the "official canon" thing, there's classes, monsters, and adventures GALORE for 5e set in Greyhawk.

If you like not having the material in quality book form, sure. If I'm running a campaign, I want the physical material, not PDF or internet.

 

[Fenris-77]

Isn't that a sell out? A professional who takes direction and works on someone else's project?

Or is it just called having a job?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Or is it just called having a job?

To the true hippy, having a job is a sell out.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Or is it just called having a job?

There's also self-employment and people getting together to all create the product they've always dreamed of.