D&D 5E Planescape shows up in the wild. Tease from Chris Perkins.

[Paul Farquhar]

I dare say in TSR days the readers might have outnumbered the players.

Probably correct. It's the "player " market that has seen massive growth.

And the fact that D&D is now owned by Hasbro is part of the reason. It's not that there is no market for "readers", it's that a toy and game company isn't particularly interested in pursuing it (and when they do it's aimed at children). There is an old adage in business that you should stick to what you know, and avoid overdiversification.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Probably correct. It's the "player " market that has seen massive growth.

And the fact that D&D is now owned by Hasbro is part of the reason. It's not that there is no market for "readers", it's that a toy and game company isn't particularly interested in pursuing it (and when they do it's aimed at children). There is an old adage in business that you should stick to what you know, and avoid overdiversification.

Has it though, I look at all the D&DBeyond characters who are never used in a campaign, the online theory-crafting and elaborate backgrounds, the campaign settings carefully crafted and wonder....how much of these people are playing, as opposed to, I guess, "playing at playing."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Has it though, I look at all the D&DBeyond characters who are never used in a campaign, the online theory-crafting and elaborate backgrounds, the campaign settings carefully crafted and wonder....how much of these people are playing, as opposed to, I guess, "playing at playing."

These are things that key off rules though. And therefore in Hasbro's wheelhouse.

Books for "readers" don't need rules at all. And you see them published for other fictional worlds. I really doesn't make any difference if the lore book is about Star Trek, Middle Earth, Forgotten Realms or something the author created themselves. There is a market for them, but its a market for publishing houses, not toy makers.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You do realize that Hasbro owned D&D during two editions that did have actual setting books, right?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You do realize that Hasbro owned D&D during two editions that did have actual setting books, right?

They still do make setting books. But they are setting books to support play, not to be read.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They still do make setting books. But they are setting books to support play, not to be read.

Those aren't setting books. They're adventures with player options and a little background attached. What setting they have is designed to support the included adventure, not creating adventures in the setting the book is ostensibly about.

 

[Vaalingrade]

They make adventures set in old settings mostly. They're not actually setting books any more than the adventure it appears in is a setting book for Hommlet.

 

[Incenjucar]

Those aren't setting books. They're adventures with player options and a little background attached. What setting they have is designed to support the included adventure, not creating adventures in the setting the book is ostensibly about.

Playsets.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Because if they want to keep using a fairly generic base for new Campaigns, the Inner Sea opens up a lot more space (they don't generally seemed inclined to revisit the same area too often without a metaplot). Besides, Perkins has spoken about transitioning away from the Sword Coast into other parts of Faerun, specifically Coromyr, in a way that suggested that is where they are headed over time.

The Dalelanda also share the Sword Coast's advantage of being the location of Greenwood's actual home games, and hence actually interesting detail.

Other advantages of the Inner Sea is that Thay is there and I think they want to make Thay an even bigger antigonist going forward. Other major villains in the area are Warlock Knights of Vaasa, Queen of the Succubi Malnchanet, Unther, etc...

And it's set up to do a much greater variety of adventures. Myth Nentar for visiting an underwater city you don't need a spell to visit, empires related to Earth empires, megadungeon the Celestial Nadir, old school kingdoms Cormyr, Impiltur, Damara, Rasheman, you got the Old Empires Region for ancient empires and Dragonborn nation of Tymanther, Pirate Islands, racial divirsity (Turmish, Nathlan), city states like Westgate, you got that nation that Raven bluff is apart of, etc..., you got tell more kinds of stories there ones that involve bigger nations and are closer to big villain nations.

I love Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep and Neverwinter, but the Inner Sea region is just far richer in possibilities.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Those aren't setting books. They're adventures with player options and a little background attached. What setting they have is designed to support the included adventure, not creating adventures in the setting the book is ostensibly about.

They have what you need to play D&D. They do not have the reams of irrelevant and repetitive information that used to be in setting books because you do not need that to play D&D. It only existed to be read.