D&D 5E Settings played in D&D: cause or effect?

[hawkeyefan]

In order to get this evidence you have to take a chance. It seems like there are a lot of people who really like the 5th edition rules. What settings sold the best in the past has really no relevance now.

Let's say they take a chance. Let's say that they decide to put out a Dark Sun Book. For the record, I love Dark Sun (I'm actually using the setting in my 5E campaign). Let's say just for argument's sake that such a book wouldn't just appeal to a subsection of the market.

Do you think that a Dark Sun book would sell as highly as an equivalent FR Canpaign Guide? Because they have to make these kinds of decisions. They have a limited amount of people and resources. So they absolutely MUST choose what to publish at any given time. You've said it isn't an either/or situation but it is exactly that. Your view as a fan may not be either/or, but theirs as a business must be.

So let's say that they put out a Dark Sun Campaign Guide. If it doesn't sell well...this chance that you describe above...then that is a big deal. The FR stuff has a quantifiable appeal...they have a lot of data to give them an idea on how a FR book will sell. They have less for the other settings.

Yes, this is a case of a self fulfilling prophecy to some extent. But they have to go with what they know. Any risk taken must be carefully considered.

There has never been another 5th edition D&D out there so there is no way to know what will succeed or not until you try.

This is bonkers. Telling them to ignore what data they have and basically roll the dice and hope that a more niche setting will have a wider appeal than a more generic setting? Why?

Seriously, why would they do that? It's like telling Coca-Cola to spend less on production/support of Coke and instead focus on orange soda. It just doesn't make sense.

What they could do is decide what level of support such a niche product might garner, and then see if they can allocate enough resources to test it out, without actually disrupting their main product.

 

[Bluenose]

Let's say they take a chance. Let's say that they decide to put out a Dark Sun Book. For the record, I love Dark Sun (I'm actually using the setting in my 5E campaign). Let's say just for argument's sake that such a book wouldn't just appeal to a subsection of the market.

Do you think that a Dark Sun book would sell as highly as an equivalent FR Canpaign Guide?

I doubt it would. The question is how a Dark Sun Campaign Guide would compare to another FR region getting another source book. Or for that matter, a book with no setting in it at all would do compared to an FR book. If your reasoning is valid, a good (defintion of good may vary) non-setting book about world building or pantheon design or something similar would be a better choice than any FR book could be.

 

[PMárk]

Just a thought: I get that they can't afford to do things like in 2e-3e times. That they concentrate on their most popular setting. That's OK and understandable. But it is indeed a self-fulfilling prophecy by every means. And since there IS a demand for other settings, what if they would:

- Do conversion guides, or shorter player/DM guides, which focus on the world-specific mechanics and the setting's latest changes. Most of the fluff are usable from dnd classics (which download rates would grow therefore), everybody wins and happy.
- Do the above on pdf-only if they want to save pressing/distributing costs.
- Give the smaller settings to 3rd party publishers and problem solved. That worked for Ravenloft through 3e, so I would approach Onyx Path with the idea right now.

There are good solutions for the current situation to satisfy fans who don't want to play FR, but don't have the time to converse everything. Please pick up and do one or any combination/variation because this isn't ideal right now.

 

[Pragmatic]

I'm mostly a collector of 2E and 3/3.5E, pretty much missed 4E.

But couldn't they do a partnership thing, like they did with Oriental Adventures, Ravenloft, and DragonLance in 3/3.5E? WotC prints the campaign setting, then the partner company prints all the supplements and adventures?

I don't think we can expect WotC to go back to the heyday of TSR's 2E (sigh... I still remember the pain of trying to keep up with all the supplements from core/Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Planescape, SpelllJammer, Birthright, and Alternity--almost as bad as the pain of realizing that I could afford all of one month's supplements because they'd dropped most of my favorite lines).

 

[pming]

Hiya!

In my opinion, and I've said this years ago... WotC need to work on their image of "we're gamers, just like you!". Now, I know that the core folk there are actually gamers, but for me, the whole 3.x through 4e eras have basically felt like "Here's some stuff we think we can make money off of", and less like "Here's some stuff we've been playing with in our own campaigns and we think you'd like".

Most of the folks I know (including myself) would be very happy with a simple PDF of 'info' for other settings. We don't need (or even want) full colour extravaganza's with fancy backgrounds that make the text almost impossible to read. Give me a 32-page, b/w, booklet (ala the original World of Greyhawk Folio edition, circa 1981(?)). Some simple b/w art here and there (basically, "doodles and sketches" that an artist can whip out in 20 minutes), a paragraph or two on the overall area/country, and maybe a list of deity names and portfolios at the back.

If they put out, say, a 64-page b/w PDF with no-nonsense, simple, quick, sparsely festooned document for Birthright, for example, and put a price tag of, say $15 on it...and Copyright note that says something like "The persons name listed as watermark on the bottom of every page has permission to print this booklet for personal use only" (so that we could take it down to a local print shop, Staples, Kinko's, or whatever, and not get hassled about copyright and requiring faxes and other PITA things). I'd buy ALL of them. Dark Sun, Birthright, Greyhawk, Eberron, Council of Wyrms even, all of them.

Would WotC make tons of money off this? Doubt it. But what they would get is gratitude and good will from everyone who plays in these games. That, in turn, would lead to more playing of the game and likely buying of more core books. People who used to play and hear all the good stuff about 5e, but then hear "FR only"...and think "well, crap...hated FR...always played in Greyhawk/Dark Sun/Birthright/whatever...I'll wait until they come out with that campaign setting for it then give it a go" (and yes, I have read of some people asking about 5e, some on these forums, who say basically that...interested, but not if I 'have' to play in FR).

Anyway...yeah, simple "b/w document info" style PDF's of the other TSR worlds would be fantastic. They don't need to spend months of RnD, hundreds of man hours designing layout, typesetting, art direction, or the tens of thousands on full-colour artwork. I/we don't care. Just give us a DM friendly document we can read and print that allows us to more easily run 5e D&D in our favored setting. Is that too much to ask? Really? If so...pay some freelancer a few bucks to do it. Believe it or not, a lot of us who have been playing this thing called "D&D" for the last nigh-half-century (!) will be doing this anyway...WotC may as well just put out a "call for submissions for Bare-Bones Campaign Setting - [SettingName]". Give some basic criteria, and then let the conversion documents roll in. The winner gets some cash and a freelance job to finish the project up to WotC's satisfaction. POOF! Every setting they ever put out is now going to be up for purchase.

Just a thought.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[PMárk]

During 3E, WotC didn't even make the Ravenloft campaign setting. The whole line was outsorced to White Wolf. It worked, so the sample is here. Outsorcing the minor settings would make these alive, which satisfies these setting's fans and further boosts the core books and supplements sales.

 

[Shasarak]

For some reason I never really got into Darksun in any real way. Spelljammer, Planescape and Birthright were always my go to settings.

 

[Shasarak]

This is bonkers. Telling them to ignore what data they have and basically roll the dice and hope that a more niche setting will have a wider appeal than a more generic setting? Why?

Seriously, why would they do that? It's like telling Coca-Cola to spend less on production/support of Coke and instead focus on orange soda. It just doesn't make sense.

What they could do is decide what level of support such a niche product might garner, and then see if they can allocate enough resources to test it out, without actually disrupting their main product.

It is not completely bonkers - most companies do have an RnD Department to try and find the cool new thing. Of course every now and then you might have a "New Coke" but seems like Coca Cola have bounced back from that mistake while still managing to convert everyone to High Fructose Corn syrup.

But having said that, yeah WotC had better stick with the middle of the road stuff and let the Innovative third parties do the research and development.

 

[Maxperson]

You have a choose now. Much of the old setting stuff is usable in 5e. Yes redoing them for 5e would make things easier but don't pretend you don't have a choice.

Don't you pretend that you know how much time I have to convert things. You have no clue.

 

[Maxperson]

I doubt it would. The question is how a Dark Sun Campaign Guide would compare to another FR region getting another source book. Or for that matter, a book with no setting in it at all would do compared to an FR book. If your reasoning is valid, a good (defintion of good may vary) non-setting book about world building or pantheon design or something similar would be a better choice than any FR book could be.

They've lost something like 60% of their customers when it comes to settings. All those homebrew people are people who might buy something else, but won't buy FR.