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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6765512" data-attributes="member: 5100">I'm overjoyed that homebrew holds a majority share. IMO, that's a core aspect of what makes D&D important. What I'd actually like to see is a chart that broke down the 45% "published setting" side in more detail. That would look like this (hopefully with more detail on "other"):- Forgotten Realms: 78%- Greyhawk: 11%- Other: 11%The core rules of D&D are generic pseudo-Medieval fantasy. There should be no question about whether the most popular published setting is going to be pseudo-Medieval fantasy. Given that the options under the WotC umbrella are the Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance, and (maybe) Birthright, it doesn't surprise me in the least that the Realms are in the lead. I'm actually more surprised that Greyhawk is in second place.That actually speaks volumes to me. It was clear, even at the time, that TSR was waging an intentional campaign to remove as much of the Gygax signature from AD&D as it could without destroying the game. While Ed's ready-made, well developed setting was an undeniable treasure trove of IP, I think the zeal with which it was pushed was more related to the scrubbing of Gygax. The Realms would have survived and thrived as a setting entirely on its own merits, but its huge mind share has a lot to do with the marketing. Unless WotC has some weird fit and decides to actively sink the Realms in favor of something else, we'll never know for sure. That's my belief, though. If Greyhawk still holds 1/8 of the combined FR/Greyhawk market after 25 years of near abandonment vs. a marketing machine, there's something there. I think the Realms would have eventually passed Greyhawk, just due to the amount of information available for DMs who wanted to have a super-detailed setting (something Greyhawk was never going to be). But... who knows what would have happened if "Eye of the Beholder" had been set in Greyhawk? Instead of "Baldur's Gate", we may have had a game about a child of Iuz. I can't even imagine how the trickle-down would have worked. I can safely say that I'd have been more inclined to have bought the games.Setting aside things like production costs and dilution of revenue, if a "Free City Adventurers Guide", "Korvaire Adventurers Guide", "Sands of Athas Adventurers Guide", "Dread Realms Adventurers Guide", and "DragonLance Adventurers Guide" were dropped on the shelf right now, here's what I'd expect things to look like for published settings in ten years (more or less):- Forgotten Realms: 50%- Greyhawk: 20%- Eberron: 13%- DragonLance: 7%- Ravenloft: 5%- Dark Sun: 5%I just grabbed the first five settings that came to mind. I doubt that's accurate, but it'd be even worse if I threw in too many variables. The point is that, even as someone who despises the Realms, I think it'll always have more share because there's more available to people who really want to dig into someone else's world. It has an engaging (at least to some segment) story line. As such, it makes sense to continue to support it.So, the Realms is the most popular setting because it's got a lot to offer. It's so far on top because it sees the most support.If I was at the helm of WotC, I'd be tempted to intentionally move the FR market share, because I'd think there's long-term benefit in provided visibility to the other world IPs. I think you could probably set at least half the adventures in a setting other than the Realms without negatively impacting revenue from the Realms. The net impact would probably be to widen the pipeline to fit not only the current Realms novels, etc. but one or two other settings -- maybe at a slower pace for non-Realms stuff. The adventures are likely to drive some sales of other Adventurers Guides, as well.</blockquote>

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