I think they should quit being jerks to their customers and business partners. Things like yanking liscenses right and left, a draconian GSL, and pulling PDF's only cause you to lose the respect and business of D&D fans. Paizo has done nothing but show courtesy and respect to their customers. WotC should try to do more of that. I also think that they should follow Paizo's lead and try to make proucts that they believe their customers will like instead of making products that fit their business plan and try to convince their customers that they should like those products.
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Pathfinder 1E Things you Think WoTC should follow from Paizo
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Though I wonder if this couldn't be something to fill the Dragon or Dungeon with? One article or a series of article describing one wacky/interesting/unusual/niche setting perhaps? Didn't they do something like that with the Dungeon/Polyhedron combination? It didn't work so well then, but I think that might have been a lot due to the way the magazines were distributed together. Of course, with DDI they would still be distributed together, but you also get both Dragon and Dungeon at the same time anyway.I wasn't trying to be Paizo defensive. Honestly, I just read "We don´t need another Generica. We have Castlemourn for that." And my first reaction was "Bwuh?!! Someone's heard of Castlemourn??"My second reaction was "Uh... I don't think that dead product line is filling any market niche whatsoever."
No offense to Castlemourn since I like the setting, but unfortunately I wouldn't exactly consider it successfully filling the "generic fantasy setting" market niche. (MWP is even selling it at their website for 67% off cover price! A sad end to what could have been a great setting.) I was just dumbfounded by your reference to Castlemourn filling the need for a generic fantasy setting making Golarion redundant. That's all.
But no need to sidetrack further. As a matter of fact, I agree with you that I don't want another generic fantasy setting from WotC either. In fact, as much as I love Paizo, I haven't jumped on board the Golarion train because 1e-3.x Forgotten Realms has always been my generic fantasy setting of choice. Now, they have done some great stuff with Golarion, but like you and/or others have said, it's still designed to be a "you can play an sort of fantasy and pseudo-historical campaign you like". There's even fantasy Egypt, there's fantasy Japan, etc. I don't have a need for that sort of setting even if it is full of great ideas (got too many books filled with similarly great ideas I haven't used yet).
Personally, I want more Dark Sun, Planescape, and other very, very non-generic settings. Once I had one generic setting (which for me will probably always be pre-4e FR), I don't really need any more no matter how incredibly well done they are. What I really need are settings I could never dream up! Eberron walks a fine line between having good generic placeholders (i.e. Breland/Cormyr/Andoran/good guy European) with some crazy, unique ideas that make it stand out from the other settings. Golarion has some fun bits, too, just not nearly enough unique ones to make it my preferred setting.
What *I* would like (but could possibly be in the minority) is for even crazier settings. A setting that is entirely based in the Shadowfell. An undersea setting. Dark Sun 4e or other post-apocalyptic barren wasteland fantasy setting. An Astral Sea piracy setting. Unfortunately, those are inherently risky and not perceived as mass-marketable, so I'm not holding my breath for a company like WotC being able to afford that kind of risk.
kenmarable
Hero
Exactly!!
I thought those Polyhedrons were great! There were more misses than hits in my opinion, and I imagine most agree with me. However, most importantly, I'm sure my list of "hits" probably includes other people's "misses" and vice versa. It's hard for a company the size of WotC to produce something that 80% of their audience has no interest in, but that 20% absolutely loves it. With each month (or however frequent) it's largely an entirely different 20% that is happy, but it's still all too easy to see the 80% unhappy and put the resources elsewhere.
But that would be great if they did something like that again.
Thanks for reminding me of it! I'll have to dig some of those out now.
Actually, WotC are one of the few companies that I think both could and would publish one of these "crazier" settings. Thier current model for settings is only three books, after all. So an unusual setting gets the same amount of support, hopefully enough to get people started, and people who like it can carry on from there. It's not as if the settings are the big money-spinners for WotC compared to the core rulebooks and supplements. For a smaller company, putting out three books on an unusual setting which could fail completely is much more of a gamble, since that represents a much larger proportion of their product line.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Speaking of your want for PS, Colin McComb just wrote a planar module set within Golarion's cosmology.
Crothian
First Post
You curious about their vegetable garden status?
XRP invited me over to game and they feed me homemade food made from that garden of theirs. So, no making fun of the vegetables!
Keefe the Thief
Hero
Don´t be so defensive. Yes, that was a joke.
I wasn't trying to be Paizo defensive. Honestly, I just read "We don´t need another Generica. We have Castlemourn for that." And my first reaction was "Bwuh?!! Someone's heard of Castlemourn??"
No offense to Castlemourn since I like the setting, but unfortunately I wouldn't exactly consider it successfully filling the "generic fantasy setting" market niche. (MWP is even selling it at their website for 67% off cover price! A sad end to what could have been a great setting.) I was just dumbfounded by your reference to Castlemourn filling the need for a generic fantasy setting making Golarion redundant. That's all.
I´ll try again: I didn´t say that one generic setting made the other redundant. I said that we don´t need another generic setting from Wotc because a) they have one published (FR) and b) they could publish others they own the IP for and c) there are enough generic settings on the market. Castlemourn was used as an example, because, well, nothing is more generic than Castlemourn. I didn´t say that Golarion was redundant, but that Wotc trying to do a similar setting would be redundant.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Regarding fluff. I just read through the Divine Power, and there was fluff and story ideas spread throughout it. I liked that.
What I think was missing are longer passages that just talk about this. The boxes that describe some of the historical events behind the gods and their relations to each other or the world were pretty good, but I think more would sometimes be nice. Give a large example of a divine character - a biography, an excerpt of his interactions with others, a piece of fiction.
What I think was missing are longer passages that just talk about this. The boxes that describe some of the historical events behind the gods and their relations to each other or the world were pretty good, but I think more would sometimes be nice. Give a large example of a divine character - a biography, an excerpt of his interactions with others, a piece of fiction.
CaptainChaos
First Post
In general I just wish WotC showed more respect for the history of D&D. The Paizo guys seem more tapped into that than the actual publishers of D&D.
Wicht
Hero
And thus wizards lost my business and Paizo gained it.
Or, in other words, this is what I also wish WotC did more like Paizo.
