Too many cooks - the problem with Campaign Settings

[tetsujin28]

Once upon a time, you had settings called Glorantha and Tekumel. They were older than Greyhawk. They still rule, 35+ years later.

 

[Hand of Evil]

And then there were wants and needs. People wanted something else, their vision of magic did not meet with others, their image of heroic was a little be greyer, they needed a place to call their own...

Setting sell, the problem is that the world changed, you just don't sell pen and paper, there are other markets, books, movies, computer games, internet games, etc...Laws were wrote, bills passed, people sued (people forget that Dragon art thingy)...and for every person that touched your product the chance was someone would ask for back royalties. So you adjust, make a new setting that you can carry forth into the brave new world.

 

[jasper]

I never did get into specfic campaign settings. modules from settings yes. I even hate see the new dragon mag when was in fifties due to the fact some article would change the view of greyhawk or have something great half the players wanted to include imc. Ex bounty hunters npc class. A class created to hunt down bad pc the munckins wanted to run as pcs due all the cool powers.
Also too many cooks, and too much detail.
"What! Jasper ! Play the villiage how suppose to be played! This is Slapout and the mayor is suppose to Elric the Elf mage it is in the campaign book on page 33" screames Merric and hong.
Sorry I enjoyed it when one person in the gaming group could buy the greyhawk map. The rest of us would grab the module HMM G1 at this sector. Okay I need to draw some mountains over here on my campaign map. And why is there a volcano two hexes over. Where once settings got to be must haves you could point and click and know what is there. Gee Lat 33 degree by Long 32 North hmm New york city. And have some cheater who has bought the module, and has the new ficition book about gangs of new york which is not suppose to sold to next week but he works at the bookstore has swipe a copy.
That is why I like city state modules of Judge Guild . Lots of detail ideas but lots of missing stats. So yes Merric the Mad Merry Merchant came to throne on Enworld in 2004 after over throw Hong the Horrible. My Merric may be a straight merchant, piratecat's version is war mage who old a merchant company. My Hong could a 14 barbarian 4 paladin. Hong's Hong could just be an elf.

 

[diaglo]

Thus continues the Conan-ization of D&D.


the older settings are superior. as are the older rules. there i said it.

OD&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

 

[kingamy]

Everything nowadays sucks

Everything in the entire world was perfect when I was 15.

TV shows, soda drinks, fast food, movies, music, and of course gaming products (both settings and rules).

Every change since 1990 has been downhill. I demand that everything go back to the way it was in 1990.

Thanks,

Mike Haakstad
Grande Prairie, AB, Canada

(just kidding)

 

[Staffan]

I'm not sure, but I think the Chaos War was prompted by TSR to try out their SAGA system, and not the other way around. Likewise, Margaret Weis has said in an interview that Peter Adkison requested that they do the War of Souls to try and bring Dragonlance back to how it was before.

The impression I've gotten from people involved in DL5A is that it was the other way around. Hickman & Weis blew up the world with Dragons of Summer Flame (possibly after TSR had decided to discontinue AD&D support for the setting), and when TSR made the SAGA system they decided to go with the recently blewn up setting of Dragonlance for their new system.

 

[Staffan]

Once upon a time, you had settings called Glorantha and Tekumel. They were older than Greyhawk. They still rule, 35+ years later.

Glorantha is still around. Uses a different system nowadays, called HeroQuest (formerly known as Hero Wars).

 

[Arnwyn]

I definitely agree with the "too many cooks" concept - heck, I've been saying it for years back when I frequented the REALMS-L list. FR (as much as I love it) is a major offender in this regard - thus, it's the reason why I only trust and respect three authors for that setting. The rest I'm pretty apathetic or wary towards, and a semi-recent FR writer, who thankfully is no longer employed at WotC, is IMO nothing more than a two-bit hack when it comes to FR. (I am open to change, though. Some recent product direction decisions - notably UE, SK, and SS - have made me trust the FR creative director a lot more than previously.)

(It's interesting, too, because those 3 FR writers that I trust have made virtually nothing that I haven't liked. One in my list has stumbled a few times, but overall they have a rather incredible batting average IMO. No one else can claim that in my mind.)

 

[Iuz]

Who has read Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" books? Now, who has read the "The Second Foundation Trilogy" books written by Brin, Bear and Benford? Does anyone want to say that the vision is shared perfectly?

Asimov's "Foundation" series are my all time favorite books.

If anyone knows how to remove the memory having having read "The Second Foundation Trilogy" I would greatly appreciate it. (of couse then I might end up reading it again, argh!)

With regards to the topic though its a lose-lose-lose situation. If nothing comes out for a game world people complain. If they keep publishing similar material people complain. If something radically different comes out people complain. The only difference is that with the latter two solutions the company makes more money.

 

[johnsemlak]

Once upon a time, there was a setting named The World of Greyhawk. It was primarily the vision of one man: Gary Gygax. He allowed a few others who shared his vision of the world to write for it. Then Gary moved away, not entirely willingly. Not at all!

The vision for the world continued with his successors, who didn't quite have the same vision that Gary had. No matter. It was still Greyhawk...

...and they were replaced, and the vision changed again...

...and again, and again...

What is the point of this story? Well, it is simply this: Campaign worlds are mainly personal things. They are the vision of one person, or the vision of a (closely-knit) group. The Forgotten Realms are as much Jeff Grubb's creation as Ed Greenwood's.

After the original designers of a setting are replaced, the successors are never quite have the same vision. Now, occasionally their vision is actually superior - but that doesn't always matter to the fans of the setting.

Who has read Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" books? Now, who has read the "The Second Foundation Trilogy" books written by Brin, Bear and Benford? Does anyone want to say that the vision is shared perfectly?

To take an even more awful example, the "Dune" books by Frank Herbert and those Dune books by Kevin J. Anderson...

I'm a long time fan of the World of Greyhawk, but I know that if I ever got around to writing books for it, my vision would be greatly different than 'canonical' Greyhawk, and from 'Gygaxian' Greyhawk.

In the end, all campaign settings face this problem: no man lives forever, so the original vision cannot be always there guiding new products. In the Real World, it doesn't even last that long!

There are other problems that relate to the longevity of campaign settings, but that is one of the most influential, I think.

Eberron is the child of Keith Baker and the Eberron team at Wizards of the Coast. While that team stays together you can expect a shared vision of Eberron - but all things must pass.

To expect otherwise is to expect something contrary to what experience tells us.

Cheers!

Should the same logic be applied to those whose original vision created D&D?