• NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.

What do you think the 2012 setting is gonna be?

Or they could not dust off old stuff, and instead, do new, innovative things.

You mean in the way it was a typo that people flipped out about?

I did not mean it as negatively as you took it.

I can see positive things from both suggestions, your mileage may vary.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

[MENTION=81381]catastrophic[/MENTION],

Are you familiar with the Primal Order I am speaking off? That would indeed be new and innovative in the 4E context.

Playing deities, gathering power, building relics, artifacts, and entire planes, etc.

Has potential.
 

I'm not sure what I hope it is. I have a list of things that I don't like, and maybe a thing or two I'd like to see included in whatever it is.

The things I don't want to see (These are just my preferences it's fine for people to have different preferences)

1. I would hope that it wouldn't have large numbers of powerful creatures that are usually pretty rare like Dragons, but that it does include some of those creatures.

2. I like the setting to be more medieval as opposed to steam punk.

3. I don't mind seeing new classes or races introduced as long as they aren't somehow better versions of existing classes that trump all the classes that have come before.

These are some things I'd love the new setting to include.

1. I'd love it to have extensive notes about different cultures in the world. There could be multiple cultures of the difference races as well. Multiple human cultures, dwarf cultures, elven cultures etc.

2. Detailed maps

3. Details on how the different govts. work

4. Details on different nation and city state's military and economic systems.

5. A well explained mythology.

6. A way to incorporate classes that already exist such as the monk. Explanations for why Rangers, or Weaponmasters, or bards, or clerics, or whatever, might be found in the various areas of the setting, and their likely roles while in the different areas.

7. Magic can be extremely rare, rare, or more common, as long as there is background for why it is set up the way it is.

Actually looking over what I described it sounds a lot like Kalamar. So maybe I already have what I would want. I do love how well thought out and explained Kalamar is, and would love future settings to have a rich history and well defined cultures like Kalamar.
 

Wouldn't it be interesting if it was setup to use every edition of D&D?

Set up to use as in "Containing mechanics for" would be kinda shooting themselves in the foot, I think. Set up to use as in "You could take the setting book and run it in another edition" would be good, and I think it will be that, just like every other 4e setting book.

The 4e setting thus far contain mechanical elements, but rarely as world-rules(so to speak), and mainly as character rules. Feats, Paragon Paths, sometimes a Class. They're things that are meant to get the players into the world, not actually things that are needed to run it. If I wanted to run FR, or Dark Sun, or Eberron in, say AD&D1e, I'd just use my 4e books for the setting.
 

You have these numbers? I don't but your claim seems to indicate you have hard numbers. :P
No, yours does. You're the one begging the question, pretending this is financially viable. Prove it.

I know some people who are currently playing basic D&D. I know some currently playing 4e, and some currently playing 3.5
But I don't have any hard numbers- hence my IF there is money in it why not.
Well why didn't you propose that they sell a line of D&D themed afertshave? Or figure out a way to turn lead into gold? How about they create a form of D&D where gold pieces are measured in bitcoins? I mean IF there is money in it, why not?

Maybe- it's never been done before though, so who knows.
Actually it's quite easy to 'know' and saying 'who knows' is just a crass way to pretend you aren't proposing something that would obviously never work.

@catastrophic ,
Are you familiar with the Primal Order I am speaking off? That would indeed be new and innovative in the 4E context.
Playing deities, gathering power, building relics, artifacts, and entire planes, etc.
Has potential.
Like the immortals box? They've also touched on these themes with the books on the astral plane, and various epic destinies.

I also suspect that, while you might be on the right track with the 'newness' being some kind of add-on to the existing system, I don't think 'another crack at epic' is what they're going for. Still, it would be the kind of thing some 4e fans would want them putting in their sights.
 
Last edited:

No, yours does. You're the one begging the question, pretending this is financially viable. Prove it.

Well why didn't you propose that they sell a line of D&D themed afertshave? Or figure out a way to turn lead into gold? I mean IF there is money in it, why not?

Actually it's quite easy to 'know' and saying 'who knows' is just a crass way to pretend you aren't proposing something that would obviously never work.

Civility, Cata, use it.
 

Set up to use as in "Containing mechanics for" would be kinda shooting themselves in the foot, I think. Set up to use as in "You could take the setting book and run it in another edition" would be good, and I think it will be that, just like every other 4e setting book.

The 4e setting thus far contain mechanical elements, but rarely as world-rules(so to speak), and mainly as character rules. Feats, Paragon Paths, sometimes a Class. They're things that are meant to get the players into the world, not actually things that are needed to run it. If I wanted to run FR, or Dark Sun, or Eberron in, say AD&D1e, I'd just use my 4e books for the setting.

Sure, some editions would require more input then others, but I think they could do it. Maybe a book of just the descriptive stuff, and then a book for each edition with the crunch stuff.

No, yours does. You're the one begging the question, pretending this is financially viable. Prove it.

Well why didn't you propose that they sell a line of D&D themed afertshave? Or figure out a way to turn lead into gold? How about they create a form of D&D where gold pieces are measured in bitcoins? I mean IF there is money in it, why not?

Maybe go back and read what I said?

I never said anything would be financially viable- My question was IF there is money to be made by selling to multiple editions then why not? Can you give me any solid reason aside from you assuming there is no money to be made?

For instance I can understand the argument Pour made- if they take resources away from the current edition the fans of 4e (myself) suffer.

But the argument there's no money to be made is a poor one unless you have figures to back that up, and since neither of us have those figures we really can't debate about the financial aspect.

Actually it's quite easy to 'know' and saying 'who knows' is just a crass way to pretend you aren't proposing something that would obviously never work.

It's easy to pretend or simply say you "know" something on the internet when you don't.

I'm pretty much done having a debate about any sort of financial aspect. As far as I'm aware neither of us have that info.

You can even give me a reason why you think it's bad...

For instance you could say something like I think it might get too confusing especially for new players, if they sell multiple versions of the same thing at once...

But saying:
Because there isn't any money in it, and it would cost them money.
is a statement that demands some sort of proof.

Hey you could even amend it to "I don't think there would be money in it" and I would be cool with that as your opinion.
 

Actually it's quite easy to 'know' and saying 'who knows' is just a crass way to pretend you aren't proposing something that would obviously never work.

Saying "who knows" means I could be wrong, but that I think it would work.

Look at my posts from a positive perspective...that's how I intend them.
 

I'm hoping for a setting like Torg.

No, not a cross-genre setting...I'd still want and expect it to be D&D style fantasy. But one thing West End Games tried to do with Torg was to create a truly living campaign world. At the end of every published adventure was a questionnaire and you could tell them how your party did.

In D&D speak, the questions might look like: Did they beat the BBEG? Did they stop the Iron Circle from invading Nentir Vale? Did they save the princess? Did they win the foozle? Did they kill Meepo or befriend him? Additionally, the GM could verify whether some of the rumors in the module (or the monthly newsletter) were true or false in their version of the campaign, and player characters with the herald power could even send messages to other groups (up to 50 characters! the slowest tweets ever and not even as long).

You would snail mail these in (you probably being the GM) and the course of the campaign would change based on the responses. If most parties befriended Meepo and saved the princess they became ongoing non-player characters in later supplements. If they didn't stop the Iron Circle from invading Nentir Vale, then later adventures featured an occupied Nentir Vale.

In Torg, the world wasn't static, it was changing because of the ongoing war. The war itself didn't have a predetermined ending. It was up to the player characters to win or lose it. Eventually those responses would determine if, and how, the war was won or lost. A D&D world could be designed on the same premise, particularly if it were something like Birthright.

Of course, these responses didn't seem to have that much of an impact because they did not successfully use a newfangled technology, something called the Internet. Responses took too long to tabulate and publishing was a much slower business back then. The impact of the responses was probably minimal because of the lack of speed.

But now....

My (admittedly wild and hopeful) guess is a revived Birthright setting (or even better a new setting like Birthright) featuring a Torg-like war campaign that will be won or lost based on the online feedback from all the players out there using the published modules. Much more information could be collected from many more people much more quickly now, processed and used by writers as inspiration for new twists and turns in the plot. Even gains and losses on the battlefield using the new mass combat rules could be collected and change the campaign map and carve a new path for the campaign world.

Such interactivity between the successes and failures of the player characters and the game designers would be an excellent twist.
 

I never said anything would be financially viable- My question was IF there is money to be made by selling to multiple editions then why not? Can you give me any solid reason aside from you assuming there is no money to be made?
You don't get to ignore the obvious reason your proposal would not work. If you're going to propose a scenario, then you have to prove that it's viable. You instead ignore that, and speculate wildly while ignoring basic facts.

But the argument there's no money to be made is a poor one unless you have figures to back that up, and since neither of us have those figures we really can't debate about the financial aspect.
Wrong. You are the one claiming that such an idea could potentially be financially viable, you're the one who needs figures to back up your claim. The burden of evidence rests with you.

I'm hoping for a setting like Torg.
<snip>
Such interactivity between the successes and failures of the player characters and the game designers would be an excellent twist.
Ideas like this have been tried several times, inclduing using online resources. They tend to have... underwhelming results, and if anything, it just leads to frustration by fans who feel that their contributions were not properly considered or 'weighted'.

Notably the warhammer franchise had a huge event a few years back based on a war between chaos and the empire in their setting. The result? The messia-like hero of the empire's armies was assasinated by a bunch of evil mutant rat dudes. Yyeah, that didn't go over so well.

Additionally, there's a lot of ill will towards 'metaplot' as an idea, in the fandom. Many games had some form of metaplot for instance in the owod era, but it was broadly seen as a way to railroad the players and override their contributions. Even in a system where player contributions were valued, the idea of various ongoing outcomes being asserted is fraught wiht peril.

It would take a very deft touch to manage such a system. . . not to mention, positive fans- and frankly wotc has a lot of people who bash it if given any excuse to do so.
 
Last edited:

Into the Woods

Remove ads

Top