Psion said:
I can guess. I have often said that my prime game world is NOT that far from FR in mood, feel, or sorts of conflicts or villains. My world is just stripped down, more consistent, less cluttered. Perhaps WotC sees that too.
That said it is still something of a mystery to me. Despite comments like mine, FR continues to sell well.
1 theory is that it's because what makes for an interesting setting for a book, and an interesting setting for a _game_, are two different things.
A book world is usually focused, in order to maintain interest in the narrative flow. A game world can be as far-flung as necessary. In fact, the more far-flung the better, because it increases flexibility.
A game world like FR has lots and lots of different areas, each with its own flavour; and lots and lots of power centers, each with their own agenda. Taken together, this results in an inconsistent, cluttered feel. However, it also has the major advantage that FR can be used as the setting for lots and lots of different campaigns. If you want a "bright-and-shining kingdom vs hordes of evil" campaign, you use Cormyr vs the Zhents or the drow. If you want a more intrigue-laden campaign, you use Amn, Sembia, or some other similar place. If you want a wilderness campaign, go north to the savage frontier. Etcetera; and that's not even counting "peripheral" lands like Kara-Tur or Maztica.
Much the same applies for homebrew game worlds, vs commercial game worlds. If you're creating a world only for your own campaign, flexibility isn't a major deal (assuming you don't intend to run lots of vastly different campaigns, anyway). However, if you're designing a commercial world and you want it to have as broad an appeal as possible, you want it to have lots of varied plot hooks and places where people can drop their own campaigns. Even if the sum total appears confusing, people can throw away the bits they don't like, and use only those bits that are directly relevant for their purposes.
Furthermore, when creating a homebrew campaign world, you're free to throw in as many quirks as you like. However, for a commercial world, the more quirks you put in, and the quirkier they are, the more of an effort people have to make to familiarise themselves with how things work. Thus you could have cannibal halflings, or dragons ruling the major kingdoms, or whatever. However, these aren't your typical fantasy tropes, so unless people specifically want to have cannibal halflings or dragon-kings in their campaign, they wouldn't want to go to the trouble of modifying their own ideas about fantasy to fit in with your world.
End result: worlds like FR and GH, that appear bland at first glance. However, they also sell by the bucketload compared to exotica like Darksun or Birthright, because "bland" also means "customisable" and "unobtrusive".
Hong "do I get a share of the $100k?" Ooi
