What kinds of New Settings do you want?

[Yora]

Also a lot cheaper to make. Writing good setting material is a great deal of work. A prestige class can be slapped together in one afternoon.

 

[Guest 85555]

It's because splats sell a great deal better then the fluff based books. I've heard this said by several rpg publishers. The main reason given is that a group only really needs to buy one copy of DM/GM centric books for the group but player centric books, ie splats, will be something that, if good, all the players will want to buy.

Paizo seems to be doing pretty well with a high volume of module material. Also the Gm is a very important customer to keep happy. A happy Gm ensures sales of the core books. Modules, settings and Gm supplements not only give existing GMs food for their campaign, but encourage players to make the shift to the Gm-ship. I saw this first hand in my 2e games. Every single player in my group Gm'd at some point, because there was at least one setting or supplement book that spoke to him.

But 2e had lots of player friendly rule books. The complete books were full of flavor, but not as splatty as the 3e complete books.

 

[Yora]

Paizo is doing well because they have found one thing they can do well, and focus all their resources into that. By diversifying into splatbooks they would have to remove resources from the core business with adventures while having a much harder time to get such product sold with a number of other companies also doing good work in that regard.
Paizo is privately owned, so they don't need to expand and maximize profits, but can rather work to maintain a stable business that pays their wages.

By targeting a greater market, your product or service becomes generic, and then you get a much tougher competition with other copanies. At the same time you have less room to maneuver since you then have to keep groups with different tastes happy at the same time.
That the CRB and APG are so hugely popular is mostly a coincidence and probably based on dissatisfaction with D&D 4th Edition, but becomming the number 1 RPG publisher is not the goal of their business strategy.

 

[GM Dave]

Personally, I'd like a setting that had a feel of a Western.

The players are normally, the law or posse protecting people scraping a living from the land.

Various wild creatures are the dangers of the land requiring a few elite people to right the wrongs and bring a steady moral compass to the society.

Some towns would be sprung up over night and be boom towns filling up on the equivalent of a gold or silver strike (could still be the case but it might be ancient ruins strikes from some past semi-egyptian or incan society that had a love to bury their riches or magics with their dead).

Some towns would be based on communities trying to establish large herds and push out others.

Villains could be people trying to control ley lines or water resources. Roving groups of monsters resisting being pushed off of the lands they see as belonging to them.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'd like to see a setting that was a mix of Jack Vance's "Lyonesse" trilogy, Poul Anderson's massive "Kindgom of Ys," and similar stories that tie into a "late, post Atlantis" mindset. So yeah, somewhat dark ages, but mix in some of the fantastical too. (I suspect the two series aren't entirely unconnected in their central geography, either, though Anderson's uses a mainly historical version and Vance does not.)

They'd have to tone down some of the more adult element of "Ys," and the fairy tale elements in "Lyonesse" provides a good model for how to do that.

Then as the setting is expanded, you add more fantastical elements along with regions that are kept about the same but different cultures (e.g. Norse analogs). This leaves about half the core setting as something you can play as minimally fantastical or occasionally mythic, with the rest as sometime more traditional to D&D that still fits within it. (I'd have orcs, elves, etc. work as explanations for the settings' Atlantis equivalent monkeying around with human genetics. Or you can go with typical D&D multi-race creation myths.)

 

[Mantriel]

I would like to see a low fantasy, high realism setting. (Something like Kingdoms of kalamar).

1. Magic and magic items are scarce. If a warrior/paladin type character gets a full set of armor it is a big accomplishment in itself. The same is true for a wizard getting a magic staff, or for a ranger getting an animal companion.

2. Economy is a real issue. I don't wish to complicate the numbers or to make money administration a burden. I just wish players would use copper coins for the first few levels, and once they are paid in silver they are already higher lvl adventurers, with fame and glory.

3. Diplomacy and intrigue is the motivator behind most schemes. And the PC's are manipulated (or recruited) to work for one side or another.

4. Humans are the common race, every other race is mystical and "foreign". Each race has many countries and kingdoms, each with its own agenda, nation and customs. Make the world worth to be explored.

5. Monsters are scarce. If the PC's want to go for a monster hunt, they have to leave civilization and go for an expedition. Ofc there are sometimes some wild animals loose, but there are not kobolds or goblins in every bush.

6. If the PC's reach high lvls, (lvl 20, 30 etc) they are still only a group of PC's. they can be framed, captured or killed. An organisation with hundreds of members can afford to eliminate a few high lvls. No one can gain godhood just because he slayed a bunch of orcs over-and-over again.

 

[jonesy]

2. Economy is a real issue. I don't wish to complicate the numbers or to make money administration a burden. I just wish players would use copper coins for the first few levels, and once they are paid in silver they are already higher lvl adventurers, with fame and glory.

Since we're wishing for things I'd like an easy to describe and use economy help guideline for DM's so that the economy in a setting would at the very least sound as if it made sense.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Those of you looking for a more "dark ages" setting... Have you read Turtledove's Gerin the Fox books? Mages exist, but they're rare. The gods can make personal appearances, but it's also rare, and you can never be sure you're going to like what you get. And the Northlands are made up of a bunch of independent baronies that trade, war, compete, etc.

Anyone looking to create such a setting could do far worse than look to those books for inspiration.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think I'd like to see something in the total opposite direction of gritty, low-magic, and "realistic".

I'd like to see a setting rooted in the kinds of crazy world concepts you see in in old videogames and anime. Worlds where you are just as likely to see androids, laser guns, and giant floating super-technology fortresses as you would elves, wizards, and gods. Worlds where the distinctions between technology and magic or god and machine begin to blur. Places with terrain and architecture completely alien to anything seen in the real world.

I'd also like to see a setting based on modern earth. Something like d20 Modern's Urban Arcana or Shadow Chasers, but better designed and given more of a unique spin than a straight take on the "D&D on Modern Earth" gimmick. Even a "this fantasy world is in fact set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where magic showed up" setting would be rather interesting.

 

[jonesy]

I'd like to see a setting rooted in the kinds of crazy world concepts you see in in old videogames and anime. Worlds where you are just as likely to see androids, laser guns, and giant floating super-technology fortresses as you would elves, wizards, and gods. Worlds where the distinctions between technology and magic or god and machine begin to blur. Places with terrain and architecture completely alien to anything seen in the real world.

Warhammer 40k? Without the Grim Dark?