What sort of product do you want to buy that no one is producing?

[Shadowslayer]

Goodman Games is making miniatures for you, then. They even have one called Pointy Hatted Wizard.

Well, what a clever title for a mini!

But I meant as a prepainted line.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I think WotC believes this is not an appropriate product for D&D, being beyond the scope of the core play.

Which is odd, given there's been a system for either or both in all the earlier editions. Hell, the friggin Rules Cyclopedia had a pretty full set in it- one designed to be fully compatible with the assumptions of the Known World setting at that. 1e AD&D handwaived things a bit, but later 1e AD&D and 2e AD&D had the BATTLESYSTEM at the very least, and 2e Birthright added a full system for running domains as well.

Which makes me happy. I'm working on such a product as we speak.

If it's better than Fields of Blood (meaning- I can plug it into all the assumptions of the core D&D settings with no fuss, ala, say, the mass combat rules in Cry Havoc!, which were designed around the core assumptions of class and demographics in the DMG), you have a sale. My problem with most previous attempts by third parties is that they ignore the assumptions of the core settings and the DMG, and try to shoehorn in their own model of the gameworld, which isn't what I'm looking for.

 

[Arnwyn]

My wants:

- a book on D&D economics, playable merchants/merchant-princes, running caravans, inns & taverns, shipping, smuggling, etc. Exhaustive, comprehensive, and designed to be playable for adventurers (eg. shipping goods while traveling between adventure locations; value of a caravan the PCs saved but the owners died; ROI from owning an inn/tavern home base while the PCs adventure; etc). [I fully admit such a book will never be made. But you asked...]

- FR book(s) detailing the last couple of regions that have so far been untouched: Lantan, Nimbral, and Sossal.

 

[mattcolville]

Which is odd, given there's been a system for either or both in all the earlier editions. Hell, the friggin Rules Cyclopedia had a pretty full set in it- one designed to be fully compatible with the assumptions of the Known World setting at that. 1e AD&D handwaived things a bit, but later 1e AD&D and 2e AD&D had the BATTLESYSTEM at the very least, and 2e Birthright added a full system for running domains as well.

WotC is different than TSR. WotC is, or was, and may still be, very concerned about branding. It's this princple that leads them to focus very strongly on core competencies, which I think more companies should do! They've identified D&D's core competency as skirmish-level play and in this context, mass-combat is not their stuff.

If it's better than Fields of Blood (meaning- I can plug it into all the assumptions of the core D&D settings with no fuss, ala, say, the mass combat rules in Cry Havoc!, which were designed around the core assumptions of class and demographics in the DMG), you have a sale. My problem with most previous attempts by third parties is that they ignore the assumptions of the core settings and the DMG, and try to shoehorn in their own model of the gameworld, which isn't what I'm looking for.

Well, I was one of the designers on FoB and it was built around many of my design principles. I also hope Lizard will be working on this new product, he was another designer on FoB and I think he's one of the best D20 designers out there. He's tried up at the moment, and I was hoping to have a playtest-ready draft done by February, which was frankly unrealistic.

I'm also working with Jess Heinig, who was a fellow designer at Decipher and I think one of the best unknown d20 guys out there.

One of the problems I run into every time I dive into this subject is managing the end user's expectations. Ultimately, people don't agree on what Warfare should be like in D&D. I used to get emails from players saying if their 5th level fighter couldn't drink a potion of Fly and completely dominate the battlefield, they'd not buy the product. What do I say to someone like that? Sure, I could reply with one word; "Archers" but what's the point? We're not going to communicate well regardless.

If you liked the Book of War, I reckon you'll like this new product, but no promises. Hopefully in the next three months we'll need playtesters...lots of playtesters...and you can see for yourself, and have an impact on the final design!

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Packs of NON-RANDOMIZED pre-painted plastic minis for RPG use!

Dwarven Forge tried this, and probably still have sets for sale at steep discounts. (At GenCon '06, sets were going for 20 percent of what I paid a few years earlier.) The pieces are resin, rather than plastic; they can be brittle, but they're very pretty. But -- and here's the kicker -- even at the huge clearance discounts I last saw, they cost almost as much as D&D minis do.

Random(ish) distribution keeps the price down. Way, way down.

BTW, em-4 makes a line of very nicely pre-painted pewter NPC miniatures ... they're distributed in the States by Crystal Caste, I think. When I was buying them, a set of 5 was $20, which wasn't too bad. Very little selection, but what they have (or had) was nice.

 

[humble minion]

C.A. Suleiman and I have been barking up that particular tree for years now. (We want to do the same thing for Mythic Greece.) We've yet to get a bite.

I thought that was the case. Damned if I know why though.

I was actually writing one myself for a 3rd-party outfit a while ago - I got 40000 words in (class modifications, base and prestige classes, partial sha'ir-like magic system, notes on religion, slavery, etc, partial sample setting) before the publisher ceased to exist. The rest has been sitting idle on my hard drive since the days of 3e. And i never got paid a cent...

 

[Pants]

A book without blatantly obvious errors or other issues would be nice, every once in a while.

Bye
Thanee

See.... now you're just asking for too much

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

One of the problems I run into every time I dive into this subject is managing the end user's expectations. Ultimately, people don't agree on what Warfare should be like in D&D. I used to get emails from players saying if their 5th level fighter couldn't drink a potion of Fly and completely dominate the battlefield, they'd not buy the product. What do I say to someone like that? Sure, I could reply with one word; "Archers" but what's the point? We're not going to communicate well regardless.

It's not warfare I'm concerned with (I'm perfectly happy with Cry Havoc!, I've even adapted it to Star Wars d20 with no problems), it's domain systems. There isn't one that seems to fit with the information provided by the demographic blocks in, say, standard modules, the DMG, or the FRCS and ECS books, which is what I'm looking for. I want to be able to take standard setting assumptions and "plug them in" in an elegant fashion in the same way that Cry Havoc! does the standard D&D combat system. So far, there's nothing that doesn't take a hell of a lot of work, and wouldn't rapidly go astray from the fundamental assumptions of the core rules (AEG's Empires is probably the worst offender, though Mongoose's book was fairly bad in this respect as well. Fields of Blood came closer, but still no cigar. I'd long been hoping that Monte Cook or Sean K. Reynolds would throw their hats into the ring with something, but no such luck).

 

[Nightfall]

Because Soth was an iconic Krynn character.

The same argument could be used for a dozen other characters that never showed up in other stories.

Set,

I'm working on it in my spare time!

Eye,

Yeah but what about us regular d20 guys?!

Thanee,

Now you're just being silly! *is kidding*

 

[Psion]

The PHBII included an alternate ability for this class I'd never heard of, the Marshall. Not only didn't I complain, but I wound up buying the Miniatures Handbook expressly to get the class!

Well that was a waste of money...
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b

At least you got Skull Clan Hunter, a good class if Ari gets aced in the Return to the Tomb of Horrors game.