Why won't WOtC let another company publish...

[Mechanurge]

It doesn't really make much business sense for WotC to devote valuable research personnel to revive a dead line that would have to be heavily rewritten to fit into the current campaign lineup. Licensing out is fraught with peril because a license holder may, through shoddy worksmanship, actually devalue the brand. And Planescape is still considered a very valuable brand, though it hasn't been used in years.

I would love to see a new Planescape or Greyhawk hardcover book, but frankly I'm a little afraid of how much it would retcon/mangle the original setting. Sometimes nothing is better than something.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

It's true that any licensed, official D&D setting drives sales of the core books.

What it doesn't do, however, is necessarily drive sales of non-core books.

Players and Dungeon Masters may be hesitant to use Tome of Magic systems or Player's Handbook II classes in a "baseline" setting like the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. How much less likely are you to play a shadowcaster or a truenamer in Dark Sun, or Al Qadim?

("Baseline" here means "a D&D world which incorporates the standard classes and races more-or-less unchanged".)

 

[Imaro]

It's true that any licensed, official D&D setting drives sales of the core books.

What it doesn't do, however, is necessarily drive sales of non-core books.

Players and Dungeon Masters may be hesitant to use Tome of Magic systems or Player's Handbook II classes in a "baseline" setting like the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. How much less likely are you to play a shadowcaster or a truenamer in Dark Sun, or Al Qadim?

("Baseline" here means "a D&D world which incorporates the standard classes and races more-or-less unchanged".)

And this is exactly why Planescape would so rock. It's a setting where anything can conceptually exist. Yeah I know we got Eberron, but I wonder how long can things like the Eberron Players Handbook shoehorn the multitude of new classes, feats, races and monsters, being pumped out, into the setting before its internal logic collapses. With Planescape there is no risk of this.

 

[Glyfair]

http://www.athas.org/faq/

Hmmm..clearly out-of-date.

Svgames.com sells all the old Dark Sun products in .pdf format at affordable prices.

That hasn't been true for a few years.

As a side note, it seems that Paizo is considering making a pitch for 3E version of Spelljammer (or at least Erik Mona is considering that, according to his blog).

 

[Glyfair]

SKR pushed for what seems to be his last product as a payrolled employee of WotC. And even THAT didn't do too well, so this a BAD example for you to build your case on for the other brands.

Also, it suffered from being one of the last products released before the upgrade to 3.5 (in fact, it might have been the last). I vaguely remember Monte commenting on that.

At the time I remember a lot of discussion about using it (I even remember a number of threads asking where to fit it into Eberron). I suspect it would have a more focal fan base if it wasn't overshadowed by the release of 3.5.

In fact, I think it might have done better if it had been treated as a subsetting to be added into other settings. I could have had sidebars on fitting it into Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, etc.

 

[Mechanurge]

[...]how long can things like the Eberron Players Handbook shoehorn the multitude of new classes, feats, races and monsters, being pumped out, into the setting before its internal logic collapses. With Planescape there is no risk of this.

Au contraire, it's extremely likely that WotC would cram any new Planescape book full of new classes, PrCs, spells, feats and whatnots in the interest of garnering as much attention from non-PS D&D gamers as possible. Just look at the Planar Handbook to get an idea of what a new Planescape book would be like.

And without DiTerlizzi's art it just wouldn't be the same anyway.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Also, it suffered from being one of the last products released before the upgrade to 3.5 (in fact, it might have been the last). I vaguely remember Monte commenting on that.

It was written a year or so earlier, but Wizards of the Coast seem to have lost confidence in it and sat on it until just before the revision, when they could cut their losses and make something back on it.

 

[Arkhandus]

I figure the main reason they wouldn't is so as not to dilute the market of D&D players. Folks that normally don't have a lot of money to spend on RPGs may put their gaming dollar into a Planescape, Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, Kara-Tur, Maztica, or Mystara book by another publisher if they had the choice, instead of spending it on a Wizards of the Coast generic D&D book like Complete Scoundrel, Tome of Magic, or Planar Handbook.

While WotC might still make some money off of it through licensing, they'll make a lot more if folks are just buying books made directly by WotC for its own profit. A lot of folks love certain older settings, and would much rather buy new books for those lines than the latest Generic WotC D&D Complete/Races of/Tome of/environment/creature-type/Monster Manual Book #428.

But they may settle for something WotC instead and pay for it, if the real deal isn't available but the WotC book is kinda close (Planar Handbook instead of a true, full-blown Planescape hardcover/box set, for example). Cityscape may be a halfway decent substitute for a book on Sigil itself, likewise. But if another company was licensed to actually produce Planescape and a Guidebook to Sigil, frex.

So far WotC has only allowed two widely-recognized and liked settings, Ravenloft and Dragonlance, to be supported in 3rd Edition by other publishers. That's a perfectly reasonable bit of licensing to make more D&D players happy and stick with 3rd Edition (thus buying 3E books rather than sticking with their old OD&D/BD&D/1E/2E books).

Then WotC has its own three supported settings; Forgotten Realms has always been a good seller, and Greyhawk is marginally supported by most generic 3E books, a bone thrown to the grognards and folks that don't like the absurdly-high-magic of FR, and Eberron as a newer marketing gimmick and an attempt to draw in younger audiences (and give older players a feeling of new-ness and different-ness to keep them around). WotC doesn't want to spread its marketshare too thin or anything.

Cynical much? Yeah, maybe just a little. But reasonably so.

 

[Imaro]

You can disappoint loyal fans in two ways:

1. Not continuing the favorite product/setting line.

2. Allow a licensed publisher to make inferior quality products for their favored product/setting line.

Are you telling me #2 is the lesser of two evils? Better crap than nothing?

You are assuming it would be crap, and we all know what assuming does...
How about option 3 where a satisfying(to the majority of the fans) product is made and sells well. Thus a minimum of dissapointed fans

You're asking them to take a risk. If they revive 5 lines but only managed to make profit on 2 of them to continue, the other three that will shut down will have disappointed and disgruntled fans (more disgruntled than you are now).

Okay once again a limited run and print w/POD options after its sold out. White Wolf is doing this on a regular(yearly basis) with their world of darkness, and if Promethean is anything to go by...Yes it has limited apeal but still sells well enough to produce.

SKR pushed for what seems to be his last product as a payrolled employee of WotC. And even THAT didn't do too well, so this a BAD example for you to build your case on for the other brands.

You misunderstood what i was getting at. Before I threw a setting that was totally brand new into the one book publishing scheme, I would have opted for something with an established fan base.

 

[Glyfair]

You are assuming it would be crap, and we all know what assuming does.

No, he's saying that WotC has to assume that it could be inferior (or even gets a reputation as inferior). WotC in licensing the property has to be concerned about that. That's his point.

In fact, that's why I think that Paizo has a shot of actually getting the Spelljammer setting, assuming that Erik decides to try for it. Paizo has a working relationship with WotC and a reputation for putting out quality products, and great customer service when something slips through the cracks (such as the GameMastery Campaign Workbook).