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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darth Shoju" data-source="post: 3533839" data-attributes="member: 11397">I'd say they sell for both reasons. There certainly are people who get use out of them. There are also people who buy them just to read. But I'd add a third reason that they sell so well: broader appeal. Anytime you are trying to sell a product of any kind, the more specific and focused you make it, the narrower your audience becomes. Like I tried to state earlier, while the APs Paizo released look fun (and personally I want to play them all), if for some reason the adventure isn't to your taste (maybe you don't like the concept behind Cauldron?) then you probably aren't going to buy it. That even goes for campaign settings; the more specific or "gimicky" they are, the more controversial. Look at the storm around Eberron when it came out; it is really only cosmetically different yet it is really hit-or-miss with a lot of people. FR I understand is far more popular and is also more of a generic, kitchen-sink setting. So I'd chalk that up to my third reason: general appeal. I would disagree with those people. As KM pointed out, you don't have to prepare diddly to have *fun* at the table.I'd tend to agree. While I've never read the FRCS all the way through, I sort of got the impression it was made as much to support the novels as it was to support campaigns. I thought the Eberron guide was a step in the right direction though; the whole design and layout of the thing was very conducive to campaign/adventure design. There were plot hooks presented throughout the book; now certainly they weren't fleshed-out encounters but I find adventure hooks more personally useful than encounters-I don't mind creating the encounters myself.And for homebrewing that is what I do. I'm very much in the Ray Winninger school of homebrewing there (his DMing seminar at Gencon 2k was one of my favourites of the con). And I think this is part of the problem; running a setting vs homebrewing are two different animals. I have limited time to create a campaign; if I manage to find the time to homebrew then I don't have the time to detail the types of grasses of the world-I've got to make the adventure(s). Using a campaign setting saves time and gives details that can be useful in adventure and PC creation. The more you use the setting the more value you get out of it. As far as usefulness, as far as I'm concerned, if the book useful after you've used 95% of it then it was useful from the beginning. As far as setting limiting your options for adventures: I'd say that depends largely on the setting used. I fail to see how using Greyhawk or Kalamar as settings will significantly limit my options as to what adventures I can use. Certainly in some cases I'll need to change things here or there to get some adventures to work, but that seems a reasonable concession considering how much time I've saved by using a published CS and adventure in the first place.If we are talking about the more specific/gimicky campaign settings (Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Darksun, Midnight, etc) then I'd agree you are limiting your options (and I would also say those settings are sacrificing some appeal by being more specific in focus, as I outlined above). But if the players are on board with it from the beginning (as I assume they would have to be or the game wouldn't happen), then what is the problem? Earlier you gave an example of deciding you wanted to play some naval adventures-isn't that narrowing your options as well? Certainly if the player's aren't enjoying it you can veer into other territory because your setting as a whole is flexible, but wouldn't you have wasted a bunch of work on creating all those naval adventures? Now, the assumption is that your players would be advised up front what type of campaign you were running, so they would want to play your naval adventures and no work would be wasted. On that note, then, couldn't you do the same before picking a published CS or creating a homebrew world with a unique focus? Personally I'd get a feel for how many people wanted to play my dragon-riders of Pern-esque campaign before I put a lot of work into it. Could we say that communication of expectations up front is more important than whether you start with worldbuilding or adventure then?</blockquote>

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