WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[mamba]

I want Wizards to attempt to impress me.

I assume they try to do that with every release, you and a ton of other people. How well they succeed is another matter and will depend on the individual

 

[Scribe]

I assume they try to do that with every release, you and a ton of other people.

Given what the Magic side of the house does, the quality of the physical books that other companies provide, and...even the quality of content?

I dont assume they are really trying at all, especially when it comes to NEW.SETTINGS.

 

[Reynard]

I assume they try to do that with every release, you and a ton of other people. How well they succeed is another matter and will depend on the individual

Given what the Magic side of the house does, the quality of the physical books that other companies provide, and...even the quality of content?

I dont assume they are really trying at all, especially when it comes to NEW.SETTINGS.

I feel like Magic has the advantage of not having to produce a big tome of lore and rules to introduce their new worlds. They obviously create a lot of evocative art, and they of course do the game design in the cards, but that still leaves a lot of "white space" in the settings. Regardless of whether a given setting would translate well to D&D, I think Magic settings benefit from that white space in the minds of the fans.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think they're (WotC) still very much aware of the 2e glut and its consequences and trying to keep that learned lesson very much in mind. That's sheer speculation on my part of course. They may simply be gun-shy (still) because of it, even if the market could likely support a new setting (again, speculation).

I don’t think fragmentation of the market was the only problem associated with the 2nd edition glut. Setting books are often bought by players who want to read rulebooks, not actually play the game. After all, you can only use one setting per campaign (unless you are into lots of crazy crossovers) and a campaign lasts a couple of years, so you really need at most, one campaign book at a time.

This, combined with the novel glut, meant that although they were selling D&D products, they weren’t encouraging people to play D&D.

 

[Scribe]

I feel like Magic has the advantage of not having to produce a big tome of lore and rules to introduce their new worlds. They obviously create a lot of evocative art, and they of course do the game design in the cards, but that still leaves a lot of "white space" in the settings. Regardless of whether a given setting would translate well to D&D, I think Magic settings benefit from that white space in the minds of the fans.

Oh for sure. Given how many settings Magic has created since 2014 though? At a glance.

Khans of Tarkir
Kaladesh
Amonkhet
Ixalan
Throne of Eldraine
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths
Kaldheim
Streets of New Capenna
Outlaws of Thunder Junction
Bloomburrow
Duskmourn: House of Horror

And D&D has, if we are generous in our definition released...1 new one?

I mean, thats actually embarrassing.

 

[mamba]

Your sarcasm font is broken then.

it’s working fine, it just isn’t sarcasm… if you want to convince me that it is horror you will need examples, not simply the repetition of an unsupported claim.

Just because DL has a tragic figure in Soth does not make the setting a horror setting. By that logic any setting is, pretty sure Thay works as a rationale for horror just as well, or Zuggtmoy and Tharizdun in Greyhawk.

Cataclysm, so what, I give you Eberron’s Last War and the Day of Mourning, or Greyhawk’s Great War and the Twin Cataclysms. FR has the Fall of Netheril, the Spellplague and the Time of Troubles. You have events like that in many settings

 

[Parmandur]

One of these days I should pick up both Ravnica -- about which I know nothing other than I think it is a world city? -- and Theros -- because I love Greek inspired stuff and I understand that it has "mythic" rules for monsters. I don't explicitly dilike M:tG or its worlds, I just want something truly new.

Both are truly good books, IMO, James Wyatt wrote both and did about as good a job as he did with Eberron Rising from the Last War. The art in both books is among the best for any D&D book ever made, because both world have multiple Magic sets to have drawn pieces from.

Ravncia is a sort of Aetherpunk turned to 11 until it becomes Cyberpunk deal, it is a planet thst is all one giant city controlled by ten competing Corpor...Guilds that are extremely distinct and flavorful (the Golgari, for instance, rule the sewers and produce all the food that serves the post-scarcity society of Ravncia from fungus and other fun stuff in the world below). It has good rules for plugging the PCs into these Guilds and powrfing up as they gain Faction Renkown, a ton of Adventure generation material, and a frankly huge bestiary thst goes outside of normal D&D tropes (different kinds of Giant and Celestial, for instance).

Theros hits the Greek myth vibes hard, and is the first book where the 2024 Level 1 Feats was basically just put in a book with flavorful "Supernatural Gifts" that are just Greek Myth Feats (like being a Demi-God...). It has a developed Piety system, so PCs can get new abilities from their patron deity by following the dictates of their God (and the pseudo-Hellenic Pantheon is well drawn out and detailed). Ironically has a smaller Bestiary, since the MM already looted Greek Myth so hard, but yeah it has Mythical Monsters that aren't so surprising now as they were in 2020: some "Boss Monster" types who get two stst blocks, defeat the first one and instead of "dying" you face the second part of the fight. The various city states are well drawn out and have a solid Heroic Greece theming.

 

[ZeshinX]

I don’t think fragmentation of the market was the only problem associated with the 2nd edition glut. Setting books are often bought by players who want to read rulebooks, not actually play the game. After all, you can only use one setting per campaign (unless you are into lots of crazy crossovers) and a campaign lasts a couple of years, so you really need at most, one campaign book at a time.

This, combined with the novel glut, meant that although they were selling D&D products, they weren’t encouraging people to play D&D.

Oh absolutely. There were a lot of things going wrong at that time that contributed to TSR's failure. I just focused in on the glut as it felt most relevant to this thread but most assuredly there was more to it than "Arg! Too....many....settings....factionalization....blarg!"

 

[SkidAce]

To a degree, that’s what the D&D multiverse is for. It might be too late to put all the eggs back into one basket, but they can at least put all the little baskets in one really big basket!

[We clearly need a setting for ridiculous metaphors.]

Shroedungeoner's and Dragons...?

 

[Remathilis]

it’s working fine, it just isn’t sarcasm… if you want to convince me that it is horror you will need examples, not simply the repetition of an unsupported claim.

Just because DL has a tragic figure in Soth does not make the setting a horror setting. By that logic any setting is, pretty sure Thay works as a rationale for horror just as well, or Zuggtmoy and Tharizdun in Greyhawk.

Cataclysm, so what, I give you Eberron’s Last War and the Day of Mourning, or Greyhawk’s Great War and the Twin Cataclysms. FR has the Fall of Netheril, the Spellplague and the Time of Troubles. You have events like that in many settings

So apparently I need to spell out the joke.

Ravnica isn't the urban fantasy genre. Just because it is fantasy and has an urban environment, doesn't make it the urban fantasy genre, any more than the presence of death knights makes Dragonlance Gothic horror despite some tragic and spooky elements.

I realize sarcasm is the lowest form of whit, but I was only attempting to draw comparison between people saying Pholtus or Planescape qualifies as urban fantasy by saying that by that metric, Krynn is a horror setting.

Are we clear now?