WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[bedir than]

Sorry, my closet is guarded by too many skeletons.

with nets?

 

[Laurefindel]

How is that pertinent to anything? Being potentially able to visit a place doesn’t make you familiar with it. You are showing a marked ignorance about places you could potentially visit by assuming things like McDonalds and Sneakers are part of general modern experience.

On an individual basis, there is little pertinence (until you decide to make the trip). On a macro scale however, our lives are very much linked to Japan and Tokyo even if we're not aware of it, because Tokyo is a place that can be visited, traded with, corresponded with, influenced by, etc.

Narnia is a one-way, single channel of information. Tokyo is part of our integrated society, made possible by an existing way of going back and forth regularly and safely.

 

[Parmandur]

I can't believe you folks are still arguing about the definition of Urban Fantasy.

I agree, it is a little absurd since Ravnica is clearly Urban Fantasy based on the well sourced laid out definitions in the Wikipedia page

Again, equivalent =/= actual. That's the point. Familiarity is important. It has to look like our world. And im 1000's of actual mtg art, the best you can name is a few offhand references in supplemental sources tells EVERYTHING about how flimsy your premise is. Find me actual proof that Ravnica resembles our world but with magic or take the L.

For the definition of Urban Fantasy, as given, equivalent is sufficient.

True. However, there aren't that many Urban Fantasy stories that don't involve an alternate take of our world.

Not according to the Wiki article...

You know what, I'm going back to arguing Dragonlance is gothic horror. It makes as much sense as the arguments you and @Parmandur
are making. Everything is everything and nothing is everything. Up is down, right is wrong, black is white.

That does make as much sense as saying that Ravnica is not Urban Fantasy, sure?

 

[Remathilis]

Anyway, the point is D&D needs less settings, not more.

 

[Parmandur]

Anyway, the point is D&D needs less settings, not more.

I mean, they will make more.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Anyway, the point is D&D needs less settings, not more.

Nonsense.

It needs neither.

Fewer isnt possible, and more will make some folks happy while not affecting you.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

That is like saying hero-shooter or beat-em videogames need less characters, or saying certain cinematographic studio needs less horror franchises.

WotC is more focused into selling crunch but each new setting is a potentil subfranchise to sell different type of products.

My suspicion is that they are trying something to gain more ground in the Japanese market

Maybe they are going to create a new setting to sell special crunch like psionic classes

A updated version of "Urban Arcana"? Maybe, but I would suggest a fictional world with original lore to avoid to be only a rip-off of Shadowrun.

Other option could be an update of "Dark*Matter" with "survivor classes" designed for faster creation instead more powerful for players who wanted something closer to "Call of Choo-Choo"

* Other theory to speculate is the future new D&D setting could be linked to the Magic: the Gathering event "Reality Francture" but this should be a surprise.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would just like to point out that Sunnydale is not a real place, in the US or anywhere else. Nor is it a city. In fact, I would describe it as decidedly suburban fantasy (along with Stephen King and a bunch of other stuff).

Sunnydale (which was filmed in Tustin, California for the Sunnydale High exteriors and a soundstage otherwise) absolutely fits the definition of a city.

It's got 38,500 residents and a University of California campus.

A city (or town, which is functionally the same thing here) in California requires legal incorporation and that's it. The populations of the cities range from more than 3.8 million for Los Angeles (and much of what one thinks of as "Los Angeles" are actually other cities within Los Angeles County, often with no space between them and the next city over) and down to mere handfuls of people.

I live in a what is 100% a city about an hour east of Los Angeles with a smaller population than Sunnydale. And like Sunnydale, it's centered around a major university that employs many of its residents. And even though I'm not in LA County, which touches my county, my city seamlessly flows into other nearby cities where geography allows, and only the changes in zoning laws (and the city logos on street signs) will tell you you've moved cities for the most part.

In the western United States, where population density is much lower than on the east coast, most cities aren't a bunch of skyscrapers, but often sprawling areas of one and two-story buildings.

 

[Kichwas]

Caveat is that I don't play any tRPGs made by WotC or TSR. And am on the migration out of even d20 based games like Pathfinder.

So I'm NOT the audience.

But there's two sides to this:

1. OMG they already have way too many settings, do they really need another one?
2. All of their old settings, despite having some great ideas, feel a bit dated because our understanding of what kinds of internal consistency a setting needs have changed over the decades. People demand more 'here' and insist on less 'there' now. So a fresh "reboot" with new talent and new ideas would be a welcome change.

Were I still in the D&D ecosystem I'd probably lean more towards the second side of that. But the first point is extremely valid, the existing field is way too crowded and has a lot of fans.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's got 38,500 residents and a University of California campus.

That’s tiny! On the small size even for a town (Reigate, a mid sized town, has a population of 150,000). City status isn’t directly liked to size, but when we talk about urban we generally mean populations in at least 6 digits!