Will Eberron be a fully supported setting?

[Jürgen Hubert]

Call me an old timer but these are the same lines that were said about Greyhawk when FR was being promoted, what comes around.

Well, that was before my time, but wasn't Greyhawk supported for many years before the supplements dried up?

I'm not saying that it is impossible that Eberron will supplant the Forgotten Realms. I'm just saying that such a decision hasn't been made yet, and won't be made for several years - if ever.

 

[widderslainte]

... the new ones in the works... Greenwoods' new one.

Ed Greenwood is working on a new setting? Where did you hear this? Any details?

 

[Oaken25]

Ed Greenwood is working on a new setting? Where did you hear this? Any details?

From ENworld's front page, from a few weeks back:

The world of Castlemorn is a world of ancient ruins and long, undiscovered races and locals. Darkness pervades the cities and castles, and an evil walks the land. Arriving in January is the main campaign sourcebook detailing the land and its inhabitants; its culture and magics. Following in April will be the Castlemorn Player's Guide, giving the player character all the information they need for an ongoing campaign in the Castlemorn universe. The month of July sees the release of Dark Metropolis, a detailed location sourcebook of one of the most important locations in Ed's new world. Finally for the 2004 release year, October will feature the Castlemorn Ruins Sourcebook, a veritable encyclopedia of information on the ruins that dot the land.

Or from FFE's web site:

Fast Forward to publish Ed Greenwood's Castlemorn in d20
The infamous author of Forgotten Realms, Ed Greenwood, is collaborating with Fast Forward Entertainment to create a new fantasy d20 System world setting. Fast Forward will publish four new products starting in January 2004. As the creator of the world famous Forgotten Realms setting for TSR, Ed has brought his incredible talent to bear on a brand new world of adventure. The world of Castlemorn is a world of ancient ruins and long, undiscovered races and locals. Darkness pervades the cities and castles, and an evil walks the land. Arriving in January is the main campaign sourcebook detailing the land and its inhabitants; its culture and magics. Following in April will be the Castlemorn Player's Guide, giving the player character all the information they need for an ongoing campaign in the Castlemorn universe. The month of July sees the release of Dark Metropolis, a detailed location sourcebook of one of the most important locations in Ed's new world. Finally for the 2004 release year, October will feature the Castlemorn Ruins Sourcebook, a veritable encyclopedia of information on the ruins that dot the land. Fans of Ed Greenwood and fans of the Forgotten Realms will marvel at the richly developed new world that is - Castlemorn!

Also Ed had this to say on the FR mailing list:

http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0309c&L=realms-l&F=&S=&P=7202

"KN, I haven't split from WotC. Remember, I've never
been employed by either TSR (though they did try) or
WotC. I've always just been a freelancer, like all of
you. I'm quite happy with the folks I work with at
WotC, there are no legal troubles or hard feelings I
know of between us (honestly), and the "new setting"
is my sixth or so that I've tinkered with since the
Realms first saw print. Building worlds stokes my
fire. Look at it this way: if a mother has a second
child, does she turn her back on the first? I love all
of the worlds I've created or played in (I got to play
in Middle Earth, a few years back, and that was a
blast, and was talking with Roger and hoping to get to
play in Amber in a small way before Roger Zelazny
died), and because they're all different, I don't try
to measure one against another. Some nights I want to
listen to this music, other nights this other music .
. .
I want to do more in-close detailing of Realms
settings (cities, individual realms) than the current
schedule allows, yes. So I'm finding an outlet for
that sort of design that won't get in the way of any
opportunities WotC may give me in the future to do
more Realms design work. For the record, I've been
working steadily on Realms game and book material for
as long as I can remember, and there are five
contracted Realms novels that haven't seen print yet.
So, unless I get run over by a bus or something
corporate happens in the future, you're going to be
seeing Ed Greenwood Realms stuff for years yet. WotC
and freelance folks still contact me with Realmslore
queries six or seven times a week. Remember, my hand
touches a lot of Realms stuff that doesn't have my
name on it, one way or another, and that's fine: this
is, after all, now truly a SHARED world."

 

[teitan]

I think Ebberon wil be supported for a good long time, about as much as FR is supported nowadays, which is nothing compared to TSR's heyday in the product support/glut of the market in the mid to late 90s.

Ebberon has something going for it that other settings TSR put out didn't have, it is not a hastily put together and thrown out to the wolves product as some of the 90s products were. It seems that they are taking their time and doing this one right.

Eberron could easily usurp FR as the WOTC main setting, in a similar manner to the way that FR usurped Greyhawk. All it takes is ignoring FR and move onto Eberron without looking back, loosely supporting the old setting until interest peters out. Release massive amounts of computer games, novels, comic books and toys, Eberron would be the word in everyone's mouth and not FR.

Will that happen? I don't see it as happening on the scale that it happened with Greyhawk's demise.

Jason

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I think Ebberon wil be supported for a good long time, about as much as FR is supported nowadays, which is nothing compared to TSR's heyday in the product support/glut of the market in the mid to late 90s.
...Jason

The question is whether Eberron is the equivalent of Wheel of Time, which was supported with a module of some kind and a couple spinoff products. Now, I'll probably buy it to steal ideas from (it looks cool.) But, if they are trying to "leverage" the Wizards brand identity with a second setting in the long term, I'm really curious if the market will support it. This goes against the philosophy (as I understand it) that Ryan Dancey devised with the OGL and selling off old settings or removing them from production to focus on one big one: Forgotten Realms.

 

[Dragonblade]

Eberron could easily usurp FR as the WOTC main setting, in a similar manner to the way that FR usurped Greyhawk. All it takes is ignoring FR and move onto Eberron without looking back, loosely supporting the old setting until interest peters out. Release massive amounts of computer games, novels, comic books and toys, Eberron would be the word in everyone's mouth and not FR.

Will that happen? I don't see it as happening on the scale that it happened with Greyhawk's demise.

Jason

I don't see that happening. WotC will promote and try to sell both settings as long as they both make money.

I don't think there is any play to dump FR at all. Basically, the FR will always be the baseline setting. Yes, GR is the default setting, but the total lack of support and world information makes the FR pretty much it as far as standard D&D play goes.

Now, Eberron is going to try to fill a different niche. I haven't see the setting so I don't know what niche exactly.

But for example, you have Ravenloft filling the Horror/Dark fantasy niche and its doing quite well under WW. You have the other settings like Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Birthright, Mystara, etc. Each with its own style.

I see WotC reviving Dark Sun and possibly Birthright in the future. Mystara is too similar to the FR/GR standard fantasy baseline so I don't see that one coming back.

 

[John Crichton]

I think Ebberon wil be supported for a good long time, about as much as FR is supported nowadays, which is nothing compared to TSR's heyday in the product support/glut of the market in the mid to late 90s.

Ebberon has something going for it that other settings TSR put out didn't have, it is not a hastily put together and thrown out to the wolves product as some of the 90s products were. It seems that they are taking their time and doing this one right.

Eberron could easily usurp FR as the WOTC main setting, in a similar manner to the way that FR usurped Greyhawk. All it takes is ignoring FR and move onto Eberron without looking back, loosely supporting the old setting until interest peters out. Release massive amounts of computer games, novels, comic books and toys, Eberron would be the word in everyone's mouth and not FR.

They may be spending a ton of time on it and support it out the wazoo, but that doesn't guarantee anything. One of the reason's for the FR popularity was the quality of many of the novels and versatility of the world itself.

And yes, if FR is ignored by WotC it will slowly fade away. But that would mean that they purposely aren't supporting it anymore - which as others have said would be a big mistake for WotC as the setting is worth a good chunk of money.

 

[WizarDru]

The question is whether Eberron is the equivalent of Wheel of Time, which was supported with a module of some kind and a couple spinoff products.

Wheel of Time was a license, and never intended to have more than a single supplement, which is exactly what happened. Comparing Eberron to it is a little bit of apples and oranges. Eberron was the product of an intense search, culminating in a lot of work and eventually in an expenditure of, what, $130,000? Not a lot to Hasbro, but still a large amount of money for any RPG company, let alone a single setting.

All of the settings previously mentioned, including FR, are settings from a previous edition, carrying all the baggage that comes with that. All of them are dependent on outside sources to some extent, such as novels. The 3e FRCS maks it clear that this is an updated source of information, and to someone who wasn't already a Realms fan, it felt very much like you were expected, at some levels, to understand where FR had been. Plus, all of these settings come with pre-existing expectations of what they are, something Eberron will not have.

Will that happen? I don't see it as happening on the scale that it happened with Greyhawk's demise.

Greyhawk never really had a demise because it never really had a life. Up until the release of the first Greyhawk setting box set, all Greyhawk consisted of was some references in some modules and in The Dragon magazine. It wasn't a full-fledged campaign setting as we think of them, today.

One of the reasons that FR was such a success is that it was a fully realized campaign setting from day one, while Greyhawk is more of a patchwork, stitched together over time. The very idea of a consistent game world didn't even exist when Greyhawk was first formulated. FR also was very detailed, whereas Greyhawk is, by design, very inspecific. FR's detail is of great attraction to a novice DM, as it saves him a lot of work and presents him with many great ideas, right out of the gate. GH requires tooling and work. Further, FR had an excellent multimedia campaign to back it up: books and comics chief among them.

The point I'm trying to make is that Greyhawk is oldest, but it never had the widespread popularity of the Realms because it was just never there. Many folks played in Greyhawk without knowing it. How many folks can tell if Bone Hill was in Greyhawk, Mystara or elsewhere? Everyone knows that the Temple of Elemental Evil was near Hommlett and Nulb...but what country in Greyhawk does it take place in? I'll wager most gamers didn't know or care, at the time. It wasn't important to the module at hand, per se. We thought in terms of Modules, back then, not campaigns or settings. The Barrier Peaks was just some imaginary place...not a specific location. How many people remember where they are on the Greyhawk map? Where the Hidden Shrine of Tamochan is, the town of Salt Marsh or the Lost Caverns of Tsocjanth can be found? In large part, it didn't matter. The modules were fairly disassociated with the campaign.
Compare that with the Time of Troubles, for example, a story that was integrally tied to the FR setting.

Greyhawk did receive some actual campaign support in the form of From the Ashes and subsequent materials...but most fans I know who have an opinion on the matter (which isn't that many) feel that it was ill-served at that time, with TSR's slush-publishing strategy doing more harm than good. Which isn't to say that good material wasn't published during that time, as some of it was good...but some was very bad. And since all settings were receiving this flood of publishing, it was proportionate. TSR was flailing wildly, and publishing what they couldn't necessarily sell. WotC's best use of the Greyhawk license (other than excellent material in the LGG and LGJ) has been 'Scourge of Worlds', so far.

So, in essence, Greyhawk support hasn't evaporated, as it was never that strong of a contender to begin with. Eberron is being envisioned with a solid strategy from day one, unless WotC has lost all sense of business perspective. More than likely, that will mean a setting book released at the same time as (or very closely followed by) an official D&D minis expansion ("Cool! I got the Lightning Rail Conductor!"), a gazeeter, a set of modules or large module book (such as RttToEE or Wot's adventure book), some novels, a comic mini-series, a magic book, a monsters book, an SRD releasal of some sort and more.

If Eberron falls completely flat, then it would be foolish to expect continued support of the setting. That's simply just good business sense. WotC wouldn't have released The Unapproachable East if The Silver Marches hadn't made it's numbers. WotC has learned the lessons of TSR well (if they didn't know already)...and the first rule is not to try an prop up a commercially unviable setting purely because it has a vocal fan base.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Wheel of Time was a license, and never intended to have more than a single supplement,

snip snip snip

WotC has learned the lessons of TSR well (if they didn't know already)...and the first rule is not to try an prop up a commercially unviable setting purely because it has a vocal fan base.

Brovo! Great answer.

 

[qstor]

I think the "one year" comments might rise from the lenght of the new RPGA D&D campaigns. They aren't supposed to last THAT long, then they disappear. Eberron will be the newest RPGA campaign. I think it will launch at GenCon '04, not 100% sure but I suspect thats when the campaign book will be published.

Mike