D&D 5E With the release of each new setting book, the SCAG looks worse and worse...

[teitan]

But SCAG is already actively printing money right now.

I'm not saying you are wrong it could be great, bit SCAG is an active huge success as an ongoing, in-print product.

That's why I think a region guide approach would be better, it won't cannibalize ongoing SCAG sales and would continue expansion of the Realms. I don't agree with adventures being where they are doing this because 50 bucks for 3/4 of a book I may not use (i can only do so many adventures) in a Realms hopping campaign is a bit too much. I would even be happy if they took that content from the adventures and reprinted it as a book like they did some of the stuff that was put into Xanathar's Guide.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Maybe it was just my headspace at the time but I found SCAG a slog. I think it was because I found the map too inconvenient to reference back to and so the places became a blur. Honestly I found the summary of locations in Storm King's Thunder way more useful.

Also it was the great compendium of ill-thought-out, poorly-designed subclasses with purple dragon knights, dwarf barbarians built around gimmicky armor, the original appearance of the gimped version of the storm sorcerer (at least let them have call lightning access or, you know, make some more storm-themed sorcerer spells).

I do love the bladesinger, but it's also a design mess that doesn't really achieve what it sets out to, it's just a fun mess that is unique. And it made me resent SCAG all the more that I had to drag along an extra book for my subclass and two cantrips which I suspect in a SCAGless timeline would have ended up in Xanathar's guide.

 

[Parmandur]

That's why I think a region guide approach would be better, it won't cannibalize ongoing SCAG sales and would continue expansion of the Realms. I don't agree with adventures being where they are doing this because 50 bucks for 3/4 of a book I may not use (i can only do so many adventures) in a Realms hopping campaign is a bit too much. I would even be happy if they took that content from the adventures and reprinted it as a book like they did some of the stuff that was put into Xanathar's Guide.

Lo, and behold:

Dungeon Masters Guild

www.dmsguild.com

In general, it serves WotC commercial interests to tempt people into buying the big books for a portion of the total: get enough slivers of the market per book, it pays off.

 

[Maxperson]

I never suggested that Greyhawk had sufficient material on DMsguild for 5e, eventually it needs an update for 5e, my point was the it has support back in the day, so your suggesting that FR was more popular only because it got lots of lore and support is wrong, they both got support, it's just that because it was more popular FR got increasing support over time.

Greyhawk got support that was about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Realms got support that was about an 8 on the same scale. The base FR book greatly outstripped the base Greyhawk book. The first few Realms books were actually good, unlike Greyhawk. At no point was the support for Greyhawk sufficient to allow people two equivalent settings to make a choice between. FR was the TSR favorite from the get go. To suggest otherwise isn't even remotely true.

 

[Maxperson]

It wasn't remade, it was converted to PDF form for D&D classics, D&D classics got merged into DMSGUILD. It's the exact same books as in 1e/2e, it's just in PDF form, not print.

So the same mostly useless junk.

 

[Parmandur]

Greyhawk got support that was about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Realms got support that was about an 8 on the same scale. The base FR book greatly outstripped the base Greyhawk book. The first few Realms books were actually good, unlike Greyhawk. At no point was the support for Greyhawk sufficient to allow people two equivalent settings to make a choice between. FR was the TSR favorite from the get go. To suggest otherwise isn't even remotely true.

The big difference is Ed Greenwood: he's published FR material across six decades now, and maintained good relations with fans and TSR/WotC corporate. Greyhawk never had an advocate like that after Gygax left.

 

[Maxperson]

The big difference is Ed Greenwood: he's published FR material across six decades now, and maintained good relations with fans and TSR/WotC corporate. Greyhawk never had an advocate like that after Gygax left.

I understand. And TSR's feud with Gygax probably didn't inspire them to go out of their way to make more products for Greyhawk.

My point is that Greyhawk never had a chance to compete with the Realms on even footing to see which would have been most popular. @gyor is off base with his claims that the only reason the Realms got more 2e support was because it was more popular.

 

[Mecheon]

(And if Wizards had left out the M:tG abominations and Wildemount, we would be up to #3 by now...)

The MTG stuff was fiiiine and Wildemount, if that poll was done today, would probably eat up every other setting under it

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The big difference is Ed Greenwood: he's published FR material across six decades now, and maintained good relations with fans and TSR/WotC corporate. Greyhawk never had an advocate like that after Gygax left.

Similar to how Eberron has a decent level of support, and its biggest advocate is Keith Baker, still very much active and creating content.

The closest thing I've seen to Greyhawk having an advocate is Mike Mearls, who I've heard say that he loves GH but still doesn't want a book because he loves how vague the setting is...

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The big difference is Ed Greenwood: he's published FR material across six decades now, and maintained good relations with fans and TSR/WotC corporate. Greyhawk never had an advocate like that after Gygax left.

Well I don't think that's quite true. Carl Sargent ran it for most of 2nd edition (and had played in it long before that), and Peter Adkinson of WoTC was such a Greyhawk fan that reviving the setting was once of the first things he did when he bought the ailing TSR. Greyhawks failure may have been because of unrelated company troubles, or mismanagement of the line, but I honestly believe there were more passionate Greyhawkers working in TSR/WoTC than there was playing the game.