Wizards in a rough patch?

[Psion]

Does anyone else feel this way?

It seems to me as if Wizards has made it their primary business of handling the classic topics, while third party publishers have had to seek out more esoteric subjects. Some of those third party publishers really had a rough go of it (some aren't around anymore), but the survivors seem to have plumbed out the depths of the fringe territory and are churning out some pretty good stuff.

This, however, is somewhat new to Wizards and I must say, there recent adventurous forays are NOT doing it for me. Heroes of Battle and Weapons of Legacy got left on the shelf by me. And Magic of Incarnum has me very skeptical. But the titles a little futher in the future are looking promising. Is it just a learning process?

 

[Crothian]

All companies go through a bit of time when products lag in quality. But DMG2 was good, so they just need to figure out what works.

 

[JustKim]

Are you sure it's general quality and not just your personal taste?

 

[Remathilis]

I dunno; different strokes for different folks.

I like DMG2, looking forward to PHB2.

Anything Eberron is gold. yes, even the character sheets.

Wpns of Legacy and Magic of Incantium both are taking D&D in different directions, even if thats charted by d20 books.

Heroes of X line seem to be the new move in genres, the environment books were good as well.

While I have to leave some things on the shelf (the pain of being poor), I have thought that WotCs line up is still strong, if not universally strong as previous years. Better than 4e though...

 

[Psion]

Are you sure it's general quality and not just your personal taste?

If I was sure, I wouldn't have solicited opinions.

That said, I am not the only person to complain about Weapons of Legacy.

 

[The Cardinal]

yep, no interest at all in any new WotC products - but stuff for Midnight, Blackmoor, Wilderlands, and (though it's not really d20) C&C ist still on my "to buy" list

 

[IronWolf]

I still like some of the WotC products that come out. Some I pick up, others I don't. So I attribute it more to a personal taste thing in my case. Some of the books I leave on the shelf others seem to like and vice versa. For example, I liked Heroes of Battle. On the other hand I have not purchased any Eberron material and have no plans on doing so. It just doesn't fit what I have in my head for a fantasy world.

At this point I think WotC is doing okay overall as there are still some products that do hold interest for me.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Weapons of Legacy seems like a perfect illustration of that dictum they mentioned in the new Design & Development column. To paraphrase:

"If you like something, it's because designers came up with a great idea. If you don't like something, it's because developers dropped the ball."

The single problem with Weapons of Legacy is the massive negative reaction to the penalties assessed upon characters for using the items. That's a development mistake, pure and simple. The idea is fine; the execution left a lot to be desired, at least as far as most gamers seem to be concerned.

To look at the larger picture: Wizards of the Coast now has two strong campaign settings, one catering to "traditional" Tolkienesque pseudo-medieval high fantasy, the other to "modern" fantasy sensibilities and conforming to specific features of the Third Edition system from the ground up.

They're now expanding two of their (relatively) successful "base D&D" product lines - the Complete and Races series - into new directions with Complete Psionics (psionics aren't new, obviously, but support for them in a whole book in a major product line is) and Races of the Dragon.

There may be more "ecology" supplements such as the Draconomicon and Lords of Madness on the horizon, and Unearthed Arcana and the Dungeon Master's Guide II have a companion in the, hmm, "toolkit" product line coming up in the Player's Handbook II.

Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic represent modular additions to the game - which could also be considered specifically focused entries in the "toolkit" category - and the current design philosophy of providing official suggestions (either in the book, or in website columns such as Eberron Expanded) on how to include these modular subsystems into either homebrew or official campaigns makes them more palatable to DMs who might be at a loss to figure out what to do with them.

The genre series may be off to a shaky start, but then it's hard to say! Heroes of Battle is only one book, and the Complete series might have inspired less confidence if Complete Divine had been first off the blocks (on the other hand, that supplement might have been better-received had it not been immediately compared to the superior Complete Warrior).

Wizards of the Coast is also turning back to adventures, and seem to be continuing that philosophy of making it as simple as possible to use "base D&D" supplements in specific settings, what with The Red Hand of Doom, for instance, taking place in the Forgotten Realms' Channath Vale with the serial numbers filed off.

While it doesn't look like there are any "solid" product lines like the Complete series on the horizon, that arguably just means a return to the normal course of business.

I for one am glad that Wizards of the Coast is taking D&D in more interesting, if not exactly innovative, directions with Races of the Dragon, Magic of Incarnum and the like. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of further entries in the genre series after Heroes of Horror - I can think of several genres that lend themselves well to D&D (Heroes of Intrigue springs first to mind, and wouldn't that be wonderful in organisation-and-conspiracy-laden Eberron and the Forgotten Realms?), but then if you'd asked me I wouldn't have predicted that war and horror would necessarily be the first genres on the company's list.

If all else fails, the Complete and Races series don't have to die with their new entries, especially not the latter now that it's broken its core-race mold with Races of the Dragon - though I do doubt that we'll see Complete Incarnum or anything for similar books sooner than the two-year interval implied by the April 2006 release of Complete Psionics.

 

[shaylon]

Some of Wotc's recent stuff has been good but other stuff hasn't. I wouldn't be too worried about it; I think they do a good job of figuring out what the market wants. Someone is buying these books even if I won't.

-Shay

 

[wingsandsword]

The thing is, WotC has done all the "easy" stuff, the things everybody will want for their games, or that old fans of the game would want to see updated. Complete <X>, most of the old 1e books (MotP, D&DG, ect.), Good & Evil, now 4 hardcovers of monsters, it's so full that a DM would have to be excellent just to make use of it all in a campaign.

Just more prestige classes, feats, magic items and monsters (D&DG really just treated gods as uber-monsters at that ) really won't cut the mustard, it's been done quite literally to death. So they have to step outside that narrow mold they had been cutting for themselves, and that means creativity, and innovation, and that's some place where the D&D brand and WotC name aren't automatic success. Most recent D&D products that have tried to be innovative seem hobbled, like they had a great concept, then scaled back so far to be safe that it lost its punch.

Frankly, the most innovative and entertaining d20/D&D product I've seen this year was Iron Heroes, the sort of thing I'd only wished WotC had done so more people in the gaming mainstream would know about it and play it. D&D is choked with magic items and high magic power like a video game or something, and it was a breath of clean, fresh air to get a book that made the game about being heroic fantasy characters without presuming you've got piles of magic items, loads of spellcasting, and a cleric backing you up, y'know, like most fantasy novels, movies, and books?