WotC GenCon Announcement: A New Campaign Setting?

[Mouseferatu]

I have never seen the D&D movie, although I have a DVD I picked up for under $5. I'm waiting for a dark and stormy night when I can get trashed on something painful (cheap wine? Milwaukee's Beast?) and watch it....

Anyway, does anyone know a site that follows the internals at WotC? I'm curious as to their corporate structure, which products fall where, and such. Thanks.

Mouseferatu: What's up? I ran into you at the HPB on 183 a while back. What a strange disconnect (or is is connect?), mixing real people with web forums....

Telas

Heya. Yeah, I remember that meeting.

Didn't know you were on the forum, or what name to look for.

Shoot me an e-mail, or a private message if you have access to that feature. We'll catch up a bit.

 

[kenobi65]

Buck Rogers XXV.

Keep in mind that TSR's repeated flogging of the Buck Rogers license was directly due to the fact that She Who Must Not Be Named was a relative of the holder of the Buck Rogers license.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Keep in mind that TSR's repeated flogging of the Buck Rogers license was directly due to the fact that She Who Must Not Be Named was a relative of the holder of the Buck Rogers license.

Agreed...I like BRXXV...even bought stuff on ebay to fill in spaces. We had fun playing it, and I loved the CRPG.

 

[TerraDave]

You're absolutely correct, and I wasn't sufficiently clear in my initial statement.

The two mistakes I cited are the root of all problems directly relating to the publishing of D&D books. They're not the only mistakes the company made.

(I haven't seen the comments on the 2E splatbooks. While there may have been mistakes regading how they were done, I cannot imagine that their very existance was a mistake. Otherwise, to put it bluntly, WotC wouldn't do it. They're not idiots, and they're the ones who put the 30th Anniversary book together in the first place. )

In the context of what I was responding to, however, mistakes made with publishing specifically were the relevant ones.

Right. And the reality is that everybody does "player faction" books, at least if they want to make money (I wonder who did that first, I am pretty sure it wasn't TSR). But the 30th aniversary book acknoledges the power creep and difficulties in quality control that came from pumping out that many books.

One problem with TSR is that they did make so many mistakes, you'll never be able to pinpoint the source of bankruptcy...

 

[Staffan]

Right. And the reality is that everybody does "player faction" books, at least if they want to make money (I wonder who did that first, I am pretty sure it wasn't TSR).

I think it was either TSR (with the Complete _____ series), or White Wolf (with Clan Book _______). Hmm, looking at a list of D&D stuff I see that the Complete Fighter's Handbook came in 1989 - Vampire didn't hit the streets until 1990 or 1991, right?

 

[JEL]

Agreed...I like BRXXV...even bought stuff on ebay to fill in spaces. We had fun playing it, and I loved the CRPG.

The setting was awesome. The rules needed work, though.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

The setting was awesome. The rules needed work, though.

They were close enough to Basic D&D, and I like that very much

 

[TerraDave]

I think it was either TSR (with the Complete _____ series), or White Wolf (with Clan Book _______). Hmm, looking at a list of D&D stuff I see that the Complete Fighter's Handbook came in 1989 - Vampire didn't hit the streets until 1990 or 1991, right?

For 2nd edition, the complete books where planned from the start, though in promotional material before the launch they only noted they would only release a fighter book...

Still, I think there where some games that already had stuff like this...but it is ancient history...Rolemaster might be one, and I am petty sure there where others, but memory fails.

 

[Staffan]

For 2nd edition, the complete books where planned from the start, though in promotional material before the launch they only noted they would only release a fighter book...

I didn't see any promotional material for 2e, mainly because I wasn't a D&D player in the 1e days.

Still, I think there where some games that already had stuff like this...but it is ancient history...Rolemaster might be one, and I am petty sure there where others, but memory fails.

Rolemaster had various companions, but I don't think there were any class-focused ones. There were general companions (that had a mishmash of all sorts of stuff), things like Arms Companion (more rules for combat, but that's more of an activity-focused supplement than a class-focused one), and Elementalist's Companion (that added entirely new things to the game).

Then again, where do you draw the line between "Magic expansion book" and "Magic-user expansion book"? Between "Combat expansion book" and "Fighter expansion book"?

 

[Klaus]

Someone mentioned Narnia, and I'd say this would be a pretty big announcement. With Disney releasing The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe in December (visuals produced by LotR's WETA), it would seem natural to release some Narnia tie-in, akin to Wheel of Time.

But I might be wrong.