WotC GenCon Announcement: A New Campaign Setting?

[JEL]

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

The problems I had with it were that some of the class abilities didn't seem to to be very well thought out and even bigger was that the skill levels of beginning characters were pathetic. Sorry, I'm not flying with a pilot that only has a 25% chance of success.

 

[Von Ether]

So, do you think they overextend themselves with regards to non-D&D RPG lines, like Star Wars and d20 Modern?

For what my opinion matters; Star Wars, it looks like it to me and what's sitting on shelf at my FGLS. But gaming is localized in every community that I get you could go across the country and see SW stuff flying out the door and the customers turning up their noses at DnD.

For d20 Modern:
I don't think it's "overextended" as "made too many assumptions about their customer base while hoping to expand into a new market" and "had high hopes the 3rd party publishers picked up the slack."

It looks like WotC wanted to expand into modern gaming and yet still fall back on their core customer if the expansion didn't work. The only proposed setting to get a book was Urban Arcana, which pretty much cemenets my opinon (in my own mind. ).

Do you know why White-Wolf's Gamma World was d20 Modern? It was in their contract. Which leads me to believe that WW wanted to do d20 instead. Funny enough, WW's other d20 modern/SF games, the Trinity line, is technicaly 20 with liberal use of d20 Modern. Which brings up my second point, 3rd party support for d20 M, which has taken a lot longer than I think WotC hoped it would.

Like WW, I think most publishers see uses for bits of d20 M, but would rather play it safe and stick to the generic d20 (and the implied link to DnD). Though some PDFers are going d20 Modern.

Going back to the GW mess, I think it was smart and ironic that Darwin's World went d20 Modern for their print product. They knew they had a market since it seemed that the interest in GW came from their success. Adding in d20M only expanded their market.

 

[arscott]

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.

Maybe. But much of narnia's appeal comes from its obvious christian roots, and hefty segment of its fanbase consists of the highly religious. Many of whom are less than thrilled about role-playing games, and D&D in particular. A Narnia Setting would be pretty cool though.

But if Wizards really wants to tap the popular children's book market, I'd suggest Harry Potter.

 

[Mouseferatu]

But if Wizards really wants to tap the popular children's book market, I'd suggest Harry Potter.

I'm sure they'd love to. But the idea of a Harry Potter RPG has been floated before, and J.K. Rowling has steadfastly refused to allow anyone to even consider it.

Some people suggest she dislikes RPGs, or that she doesn't want anyone but herself creating original HP material. Others have reported that she simply wants to finish all seven books before allowing a project that would have to delve into background she hasn't yet released. Personally, I'm hoping it's the latter, but I couldn't say for sure one way or the other.