D&D 4E WotC's 4E Setting approach - was it a mistake?

[Riastlin]

I don't think the question necessarily is "Will Book X turn a profit?" I think most of their published books will turn some profit. The question is "Will Book X turn enough of a profit?" Keep in mind, that any time WotC decides to publish a particular book, it redirects resources away from another book/project/etc. In other words, there's a limit to the number of products that WotC can release in a given time period.

So the question then becomes, how does WotC maximize profit? (For better or worse they are a business who's primary goal is to make money). When looking at setting specific books, I think you immediately have to consider that you are looking at a reduced maximum profit potential. Theorhetically, the maximum any book would sell would be 1 per consumer (i.e. every player/DM buys said book). Books like the PHBs, Martial Power, etc. will theorhetically maximize the profit potential (i.e. everyone will want to buy the PHB).

Setting books though inherently limit the profit potential. Not everyone likes FR, Eberron, or Dark Sun for instance. In fact, there are people who despise FR or other settings. The people who hate FR will not buy a FR book, regardless of whether its a campaign setting, player's guide, or Guide to Baldur's Gate. The general FR books though (CS and Players Guide) at least have the chance of being purchased by all of the FR fans. Each subsequent FR book though will gradually see a reduction in the profit potential. If you are running a Kara-Tur campaign for instance, you won't be too interested in a detailed book on Icewind Dale. Likewise, the group that is running a campaign based in Icewind Dale, likely might not have much interest in a book on the Dalelands. Why drop $30 on a product you won't use?

All that being said, I think that the best idea (as has already been expressed) is to supplement those "core" books with Dragon and Dungeon articles. Personally, even though I might not use all of them, I would not have a problem if there was 1 or 2 articles/adventures/etc. in each issue dedicated to a given setting, so long as there was still plenty of generic setting support in each issue. This would really, in my opinion, be the best of both worlds. The FR/Eberron/DS fans get their content while the homebrewers/POL's get their content. Everyone should, in theory, go home happy. By putting the content in the online magazines, WotC also saves a bunch on production cost which makes the reduced profit potential less of an issue.

 

[Andramelech]

I used to like the box sets, but now a days, shiny plastic extras don't appeal to me as much.

I usually like to go minimal on purchasing supplements, but that still didn't stop me from buying every Dark Sun 2e product they put out. I was actually relieved when they stopped, because my DS collection was finally complete.

I like the idea of a players guide. I used to get such a kick out of reading dark sun material, that I'd want to share it with the players, but it was all dm material. I wish they would have made a 4e ds players guide along side the main book, so I could give the players something to thumb through, if I ever get into DS again.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Did he though? I've read the same stuff that you're talking about, but I don't recall it talking about the major settings in and of themselves directly as being the inventory bloat that caused problems. By all means dig through the material and direct quote for me, it would be useful here.

Possibly he was referring to this article:

I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf.

His conclusion seems to be that TSR simply did none of the market research that it needed to. But he suggests that perhaps the market didn't want all those settings:

Our customers were telling us that we produced too many products, and that the stuff we produced was of inferior quality? We can fix that. We can cut back on the number of products we release, and work hard to make sure that each and every book we publish is useful, interesting, and of high quality.

Our customers were telling us that we spent too much time on our own worlds, and not enough time on theirs? Ok - we can fix that. We can re-orient the business towards tools, towards examples, towards universal systems and rules that aren't dependent on owning a thousand dollars of unnecessary materials first.

Earlier in the article is another reference to the number of settings, when Dancey was first looking at the raw financials of the company:

Why did TSR create not once, not twice, but nearly a dozen times a variation on the same, Tolkien inspired, eurocentric fantasy theme? Why had it constantly tried to create different games, poured money into marketing those games, only to realize that nobody was buying those games?

 

[fanboy2000]

Did he though? I've read the same stuff that you're talking about, but I don't recall it talking about the major settings in and of themselves directly as being the inventory bloat that caused problems. By all means dig through the material and direct quote for me, it would be useful here.

Good point. When I think of Dancey, I think of the now famous letter he wrote on the subject of TSR's collapse.

I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf.

Of course, you have to do actual market research. You have get a better sampling than people complaining on forums and usenet. But it looks like he did. We don't know everything they found out, but Dancey gives us an idea.

Our customers were telling us that we spent too much time on our own worlds, and not enough time on theirs? Ok - we can fix that. We can re-orient the business towards tools, towards examples, towards universal systems and rules that aren't dependent on owning a thousand dollars of unnecessary materials first.

Today, Wizard's has a kind of dichotomy. I suspect most people play in homebrew worlds, but Wizards' makes their money selling to DM's tools to make hombebrewing easy. Add to that the value of FR and Dragonlance on their own, and you have a situation where some of their most valuable assets aren't very useful to large swaths of buyers. This may explain the upswing in player focused splat books from 2e on.

But also keep in mind that the setting support by itself wouldn't be a problem if the print runs were tailored to demand. Even a well selling setting won't turn a profit if you blindly guess about a print run and print double what actually sells. This as I recall was the problem back then.

Generally speaking, the fewer books you print, the higher your per book cost is. The higher the book costs to print, the fewer people that may be willing to pay for that book at a price that allows you make a profit.

While you are correct that guessing high will cause damage, printing in low quantities can cause damage as well. It's possible that, for some campaign settings, there is no amount Wizards could print that would turn them a profit.

In that specific case, I've heard that the Planescape line turned a profit from one of the folks who actually worked on the setting. It only turned less profit per book than some other lines due to higher printing costs as it used a wider variety of inks in the printing. But it did turn a profit.

It might have, Dancey doesn't say.

We listened when the customers told us that Alternity wasn't what they wanted in a science fiction game. We listened when customers told us that they didn't want the confusing, jargon filled world of Planescape. We listened when people told us that the Ravenloft concept was overshadowed by the products of a competitor. We listened to customers who told us that they want core materials, not world materials. That they buy DUNGEON magazine every two months at a rate twice that of our best selling stand-alone adventures.

If you are right, and Planescape did turn a profit (and it would be nice to see some evidence), then Wizards had some tough choices to make. One one hand, they're getting feedback saying people don't like the setting. A lot of feedback. These people want more setting generic material. On the other hand, it's making money. They can choose one over the other, or they can try to print both. If they choose one over the other, Planescape looses because generic setting books are more profitable. If they try to do both, they may end-up doing both badly, rather than profiting from both. It's a risk. Sometimes, I think the risk is worth it. After all, today Wizard's puts out both Magic and D&D. It do so back them.

They made a decision that I think was appropriate. Not because I don't like Planescape, it's the only D&D campaign setting I bought during the 2e years. It remains the only 2e product I still own. I have all the material I need to run a Planescape campaign. I would welcome more, but I don't need it. I bought those books back when I was in the Navy, and surprisingly, they've followed me around through the country. It's one of the few items from that time period I still own.

As you might suspect, I don't think the current situation is an abomination. I think instead it allows people to have exposure to a wide variety of game settings without taxing the companies' resources. I find the current system elegant. Over a long period of time, I will see many game settings for the edition of D&D I currently play. This allows me to spread out my purchases over time, so I don't have to pick and choose.

 

[Plaguedguy]

I think the absence of expanded setting materials is probably more closely tied to sales and interest than people want to admit.

When you look at which books were getting the most sales and the most attention it seems (at least to me) to be books that catered directly to players (The power books in particular almost always garnered the most discussion locally.) I can't recall anyone ever picking up one of the setting books and reacting with the same enthusiasm or interest as they did with a book that offered new builds or powers.

In fact the only books that have gathered dust on my local store shelves are books catering to DMs. The power books are always sold out, but adventure modules, Underdark, the -nomicons, etc all sit there.

I know this doesn't speak for everyone, but I'd like to point out how much discussion and debate each player option book generates compared to each setting or DM book. Even Essentials has been primarily discussed in terms of new or changing options for player characters. People are fixated on the 'Heroes of...' books.

Discussion of Nentir Vale/Points of Light becoming a full fledged setting has been virtually nonexistent. Interest in the DM-side products for Essentials has been equally minimal.

 

[tentfox]

What I would like to see is the published adventurers have ways to make them fit in the currently published settings, or to have dungeon articles to the same effect. Not only to say where they are and swap out the names of a few gods, but to add the "feel" of the setting as well.

Additionally, in regards to the regional books, while a fun read got very little use and I can imagine not very good sales. What I found extremely useful was the villains book, which went through pretty much every single group of bad guys in the forgotten realms, where they operate, what they are up to and some encounters. As a DM having so many hooks that could be made into a campaign with the edition of pre made encounters (and some variety please) would be pretty sweet.

But I would just be happy with the adventures having campaign setting ties and more dragon/dungeon support.

 

[Aegeri]

It's an abomination.

Hyperbole, it's what's for breakfast!

In essence it abandons settings because the support isn't being provided in print, and it's not being provided via the e-zines in any worthwhile amount. That's going to harm those settings value as IP in the longterm IMO.

I entirely disagree with you. I am running 3 different settings right now: PoLand, Eberron and Dark Sun. I can't even remember the last time I did that and it's because I don't need to keep up with large amounts of information now. I know everything there is about Eberron/Dark Sun that is relevant right now and I don't need to really "follow" a setting via multiple products (and PoLand is my own playground so I do whatever the hell I want to it). So what I've found is that I am willing to run multiple settings much easier, because there is simply less to keep track of to be up to date. Before, I would pick a setting I liked and buy most of the books. Because of that investment, I would never try another setting or play multiple ones.

So overall it means I have more diversity and I don't need to keep up with anything in particular to maintain it. The strategy really works for me and means there is always a low "investment" for my players to enter a new setting. I can say "We're playing Dark Sun" and "You get this book" and that's it. My players are happier about changing settings and running new things, plus I am more willing to do so.

Making it a very good decision. Especially if the books are good to begin with (FR arguably isn't, but Eberron and Dark Sun are fantastic).

 

[wedgeski]

Discussion of Nentir Vale/Points of Light becoming a full fledged setting has been virtually nonexistent. Interest in the DM-side products for Essentials has been equally minimal.

I don't think this is entirely true, but I still very much agree with your general point.

 

[JoeGKushner]

My personal preference would be more books focusing on adventure, setting support that is limited in scope and fairly easy to adopt to other settings, and characters that make me want to use them in some form regardless of setting.

In that regard, I believe WoTC has failed and Paizo has picked up the slack. Now mind you, this is probably because they are doing one setting and supporting the setting with adventures but it allows the 'stories' of that setting to come to live in many fashions that a dual release such as WoTC cannot hope to catch up to.

Mind you, if you homebrew both campaign and adventurers, then such material is faily limited in its use to you and becomes 'gaming porn' or 'gaming fiction' that's nice to read but not use.

 

[badmojojojo]

So yeah. Two books per setting is perfect for me; I wouldn't buy any more than that, even if more were offered.



-O

IM with you on this too. I really love Eberron (although I have not run it it is for me the preferred setting). If I decide to pick up FR then it is far easier to get everything I need in 2 books. I did pick up the DS books and love how they combined PH & DM's book in one setting book.

Plus with DDI you can get continued expansions at a really affordable price.