Unearthed Arcana Crawford On Lots Of Stuff! Release Tempo, Video Games, OGL, Conventions, Unearthed Arcana, 2018, Tia

Crawford confirms the brilliant strategy of the D&D team. Thanks for posting the highlights Morrus. Sales and fans returning to D&D are proof that they are doing something right.

Bravo!

 

[Hussar]

It's funny. I've never really been a big fan of published settings of any stripe. But, I used to borrow from whatever setting book caught my fancy all the time. Faiths and Avatars for Forgotten Realms saw liberal use in my 2e games. Dragon lance modules have seen use in just about every edition I've played. Scarred Lands material features in all my homebrews. And I've used any number of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberon, various other, modules in any setting over the years.

I'm frankly baffled by this idea that the settings are so different that if you put a "For Specific Setting" tag on the product that some people won't even consider buying it.

Like I said, in the latter days of 3.5, when Paizo was producing AP's for 3.5 in Dungeon magazine, they have several conversion documents right there for transplanting the AP's into various settings. Heck, Savage Tide Adventure Path uses Isle of Dread (a Known Worlds property) and places it firmly in a Greyhawk setting. And they were applauded for it.

I find this whole thing rather tiresome and very, very self serving.

 

[Mistwell]

Then some people aren't the target audience for these supplements. That's always going to happen.

What should WOTC do? Cater to the vast majority of D&D gamers who actually do play in Forgotten Realms (when you consider the numbers for Adventurers League, LFR, and the popularity of previous AP's) or cater to a 40+ year old gamer who's campaign setting hasn't had any published material in twenty years?

OK to be fair, that's not accurate. Greyhawk has had published material over the past 20 years. Paizo in fact was writing adventures set in Greyhawk for Dungeon magazine. Savage Tide for example is Greyhawk, and it's from 9 years ago.

 

[Hussar]

OK to be fair, that's not accurate. Greyhawk has had published material over the past 20 years. Paizo in fact was writing adventures set in Greyhawk for Dungeon magazine. Savage Tide for example is Greyhawk, and it's from 9 years ago.

Heh, Savage Tide took one of the hallmark adventures of the Known World and mashed it into Greyhawk. And Paizo was largely applauded for doing so. It was a pretty popular AP.

But, apparently, taking Greyhawk elements and putting them into FR is a bad thing?

And, fair enough, I should have said ten years.

 

[garnuk]

There is no doubt about it. The multiverse idea was absolutely a classic D&D concept.

And yet, we refer to The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Lost Caverns of Tsojocanth, The Tomb of Horrors, Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Scourge of the Slavelords, Queen of Spiders, etc as classic Greyhawk adventures. We don't refer to them as classic multiverse adventurers. They are things that are wrapped up in the fabric of what makes Greyhawk so awesome. You CAN make sense of Mordenkainen journeying to Toril and roasting hot dogs over a campfire with Elminster. But Mordenkainen belongs to Greyhawk just like Gandalf belongs to Middle Earth. Just like Elminster belongs to the Forgotten Realms. What we've seen so far isn't really a rich exploration of D&D's many multiverses. What we've seen is D&D's rich multiverses being imported into the Forgotten Realms. I know that's an overstatement, because so far we've really only seen Elemental Evil assimilated. My point is in specific reference to Crawford's mention that we might see the same sort of thing with future products.

I'm just saying that I disapprove of that path. Hopefully my worries are unfounded and we'll have an adventure path set in Greyhawk.

When people talk about the TV Show Sliders, they say it takes place on "Earth". Not on "Parallel Universes", even though thats what it is.

 

[JeffB]

Apparently Hasbro/Wizards are intent on bringing the Global Branding Experience to the fictional denizens/entities in their respective fictional worlds too.

I hope hat guy on Jury Duty will be back in time to make sure the townsfolk's contract is OK with Legal. Otherwise the next AP may get pushed back.


or something

 

[Mercurius]

As someone who uses a homebrew setting exclusively, I have no issue with official adventures being set in the Forgotten Realms or any other setting. It is relatively easy to adapt it to my own setting if I so choose, whether porting in fluff or replacing it with my own stuff. In fact, I prefer products I buy to have setting-specific fluff as it brings it alive in a way that is more evocative and fun to read.

That said, I'd like to see WotC have a section in each adventure as to how to adapt it to different settings, or maybe a downloadable pdf, such "Running Princes of the Apocalypse in other settings." Maybe even having separate one or two page documents for the different major settings (other than the Realms).

 

[MerricB]

That said, I'd like to see WotC have a section in each adventure as to how to adapt it to different settings, or maybe a downloadable pdf, such "Running Princes of the Apocalypse in other settings." Maybe even having separate one or two page documents for the different major settings (other than the Realms).

Would that be anything similar to the section they *did* include in Princes of the Apocalypse on adapting it to other settings?

 

[Mercurius]

Would that be anything similar to the section they *did* include in Princes of the Apocalypse on adapting it to other settings?

Oh yeah, that. Whoops. Clearly PotA has mainly just sat on my shelf since buying it. Carry on doing what you're doing, WotC.

 

[Mistwell]

Heh, Savage Tide took one of the hallmark adventures of the Known World and mashed it into Greyhawk. And Paizo was largely applauded for doing so. It was a pretty popular AP.

But, apparently, taking Greyhawk elements and putting them into FR is a bad thing?

And, fair enough, I should have said ten years.

I'm running Savage Tides right now for 5e. It's going well. My party just finished the thieves guild in Sassarine and is off to watery adventures...

Still, no update in the past 8ish years isn't itself an indication it should not see any updates. After all, Planescape hasn't seen updates in a longer period of time, but apparently it ranked high in WOTC's survey of settings and is more likely to see an update.

 

[Hussar]

I'm running Savage Tides right now for 5e. It's going well. My party just finished the thieves guild in Sassarine and is off to watery adventures...

Still, no update in the past 8ish years isn't itself an indication it should not see any updates. After all, Planescape hasn't seen updates in a longer period of time, but apparently it ranked high in WOTC's survey of settings and is more likely to see an update.

I ran it too. Loved it. Thought it was a very well done AP.

But, that's beside the point that I was responding to. The original point was that somehow drawing elements from other settings and putting them in Forgotten Realms is disrespectful of fans of the original settings and a bad thing. I'm really not sure why.