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Taylor Liss
United States
Quincy
Massachusetts
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This is a recap of some recent articles that have appeared on the official website.
From 1/31/12 we have a new Rule of Three article than answers the following questions:
Quote: What do you feel the pros and cons are of the power system are, and how do you think it will influence the next iteration of D&D?
Skills have changed with every edition of D&D. Which skill system do people in the office like best and why?
What else can you tell us about the miniatures game?
From a 2/1/12 Dragon Editorial titled FR'eak which shows WotC is moving away from its other settings to focus on the Forgotten Realms:
Quote: This year in the magazines, we’re taking a break from the Nentir Vale “points of light” setting to shine a light on the Forgotten Realms as well as some of our other popular worlds, past and present. You’ll see more Eberron® articles, more Dark Sun® articles, and even some content for Ravenloft®, Planescape®, and the World of Greyhawk™. But the Realms, in particular, will receive a lot of love.
And finally from the 2/3/12 Joining the Party archive comes a large list of links to sites which are discussing new information about 5E.
Quote: •The DDXP convention happened this past weekend in Fort Wayne, IN—where Wizards of the Coast ran a number of seminars in addition to playtests of D&D Next.
◦Obsidian Portal has video from the DDXP seminars. They also did a number of interviews with well-known D&D personalities including Robert Schwalb, Trevor Kidd, Philippe A. Menard, and Steve Townshend.
◦ENWorld has transcripts of the seminars. These include: Charting the Course: An Edition for all Editons, Class Design: From Assassins to Wizards, Upcoming Products for 2012, and Reimagining Skills and Ability Scores.
◦At The Trollish Delver, we have what we learnt from the first D&D Next seminar and new info on Classes in D&D Next.
◦On Geek's Dream Girl, there's DDXP 2012 Report: The First Glimpses at the New Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
◦And finally, DDXP 2012 Recap on This is My Game.
•In Monte Cook's post on the D&D Next community site, he brought up the question of whether or not story needed to be accompanied by mechanics. This in turn led to discussions of racial mechanics on forums, Twitter, and blogs.
◦ Race & Culture in Dungeons & Dragons 5e/Next on Daily Encounter.
◦Are D&D Race Mechanics Necessary on Troll in the Corner.
◦And back on This is My Game, Racially Motivated – Or Not?
(Find the links halfway the through article under the section titled D&D Next.)
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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Samort7 wrote:
Quote: This year in the magazines, we’re taking a break from the Nentir Vale “points of light” setting to shine a light on the Forgotten Realms as well as some of our other popular worlds, past and present. You’ll see more Eberron® articles, more Dark Sun® articles, and even some content for Ravenloft®, Planescape®, and the World of Greyhawk™. But the Realms, in particular, will receive a lot of love.
Great. Because we don't already have 3 other editions worth of Forgotten Realms stuff...
Personally, I'm tired of FR. Why are they taking a break from the Nentir Vale?
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Taylor Liss
United States
Quincy
Massachusetts
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lorddillon wrote: Personally, I'm tired of FR. Why are they taking a break from the Nentir Vale?
Nentir Vale was a part of their Points of Light campaign setting. Points of Light fell flat because players want a world they can travel through and explore. PoL was the complete opposite. Instead of having an established world with interesting and different locales, themes and areas, Wizards essentially created a "non-world" and left it up to the DM to fill-in the details. While this is a good idea on paper, it is essentially what DMs have been doing for years.
The point of a campaign setting is to help the DM that doesn't have the energy/time to create his own world. I'm betting that PoL wasn't really selling because there wasn't really anything to sell. Wizards is probably realizing this and instead of creating a new world from the ground up (a time-consuming and expensive process) they're choosing to fall back to their old standard. In addition, they are probably trying to (again) rope back in the old players who spent the majority of their play time in the Forgotten Realms.
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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I disagree with almost everything you have said.
Samort7 wrote: Nentir Vale was a part of their Points of Light campaign setting. Points of Light fell flat because players want a world they can travel through and explore.
Points of light didn't fall flat - it suffered from lack of main campaign support. They had plenty of items and dragon/dungeon articles that fleshed it out over the three and a half years of the edition.
What makes you say that players/PCs/DMs couldn't explore it?
Samort7 wrote: PoL was the complete opposite. Instead of having an established world with interesting and different locales, themes and areas, Wizards essentially created a "non-world" and left it up to the DM to fill-in the details. While this is a good idea on paper, it is essentially what DMs have been doing for years.
If it is all detailed out, how is there anything left for the players to explore?
The Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale product was one of the best 4e products so far and it expanded and explored the Nentir Vale in various amounts of detail. Madness at Gardmore Abbey is also set in the Nentir Vale and is also one of the better 4e products.
Lots of DMs like having only a small portion of the world really detailed - it allows us to throw our own flavor into the campaign without stepping on the established canon, which is the whole problem with FR - If one doesn't know 30 years worth of canon, one runs the risk of being accused of 'doing it wrong' and hearing "That wouldn't happen in insert region the group is in because insert bit of canon that the DM did't know or couldn't remember."
Samort7 wrote: The point of a campaign setting is to help the DM that doesn't have the energy/time to create his own world.
If that was true, it would be the most detailed setting they were producing, because it is easier to read and memorize and then present that info as the DM than it is to create your own.
Your point seems to contradict itself.
Samort7 wrote: I'm betting that PoL wasn't really selling because there wasn't really anything to sell.
It wasn't selling because they only had two major non-DDi products (that is, non-magazine) specifically released for the Nentir Vale. And, as I said before, they happen to be, in my opinion, two of the best 4e products.
Samort7 wrote: Wizards is probably realizing this and instead of creating a new world from the ground up (a time-consuming and expensive process) they're choosing to fall back to their old standard.
I don't necessarily disagree with this - but that was my complaint from above - I don't want them to fall back on the old FR stuff. Too much canon already released for me to bother even getting into it. Blah.
Samort7 wrote: In addition, they are probably trying to (again) rope back in the old players who spent the majority of their play time in the Forgotten Realms.
Yeah. Once again, that's my complaint.
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Taylor Liss
United States
Quincy
Massachusetts
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lorddillon wrote: Samort7 wrote: PoL was the complete opposite. Instead of having an established world with interesting and different locales, themes and areas, Wizards essentially created a "non-world" and left it up to the DM to fill-in the details. While this is a good idea on paper, it is essentially what DMs have been doing for years. If it is all detailed out, how is there anything left for the players to explore?
What I'm trying to say is that PoL wasn't a detailed setting. Compared to the Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder's Golarion, there wasn't really that much for players to use.
lorddillon wrote: Samort7 wrote: The point of a campaign setting is to help the DM that doesn't have the energy/time to create his own world. If that was true, it would be the most detailed setting they were producing, because it is easier to read and memorize and then present that info as the DM than it is to create your own. Your point seems to contradict itself.
PoL should have been WotC's most detailed setting since it was considered (for all intents and purposes) their primary campaign setting. But the problem was that the setting wasn't detailed enough. Players use a campaign setting when they don't want to have to do a lot of work, and PoL still required those players to put in extra work. If a DM wants to create his own world he can do so without PoL or any other "campaign setting."
EDIT: I'm not disagreeing with you on your other points. I would like to see Nentir vale developed into a new full-blown campaign setting, but I just don't think it is there yet. And I'm also not defending the Forgotten Realms either. I think that the canon issue is definitely a major problem and that they shouldn't be jumping back to FR for convenience's sake.
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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Samort7 wrote: What I'm trying to say is that PoL wasn't a detailed setting. Compared to the Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder's Golarion, there wasn't really that much for players to use.
It is a bit unfair to compare the Nentir Vale to FR in terms of amount of detailed items to use since FR has been in production in some form for 25 years.
As for Golarion - yes, Paizo has done a wonderful job creating that setting and they released one of the best setting guides ever produced for Golarion.
If WotC had produced a setting book for the Nentir Vale, and put as mush designer time and effort into it as Paizo did with the The Inner Sea World Guide then I think you could compare the two in terms of how well received they were.
But part of my point is that the Vale suffers from WotC not creating a guide to bring together all of the cool stuff that they created for the Vale into one product. If they had done so, I don't think people would be able to say that the Vale wasn't detailed enough.
Samort7 wrote: I would like to see Nentir vale developed into a new full-blown campaign setting, but I just don't think it is there yet.
Right - this is my main issue though - it isn't there yet and it won't ever be if they stop developing it and spend all of their designer time on FR, a setting that has already gotten 25 years worth of designer time poured into it.
Samort7 wrote: And I'm also not defending the Forgotten Realms either. I think that the canon issue is definitely a major problem and that they shouldn't be jumping back to FR for convenience's sake.
Yeah, agreed.
I understand your points. I guess my main problem is that, if you and I are both correct, then that would be reason to keep developing the Nentir Vale, not reason to abandon it to FR.
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Taylor Liss
United States
Quincy
Massachusetts
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Right.
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Posted Sun Feb 5, 2012 7:22 pm
