Support for non-WOTC / Hasbro / TSR worlds


Dragon Magazine General Discussion


I know I'm not going to be the only one on this, so I'll just throw it out there.

Dragon needs to do some support for Scarred Lands, Kalamar, (and now that Ebberon is going to be the default setting) and Greyhawk stuff. I know there will probably need to be some releases signed, but it will probably bring in more readers.
Other articles for other settings should be discussed also, so Paizo doesn't seem like the mouthpiece for a large corporation.

** LET THE FLAMINGS COMMENCE **

Dark Archive Contributor

undeaddragonhunter wrote:
I know I'm not going to be the only one on this, so I'll just throw it out there.

Rest assured, you're not the only who has brought this up. ;)

undeaddragonhunter wrote:
Dragon needs to do some support for Scarred Lands, Kalamar, (and now that Ebberon is going to be the default setting) and Greyhawk stuff. I know there will probably need to be some releases signed, but it will probably bring in more readers.

Now that Erik Mona is editor-in-chief of Dragon I'm sure our support for Greyhawk will continue (and possibly increase). After all, since Greyhawk is the default setting, any article we publish with a core pantheon deity mentioned inside is technically a Greyhawk support piece. ;) Now if I could just get a little more Known World support in there...

Eberron isn't the default setting, at least not for third edition, although it is the new setting and therefore in need of our support (which we will continue to give).

There are multiple reasons why we don't put in articles about third party products. For one of those reasons, keep reading. ;)

undeaddragonhunter wrote:
Other articles for other settings should be discussed also, so Paizo doesn't seem like the mouthpiece for a large corporation.

Paizo isn't a mouthpiece for a large corporation, but in its way Dragon is. Wizards of the Coast owns Dragon and has 100% control over our content (which is why we and Dungeon alone can say 100% Official D&D on our covers). They (understandably) want us to support their products, so we do. :)


I'm sorry. You actually cleared up what I had trouble putting into words (Dragon being the mouthpiece).

I'm not denying that they (Paizo) should continue to support and reinforce D&D and TSR/WOTC/Hasbro, but also to give support to worlds they don't own the rights to.

Kinda like it was in the old days.

Content for everything they own would still be 100% offical, right?


Actually, I'd be happier not seeing ANY setting-specific content.

I'm a Mystara fan from way, way back (the red-boxed D&D Basic set), and I sometimes still use the setting. I've also run games set in Greyhawk and even the Realms (and in Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and a couple other published settings). But I'd rather not see any articles specifically geared to any of these settings.

Why? Well, because I most often run games set in worlds of my own design. I find it much easier to adapt a "generic" article to any setting I may want to use it in than to "reverse-engineer" a setting-specific article to be appropriate elsewhere. An article on spellfire or navigating the phlogiston would be useless to me outside of a Realms or Spelljammer campaign, because I don't use those elements in other games. But an article about large-scale warfare in fantasy, I could adapt to fit any setting I wanted.

Sure, there can be exceptions. If the setting is generally cosmetic, as with many new spells, monsters, feats, and so on, it's not hard to reverse-engineer. But that means the setting-specific stuff is just flavor text, not really support. I don't mind the Greyhawk pantheon being used; it's the default, and it's generally easy to map to other pantheons (unlike, for instance, the Realms pantheon, which is pretty complex).

Basically, I guess, there's a difference between setting-specific tidbits added for flavor (good), and setting-specific information that makes the article difficult to divorce from that setting (bad). I'd much rather see a generic article with a couple sidebars added for particular settings than a setting-specific article.

Liberty's Edge

I want to agree with what Kei just said. I really can't say it better, so I won't.

I don't really want to see support for 3rd party stuff, even if that were an option. In all honesty there are enough campaign settings that Dragon couldn't do them all justice, and there aren't enough that I would like to see full support for. A great article may include "this is designed for world x, but can work in world y with these minor changes, or any world that has a, b, and c".

For example, "this is designed with Greyhawk city in mind, but it can be set in Waterdeep with minor changes. Alternatively, any large city with a generally lawful ruler can be used that is close to an ocean port, whether by river or actually set on the coast."

Does that make sense? That helps show how an article can fit a wide range of worlds without making it SPECIFIC to any world.

Community / Forums / Archive / Paizo / Books & Magazines / Dragon Magazine / General Discussion / Support for non-WOTC / Hasbro / TSR worlds All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion