Planescape did not fail per-say. You have to remember the time frame it was relases. AD&D2e was nearing it's end and alot of players had dropped because we wanted a third edition but TSR was spewing out new rulebooks making the game too product oriented. (sound familiar?)
Also the closest game store for me and my friends was a 130 mile round trip...we only bought books once maybe twice a year.
alot of other gamers had the same problem either $$ or miles kept them form getting the needed books.
I think if tsr had done a 3e and saved planescape for it Tsr and the setting would have been more sucessful. Sadly we will never know.
http://archivedboards.wizards.com/community-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=214;t=000499;p=
http://archivedboards.wizards.com/rpg-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=201;t=000711;p=
Originally posted by Plunderer_of_the_planes
Also the closest game store for me and my friends was a 130 mile round trip...we only bought books once maybe twice a year.
alot of other gamers had the same problem either $$ or miles kept them form getting the needed books.
Only a 130 miles and twice per year?! Dang - that's just a little over an hour drive! My nearest game store is over 130 miles away - one way - and I still go there WAY TOO MUCH.
Thank gawd our local Waldenbooks has started to carry DnD products. Can't wait to check out Ghostwalk!
playing dnd at this time because I went to university. And to be honest,
even if I had kept playing, I didn't have the money to experiment with a
new setting. If I spent any money it would of been on core products.
I wouldn't be surprised if a LOT of people who play AD&D are about my age
and would of been at university at the time Planescape came out. I learned
about Planescape from the CRPG. I didn't know any of the other settings
that had come out at that time either (Dark Sun, Birthright, Al-Quadim and
Ravenloft) for similar reasons.
Now some 10 years later I work and have a higher disposable income. I buy
most anything published by WOTC and am now re-collecting all my old d&d
stuff which I had thrown out before university. I think if it was
re-published now you would find it was a lot more popular because;
1) Torment is one of the most beloved CRPG ever made and constantly tops
the number 1 position in "favourite game of all time". Only Fallout has a
similar pedigree. This has raised awareness a lot for the setting.
2) The people like me who tend to buy everything related to d&d that seems
good quality. I think there are more fans now due to the CRPG and those
fans have bigger disposable incomes.
Originally posted by Saurstalk
Only a 130 miles and twice per year?! Dang - that's just a little over an hour drive! My nearest game store is over 130 miles away - one way - and I still go there WAY TOO MUCH.
Thank gawd our local Waldenbooks has started to carry DnD products. Can't wait to check out Ghostwalk!
um, dude, depending on if you drive the speed limit or not, that's about a 2-hour drive. and i'm from texas, where a 2 hour drive isn't much at all, but IMO: i'd mail-order. =)
eudas
Originally posted by eudas
um, dude, depending on if you drive the speed limit or not, that's about a 2-hour drive. and i'm from texas, where a 2 hour drive isn't much at all, but IMO: i'd mail-order. =)
eudas
Wow - delayed response! Actually, my comment was a bit of a typo. I.e., 130 mile round trip, which in my book is one hour one way. For me, the nearest bona fide game store is over 130 miles away, which in my book is a little over a two hour drive. Of course, another correction needs to be made. Ever since my wife and I got our baby, drives to distant Albuquerque rarely occur anymore. Now I'm one of the sole funding sources of the gaming section of our small town's Waldenbooks ... when I have money, that is. BABY'S IS EXPENSIVE!! I just can't wait til he can roll a dice and not try, first thing, to plant it in his mouth!
Personally I just wasn't exposed to it until it was too late. I would LOVE to have the Planescape setting just to add to ALL of the others. Ag, I need to find the 2e setting and convert like a madman.
Another reason maybe that Planescape is a little weird, like Dark Sun. And people for the most part, really like the same old same old. A weird setting that (gasp!) challenges their brains and imaginations with new ideas and concepts, is work, and for a lot of people that work is frightening or they are to darn lazy. However, it amazes me how scared people can be of change.
It's also a heavy guide towards mature RP-oriented gaming (Hack and slash can't be mature or immature, so don't bloody start), with subtlety and philosophy winning over brute force or thoughtlessness.
While it has a limited audience, Planescape is one of the most successful games ever made.
Planescape is Art.
Originally posted by Incenjucar
While it has a limited audience, Planescape is one of the most successful games ever made.
Planescape is Art.
As I understand it, PS was one of the more successful worlds, but still not on par with FR-level profits. Also, from talking to a couple of writers, it seems that every setting but FR was a regional success; PS might be popular in the Northeast, but can't sell for nothing down in Florida, while DS was popular out west, but sat on the shelves in the east, that type of thing.For some starnge reason WOTC doen not want to produce many worlds. Supposedly Greyhawk is the default world in 3e but , you see more FR material released than Greyhawk. ( the closest to an "official" answer I got was that the Living greyhawk Gazateer was the setting and no more info would be produced other than that)
Wotc has been adamant that it would not produce any more worlds, and has ignored large calls to bring back Planescape and Darksun. The numbers of threads on here alone who would buy it would guarentee enough sales to cover the production cost.
But instead wotc has decided not to produce any older settings but opted for Eberron after a contest. Sadly we get to watch as these settings die off or worse get remade by a company who can't capture the Spirit of the old world. (RAVENLOFT)
But, WoTC are good at business and they saved D&D from disappearing all-together, so I can't fault them too much.
Originally posted by PhaedrusXY
If WotC isn't interested in re-releasing settings, then why is there a shiny new Dragonlance campaign setting book on the shelves at my local bookstore?
Listen up: Wotc just produced Dragonlance It was written and will be handled by Margret Weis's company. See wotc figues the setting book makes the most sales so they produce it with no money tied up in writing Illustrating etc.. it's pure profit for them...Dragonlance also was part of what some call the big lie. Initally WOTC promised that Greyhawk, Dragonlance and FR would come after the core books in that order. to date wotc has only produced the FR book. Dragonlance was doen as stated above and greyhawk doesn't seem to be coming at all.
Wotc has tried to Distance itself from the so called expert settings (Ravenloft, Planescape, Darksun) for whatever reason and the number say that Planescape is one of the highest demanded settings on these boards.
Luckily Sword and Sorcery took Ravenloft to keep it's life up...Although I am not happy with the 3e version It is good in it's own right and a good thing someone tried to save it.
Planescape is being updated on the net to 3e but is not the same as a setting book. The guys behind it are doing a wonderful job.
Darksun has a supposed 3e conversion coming but I have yet to see much.
So yes Dragonlance is out but Wotc has little to do with it....Just think of it this way, With the major money spent to write it in Weis's hand if it failed for some reason WOTC would loose nothing Weis would.. WOtc will allow productions of settings as long as they get to produce the setting book or are guarenteed not to take a loss....Why they do this I don't know seeings how I would have loved a PS setting over 3.$ or that vile Savage Species book (toal waste of money)
"Back to the dungeons"
"Boobies equal poor quality, but pages of errata are fine"
"Having everything connect might hurt some poor kid's head"
etc etc etc
They're aiming for the next generation of gamers, not the older ones.
When generation Z grows up, maybe THEN they'll have expert settings again. Maybe.
Even if I only qualify as gen X by one year. ;)Fortunately, being a Planescaper almost always means you're in a minority of personality types, so I doubt any of us truly falls in to our 'generation', even those who embrace it.
Heck, I grew up five years behind everyone else (I still only have a PS 1, and my whole family owns, maybe, 25 CDs total, between the four of us), so I'm Generation Backwoods.
Anyway, from talking to people since then, one the biggest turn off was the so-called cant. Of the people that had heard of PS, only half of them expressed having any interest in it. Just about all them though said they would never buy any PS product because wading through the slang filled text was more trouble than it was worth.
PS was a hard sell to begin with because it was still sellable because it was a great idea. But if the people that I have talked to is any indication of the norm, then the choice to mix the 'cant' with the text instead of keeping at seperate as flavor text eliminated about two thirds of its potential audience.
With that said, my assessment is that the RPG market on the decline combined with the PS slang is why it failed as a product. If either of these things had been different, I think it would have found it's place among the WotC releases.
The cant really is a portion of language that feels like it evolved out of the environment of the Sigilian streets, which makes it far better than any other made up slang in a game. Shadowrun's slang, for example (with the exception of using "omae" as slang), was mostly just word substitution to keep swears out of the books.
I know it made the setting come alive for those who liked it but for those that didn't, it ruined an otherwise perfectly good setting. Whether or not it was clever made no difference. It was, IMO, a bad idea.
The problem with love it or hate it things is that by their nature they have limited audiences. RPGs have a limited audience to begin with. AD&D was a declining audience within an already limited audience and so the 'cant' made PS a product with a limited audience within a declining audience within a limited audience. In other words, the product was destined to fail. Someone in marketing really dropped the ball on this one. Notice that WotC has released nothing using something like the 'cant.'
Notice that WotC has released nothing using something like the 'cant.'
Notice Wotc has not relesed nothing resembling D&D either....;)
Originally posted by Plunderer_of_the_planes
Notice Wotc has not relesed nothing resembling D&D either....;)
:P
Cant was used in quotes, the remaining text was almost plain english.
Kilamar
However other folks adore it. I've gotten my current gaming group to use it in game frequently. Heck, I've been tempted to run a game in Sigil entirely with an east end cockney accent just to see how it worked... :D
(I've known a Planescape DM who did that, was great...)
Far as I know, Planewalker is handling Cant as a compromise issue. Rules are purely devoid of Cant. In character material and flavor text have varying levels of Cant. For example, the introduction to the Free League had ALOT of Cant when I read it. However anything dealing with rules, etc is fairly devoid of it.
As much as I adore the Cant, I think thats a fairly good compromise position. There's been some amusing debates over it, especially regarding the word 'Canny' not actually being Cant but some folks thinking it was. *grin*
Sometimes I use it in day to day conversations when the situation is right.
I know, I know GEEK. But since it is (was) real life slang, I dont feel so bad.