List of all 4E Campaign Settings

[Raoul Duke]

Sure, obviously there's only 3 official campaign settings for 4e, and the implied PoLand. There's also some third party settings, though few ever caught on. I'd like to confirm I have a definitive list, including "setting aspects" (like Neverwinter as opposed to Forgotten Realms, for example).

First Party:
1. Points of Light/Nentir Vale
2. Forgotten Realms
3. Eberron
4. Neverwinter (part of Forgotten Realms)
5. Menzobarrenzen (spelled wrong, and also part of Forgotten Realms, forthcoming)

Third Party:
1. Wraith Recon
2. Amethyst
3. Scarrport (one city only)
4. Kingdoms of Kalamar
5. 4e Ultramodern (does anyone know if this is a setting or just a rules set?)

Are there are other settings that I am leaving out of this list? I am in the minority in this, but I think the absence of setting variety was more harmful to 4e than people give it credit for. Compare 4e to 3e, with its massive amount of third party setting support, or 2nd edition, with the most first party settings of any edition, and 4 clearly falls short with essentially:
3 First Party Settings
1 "implied" First Party Setting, POL
3 Third Party Settings, a City, and some Alternate Rules

Mechanics alone don't "inspire" me to run a game, worlds do. 2E gave us Planescape, Spelljammer, and more, 3e at least gave us Eberron (first party). Perhaps less time quibbling with the community about the rules, and more providing worlds to explore, would have been a better use of resources?

[obryn]

Dark Sun

-O

[Raoul Duke]

Ah, thanks, that slipped through the cracks of my recollection.

I still feel they should have done at least one original setting - POLand would have been fine, had they finally just came out and made it a setting, instead of treating that like an elephant in the room.

I believe it's the weakest setting support of any edition since 1st Ed.

[Kurald Galain]

I think the problem, from an economical point of view, is that settings compete against each other. If you sell e.g. both Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun, then most fans of one setting will ignore books for the other setting. On the other hand, if you release generic books like Arcane Power, then everybody is a potential buyer.

[obryn]

KG's right on this one.

Personally, I am dubious about settings for a few reasons.

(1) One of them lasts an entire campaign. I'm not buying a new setting book at the rate I'd buy adventures (if I bought adventures anymore). Both the FR and Eberron setting books are basically sitting on my shelves, read but never really used. I'm not buying anything more for those settings.

(2) I don't want excessive details. Somewhere around the 1e FR grey box (or the 4e Dark Sun setting) is about perfect for me.

So I'm the sort of buyer that 4e campaign settings are perfect for - I would really only be buying the main setting book and maybe a monster or player book. I would not be buying the various other supplements which drill down in ever finer detail; that's just not my style.

Now, in some cases, I think micro-settings can be awesome. I love what they did with Gloomwrought and Neverwinter. (Neverwinter actually made the spellplague into something interesting. I didn't think that was possible. I am not a huge FR fan, but I'd happily use post-spellplague Neverwinter. Take that for what it's worth.)

Also, speaking personally, all 4e needed to do for me was release a new version of Dark Sun. They did that.

-O

[Raoul Duke]

I understand your perspective, but, to me, splat books like Complete WORD are only interesting in so far as I can conceive of a world where it would be interesting to see a Prescient Bard or Brawler Fighter. To me, settings give life to character concepts. Splatbooks, even adventures, offer me little incentive to maintain interest in an edition. To me, that is entirely tied to the settings - specifically the new settings, or new takes on an old setting - offered.

This may not be others' experience.

[Kurald Galain]

What WOTC should do, then, is release more campaign material for one setting, because a single campaign can use all of that.

To be fair, they did release (or at least sponsor) over a hundred printed LFR modules. That may count as setting material, too.

[obryn]

I understand your perspective, but, to me, splat books like Complete WORD are only interesting in so far as I can conceive of a world where it would be interesting to see a Prescient Bard or Brawler Fighter. To me, settings give life to character concepts. Splatbooks, even adventures, offer me little incentive to maintain interest in an edition. To me, that is entirely tied to the settings - specifically the new settings, or new takes on an old setting - offered.

This may not be others' experience.

I'm not denying that they're relatively bland. They do, however, have larger audiences. It's a game of numbers; delving deeper into settings has diminishing returns as time goes on.

The best possible solution, IMO, would be for a more open license than the GSL. Deep dives into settings are not financially viable for WotC, unless they move to a single-setting product like Pathfinder. However, this is just the sort of thing a third party publisher could make both awesome and profitable.

-O

[Raoul Duke]

Do you think it is due to the restrictive GSL that 4e had less third party setting support than 3.0 and 3.5? I would not be surprised. I remember a huge amount of settings in the third edition era, some good, some not so good, but the variety was inspiring enough to want to run and play a lot of games, and hence, to want more character options for those games. To me, the settings and splat books feed off each other. Without settings for them to play in, character options just fall flat for me.

It would be nice if they lifted some of those restrictions now that 4e is moving on, but that seems unlikely.

[obryn]

Do you think it is due to the restrictive GSL that 4e had less third party setting support than 3.0 and 3.5?

Absolutely, 100%, the GSL played a factor. It had less 3rd-party support in every respect, including settings. The whole GSL thing was a fiasco from the get-go. It was late, and when it was released, it was crazy and risky for publishers.

The Character Builder and strong (relatively-speaking!) suite of digital tools were the other major reason 3rd-party settings never took off. Since the CB was a closed database before... ahem... certain tools, people couldn't use their 3pp setting material as easily as WotC's core materials.

-O

[Kurald Galain]

Do you think it is due to the restrictive GSL that 4e had less third party setting support than 3.0 and 3.5?

Yes, oh so very much.

You should have seen the first draft of 4E's license. It basically said that if you write any 4E material, you may not support any other edition of D&D, and you forfeit all your copyrights to WOTC, and WOTC can force you to cease selling and destroy your stock if they feel like it.

Granted, they've toned it down since; but the above press release caused third-party support for 4E to jump ship right at the start, and was one of the major reasons for the creation of Pathfinder.

[Telok]

Oddly the lack of disparate settings is one of the negatives of 4e for me. Generic fantasy stuff like Greyhawk and Forgotten Whatsit never appealed to me. Even Dark Sun and Eberron are kind of bland. But I do have a bunch of Spelljammer and Planescape stuff, I like those two settings.

I don't think that different settings need to split the customer base. They can attract customers who want something that's not just the same stuff with different numbers.

[Raoul Duke]

That was my feeling, Telok - I, and RPG gamers I know, are generally more willing to invest time in learning a system associated with the settings they enjoy. More potential gaming with any one system, in this case more varieties of D&D settings, generally lead us to wanting to expand our resources with the core. So, when one of us picked up, say, Iron Kingdoms, to run, the players would pick up Complete Adventurer. When someone got Rokugan, the players would get Tome of Battle, etc.

With very few settings, the splatbooks lost a lot of their charm.

If the GSL was as restrictive as some of you are mentioning, it doesn't surprise me at all that third parties shied away from it. Still, that leaves Wizards with no one to blame but themselves. I have no issues with 4E mechanics - I like them - but I'd like more campaign worlds that showcase them in a positive and interesting light.

[Loki_42]

In theory, Gamma World kind of counts as 4th edition setting, even though it's more of a side game.

[Alejandro]

Yes, oh so very much.

You should have seen the first draft of 4E's license. It basically said that if you write any 4E material, you may not support any other edition of D&D, and you forfeit all your copyrights to WOTC, and WOTC can force you to cease selling and destroy your stock if they feel like it.

Granted, they've toned it down since; but the above press release caused third-party support for 4E to jump ship right at the start, and was one of the major reasons for the creation of Pathfinder.

Very, very true, and I haven't played Pathfinder and enjoy 4E. WOTC, however, sort of om nom nommed their own shotgun with how they handled their license. I hope they learned their lesson.

[Reverent-One]

On the other hand, there isn't a bunch of RPGs that basically just copy the 4e rules, and a "4e pathfinder" is at least a lot harder, if not impossible to make, so they may think the GSL did what they want it to do.

[Raoul Duke]

True, but those copy cats may have been a huge boon for 3.0/3.5, not a problem. As I mentioned, to me, every time we'd have a new D20 game - even a supposedly self contained one like Etherscope or conversions like The Red Star d20 - we'd use all of the WOTC splatbooks. They had more use, because we had more settings to choose from. We didn't by Incarnum for Forgotten Realms, but for Etherscope, we didn't buy Complete Champion for Dragonlance, for the Dragon Star, etc. The third party settings gave the first party splat purpose. This is something I feel hurt 4e badly, for me and my group, personally. Others may feel differently.

[obryn]

True, but those copy cats may have been a huge boon for 3.0/3.5, not a problem.

For the system as played by gamers, yes. The results are more questionable whether or not it was a boon for WotC, who's the one making the decisions here. (And given that their major competitor literally could not be selling the game they are selling without it, I am thinking the number crunchers put the OGL in the "negative" camp.)

So yeah. Absolutely good for the system as a whole. No doubt about it. Just not as good for a company that relies on planned obsolescence to sell a new one.

-O

[tanstaafl48]

On the other hand, there isn't a bunch of RPGs that basically just copy the 4e rules, and a "4e pathfinder" is at least a lot harder, if not impossible to make, so they may think the GSL did what they want it to do.

That really only applies if WoTC actually fills the demand for the type of products they're protecting, though. Even if the GSL was a good idea in general, it's only to the extent that it actually redirects income to WoTC.

Based off most of the replies in this thread, at least on campaign setting, it's less that WoTC managed to shut out competition and more that they just left a void where content should have been.

[Raoul Duke]

I agree - that is my feeling. If there had been a good variety of first party settings, I would have no issue, but they made the decision not to go that route.

Previously when settings received extensive support in the form of splatbooks, in the 3.5 era, I can see why they kept their focus largely on Eberron and Forgotten realms, but when settings consisted of 1-2 books, I don't understand the lack of settings to select from.

And again, third parties provided numerous settings. Yes, that money wasn't going directly to Wizards, but it led to (in my case) purchasing many more core rules books in order to have new options to play within those new settings, hand in hand.