Who would I be directing a letter to for queries of submissions? When would be a good time to start sending them?
RPGA HQ has indicated that there will be no new living campaigns, at least not in 2009-2010. Beyond that who knows.
It would seem that the Delves are Ebberon-based, however, so if you want Ebberon that's where you'll have to get it.
-karma
Forgotten Realms and Eberron have (if one uses the 3E bookline as a guide tool) been the two most popular/successful campaign settings for WotC in recent years.
As the RPGA promotes WotC lines, it stands to reason that if a 2nd RPGA campaign world were to come down the line it would be Eberron over anything else.
That said, however, if we assume there's a second RPGA campaign - I'm highly doubtful that it would be another *living* campaign, and I would expect it to fall more along the lines of the "D&D Campaigns" line (fixed duration, level bumps, slightly looser item aquisition/swapping rules).
There are a couple likely issues, however, that lessen the odds of a 2nd RPGA campaign.
1) Administration - WotC is keeping a closer eye on their IP, including to no small degree what happens in the RPGA. What happens in LFR, for example, is canonical. Further, WotC wants to be sure that "their" vision of FR matches "our" version of FR. (So that if our Waterdeep has "blackstaff X" so does theirs).
It's likely this is going to continue to be the case for any other campaigns as well. So, if we go with "RPGA Eberron" - someone inside (The Wise and Powerful Tulach, and probably others in R&D) WotC has to "vet" all the modules that are written for both LFR and RPGA Eb.
This could constitue a drain on manpower that WotC isn't willing to invest yet.
2) Money - While I don't know what the RPGA budget is or isn't, I think we can all probably agree it isn't a huge budget.
With 4E and LFR, and the tighter control over WotC IP, WotC started paying (I'm told) considerably more money for written modules. No, nobody is going to get rich writing mods, but it's still money being spent.
Adding a new campaign would mean channeling more money toward volunteer authors. This is prebably less an issue that #1 - but I suspect it isn't something to be overlooked entirely.
------
That said, I've never hoped to be more wrong than I'm hoping to be right now.
I [i]far]/i] prefer the flavors of Eberron over Forgotten Realms (not that there's anything wrong with FR), and would LOVE a chance to run around in Eberron Organized Play again.
For now I just limit myself to telling what few WotC people will listen to me when I get the chance, and then I go back to just hoping.
As long as we're playing at speculation, I wanna be dealt in.
Forgotten Realms and Eberron have (if one uses the 3E bookline as a guide tool) been the two most popular/successful campaign settings for WotC in recent years.
As the RPGA promotes WotC lines, it stands to reason that if a 2nd RPGA campaign world were to come down the line it would be Eberron over anything else.
That said, however, if we assume there's a second RPGA campaign - I'm highly doubtful that it would be another *living* campaign, and I would expect it to fall more along the lines of the "D&D Campaigns" line (fixed duration, level bumps, slightly looser item aquisition/swapping rules).
There are a couple likely issues, however, that lessen the odds of a 2nd RPGA campaign.
1) Administration - WotC is keeping a closer eye on their IP, including to no small degree what happens in the RPGA. What happens in LFR, for example, is canonical. Further, WotC wants to be sure that "their" vision of FR matches "our" version of FR. (So that if our Waterdeep has "blackstaff X" so does theirs).
It's likely this is going to continue to be the case for any other campaigns as well. So, if we go with "RPGA Eberron" - someone inside (The Wise and Powerful Tulach, and probably others in R&D) WotC has to "vet" all the modules that are written for both LFR and RPGA Eb.
This could constitue a drain on manpower that WotC isn't willing to invest yet.
2) Money - While I don't know what the RPGA budget is or isn't, I think we can all probably agree it isn't a huge budget.
With 4E and LFR, and the tighter control over WotC IP, WotC started paying (I'm told) considerably more money for written modules. No, nobody is going to get rich writing mods, but it's still money being spent.
Adding a new campaign would mean channeling more money toward volunteer authors. This is prebably less an issue that #1 - but I suspect it isn't something to be overlooked entirely.
------
That said, I've never hoped to be more wrong than I'm hoping to be right now.
I [i]far]/i] prefer the flavors of Eberron over Forgotten Realms (not that there's anything wrong with FR), and would LOVE a chance to run around in Eberron Organized Play again.
For now I just limit myself to telling what few WotC people will listen to me when I get the chance, and then I go back to just hoping.
I dont want to disagree with you but LG was far more popular of setting even without the official support of books released for 3.x. From my experience Eberron was not very popular and I rarely found it at conventions I attended.
That said, however, if we assume there's a second RPGA campaign - I'm highly doubtful that it would be another *living* campaign, and I would expect it to fall more along the lines of the "D&D Campaigns" line (fixed duration, level bumps, slightly looser item aquisition/swapping rules).
I would be curious to see the play numbers on D&D Campaign-style campaign and Living campaigns. My impression had been that Living campaigns were incredibly more popular, but since that sort of thing is very dependent on the local gaming scene, it could naturally vary greatly from area to area.
Personally, my expectation is now that we'll see a new Living campaign in 2011, with the only question being whether it's released at Winter Fantasy 2011 based on the 2010 campaign setting (my money's still on Dark Sun) or GenCon 2011 based on the 2011 campaign setting (which is anyone's guess right now).
With Paragon modules coming out in GenCon 2010, we can guess that Epic modules will be coming out in GenCon 2011. A new campaign at Winter Fantasy 2011 grabs the hard-core LFR gamers whose PCs are about to retire (and lets the campaign slowly build up in popularity while LFR winds down); a new campaign at GenCon 2011 makes for a larger splash on release and a larger pool of gamers looking to move on (but has to ramp up its infrastructure pretty quickly, which was one of LFR's banes). Thereafter, I'd assume that LFR would move into a maintenance phase--some small number of modules released each quarter until the end of 2011 and perhaps afterward, and then (if WOTC's smart), the campaign gradually fading away rather than forcibly halted.
In either case, it would greatly surprise me to see Eberron as the basis for an RPGA campaign.
From WOTC's point of view, the point of an RPGA campaign is to encourage D&D play (which any setting can do) and drive book sales (which is best done by being based on a campaign setting currently being pushed).
Coming out with an Eberron campaign a year or more after the Eberron books are released is not going to help sales that much, and besides, if you assume that a new RPGA campaign will drive sales of any books and you're right that Eberron is popular, they're better off using the boost to drive sales of a campaign setting that needs it more.
I dont want to disagree with you but LG was far more popular of setting even without the official support of books released for 3.x. From my experience Eberron was not very popular and I rarely found it at conventions I attended.
LG was definately a strong RPGA setting. I lurved me my Xen'Drik Expeditions, but I can't deny it wasn't the main pull.
I suspect (based on personal and anecdotal evidence) that Eberron (as a setting) saw larger play outside the RPGA - but that's only based on loose observation, and I could be quite wrong - and woulnd't mind if I am.
I would be curious to see the play numbers on D&D Campaign-style campaign and Living campaigns. My impression had been that Living campaigns were incredibly more popular, but since that sort of thing is very dependent on the local gaming scene, it could naturally vary greatly from area to area.
I think it was said (by Chris) that play numbers for XE were increasing quite steadily, and I seem to recall reports that they were especially good for drawing in new players.
LG was still the bigger draw, but I would assume that's for it's "entrenched" playerbase - people who'd invested a lot of time and memories into their character(s).
I was on the other side of the spectrum. LG rather intimidated me by comparison - and I was still new to the RPGA in the last 3 years of 3.x.
Of course, that also means I'm biased in favor of XE - because I had (essentially) no LG experience to compare it with. So take my opinions with as much salt as you see fit.
Personally, my expectation is now that we'll see a new Living campaign in 2011, with the only question being whether it's released at Winter Fantasy 2011 based on the 2010 campaign setting (my money's still on Dark Sun) or GenCon 2011 based on the 2011 campaign setting (which is anyone's guess right now).
I still doubt that it will be another Living Campaign (if only because of the (perceived) barrier to entry) - but who knows? I also thought something for Eberron would be announced at DDXP this past February.
I'm not known for my prognostication. ;)
With Paragon modules coming out in GenCon 2010, we can guess that Epic modules will be coming out in GenCon 2011. A new campaign at Winter Fantasy 2011 grabs the hard-core LFR gamers whose PCs are about to retire (and lets the campaign slowly build up in popularity while LFR winds down); a new campaign at GenCon 2011 makes for a larger splash on release and a larger pool of gamers looking to move on (but has to ramp up its infrastructure pretty quickly, which was one of LFR's banes). Thereafter, I'd assume that LFR would move into a maintenance phase--some small number of modules released each quarter until the end of 2011 and perhaps afterward, and then (if WOTC's smart), the campaign gradually fading away rather than forcibly halted.
In either case, it would greatly surprise me to see Eberron as the basis for an RPGA campaign.
This time I hope you are wrong. Nothing personal, of course.
From WOTC's point of view, the point of an RPGA campaign is to encourage D&D play (which any setting can do) and drive book sales (which is best done by being based on a campaign setting currently being pushed).
Coming out with an Eberron campaign a year or more after the Eberron books are released is not going to help sales that much, and besides, if you assume that a new RPGA campaign will drive sales of any books and you're right that Eberron is popular, they're better off using the boost to drive sales of a campaign setting that needs it more.
I'm less convinced that a given campaign is intended to drive book sales now that the plan for campaigns is "1 campaign guide, 1 player guide, and 1 adventure". Since everything else is in the core ("it's all D&D") I suspect RPGA play is more about promoting D&D as a whole. The choice of a campaign isn't to push sales of those campaign books - but rather to give players the "flavor" of their chioce.
Maybe I'm looking at it wrong though?
I would be curious to see the play numbers on D&D Campaign-style campaign and Living campaigns. My impression had been that Living campaigns were incredibly more popular, but since that sort of thing is very dependent on the local gaming scene, it could naturally vary greatly from area to area.
Ian Richards used to say that play numbers for the Eberron D&D Campaigns was "very strong", but details were never shared with the public, AFAIK. That said, I don't think that *any* campaign (in the 3x era) ever came close to the play numbers that LG had.
The nature of how those campaigns were structured (very short windows of availability for any particular module) seemed to make those campaigns relatively poor fits for most conventions. I've seen it speculated that a lot of the D&D Campaigns play was home / private play, rather than at cons or game days, though I don't know if that's really true or not (I never played in any of the D&D Campaigns).
I've also seen a fair number of people, like yourself, saying "I can't believe that those numbers were high; no one in my area played Eberron, but everyone played LG." Assuming that the play numbers were accurate, it may just be that play of the D&D Campaigns was very strong in some areas, and very weak in others...I know that any of the 3.x-era RPGA campaigns other than Living Greyhawk (e.g., Living Force, Living Death, Living Arcanis, etc.) saw the same issue -- strong followings in some regions, no play at all in others.
I dont want to disagree with you but LG was far more popular of setting even without the official support of books released for 3.x. From my experience Eberron was not very popular and I rarely found it at conventions I attended.
This was my experience. Out west, conventions saw droves of Living Greyhawk players. And, as a former triad, I was always solicited for the latest interactive and mini adventures, which always commanded great attendance. It seemed like Mark of Heroes and Xen'Drik Expeditions were sprinkled into conventions as an after-thought or token offering. Most conventions did not even offer Mark of Heroes or Xen'Drik Expeditions.
This was my experience. Out west, conventions saw droves of Living Greyhawk players. And, as a former triad, I was always solicited for the latest interactive and mini adventures, which always commanded great attendance. It seemed like Mark of Heroes and Xen'Drik Expeditions were sprinkled into conventions as an after-thought or token offering. Most conventions did not even offer Mark of Heroes or Xen'Drik Expeditions.
I don't find that surprising. Most of those conventions were small regional cons that were primarily catering to LG players and that sprang up because of LG. Heck, I ran one myself. However, at the larger Cons (Origins, GenCon, Winter Fantasy/D&D XP, etc.) there was plenty of D&D Campaigns play happening.
I had always heard that the play numbers for those D&D Campaigns (LGR, MoH, and XE) were very strong. They were better for the players who didn't want to invest a lot of time into an RPGA campaign because of the level bumps. The Living campaigns are the hardcore play experience while the Campaigns were a more casual one.
As long as we're playing at speculation, I wanna be dealt in.
Then prepare to be WRONG!!! ;)
Forgotten Realms and Eberron have (if one uses the 3E bookline as a guide tool) been the two most popular/successful campaign settings for WotC in recent years.
As the RPGA promotes WotC lines, it stands to reason that if a 2nd RPGA campaign world were to come down the line it would be Eberron over anything else.
See, here's where I disagree, to a degree. A new campaign would most definitely be a D&D Campaign style game. Part of me says, a new campaign would use whatever the setting du jour was. So if they make a new one in 2011, it would likely be whatever the 2010 setting is. The RPGA is a marketing arm of D&D, as we all know. Seeing as D&D campaigns are short lived, it makes them perfect to throw together a campaign for a new setting to showcase it and get people to buy the product.
On the other hand, they're not doign a ton of setting books for each campaign. 2 books and a mod and they're done except for Dragon articles. So that's the one glaring hole in the setting du jour theory.
That said, however, if we assume there's a second RPGA campaign - I'm highly doubtful that it would be another *living* campaign, and I would expect it to fall more along the lines of the "D&D Campaigns" line (fixed duration, level bumps, slightly looser item acquisition/swapping rules).
I agree. I highly doubt it would be a living style campaign. In the 3.X days you had many Living campaigns but they weren't administered by WotC/RPGA/WPN/Whatever-they're-called-now directly. Several were from 3rd parties (Living Kingdoms of Kalamar, Arcanis, Dragonstar, Spycraft, Rokugan, etc.) and they were run by the companies who made the product. The others had a group of admins who oversaw it and who ultimately answered to the head of the RPGA, but the work of it was delegated. Then the RPGA restructured itself and took a more direct hand in things (LFR). The restructuring began by, essentially, booting all the non-WotC and/or non-3.X campaigns.
As such, the probability of another Living Campaign with one ongoing is slim to none, and slim just left town. A D&D Campaign would be easier to administrate. Fewer hardcore players whining all the time. ;)
Which always struck me as kinda disingenuous, as a campaign that goes from 100 players to 500 is certainly going to show better 'growth', percentage-wise, than one that went from 1000 players to 2000.
-karma
The RPGA is a marketing arm of D&D, as we all know.
Don't let Ian Richards hear you say that.
I used to have a link to a quote from him stating, emphatically, that RPGA never is or has been a part of marketing.
I'll have to see if my google-fu is strong today (since I lost my quote file to a savage re-formatting)
[EDIT]
It's in the archives now - so the first paragraph doesn't have the quote formatting around it, but I found it all the same.
http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-897055
As such, the probability of another Living Campaign with one ongoing is slim to none, and slim just left town. A D&D Campaign would be easier to administrate. Fewer hardcore players whining all the time. ;)
My guess would be that the recently-announced revised Dungeon Delve system is intended to fill the same niche that D&D Campaigns did: low- to no-continuity D&D play with pregen characters (or newly created characters at that level), designed to be accessible to new players and walk-ins who don't have an interest in starting a character at level 1 and working their way up. My expectation would also be that the ratio of LFR play to Dungeon Delve play will indicate to WOTC that players prefer a Living campaign style.
I agree that the probability of two on-going active Living Campaigns is pretty low. My guess, however, is that LFR's position as the active primary RPGA campaign is probably only intended to last until the end of 2011--by that point, serious LFR players will have at least one (if not more) PC retire at level 30 and be looking for something new, and the perceived barriers to entry will likely have grown sufficient to deter many new players from LFR.
(Indeed, considering the advancement speed and tiering system of LFR, I would expect to see new player figures drop precipitously by the end of the year, as we reach the point where a new player walking into a gaming group is likely to find not a single adventure being offered that a new level 1 PC can play. The new mini-campaign may help there, by enticing experienced players to start yet another 1st level PC, but that's likely to just be a stop-gap measure. If we see another RPGA campaign in 2010, it will likely be because LFR's new player figures are so low that WOTC is afraid of losing new players to non-4e campaigns.)
I don't expect to see two separate full-blown RPGA campaigns, each putting out an adventure a week. It would not surprise me, however, to see a new Living campaign start slowly in 2011, and then become the primary RPGA campaign in 2012 as LFR shifts into maintenance mode with a reduced release schedule.
Am I going senile, or does anyone else recall that?
Unfortunately I didn't keep my notes from that time (as I wasn't using Google Docs yet).
