Death of a Darklord rereleased?

[Tobias Blackburn]

They can't run the system if they don't explain the major land mass.

It's very hard to sell a setting when you never discuss any of the places that you can adventure in indepth.

Why not? The Core has been already explained. Even if they start publishing again in 3 years, the Core is already detailed. While S&S will stop republishing the Gazs the bookstores & warehouses already have enough to sell. Also most of the people that would care about the Core, have the Gazs already.
So they won't need to republish anything for 5-6 years IMO.

They have one year to sell out their old stock of items, the rest (like their old world of darkness books) will be destroyed after that. By the time Wizards gets another verson of the setting out the books would be rare as hen's teeth on store shelves and disappear soon after that.

And there are a large number of people who might be introduced to Ravenloft through WotC and their better advertizing. They would have only the bare bones of material about the Core.

You can't be serious to say that so few people care about the Core. It would be like publishing Planescape and not fleshing out Sigil, the heavens, hells or major planes. It's where most of the adventuring goes on.

I don't think they'll bring it out again for at least 5-6 years, period.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I do agree that WotC is probably going to sit on the license and do nothing for a while. I hope it's otherwise, but realistically speaking, it's porbably what they'll do.

But if and when they do ressurect it, I think they could get away with detailing the core in a single book. With a nice chunky hardcover, they could strip out a lot of the S plot of the 5 existing Gazetteers, and some of the more fanboyish details and cram it all into one book. (Assuming they have reprint rights to rules and characters WW made up, of course.)

But remember, the Gaz's themselves are a modern convenience for us. The setting thrived for a decade under TSR without them. Back then, the domain descriptions in Domains of Dread or the Black or Red box were all we had to go on, and it didn't stop TSR from publishing stuff like IoT and The Nightmare Lands... So they might just go with one campaign setting book, with sort summaries of the core lands, and then continue the Gaz series from the Seas.

[Joël of the FoS]

But if and when they do ressurect it, I think they could get away with detailing the core in a single book. With a nice chunky hardcover, they could strip out a lot of the S plot of the 5 existing Gazetteers, and some of the more fanboyish details and cram it all into one book. (Assuming they have reprint rights to rules and characters WW made up, of course.)

I'm not in the know, of course, but under most license agreement, what the licensee does belongs to the the owner of the license.

Joël

[Tobias Blackburn]

But if and when they do ressurect it, I think they could get away with detailing the core in a single book. With a nice chunky hardcover, they could strip out a lot of the S plot of the 5 existing Gazetteers, and some of the more fanboyish details and cram it all into one book. (Assuming they have reprint rights to rules and characters WW made up, of course.)

But remember, the Gaz's themselves are a modern convenience for us. The setting thrived for a decade under TSR without them. Back then, the domain descriptions in Domains of Dread or the Black or Red box were all we had to go on, and it didn't stop TSR from publishing stuff like IoT and The Nightmare Lands... So they might just go with one campaign setting book, with sort summaries of the core lands, and then continue the Gaz series from the Seas.

Yay... the setting goes back to "x is darklord, domain is based around y". descriptions. Ugh.

They won't just pick up with the seas and only glaze over the Core. It makes no sense for either players or the writers. They can't assume that their audience has a book that is no longer available, that's why this past line wasn't just a pamphlet of stats and rules.

And the Nightmare Lands were there, they just hadn't talked about it as a domain you could visit. But they did include the Mistway to get there, as well as references to the Abber nomads. In the next version I hope they get to it quickly but I don't see them skipping over Stahd and Azalin to go indepth on Liffe or Vechor.

[Jester of the FoS]

This is all academic as other settings that were more popular that Ravenloft back in the day are not being published by WotC such as Dark Sun and Dragonlance. True, the core book for DL was published but that was only a single-book and spurred by Soverign Press' wishing to publish the line.
Without some secondary publisher wanting to publish or re-publish the line it will not be republished.
Novels possibly, but gaming books are very, very unlikely.

[Don Fernando]

But if and when they do ressurect it, I think they could get away with detailing the core in a single book. With a nice chunky hardcover, they could strip out a lot of the S plot of the 5 existing Gazetteers, and some of the more fanboyish details and cram it all into one book. (Assuming they have reprint rights to rules and characters WW made up, of course.)

But remember, the Gaz's themselves are a modern convenience for us. The setting thrived for a decade under TSR without them. Back then, the domain descriptions in Domains of Dread or the Black or Red box were all we had to go on, and it didn't stop TSR from publishing stuff like IoT and The Nightmare Lands... So they might just go with one campaign setting book, with sort summaries of the core lands, and then continue the Gaz series from the Seas.

Yay... the setting goes back to "x is darklord, domain is based around y". descriptions. Ugh.

They won't just pick up with the seas and only glaze over the Core. It makes no sense for either players or the writers. They can't assume that their audience has a book that is no longer available, that's why this past line wasn't just a pamphlet of stats and rules.

And the Nightmare Lands were there, they just hadn't talked about it as a domain you could visit. But they did include the Mistway to get there, as well as references to the Abber nomads. In the next version I hope they get to it quickly but I don't see them skipping over Stahd and Azalin to go indepth on Liffe or Vechor.

I agree. If Wizards or any other company plans to resurect Ravenloft, it should not build on existing material. I mean, in the new ravenloft core rulebook, they can't just say:"Strahd is darklord of Barovia, for more information refer to the Gaz I, published by WW".

So I'm guessing that if RL gets re-published under any other company, it's going to have a new makeover. That means new descriptions and even a new plot. So we can kiss S and Azalin's plot goodbye.

Don't get me wrong, I would like to know what happens with the plot developed in the Gaz, at least I would like to know about Death Undaunted(!!) but let's face it, the new edition died, before this main plot flourished to its best, so in my oppinion it is bound to disappear in the Mists.....forever. that is not to say that we players could not continue the plot. However it get's even harder to continue it since we can have problems with the "upcoming edition" (keeping our hopes really high).

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Yay... the setting goes back to "x is darklord, domain is based around y". descriptions. Ugh.

Not exactly what I meant. The info is out there. No, they can't assume everyone has it, but they can't just reprint it either.

IF they were to restart it, whether immediately, or in 10 years or anywhere in between, as far as I can see, they've got 4 options:

a) pick up exactly where WW left off. 1 campaign setting book to open the line, and then off to the island Gaz's, or new VRG's or VRA's, or modules, religions of the mists, or societies of dread, or something entirely different. This is problematic because, as you said, they can't assume everyone has the 5 WW Gaz's. BUT as I said, it's no different than the 2e era, or even the pre-gaz 2e era. Whatever other books they put out can flesh out the Core without being Core gazetteers.

b) Reprint the Gaz's, as is, updated to 3.5. This is problematic because they have to know by now we hate reprints. And reprints are not a good way to stir interest in a new line, or inspire confidence that they have new ideas for the setting.

c) write the Gaz's anew as though the previous ones didn't exist. This would be insanely difficult. How do you cover the same material, adding enough to not be a reprint, and yet not contradicting the incredibly detailed books that already exist?

d) Strip the Gaz's down to bare essentials and reformat them into a smaller number of books. This runs into the reprintophobia problem, but I might see them doing it. Imagine 1 book with all the spells, feats and PrC's from all the Gaz's, plus new ones. All the monsters introduced in the gaz's get sucked into the new RL MM. Like I said before, the rest, with the S plot stripped out, could probably all fit in one "Core Gazatteer".


None of these options are ideal, though. Its an unfortunate position, and that alone may cause any RL plans to wait longer than they otherwise would have.

What did WotC do with other settings they did update? I'm sure FR had as much detail or more in the 2e era than RL does now. How did they summarize that in the 3e campaign setting without treading the same ground or assuming everyone had the old books?

[Tobias Blackburn]

What did WotC do with other settings they did update? I'm sure FR had as much detail or more in the 2e era than RL does now. How did they summarize that in the 3e campaign setting without treading the same ground or assuming everyone had the old books?

They did a summery in the Core book, similar to what we got, and then they started to do specific areas, much like we got.

[artent]

why would the gaz's nessisarily be hard to find in a few years...They could just reprint them in a collection called Azalin's archive or some such..much like the VRG's got turned into compendiums right before RL 3ed started to pick up steam.

[Tobias Blackburn]

why would the gaz's nessisarily be hard to find in a few years...They could just reprint them in a collection called Azalin's archive or some such..much like the VRG's got turned into compendiums right before RL 3ed started to pick up steam.

The Van richten books were printed just before 2e went out. While they may do it, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, as they would become extremely expensive. This also assumes that WotC has the rights to the book itself and not just the information within (something I doubt).

Also, Arthaus has to destroy all of their Ravenloft stock by next year, which is going to make finding it very difficult.

[Charney]

After having read all that, I fear our beloved setting is as good as dead At least until they get a reason to reprint everything like a 4th Edition which I doubt I'd buy.

[Jester of the FoS]

That won't be until at least until 2011, think anyone will still care by then?

[Malus Black]

EN World has just posted the list of WotC products in 2006 here, and one of their July releases is none other than Death of a Darklord.

Death of a Darklord The Ravenloft Covenant, Book I
Ravenloft novel by Laurell K. Hamilton
352 Trade Paperback Reissue, $14.95

The interesting part being, of course, Book I.

[Grigg_Deadbreaker]

You know, maybe I'm just cheap, but isn't $14.95 kind of steep for a trade paperback reissue? Last I looked, most were going for about seven bucks.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really hoping that the RL novels get another go on the shelves, but unless this book was re-edited and had illustrations added, IMO this title at least, is not worth that price.

[Strahd of WoD&D]

I have been informed by one of the editors at WotC that they are planning to re-release several of the classic Ravenloft novels.

There are no plans at this time to do new novels, but I guess it is down to support of the ones that come out. If WotC see that sales are good, then they might invest in future tales.

Death of a Darklord has the dimensions of a Hardcover novel, but is paperback. If you get my meaning.

It has all new art for the cover too!

Regards