Important Ravenloft news!

[Willowhugger]

So what was shooting the setting down the drain exactly?

[Manofevil]

Lack of sales , I'd bet

Aand I'm with Gonzoron, Let's hope for some more novels if there is going to be new materials

And thanks to the Darkduo.

[Le Noir Faineant]

*Pops into the thread a long while after it start*

Please, don't think that I want to *beg for more posts on my count*, but there are so many things here I think I can contribute to a bit that I just didn't want to do them all in one post.

Here's to looking forward to Ravenloft's future, whatever it may be, and hoping it's a good one!

Thank you and all authors of 3e RL for the work you've done!
Whatever may be said about the quality of some books, as far as I am concerned the Kargatane and the Dark Duo are the ones who have earned the merit of changing RL from a *weekend in hell* setting to a gamign world that was playable for itself.

My respect to all of you and I hope this is not the last time we hear from you!

[Coan]

Lack of sales , I'd bet

Aand I'm with Gonzoron, Let's hope for some more novels if there is going to be new materials

And thanks to the Darkduo.

I really doubt you'll get novels before game material. When was the last time you saw a Planescape or Star*Drive novel?

Thanks to the Dark Duo. I don't care if people disagree with how you did your job. Some of my favourite Ravenloft books are from 3rd edition. Good work.

[Le Noir Faineant]

What I would really like to understand is the marketing reason(s) behind this move. Given Gamma World's lack of popularity, I can see why it went down the drain but Ravenloft?!?

Six out of ten of their bestsellers (as displayed even now on the S&S website) are RL products for crying out loud!

Or is it that WotC didn't want any competition for their soon-to-be-released HoH?

I believe the main reason behind this could be that Arthaus has been set in charge for the World of Warcraft setting, which surely will get more attention than RL, as so many youngsters play it.

Also, I see one major error S&S has made with most roleplaying lines it was releasing: (Mainly, Scarred Lands.) Too many high-priced supplements can kill a line as well.

And IMHO, 3e RL already was pretty much fed. (Right English Expression?) . I mean, in all honesty, we got 18 good supplements, but how much more would we really have needed? (Not WANTED, but how many would have REALLY been necessary to enhance our game?) With these 18, the 40(???) books from TSR, the free material from the Kargatane and the FoS, one has aeons to go on with gaming. I wonder if continuing the line would have been profitable enough for Arthaus...

Besides, I think WotC did already its good part in keeping RL sales down. Hell, with all the free material on their pages (the whole Grand Conjunction series!), on could formidably go on playing RL without ever buying a book from S&S. Now, we hardcore fans might not bother, but I think especially n00bs who just got the PHB or the DMG and want to explore the setting at first and spend 6 months on *NotWD* could be prevented from being possible customers of S&S...

[Le Noir Faineant]

It has been mentioned the one of the current editors for Dragon is a big Ravenloft fan. Given the updates settings have seen then we can hope for some 'loft attention there.

Especially if you WRITE IN and REQUEST IT!

Don't expect new books though.

October issue is coming and will surely feature something Helloween-themed!

This would be a splendid occassion for RL contributors I think!

[Mortepierre]

And IMHO, 3e RL already was pretty much fed. (Right English Expression?) . I mean, in all honesty, we got 18 good supplements, but how much more would we really have needed? (Not WANTED, but how many would have REALLY been necessary to enhance our game?) With these 18, the 40(???) books from TSR, the free material from the Kargatane and the FoS, one has aeons to go on with gaming. I wonder if continuing the line would have been profitable enough for Arthaus...

Well, the next 7 Gazetteers that were planned would have been worth it. I for one would have paid good money for any (and all) of them. Now, it's back to waiting for WotC to go 4th ed. before we get a chance to read more (canon info) about Souragne or Nidala, durn it!

And I am not really surprised about their decision not to authorize authors to share the 'cut' material. That's so much like them. Why give away something for free that belongs to a line they'll never publish again instead of keeping it stashed in case they need to make more money?

[Ken of Ghastria]

I wouldn't view this development necessarily as a knock against the Ravenloft setting per se. We should root for Heroes of Horror to sell really well, so that WotC may see that it already has a fully realized property that can be spun off from that book, as the Urban Arcana setting followed the d20 Modern rules.

Thank you, Dark Duo, for your hard work! Much appreciated. And if WotC does publish RL again, I hope they'll grab many of the talented writers and artists like John and Talon to continue the line.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

And I am not really surprised about their decision not to authorize authors to share the 'cut' material. That's so much like them. Why give away something for free that belongs to a line they'll never publish again instead of keeping it stashed in case they need to make more money?

Uh huh. That's why they're giving us an entire book for free.

Thank you, Duo and Kargatane! I'm perfectly optimistic, FWIW. This is the third time this setting has been killed, and it will be back again, mark my words! Let the world remember Ravenloft, the setting that would not die!

[Le Noir Faineant]

Well, the next 7 Gazetteers that were planned would have been worth it. I for one would have paid good money for any (and all) of them. Now, it's back to waiting for WotC to go 4th ed. before we get a chance to read more (canon info) about Souragne or Nidala, durn it!

The Gazs would have been pretty much the only future books I would have been interested in, given that they apparently didn't want to release books on RL races and religion...

But of course, I agree, more canon info, especially on the islands, would have been very useful.

Uh huh. That's why they're giving us an entire book for free.

I'd say they did it because of promotional reasons - after all, they'll want to clean the stocks of RL books and what is better than a free quality product to promote a line... The guide to the mists is quite useless after all, if you're a n00b and don't know the setting...

[midnightcat]

This is the third time this setting has been killed, and it will be back again, mark my words! Let the world remember Ravenloft, the setting that would not die!

If this is the thrid time the setting was killed, what was the first? I know the setting was killed at the end of 2nd edition.

Also, Thank you Dark Duo, all the Kargatane authors, Rucht Lilavivat, Steve miller, and the rest for all the hardwork. You gave Ravenloft a Great Life for awhile. Though some complain about the books, I found 85% of the Ravenloft books great Under Arthaus.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

The guide to the mists is quite useless after all, if you're a n00b and don't know the setting...

How can you possibly say that it's useless, when you haven't even seen it yet?!? There's been a few hints as to what will be in it, but IMO those were geared toward established DM's as just as well as newbies.

I'm looking forward to it, at any rate.

[Mortepierre]

Uh huh. That's why they're giving us an entire book for free.

That's S&S. I was talking about WotC

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Oh. I thought you were referring to Stewart Weick's response to John, that he could not release his cut material. My bad.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Let me just add my thanks to The Kargatane, the Dark Duo, Rucht, Steve Miller, Talon, Claudio, Brett King, and all the other folks involved in the line that stop by here on occaision. Warts and all, d20 Ravenloft is a fine body of work, and I hope the same care and passion is given to whatever the next iteration may bring. I'm definately planning to ask WotC about it at GenCon, if there's any sort of official Q&A.


(by the way, I didn't expect novels would come immediately, just that if and when WotC gets around to starting up the line again, they might include novels in it. there are Eberron novels, if I'm not mistaken..)

I'm bummed about the development, espescially since I'm craving the rest of the Gazetteers. Seeing the attention to Sourange in DT&DL was great, and I thought we'd finally get back to the islands. But we've been here before, we'll manage.