Quote from: Emperor Norton;716481Why do I get the feeling that someone bitching submitted their loving magnum opus only to not even make it out of the initial pitch stage?

There was a bunch of that too. Some of those magnum opus folks posted on Usenet crying about how their self-aggrandized glitterati one-true campaign setting was dumped faster than a thirty-five year old virgin.

They naturally insisted on posting snippets of what their campaign was all about too, even though the majority of GMs on UseNet could have cared less. IIRC there were a couple of really good flame wars generated on account of that.

Quote from: GameDaddy;716492There was a bunch of that too. Some of those magnum opus folks posted on Usenet crying about how their self-aggrandized glitterati one-true campaign setting was dumped faster than a thirty-five year old virgin.

They naturally insisted on posting snippets of what their campaign was all about too, even though the majority of GMs on UseNet could have cared less. IIRC there were a couple of really good flame wars generated on account of that.

Seriously, even the GOOD home settings, even my favorite home setting I've ever played in, tend to be super incredibly derivative works. Yes, they can be awesome and enjoyable, but it has to do more with it being personal than it being different.

WotC needed something that wasn't just "Forgotten Realms/Mystara/Dragonlance" v2.

Quote from: RPGPundit;716477Doesn't matter much. He was still an insider.

Does the definition of "insider" in your dictionary really read "outsider"? Or are you just kidding around?

Quote from: GameDaddy;716479...and no, it didn't have any play time. Neither did the vast majority of settings that were submitted for the campaign design contest. At the time, I seem to remember it was a...

"If you could design a brand new campaign setting for WOTC, what would you include?"

That's basically correct. There was nothing in the original contest guidelines that said "submit your existing campaign world". The exact process was pitch an idea; expand that to a 10 page treatment; expend that to a 100 page setting bible.

I remember a GenCon panel where Anthony Valterra specifically said people would be better off pitching original ideas rather than existing campaign settings.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;716274Except Keith Baker was an amateur TTRPG designer. He was a professional video game designer. He was selected as the winner in 2002, and I don't see any TTRPG credits to his name before then, so perhaps by omitting the "video" from game designer, you are twisting perception a bit.

(And even on the video game front, he was on the low end of "professional" yes he was paid for it, but the only two things he worked on that were ever released, one was a MUD and the other was something I've never even heard of from a company I've never even heard of).

Bumped into him once or twice. Seems to have a certain amount of bad luck with board games.

Gloom, which met with some flack I am told. but seems to be chugging along.
And currently Doom that Came to Atlantic City where the publisher walked off with the money after a successfull Kickstarter campaign. That one is still pending. Cryptozoic kindly stepped in and is working to get the game published.

I don't know if this supports or undermines the case against Baker as outsider/stooge, but here's an interview with him on the Master Plan Podcast about designing Eberron:

http://masterplanpodcast.net/2012/08/ep-56/

On the one hand, he really sounds like he was involved and invested in making it work on something more than a merely mercenary level. On the other, he's pretty damn smooth at explaining this stuff in that distinctly "corporate" way.

Also, his official pronunciation of some of the place names threw me for a loop.

Let me see if I got this thread's gist straight.

Being less successful than Forgotten Realms is a "lukewarm reception"?

Shit, try being the only other campaign setting supported by WotC, next to old-timers Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun.

I suspect most of the industry would kill for this sort of "lukewarm reception."

Quote from: Emperor Norton;716495Seriously, even the GOOD home settings, even my favorite home setting I've ever played in, tend to be super incredibly derivative works. Yes, they can be awesome and enjoyable, but it has to do more with it being personal than it being different.

WotC needed something that wasn't just "Forgotten Realms/Mystara/Dragonlance" v2.

On top of that, I suspect home settings that have been worked on for 10 years and had multiple campaigns set in them are going to tend to (not always, but tend to) have issues which mitigate against them being commercial successes, even if they never get derivative. For instance:

- Areas of the setting where home adventuring has actually happened will be detailed in far more depth than areas of the setting that hasn't had so much spotlight time in the home campaign. It's much better for a commercial product to have all the major areas of the setting covered in approximately the same level of depth - not everyone is going to want their campaign to take place in your old PCs' back yards.

- The designer's pals' PCs have already gone and resolved some of the major issues facing the campaign world, so it can feel like rolling up to Middle Earth only to find that the War of the Ring was over years ago.

Quote from: Omega;716517Bumped into him once or twice. Seems to have a certain amount of bad luck with board games.

Gloom, which met with some flack I am told. but seems to be chugging along.
And currently Doom that Came to Atlantic City where the publisher walked off with the money after a successfull Kickstarter campaign. That one is still pending. Cryptozoic kindly stepped in and is working to get the game published.

I actually quite liked Gloom. I didn't even know that was his. My brother has it, ts not a super deep game, but its a pretty fun little card game. Good board game night filler.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;716500I remember a GenCon panel where Anthony Valterra specifically said people would be better off pitching original ideas rather than existing campaign settings.

Obviously; as I said, WoTC already knew exactly what they wanted from their new setting, the whole thing was just a facade. Which, incidentally, is the only thing Baker added to it; those details that WoTC didn't care about at all one way or the other and that didn't really matter.

And no, for the record, I never submitted a setting to the contest.

Quote from: RPGPundit;717481Obviously; as I said, WoTC already knew exactly what they wanted from their new setting, the whole thing was just a facade. Which, incidentally, is the only thing Baker added to it; those details that WoTC didn't care about at all one way or the other and that didn't really matter.

But again, what has made you so certain of this? I'm not doubting you, I just want the inside info.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;717530But again, what has made you so certain of this? I'm not doubting you, I just want the inside info.

You're barking up the wrong tree, and you should doubt him.

Look, the First Rule of the RPGSite is: you cannot be banned from your own forums. Pundit is therefore free to troll here at will. The fact that interesting discussion sometimes takes place here is entirely orthogonal to this rule. The fact that Pundit himself very occasionally mutters a worthwhile comment is also strictly coincidental.

If you want the 'inside scoop' on the origins of Eberron, you'd have to source information from the insiders themselves: the contest was the brainchild of Anthony Valterra, and the original setting book is credited to Keith Baker, Bill Slavicsek, and James Wyatt. Pundit is not included in the 'insider' list, and has never demonstrated a credible insider source from the WotC regime from those days. So this is typical know-it-all-bullshit from Pundit.

If you want the public 'every-one-but-Pundit' understanding of the setting contest, Google is your friend; there is a large web signature on this topic, and Anthony Valterra (then D&D Brand Manager) was commonly seen answering questions on ENW in those days.

Speaking of which, Anthony Valterra explicitly discussed the details of how the contest was going to be conducted, and repeatedly asserted that all contest entries would be evaluated anonymously, and only the intern that opened the envelopes and tracked the entries knew the identity of any of the submission authors. As I recall, there were even specific instructions on providing your contact information separately from your submission (for the record, I never submitted anything myself).

So when Pundit claims this was all an "inside job" and asserts that they picked Keith Baker's Eberron entry because he was an insider, he's explicitly calling Anthony Valterra a gigantic fraud. Which is par for the course; Anthony Valterra had a lot more credibility at stake when claiming the contest was fair than Pundit does with casual slander claiming it wasn't (see the First Rule, above).

Quote from: kurtomatic;717631... Google is your friend; there is a large web signature on this topic, and Anthony Valterra (then D&D Brand Manager) was commonly seen answering questions on ENW in those days.

Alright, thank you, I'll google with that name and see what I think.