Well Ravenloft has the same problem as Planescape: it's hard for players to have an impact on the setting on a metaphysical level.

I, personally, loved Eberron and Forgotten Realms. Then again, I've always been fast and loose with the specifics of rules.

Eberron's appeal was you were all veterans of World War 1 in Fantasyland. Everyone was a shell-shocked veteran of one degree or another with the lives of millions having been wrapped up in a pointless war which accomplished nothing but plenty of people were still in terested in resuming. Also, magic was technology so everyone had really low level access to it and could use it to do anything but no one was very powerful with it. You also had the Great Old Ones in the Raskhasa Rajahs who were 60th level in a game which topped at 13th so you had to stop them from being summoned with your brain than actualy hope to fight them.

Faerun, I basically ran as Exalted before Exalted existed. The player characters could level up quickly and literally in the sense of gaining extraordinary godlike abilities like being able to shrug off arrows, swords, and so on. They could end up killing gods, finding artifacts which could destroy continents, and deal with monsters beyond imagination. It was a BIG setting where you made love with goddesses, saw incredible things, and punched out Cthulhu. I, admittedly, did change the leveling system so that everyone capped at 20th level, though so that the PCs could catch up with Elminster and company.

Ironically, my least favorite was because Faerun was a favorite. 4th Edition was like someone I used to date got really bad plastic surgery and came on my door unrecognizable.

Quote from: Daztur;933705Well Ravenloft has the same problem as Planescape: it's hard for players to have an impact on the setting on a metaphysical level.

  Define 'metaphysical level.' Because if you're referring to fundamental cosmology, then that's really more the exception than the rule in official settings--the Known World/Mystara is the only one I can think of where being able to play on that level is even close to assumed. Greyhawk and the Realms make it theoretically possible.

  Ironically, 4E's Epic Destinies and other elements seem to have done the most with allowing for 'change the fundamentals of the setting' to become a part of the endgame.

Quote from: Daztur;933705Well Ravenloft has the same problem as Planescape: it's hard for players to have an impact on the setting on a metaphysical level.

The 3e version, with the added 'Domains of Dread', sure I'll grant you that, but the original Ravenloft was a 'kill the Vampire, free the land' deal.  Which admittedly Strahd was pretty strong, but it was doable.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;933742Define 'metaphysical level.' Because if you're referring to fundamental cosmology, then that's really more the exception than the rule in official settings--the Known World/Mystara is the only one I can think of where being able to play on that level is even close to assumed. Greyhawk and the Realms make it theoretically possible.

  Ironically, 4E's Epic Destinies and other elements seem to have done the most with allowing for 'change the fundamentals of the setting' to become a part of the endgame.

It had the problem that, literally, like half of the Dark Lords were immortal in the unkillable sense. The developers really seemed to think the PCs going after them, you know, the central evils in the setting, was crapping on their groove.

Harkon Lukas, for example, would transfer his soul to the nearest Dire Wolf.

Which was in a land with thousands of them.

The thing is, that just got my PCs thinking of wolf genocide.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;933742Define 'metaphysical level.' Because if you're referring to fundamental cosmology, then that's really more the exception than the rule in official settings--the Known World/Mystara is the only one I can think of where being able to play on that level is even close to assumed. Greyhawk and the Realms make it theoretically possible.

  Ironically, 4E's Epic Destinies and other elements seem to have done the most with allowing for 'change the fundamentals of the setting' to become a part of the endgame.

I mean the physics of the settings are a lot more resistant to change than the real world. For a lot of the Ravenloft domains it's simply impossible for PCs to change the nature of the domains. Feels kind of pointless to adventure in a setting where everything snaps back into place right afterwards like an episode of a sitcom.

Quote from: Daztur;933881I mean the physics of the settings are a lot more resistant to change than the real world. For a lot of the Ravenloft domains it's simply impossible for PCs to change the nature of the domains. Feels kind of pointless to adventure in a setting where everything snaps back into place right afterwards like an episode of a sitcom.

In those sorts of settings the PCs are not enguaged in the overall metaplot as it were. Instead they are dealing with the effectively more mundane and immediate things as well as interfere in the larger plots and schemes sometimes. And in say Ravenlofts case sometimes the PCs are expressly there to screw up the darklords plots to escape or expand. They are effectively part of the darklords ongoing torment. Other times they are squashing the plots of lesser problems in the area. In planescape you are also dealing with "stuff". But over often very different matters and all too often very mundane ones of dealing with NPCs and their plots rather than the gods.

Quote from: Daztur;933705Well Ravenloft has the same problem as Planescape: it's hard for players to have an impact on the setting on a metaphysical level.

As written, yes. Whenever I ran anything in Ravenloft, the whole point was to be kickass monster slayers, and if the party was high-level enough, to discover and take out the dark lord.

Quote from: Daztur;933881I mean the physics of the settings are a lot more resistant to change than the real world. For a lot of the Ravenloft domains it's simply impossible for PCs to change the nature of the domains. Feels kind of pointless to adventure in a setting where everything snaps back into place right afterwards like an episode of a sitcom.

Never felt pointless to me. But I always understood Ravenloft to be a deep ethereal "hell" to the darklords, and the whole ordeal for the party was to be the archetypal rebuke to the temptation to power. It's very "paladin in hell" because you are fighting your own virtue v. vice battle, not just with an implaccable and nigh interminable foe, but with yourself. Falling to pride believing that the means to power shall end... whatever (a great past wrong, your own troubles, the suffering of others, etc.)... is exactly the temptation being resisted.

You are fighting a metaphysical battle to be a paragon in a very beautiful yet seemingly hopeless world. Every second your light shines defies the space (or perhas better, defines the space,). Most beings are trapped there because they are all too human; they are emblematic of the shortcomings of human nature.

Your personal change becomes metaphysical because your deeds transcend into the archetypal, if you follow and succeed the well-trod legend. You can change Ravenloft by becoming a darklord in your own right (as a retired character), or you can change Ravenloft by reembodying that legendary hope. This way the people there are not completely lost -- and it nettles the dark lords' hubris, eternally failing to learn from their pride.

It's a subtle lasting effect upon a domain. The greater cyclicality plays well into Western conceptions of everlasting torment. (The West being more partial to linearity for coproreal resolutions, and suspension -- or the eternal -- for the divine.) But the PC heroic interference (whose serendipity is often assisted by the Dread Plane itself to torment its darklord prisoners) is there to keep lit sacred judgment's flame in the face of extra-planar exemplars of cruelty.

In a word it's Pageantry, in the medieval sense. Without renewed participation, new bodies behind each mask, the flame goes out. The cycle must continue for it to be a teachable example. Which, given the ethereal is the realm of thought, memory, and tales, makes perfect sense why Ravenloft is essentially a demiplane hosting Morality Tales Pageants -- and doubles as a hellish prison for its biggest villains. THEY cannot escape their masks, they are always stuck playing themselves; nor can they escape their judgment until they face themselves.

If you wanted to change a Ravenloft domain at the metaphysical level you'd have to play it through something like Dragon Raid, the game of Christian virtues as transcendent mysteries. Could be fun. However D&D's level+loot structure is not designed to represent eschewing temporal power as a means to conflict resolution. Redemption is a very different, and likely more dangerous, way to play Ravenloft; it's more designed as a higher stakes pageant play. (Both ideas are actually really cool if you dwell on it, though.)

Forgotten Realms post-1st Ed AD&D: so much was tied into the novels. It felt like if you didn't read all all of them, some guy who's a FR historian would jump up an say "That's not canon!". Anything pre-2nd ed I'm good with.

Dragonlance: I REALLY tried to get into it. I really did. But again, it seemed to me it suffered the same issue as FR did: tied to the novels and what's "canon" or not. I've never used the modules for the setting, but from what I've read and heard, "WOO WOO! Everyone aboard the plot train!"

Planescape and Dark Sun: everything-but-the-kitchen-sink AD&D. My mid-20s self thought it was cool...at first. then I realized it's way to big to easily manage as a DM.

As far as other settings, nothing else interested me.

Quote from: blackstone;934841Forgotten Realms post-1st Ed AD&D: so much was tied into the novels. It felt like if you didn't read all all of them, some guy who's a FR historian would jump up an say "That's not canon!". Anything pre-2nd ed I'm good with.

Dragonlance: I REALLY tried to get into it. I really did. But again, it seemed to me it suffered the same issue as FR did: tied to the novels and what's "canon" or not. I've never used the modules for the setting, but from what I've read and heard, "WOO WOO! Everyone aboard the plot train!"

In FR's case that is where I sit back. Smile immensely. And say.

"Did you think those novels were canon in the published settings RPG? You thought wrongly."

And then point out I knew some of those writers and know for a fact that the books cant ever be "canon".

In Dragonlance's case thats where I sit back, smile, and not gently at all remind them that the RPG is set after the novels.

Quote from: Omega;934917In FR's case that is where I sit back. Smile immensely. And say.

"Did you think those novels were canon in the published settings RPG? You thought wrongly."

And then point out I knew some of those writers and know for a fact that the books cant ever be "canon".

That's nice, but try convincing people of this.  Seriously, the authors and creators of the Forgotten Realms could SCREAM that from the top of every mountain, into the direct faces of most of the fans, and they STILL won't believe it, and treat it as canon.

Oh, and let's not forget, they did stat out some if not all these characters, which to some people implies that yeah, no matter what people claim, these characters, races and magical items (like the Elven Moonblades) are fully canon.  To some people, (I remember the stat blocks of the Drizzle, Elmunchkin, the Spellfire lead girl, a super monk girl -Named Danica?  I think?-, Alias and Dragonbait and a couple more I can't remember their names of) the moment you put that sort of detail, that they are canon.  After all, if you put that much work into creating content, it's meant to be used as part of the game, yes?

(I don't agree with the above, but I've seen various variations of the above argument as to why the novels ARE canon over the past 20 years.)

Quote from: Omega;934917In Dragonlance's case thats where I sit back, smile, and not gently at all remind them that the RPG is set after the novels.

So people can only play when 'Sauron' has died, so nothing they do can actually affect the game world in a grand scope?  Some people don't want that.

Quote from: Opaopajr;934829Never felt pointless to me. But I always understood Ravenloft to be a deep ethereal "hell" to the darklords, and the whole ordeal for the party was to be the archetypal rebuke to the temptation to power. It's very "paladin in hell" because you are fighting your own virtue v. vice battle, not just with an implaccable and nigh interminable foe, but with yourself. Falling to pride believing that the means to power shall end... whatever (a great past wrong, your own troubles, the suffering of others, etc.)... is exactly the temptation being resisted.

You are fighting a metaphysical battle to be a paragon in a very beautiful yet seemingly hopeless world. Every second your light shines defies the space (or perhas better, defines the space,). Most beings are trapped there because they are all too human; they are emblematic of the shortcomings of human nature.

Your personal change becomes metaphysical because your deeds transcend into the archetypal, if you follow and succeed the well-trod legend. You can change Ravenloft by becoming a darklord in your own right (as a retired character), or you can change Ravenloft by reembodying that legendary hope. This way the people there are not completely lost -- and it nettles the dark lords' hubris, eternally failing to learn from their pride.

It's a subtle lasting effect upon a domain. The greater cyclicality plays well into Western conceptions of everlasting torment. (The West being more partial to linearity for coproreal resolutions, and suspension -- or the eternal -- for the divine.) But the PC heroic interference (whose serendipity is often assisted by the Dread Plane itself to torment its darklord prisoners) is there to keep lit sacred judgment's flame in the face of extra-planar exemplars of cruelty.

In a word it's Pageantry, in the medieval sense. Without renewed participation, new bodies behind each mask, the flame goes out. The cycle must continue for it to be a teachable example. Which, given the ethereal is the realm of thought, memory, and tales, makes perfect sense why Ravenloft is essentially a demiplane hosting Morality Tales Pageants -- and doubles as a hellish prison for its biggest villains. THEY cannot escape their masks, they are always stuck playing themselves; nor can they escape their judgment until they face themselves.

If you wanted to change a Ravenloft domain at the metaphysical level you'd have to play it through something like Dragon Raid, the game of Christian virtues as transcendent mysteries. Could be fun. However D&D's level+loot structure is not designed to represent eschewing temporal power as a means to conflict resolution. Redemption is a very different, and likely more dangerous, way to play Ravenloft; it's more designed as a higher stakes pageant play. (Both ideas are actually really cool if you dwell on it, though.)

It makes sense on an in-character level and I see the appeal. It's just not to my taste. I'm a huge fan of the butterfly theory in gaming in which even tiny things can have massive reverberations. Settings like Planescape and Ravenloft just spray a bunch of bug spray about and kill a lot of butterflies.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;934924That's nice, but try convincing people of this.  Seriously, the authors and creators of the Forgotten Realms could SCREAM that from the top of every mountain, into the direct faces of most of the fans, and they STILL won't believe it, and treat it as canon.

Oh, and let's not forget, they did stat out some if not all these characters, which to some people implies that yeah, no matter what people claim, these characters, races and magical items (like the Elven Moonblades) are fully canon.  To some people,

I'm sorry, and I'm not trying to pick on you, or even this particular example. However, I always wonder when I see something like this, "who are these people?" How many times have you actually tried to run (or seen someone else try to run) a FR campaign, and said something like, "Okay, we're going to run a game in the basic FR world, pre-Time-of-Troubles, but most of the large metaplots from the novels aren't a big part of this story." and had people scream at you about it?

Again I'm not trying to pick on you, because it would in fact really suck if that's part of your personal experiences in roleplaying. But that's such aberrant behavior that I wonder if it is something that actually happens, or just a perceived sense of judgment. My own personal experience is that most (on a 95-99% level) of all drama involving role-playing games, from people telling you you're doing something wrong, to SJW-vs.-whatever the other side would be called back-and-forth, to our recent 'best way to play WOD' thread tangent, exist exclusively in my world because I go out onto internet forums where people (self-selected to be those with passionate opinions) are encouraged to ask and answer questions along the lines of "what is your opinion on..."

But again, if you have had a player scream bloody murder at you because you didn't want Elven Moonblades in your game, my sympathies.

Quote from: Daztur;934958It makes sense on an in-character level and I see the appeal. It's just not to my taste. I'm a huge fan of the butterfly theory in gaming in which even tiny things can have massive reverberations. Settings like Planescape and Ravenloft just spray a bunch of bug spray about and kill a lot of butterflies.

I totally get that. I love the butterfly effect as well, even though it's still tied to my "painfully plausible" limitations of my own creativity. If it was not for my prepped random tables, I feel I would be painfully staid and predictable. Again, none can outdo reality for sheer pants-on-head amazing events -- nobody would believe it until they've seen it otherwise.

But I appreciate taking a classic storied structure and embedding an interactive game within. Sure it's got potential to follow the main legendary points for the 'good ending', but it's gonna be different in the details. Like Hammer Horror, you kinda know what you are buying into.

Why I still fail to appreciate Supers is likely for the same reason, I can't buy into their soap opera narratives and "comic logic" morality. Legendary horror might be easier because it's so much more classical in Hero's Journey structure?