When I listened to the Bone, Stone and Obsidione interview with Troy Denning I did not get the impression that the designers were "forced" to use the Psionics Handbook.

Quote from: Shasarak;1117642When I listened to the Bone, Stone and Obsidione interview with Troy Denning I did not get the impression that the designers were "forced" to use the Psionics Handbook.

Yeah, I did not get that impression either. I used the word "forced" mostly in reference to Pundit's post, but my impression was more like TSR wanted a setting featuring psionics, so Troy Denning started working on some ideas that included psionics from the get go--which I suppose is a way of "forcing" it, since part of the reason it was included was that TSR wanted it--but it's not like they had a ready-made setting with NO connection to psionics and had to shoehorn them in after the fact. Which is why the setting worked.

I gotta admit, as a thread starter, its occasionally far more interesting to wind a thread up and watch where it goes than to actually talk about whatever the hell it was I posted in the first place.

I remember buying the Dark Sun box back in the ye olde ages as a wee nipper, but frankly I think I was more into the Brom artwork than I was the actual setting. All that weird crap about life giving and life taking magic always felt like someone was sneaking hippies into my D&D...

Quote from: Spike;1117659I remember buying the Dark Sun box back in the ye olde ages as a wee nipper, but frankly I think I was more into the Brom artwork than I was the actual setting. All that weird crap about life giving and life taking magic always felt like someone was sneaking hippies into my D&D...

The designers have said as much on the podcasts.

I don't mind it because there is the trope of twisted magic abused for gain. That fits the sorcerer kings to a T, and gives magic a bit more consideration than just something to power fireballs.

As a point of Faith I avoid anything and everything to do with Hippies, and only await the lawless times when they may be killed in the streets as dogs, Inshallah.

I just want to go on record and say that Forgotten Realms is the most overrated of the official D&D settings, mainly due to overexposure.

I do want to check out the original gray box set from AD&D, since that one is considered a classic and is a lot different from the later iterations of Faerun.

Although to Faerun's credit, at least it's not Eberron.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1117707I just want to go on record and say that Forgotten Realms is the most overrated of the official D&D settings, mainly due to overexposure.

I do want to check out the original gray box set from AD&D, since that one is considered a classic and is a lot different from the later iterations of Faerun.

Although to Faerun's credit, at least it's not Eberron.

Greetings!

Hey Doc Sammy! Yes, the Forgotten Realms Grey Box is pure awesome. Every page, from start to finish, just bursts with ideas and inspiration. If you have to pay a pretty penny for it, whatever, man, *get it*.

It is nothing like the convoluted monstrosity that modern-day FR has become.

I might also make an honourable mention of the FR Campaign book, Hardcover, for 3E. I thought that was pretty impressive, I have to say. The writing was good, the art was very nice, and there is a constant stream of ideas in that book as well. It's good.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1117715Greetings!

Hey Doc Sammy! Yes, the Forgotten Realms Grey Box is pure awesome. Every page, from start to finish, just bursts with ideas and inspiration. If you have to pay a pretty penny for it, whatever, man, *get it*.

It is nothing like the convoluted monstrosity that modern-day FR has become.

I might also make an honourable mention of the FR Campaign book, Hardcover, for 3E. I thought that was pretty impressive, I have to say. The writing was good, the art was very nice, and there is a constant stream of ideas in that book as well. It's good.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I will definitely check out both of those, my good man!

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1117721I will definitely check out both of those, my good man!

I'll second SHARK's recommendation of the 3e FR Campaign Setting (main book). It was pretty good, but don't get sucked into the line that followed from it (X of Faerun, Y of Faerun, and Champions of Z or some such crap).

Quote from: VisionStorm;1117649Yeah, I did not get that impression either. I used the word "forced" mostly in reference to Pundit's post, but my impression was more like TSR wanted a setting featuring psionics, so Troy Denning started working on some ideas that included psionics from the get go--which I suppose is a way of "forcing" it, since part of the reason it was included was that TSR wanted it--but it's not like they had a ready-made setting with NO connection to psionics and had to shoehorn them in after the fact. Which is why the setting worked.

I'd swear I'd read somewhere else that psionics was only added late in the day.

Quote from: TJS;1117764I'd swear I'd read somewhere else that psionics was only added late in the day.

It's been a while (at least months to a year+) since I heard the podcast posted earlier in this thread and can't get to it right now (plus too long to hear the whole thing just to confirm) but my impression was that psionics were added early in the development of the setting (if not right from the start) and that a lot of details about the world happened almost by happenstance throughout the development, as Brom was brought in and contributed his awesome art, which helped set the feel for the world and atmosphere. A lot of the lore of the setting includes details on psionics that are just not possible to include after the fact without massive rewriting, even if psionics had been added late in production. Dark Sun's treatment of psionics is not just "oh, by the way...you also have these kwel powerz!(that have nothing to do with the world)", but more like "Psionics are a feature of every day life. EVERYONE has some degree of psionic power, there are psionic academies and psionics predate magic and were present since the world's earlier ages, thousands upon thousands of years before the world's current era."

Quote from: Omega;11172601: Right. To date 5e has had setting books set in the following. Forgotten Realms, Magic, and Eberron. 2 modules have so far been set in Greyhawk and Ravenloft.

2: Not really. Alot of pre-2e modules were either set to whatever was the current default setting. Or in many cases left blank as it were and could be anywhere, or their own settings. A module needs a location. But that location does not need to be tied to a setting.

Well, you're right that they don't need to have a setting that is greater than what is required for the adventure itself, although to me any fleshed out location for an adventure is a setting (so the Keep on the Borderlands has a setting in that there is more there than just the dungeon itself, same with almost all adventures that do more than just start players at the entrance of a dungeon). So Lost Mine of Phandelver could have been released without any explicit connection to a wider setting (maybe a paragraph or two on where to place it in existing settings or in your homebrew setting) but the adventure would still have been set in Phandelver and its surroundings, and that would have been the setting.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1117636The designers wove psionics into the setting so well, I can't imagine Dark Sun without it. It's one of the things that differentiates it from other D&D settings.

I always hated the 2e psionics, and always excised it when I ran Dark Sun.

It was only years later that I learned that it was forced on the designers by Lorraine Williams. I do agree that they did the best possible job they could of integrating it, but it was never meant to originally be part of that setting.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1117649Yeah, I did not get that impression either. I used the word "forced" mostly in reference to Pundit's post, but my impression was more like TSR wanted a setting featuring psionics, so Troy Denning started working on some ideas that included psionics from the get go--which I suppose is a way of "forcing" it, since part of the reason it was included was that TSR wanted it--but it's not like they had a ready-made setting with NO connection to psionics and had to shoehorn them in after the fact. Which is why the setting worked.

That wasn't the account as I heard it. But I could be wrong, I suppose. I just don't think I am.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1117707...at least it's not Eberron.

This is the consolation of many Campaign Settings.

P.S.: Althought we might need to amend the sentence to "at least it's not Ravnica" nowadays.