Honestly I'd love to make a simple yet surprisingly deep joke about existential philosophy regarding the title of my post, but simply put I can't quite pull it off in text... Also, that's not where I want to take this post.
If anyone had asked me 5 years ago, I would have told them that picking Faerun to be the new Core Setting for D&D, the focus of the core books, was a bad idea. Its a notion that has only grown since the release of 5e, but I haven't taken the time to really dig into why that should be. So yes, this may involve a bit of brainstorming, since my PHD in D&Dology is not at risk for publishing an ill conceived thesis, I can get away with it.
To begin with let us turn to WHY Hasbro turned to Faerun and the Forgotten Realms to begin with. For some reason it has been massively popular for thirty damn years as a setting for books. This, by the way, is no small part of why its a BAD idea to use Faerun, but lets explore the positive value: Built in fanbase. Much like buying an existing IP you can literally print money from fans who might not be interested in your product, but will buy it out of brand loyalty. That's the theory. But, as a given, all Forgotten Realms books are by default part of the D&D over-brand, and thus that 'fan-boy money machine' is actually already baked into the cake. If you really feel that FR's appeal is bigger than D&D, you don't have to warp D&D to tap that, and warping will occur as I will explain.
There are other positives to using the Forgotten Realms, I should add. Forgotten Realms is rich, even positively lousy, with Lore. Ed Greenwood has a flair for naming things that puts Oerth to shame. The Elves feel elvish, at least in their cities and lost empires and mythals and what not that seems positively Ringian in the best possible way. Old D&D Tropes like the Underdark, Menzoberanzan and so forth either got their start in Faerun, or became so synonymous with it that they became inextricable.
So lets talk about some negatives, and in no particular order.
First, the setting is a mess. Part of the reason it is a mess is because so very much as been written, and by so many people, over the last thirty fucking years, many of whom had a weak ass idea of D&D in the first place, and its all 'canon'. The very richness of Faerun is a problem because its an incoherent richness. Take, for example the 'Solid Liquid Culture'... yes, I just made that up, but let me explain before I forget my own brilliance.
See: Cultures are liquid in nature. Imagine pouring two pools of liquid on a table. IF they are close together they will mix, or if not mix (oil and water)... interact heavily. If they are far apart the level of mixing will be minimal, as the pools slowly spread out to fill the available space. Books are often written about only the cultures they are about. Bottle Cultures, the liquid within contained, not spreading or mixing, because it falls outside the confines of the story within the book. In the setting of Faerun, these bottle cultures are set down and, by necessity of being a setting, the bottle is removed. The Culture, however, fails to spread and interact with the surrounding cultures meaningfully, as if still bottled up. At least until someone writes another story involving two or more interacting cultures... but even then you wind up with only bigger bottles of mixed cultures, instead of spreading across the landscape. This is how you wind up with a bronze age egyptian style culture smack dab in the middle of a continent full of high mideval european cultures virtually unchanged.
This manifests in other ways too. The world of Faerun manages to be rather horrifically dynamic while also being agonizingly static. No matter how earth shattering (Toril shattering, if you prefer) an event, in two or three years everyone is right back to business as usual. You might not realize this from reading the D&D books, but only five years ago in the setting an entire continent was shifted to another plane of existance (Abeil) and a continent full of Dragonborn was shifted from there onto Toril/Faerun. Nobody blinked at this, because in the last fifety or so years the goddess of magic was murdered... TWICE... wreckign the entire setting for everyone. In fact a whole BUNCH Of gods died horribly (after, you know, being stripped of their divinity for a while), but they got better. Because of course they did. That is also why the heroes of the RA Salvatore Novels got their own private heaven for a few decades before they were all totally reincarnated just so they could keep adventuring with good old Drizz't.
That's right, bubie: Five years ago there were no Dragonborn on Faerun, but remember what I said about 'warping'? D&D has to warp to conform to Faerun, and Faerun has to warp to conform to D&D. New D&D demands core Dragonborn, so Faerun gets 'em, not matter how fucked up the process is. An older 'static' setting (due to general death/fan apathy) is much more tolerant of this sort of change, by the way. As is one written for the implied setting you WANT to give people (eg One with Dragonborn in it...). Faerun's age becomes a problem, simply because its old enough to have gone through plenty of edition changes as it, but is also still 'living' unlike (and I'm sorry for all the Oerth fans I may offend), Greyhawk. Or a setting DESIGNED for the Edition, as Eberron was (only... moreso?).
The other problem with the 'living setting' of Faerun, is there is a whole bunch of shit that is absolutely core to Faerun that isn't in D&D at all (sort of like Eberron, which works as an alternate setting, but not so much as The Core.). Things like Spell-fire, Silver Fire, Chosen of Various Gods (which, aside from the absolute SHIT that is Forgotten Realms MANY Mary Sue Uber-NPCs, is something that reasonable players would be calling for their higher level characters to become... good job, D&D designers. Now you have to come up with 5e Rules for all of Greenwood's Mary Sueness that Player Characters should totally have access to. Or, you know, piss off all those fans you were catering to...).
See, that is the core of the problem right there: The 'default setting' and the 'core rules' should absolutely reflect one another. Faerun, for all it seems to exemplify D&D (Underdark, yadda yadda) actually doesn't because it both adds a whole bunch of very specific things that don't reflect 'Core D&D' at all, and because Core D&D as envisioned by the Designers adds a whole host of things that now have to be forced into Faerun like a bad case of canon-rape.
And we won't even talk about our new Corporate Overlords and their Family Friendly Ways, and how that conflicts very deeply with the fact that Ed Greenwood (and thus Forgotten Realms) is a Happy Pervert. *
In essence we have the crux of the issue. We have the concept of a proper 'default setting', so lets explore that idea a little.
To repeat: A Default Setting must reflect the Core Rules, and the Core Rules should reflect/build the Default Setting.
At its heart, as explained above, Forgotten Realms simply does not meet this criteria.
It can be made to work, but the 5e crew didn't want to put in the work.
An older, mostly static, forgotten setting (Oerth) would have been a much easier 'fit' to update, but Our Corporate Overlords apparently thought it would make them Less Money, so 5e was too Greedy.
Making a new setting out of whole cloth would have been slightly more work than properly updating Faerun (which, note, they haven't actually published a gazateer for, just for the Sword Coast region), and would have opened up the possibility of entirely new books that won't be left on the shelf for being redunant, warmed over rehashes of older books. Of course, it may simply be that the 5e Crew lacks the ability (or the faith in their ability) to craft an evocative, interesting setting from whole cloth... and we can almost garauntee that our Kindly Corporate Overlords simply didn't want to pay for the work.
In essence the Forgotten Realms as Core is sort of the Emperor's New Clothes of Core D&D. If you like it you are blind to greed, laziness and incompetence in the making of the new edition. If you don't like it, well.... **
*Yes, I put that right after Canon-Rape deliberately. Aren't you clever for noticing and reading my footnote? Yes you are... clever little reader.. who's a good reader? Yes, you... you are!
** A disclaimer of sorts. I actually do like 5e, with plenty of caveats. I find it inferior to 3e in the main, but with some good ideas. By 'In the Main' I find 5e to be the dumbed down 'little kids' version, stripped of anything that might make it 'unfun', and thus slightly boring. A lot of interesting new features seem half baked rather than fully realized, but the addition of backgrounds (to pick one) is marvelous. I, at least, can clearly see how the designers are at least a little petulant that their precious 4e experiment went so badly, and how (in my bitterly cynical worldview) they're trying to sneak many of the same ill-concieved ideas into D&D despite us, by dressing it up in the skin of the older, superior edition. But that's me...
Obviously Mystaria should have been the 5e setting. No reasoning or rationale beyond that it's a perfect case of just dropping things into space on the map with little reason or thought.
Absolutely, and for many of the same reasons I suggested Greyhawk/Oerth. Its an older, deader setting that is far more amenable to a proper re-write to fit it to the setting as of 5e. I favored Oerth simply because my admittedly foggy memories of the old Greyhawk box set I once had made it seem like a more coherent setting (the Bottle Culture phenomenon critique), and honestly I never paid much attention to Mystaria so I couldn't say much.
Honestly, if not for the prepackage adventures and the Sword Coast book, or teh Baldur's Gate Gazateer in Descent into Avernus, the use of Faerun could be safely ignored, since its impact on the Core Books is so minimal (lazy design work, what have you...), and I'm guessing D&D will never give players/DMs the tools to make 'chosen of Gods' or 'Silver Fire' or any of the other weirdnesses of Forgotten Realms...
You know, like how Azure Bonds/Finders Stone Trilogy, seems to utterly ignore how magical cloning is actually a thing, with rules and known outcomes, in D&D, and how the presence of a draconic lizard race in that trilogy has never once impacted the idea of Dragonborn in D&D, or for that matter the Faerun Setting at all (outside the books they actually appear in...).
Somewhere I have a four page write up of how Samurai can be a thing in a D&D setting, specifically Forgotten Realms, (Er, without needing Kara Tur to be a thing), because Xanthar's makes it necessary to understand how Samurai are a thing in an ostensibly western culture (and all those pictures of Dwarven Samurai in particular...). WHich again begs the question: Why aren't the designers making sure their random thoughts that make it into rules don't fit/reflect the setting in any meaningful way?
Faerun is WotC's creation and thus they have complete ownership over it. If they start messing with the older settings older fans will bitch about it and have a leg to stand on. Sure that is really nothing, but to avoid headaches I guess.
I would assume they bought all of the TSR settings when they bought TSR back in the day. The bit about older settings is that there are fewer active engaged fans to bitch, vis a vis Forgotten Realms which is chock a block full of fans who are actively engaging with the setting due to the on-going adventures of Mary Sue And Her Many Clones...
Any setting that isn't completely new would have to change, simply because D&D has changed. THey INSIST on putting in Dragonborn and Tieflings, because those races have fans, many, many fans. Gotta keep things fresh adn interesting (and I'm not disagreeing here with this policy, by the way), which NO setting was written to account for. Changing from blandly generic classes to highly detailed career classes (Fighter to: Arcane Archer or Samurai or Purple Dragon Knight...) is another way the setting has to 'flex' as D&D changes from the older editions. Before you could just write up a prestige class adn give ideas how that particular prestige class MIGHT fit into setting x or y (which they totally did...), now its just assumed that dwarves have samurai wandering around Citadel Adbar, because Xanthar's Guide to Everything makes them Canon, and thats an easy one. What do we do with the Bard Colleges? Or the presence of Ancestor Spirit Barbarians?
Minor issues, certainly, but the bulk of them add up. I'll be honest, I would not actually be surprised if Mike Mearls showed up and admitted they threw a dart at a board to pick which setting would be Core. I mean: I laid out why I think they picked Faerun, but given the apparent 'planning and forethought' that went into actually adapting setting and rules to one another (Literally none...), the dart board theory holds water.
I was sceptical at first, but in practice I find FR works very well as the core setting for 5e. Sensible people ignore Canon, except what they want. Of course FR is a mess, that is part of the attraction - take what you want and ignore the rest.
The main good thing about FR is that it's mostly an adventure-ready wilderness full of ruins, where you can plop down whatever stuff you like. And it hits the standard D&D tropes very nicely. It lacks the powerful nation states that make many D&D worlds not very good for D&D.
I think for better or for worse, FR is the most popular setting. It has 100s of products, 100s of novels. Dozens of video games.
Greyhawk has what, maybe two dozen novels? Maybe 50 products? 1 video game? It was deprecated in the 2e era, which saw the most official releases.
Mystara had a lot of products, probably more than Greyhawk, but not that many novels and probably only 4-5 video games. It also was really made for B/X D&D and so has a lot of quirks due to that rule system, like different classes, no half-races, no gods, etc.
I think the other thing about FR is that it's mostly a generic setting. Outside the very early products, Mystara basically just took real world countries/cultures and renamed them
3rd edition "sort of" used Greyhawk as default, and I think it was a good decision for Faerûn, as they could concentrate on what makes that world special in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book. (Which, by the way, I think is pretty damn good for what it is. Certainly better written and more interesting than [m]any of the novels I've managed to read.)
But I think the decision to use Greyhawk was because WotC's then-CEO was a fan of the setting or somesuch. If not for that, they'd probably used the FR as default for the same reason they did it now. Which, I agree, is money.
As much as I've grown to dislike FR I've always thought of it as the 'default' D&D setting decades before it officially became the actual default setting--going back to the 90s, soon after I was introduced into the hobby, once I had played D&D long enough to know WTF FR was. FR has always seemed like the most expansive, hodgepodge setting so characteristic of what D&D is to fantasy gaming (a huge, ultra generic hodgepodge desperately trying to be everything to everyone), with the greatest amount of novels and supporting material, as well as video game franchises that helped it transcend D&D and attract its own audience that didn't necessarily play D&D, but had played Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, etc.
I never really cared much for FR, except for the novels and side franchises (Baldur's Gate, et al) which was how I learned about the setting the most. Going by the actual game material I never actually cared much for it, as it lacked a distinctive feel or focus (like Dragonlance) and as a player & DM I didn't know where the F to start with it. The setting's constant haphazard development also didn't help it much, with drastic world shattering changes made between editions that only ever served as a transparent excuse to shoehorn the latest changes made to the game--which, as the OP points out never seem to have an impact on the overall world, beyond some superficial changes, cuz the setting itself is an odd mix of bottled cultures that never seem to change no matter how drastic the events surrounding them happen to be. It's a world without history, despite being the D&D setting with most recorded events, because no matter what happens its bland, hodgepodge essence never truly changes--it merely molds itself to whatever arbitrary new thing makes it into the D&D core rules--like freaking Dragonborn (spits at the name).
And as far as I know, FR has always been the only D&D setting that consistently does that--puke out some lame, world shattering crisis that only superficially alters the world to mold it to whatever half-baked new addition the D&D core rules have in store. Which is what makes it the ideal candidate to be game's lead setting, despite its many failings and the fact that almost every other setting is better than it--at least as a game setting and world-building exercise--with more distinctiveness and focus than FR ever had.
Why Faerun? Because D&D irregardless of edition targets a genre while since the late 1980s Faerun is altered to fit whatever in the kitchen sink for the current edition. This especially apparent starting with 4th edition.
The setting itself aids this by being depicted as mostly wilderness with scattered realms, city states, and isolated villages in a kitchen sink fashion.
I think that RPGs work best when they reflect the reality of a setting. Sometimes it specific but other times it is more vague and targets a genre so it can be used for different types of campaign. D&D does the latter. Because of this it is the setting that the company sells that is altered to fit the current rules.
Quote from: Spike;1116637To begin with let us turn to WHY Hasbro turned to Faerun and the Forgotten Realms to begin with.
In my opinion WotC Hasbro went with the Forgotten Realms because, after all these years, it is still the best DnD world.
Why? Top three reasons:
Because it has competed with every other setting and is still the most popular.
It has bits and pieces from everywhere which lets you play any style of game somewhere in the Realms
The accumulated history lets you go as shallow or as deep in the Lore as you want to.
Quote from: Snowman0147;1116654Faerun is WotC's creation and thus they have complete ownership over it. If they start messing with the older settings older fans will bitch about it and have a leg to stand on. Sure that is really nothing, but to avoid headaches I guess.
Wrong. Forgotten Realms was a TSR setting.
One of the reasons they keep going back to FR is the novels. These have been wildly popular and are essentially free advertising for the RPG. Greyhawk bas had very few novels other than a set a friend of mine wrote and a few others by authors. Not including Gary's Gord series.
The other one is they still have Ed on hand, whereas Gary is gone.
Another reason is that FR is a high to very high magic setting which WOTC believes, possibly correctly, appeals to more players. And there is enough space for low fantasy adventuring as well. That and FR is very adventurer friendly where other settings are less ammendable to the adventuring lifestyle.
I've hated the FR, both muchly and bigly, ever since they started fleshing out the bare bones of the awesome first box set (and I mean "fleshing out" like some sort of Cronenberg movie, with slime and eyeballs and undifferentiated tissue all up the walls and over the floor). Nearly every decision they've made has been fuckshit dumbcunt in its ballitude and the FR has become my yardstick for measuring the awfulness of a setting, including a few homebrews I've written myself.
That said, I don't much mind it as the core setting for 5e. I could be funny and say THAT'S COS I DON'T PLAY FIFTH EDITION! But I played and ran it for three years+ and during that time came to like (is a strong word, "appreciate" might be more appropriate) this de-lored, generic-but-gonzo, yeah-fuck-it-just-whatevs version of Faerun. Like S'mon says, it's very gameable and these days that's what I look for in a setting.
Make Ravenloft the core setting of D&D. All retcons are the works of the higher powers! :D
Its also already a "Pick & Mix" setting.
Quote from: Omega;1116725One of the reasons they keep going back to FR is the novels. These have been wildly popular and are essentially free advertising for the RPG. Greyhawk bas had very few novels other than a set a friend of mine wrote and a few others by authors. Not including Gary's Gord series.
The other one is they still have Ed on hand, whereas Gary is gone.
Another reason is that FR is a high to very high magic setting which WOTC believes, possibly correctly, appeals to more players. And there is enough space for low fantasy adventuring as well. That and FR is very adventurer friendly where other settings are less ammendable to the adventuring lifestyle.
Eberron only fails on the first of those three (novel count) but it has Baker on-hand and is set up for high-magic, adventurer-friendly gaming. This could be why they made the push with an Eberron book before most other settings. FR got a Green Ronin-writen SCAG, but that book isn't really all that good.
Because WOTC wants an "everything but the kitchen sink" setting, with room for anything they might decide to include.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1116767Eberron only fails on the first of those three (novel count) but it has Baker on-hand and is set up for high-magic, adventurer-friendly gaming. This could be why they made the push with an Eberron book before most other settings. FR got a Green Ronin-writen SCAG, but that book isn't really all that good.
I like Eberron and on the other hand it fails for me because of being constantly stuck in time after the last war, the lack of high level characters and its problematic treatment of alignment.
Its only ever going to be a niche property.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116776I like Eberron and on the other hand it fails for me because of being constantly stuck in time after the last war, the lack of high level characters and its problematic treatment of alignment.
Its only ever going to be a niche property.
How does Eberron treat alignment? I read the setting ages ago but never played in it, I can't recall how that was portrayed differently than in other settings.
Quote from: Antiquation!;1116779How does Eberron treat alignment? I read the setting ages ago but never played in it, I can't recall how that was portrayed differently than in other settings.
It went with the "lightly applied" alignment bit back before 5e made it the norm. Overall, alignment is still what you expect of it, but most creatures are not hard locked into particular alignments. For example, orcs tend towards chaotic alignments, but many orcs are non-chaotic (and some might even be lawful). A little more of a difference, the color of a dragon's scales tell you nothing about it's alignment. Generally, fiends are still evil and most celestials are good (some exceptions do exist, and fallen/evil celestials are still celestials rather than becoming fiends). Undead are largely still evil, but there are some exceptions like the "undying" elven undead of the Undying Court.
I suspect that Shasarak might be conflating Eberron's take on religion with its approach to alignment, as it is a setting where good people worship evil gods (largely to placate them) and evil people might worship (and even draw divine magic from) good gods only to twist it to their own ends. These both work because the gods in Eberron are not "divine people" and do not talk directly to worshipers. There is more faith and mystery to the religions, and that gets tied up in how people view them and serve them.
As for the complaint that Eberron is "constantly stuck in the time after the last war," since when has not advancing the metaplot been a bad thing?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of Eberron, but it's not for the reasons that Shasarak states. I don't think the setting ever did a good job of making its "everyday magical technology" fit with the game. This is even more true in 5e where magic items are far less common than in the 3.5e days when Eberron first appeared.
Quote from: Antiquation!;1116779How does Eberron treat alignment? I read the setting ages ago but never played in it, I can't recall how that was portrayed differently than in other settings.
It pushes the idea that Good is actually bad and Evil Vampires are actually good and otherwise its all shades of grey.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1116782It went with the "lightly applied" alignment bit back before 5e made it the norm. Overall, alignment is still what you expect of it, but most creatures are not hard locked into particular alignments. For example, orcs tend towards chaotic alignments, but many orcs are non-chaotic (and some might even be lawful). A little more of a difference, the color of a dragon's scales tell you nothing about it's alignment. Generally, fiends are still evil and most celestials are good (some exceptions do exist, and fallen/evil celestials are still celestials rather than becoming fiends). Undead are largely still evil, but there are some exceptions like the "undying" elven undead of the Undying Court.
I suspect that Shasarak might be conflating Eberron's take on religion with its approach to alignment, as it is a setting where good people worship evil gods (largely to placate them) and evil people might worship (and even draw divine magic from) good gods only to twist it to their own ends. These both work because the gods in Eberron are not "divine people" and do not talk directly to worshipers. There is more faith and mystery to the religions, and that gets tied up in how people view them and serve them.
As for the complaint that Eberron is "constantly stuck in the time after the last war," since when has not advancing the metaplot been a bad thing?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of Eberron, but it's not for the reasons that Shasarak states. I don't think the setting ever did a good job of making its "everyday magical technology" fit with the game. This is even more true in 5e where magic items are far less common than in the 3.5e days when Eberron first appeared.
Ah right, got it. Thanks for the rundown!
I have to agree that the "everyday magic" elements didn't quite gel, but there were some alright ideas scattered around in there.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116783It pushes the idea that Good is actually bad and Evil Vampires are actually good and otherwise its all shades of grey.
Perhaps that is an intentional design choice to fit with the not-noir elements? Honestly aside from it being "D&D" it seems like an odd choice to include alignment at all in a setting like Eberron, but I'm no game designer.
The only true problematic treatment of alignment is its inclusion in the game to begin with. But going by HappyDaze's post it seems like Eberon's treatment of it is close to "done right". :p
Quote from: HappyDaze;1116782It went with the "lightly applied" alignment bit back before 5e made it the norm. Overall, alignment is still what you expect of it, but most creatures are not hard locked into particular alignments. For example, orcs tend towards chaotic alignments, but many orcs are non-chaotic (and some might even be lawful). A little more of a difference, the color of a dragon's scales tell you nothing about it's alignment. Generally, fiends are still evil and most celestials are good (some exceptions do exist, and fallen/evil celestials are still celestials rather than becoming fiends). Undead are largely still evil, but there are some exceptions like the "undying" elven undead of the Undying Court.
I suspect that Shasarak might be conflating Eberron's take on religion with its approach to alignment, as it is a setting where good people worship evil gods (largely to placate them) and evil people might worship (and even draw divine magic from) good gods only to twist it to their own ends. These both work because the gods in Eberron are not "divine people" and do not talk directly to worshipers. There is more faith and mystery to the religions, and that gets tied up in how people view them and serve them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of Eberron, but it's not for the reasons that Shasarak states. I don't think the setting ever did a good job of making its "everyday magical technology" fit with the game. This is even more true in 5e where magic items are far less common than in the 3.5e days when Eberron first appeared.
This probably is not the thread to get into the ins and outs of Eberron and exactly why you are wrong but this is relevant:
QuoteAs for the complaint that Eberron is "constantly stuck in the time after the last war," since when has not advancing the metaplot been a bad thing?
It is a bad thing if you want to have a real developing setting rather then a static backdrop of a setting.
Take Star Wars for example. Originally you just had the one static time of the New Hope era which is fine if you want to play Not-Han Solo. But now you can play in the Old Republic, in the Empire and the New Republic which is a much richer vibrant setting then forever New Hope era.
Quote from: Antiquation!;1116785Perhaps that is an intentional design choice to fit with the not-noir elements? Honestly aside from it being "D&D" it seems like an odd choice to include alignment at all in a setting like Eberron, but I'm no game designer.
As we say in NZ, at least he gave it a go.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116787It is a bad thing if you want to have a real developing setting rather then a static backdrop of a setting.
Take Star Wars for example. Originally you just had the one static time of the New Hope era which is fine if you want to play Not-Han Solo. But now you can play in the Old Republic, in the Empire and the New Republic which is a much richer vibrant setting then forever New Hope era.
Then you should be happy to know that previous Eberron products have given details for setting the game during other periods, such as during the time of Galifar, during the Last War, during the elves' revolt against the giants, during the Inspired's takeover of Sarlona, during the fall of the Dhakaani Empire. The "default" setting is merely the latest period detailed.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1116790Then you should be happy to know that previous Eberron products have given details for setting the game during other periods, such as during the time of Galifar, during the Last War, during the elves' revolt against the giants, during the Inspired's takeover of Sarlona, during the fall of the Dhakaani Empire. The "default" setting is merely the latest period detailed.
As far as I am aware the new 5e Eberron setting is set at the same time as the old 3e Eberron which is the same time as the old 4e Eberron.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116791As far as I am aware the new 5e Eberron setting is set at the same time as the old 3e Eberron which is the same time as the old 4e Eberron.
That's correct. The same older materials and online resources that cover the other periods still apply if you want an alternate time period.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116787It is a bad thing if you want to have a real developing setting rather then a static backdrop of a setting.
Take Star Wars for example. Originally you just had the one static time of the New Hope era which is fine if you want to play Not-Han Solo. But now you can play in the Old Republic, in the Empire and the New Republic which is a much richer vibrant setting then forever New Hope era.
As a person who hates how Static Star Wars has become, Il say there is a counterbalance to this.
A setting can be "Just-Right" and developing it can simply make it worse. You can always play in older material but its less likely to receive support.
For instance the Development of Darksun Mostly robbed it of any mystery.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116783It pushes the idea that Good is actually bad and Evil Vampires are actually good and otherwise its all shades of grey.
No, it does not. It says that some people do horrible things to try to achieve good ends (like trying to purge lycanthropes in a crusade and inflicting some collateral damage on shifter populations) and that an evil vampire king might support a peace treaty to give his ancestral lands time to recover from a war/famine/rebellion that devastated his base. The shades of gray are presented as a bit more rational than you suggest.
Yes, "Good is evil, Neutrality is good, Evil is cool" is Dragonlance's theme. ;)
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1116803For instance the Development of Darksun Mostly robbed it of any mystery.
Not just that, but to me it just felt completely bland and meh.
I have often said that Dark Sun is the GREATEST setting in the ENTIRE history of D&D (bar NONE), but every time I've said that I'm mostly referring to the earlier material. After a certain point (don't remember which supplement) the material just started to feel tired and unimaginative--even adding new playable races that just felt arbitrary, and didn't even show up in the first novel series, by Troy Denning (never read the one after the first, so don't know about that one).
Several months ago I ran into a podcast interviewing Troy Denning, where they discussed a LOT of Dark Sun and he mentioned that TSR had taken him out of Dark Sun during that time, so all of that later material was developed by someone else. From how he talked about it, he didn't seem that impressed with most of it either, and most (if not all) of it was developed without consulting him, so it didn't follow the things he would've done with the setting. Pretty depressing stuff, but at least I felt vindicated knowing that I had been right in feeling like that later stuff wasn't true canon, since the original creator hadn't been involved.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1116809Not just that, but to me it just felt completely bland and meh.
I have often said that Dark Sun is the GREATEST setting in the ENTIRE history of D&D (bar NONE), but every time I've said that I'm mostly referring to the earlier material. After a certain point (don't remember which supplement) the material just started to feel tired and unimaginative--even adding new playable races that just felt arbitrary, and didn't even show up in the first novel series, by Troy Denning (never read the one after the first, so don't know about that one).
Several months ago I ran into a podcast interviewing Troy Denning, where they discussed a LOT of Dark Sun and he mentioned that TSR had taken him out of Dark Sun during that time, so all of that later material was developed by someone else. From how he talked about it, he didn't seem that impressed with most of it either, and most (if not all) of it was developed without consulting him, so it didn't follow the things he would've done with the setting. Pretty depressing stuff, but at least I felt vindicated knowing that I had been right in feeling like that later stuff wasn't true canon, since the original creator hadn't been involved.
Yep. When I run Dark Sun, I use the 4e tactic of setting the timeline just after Kalak's death, and then run things from there, completely ignoring the later metaplot, especially the Cerulean Storm event. I pilfer bits of the backstory, but leave more than I take.
I could happily disparage FR, but I'm a Rifts fan so that would seem hypocritical.
FR makes sense as the 5e core because of the economic power of the FR brand, and its not realistic to expect a company to not chase the biggest pile of dollars.
Personally, I'd prefer if new editions got new settings, but regurgitation of nostalgia makes more money.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1116820Yep. When I run Dark Sun, I use the 4e tactic of setting the timeline just after Kalak's death, and then run things from there, completely ignoring the later metaplot, especially the Cerulean Storm event. I pilfer bits of the backstory, but leave more than I take.
Same. Granted I don't play Dark Sun as much as I'd wish, but every time I've had the chance to run a campaign I start either soon after Kalak's death and Tyr becoming a free city, or right around the time it happened and people are shouting in the streets "Kalak is dead! KALAK IS DEAD!" and the chaos starts to boil in the streets of Tyr as the implications of the Sorcerer-King's death start to set in and slaves start to riot.
Then I ignore almost everything that comes after in the novels, especially the killing of several of the other Sorcerer-Kings (which technically happens a few years later anyways), etc. The Dragon is still coming to claim his slave levy, though, cuz that creates tension and highlights the brutality of the world. :D
Quote from: Spinachcat;1116824I could happily disparage FR, but I'm a Rifts fan so that would seem hypocritical.
Except that RIFTS is a cool setting with its own flavor and original stuff, and every single one of its failings is due to the system and inconsistent power levels between supplements (also a system issue), rather than the world itself. While FR's failings are almost entirely its own (not that D&D is perfect, but system and setting are separate products).
I think FR now makes a great default setting for 5E. Giving that WotC has demonstrated that they are almost entirely imaginatively bankrupt, I don't see why we would welcome them trashing other settings. Think of FR as a quarantine zone.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1116839I think FR now makes a great default setting for 5E. Giving that WotC has demonstrated that they are almost entirely imaginatively bankrupt, I don't see why we would welcome them trashing other settings. Think of FR as a quarantine zone.
On the other hand, if current trends continue, Dragonlance would be a perfect fit for 6E--there's an anti-institutional, relativist, 'power to the marginalized and the educated elite' subtext to it that's been present from the beginning, and that I picked up on 20 years ago. :)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1116840On the other hand, if current trends continue, Dragonlance would be a perfect fit for 6E--there's an anti-institutional, relativist, 'power to the marginalized and the educated elite' subtext to it that's been present from the beginning, and that I picked up on 20 years ago. :)
Ha! :) Since DL is the only setting that I can see arguably replacing FR as "most immune to being trashed because previous trashing has already done its worst," I'm not seeing a problem with that plan, either.
Now, if they wanted to be really stupid, they'd make Planescape the default. Making it the default is exactly the kind of thing that a college sophomore mentality could talk one into being a good idea.
I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone thought D&D needed to include a "default" setting at all. (And of course using any previously existing setting is going to invoke shoehorning and/or gutting, given the wealth of legacy material from/for a variety of settings).
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1116803As a person who hates how Static Star Wars has become, Il say there is a counterbalance to this.
A setting can be "Just-Right" and developing it can simply make it worse. You can always play in older material but its less likely to receive support.
You have to answer some mysteries, thats why you have adventures: go into the unknown and meet new people so that you can kill them and take their stuff.
I remember one developer who talked about never answering one mystery without giving two more.
QuoteFor instance the Development of Darksun Mostly robbed it of any mystery.
Darksun always seemed more like one big gimmick to mash Wilderness Survival Guide together with the Psionics Handbook.
Quote from: Zalman;1116875I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone thought D&D needed to include a "default" setting at all. (And of course using any previously existing setting is going to invoke shoehorning and/or gutting, given the wealth of legacy material from/for a variety of settings).
The most popular setting is still homebrew so does that answer your question?
You know... just go Greybox and you're Faerun is great.
It's all downhill from there. So pick the spot that is your jam and rock on.
Quote from: tenbones;1116885You know... just go Greybox and you're Faerun is great.
It's all downhill from there. So pick the spot that is your jam and rock on.
Yes. And if I ran FR for 5E, that's how I'd do it. Heck, when I ran FR for Fantasy Hero, that's mostly how I did it.
There comes a point in a settings life, if too much crap builds up on top of it, where it starts to affect enjoyment of the original. Not that it can't be done, but it requires an effort of will to shove aside the crap from your mind while getting back into the good stuff. It's why I can no longer enjoy the original Star Wars trilogy--too much effort.
I've been very carefully avoiding all FR stuff for several years now in the hope that one day I'll be able to run the Grey box again.
Quote from: tenbones;1116885You know... just go Greybox and you're Faerun is great.
It's all downhill from there. So pick the spot that is your jam and rock on.
Greetings!
You know, I remember the Forgotten Realms Grey Box very well, and quite fondly. I think in design and scope, at that point, it certainly was a worthy companion to go along with Greyhawk. I think perhaps, merely a good hardcover book or two beyond that Grey Box would have been fine. Had they kept it at that, Forgotten Realms would be a sort of "evergreen" campaign setting. Simply awesome.:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Zalman;1116875I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone thought D&D needed to include a "default" setting at all. (And of course using any previously existing setting is going to invoke shoehorning and/or gutting, given the wealth of legacy material from/for a variety of settings).
5e D&D doesn't have a default setting. Faerun is mentioned as an example a few times in the PHB and DMG, and the examples of fantasy names for humans in the PHB are from Forgotten Realms cultures, but other than that, there really isn't any default setting material in the core (there are some lists of gods in Appendix B of the PHB, but those include Norse, Celtic, Greek and Egyptian pantheons, as well as the gods from Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Eberron). The DMG has a lot of material on creating your own setting though. Faerun shows up as the setting of the starter box campaign, and for most of the published adventures, but adventures have to have some setting.
Quote from: tenbones;1116885You know... just go Greybox and you're Faerun is great.
It's all downhill from there. So pick the spot that is your jam and rock on.
There's some good stuff in some of the really early supplements too. The Savage Frontier (FR5) is a really good book for instance, with just the right amount of detail.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116880(snip) Darksun always seemed more like one big gimmick to mash Wilderness Survival Guide together with the Psionics Handbook.
One of Dark Sun's initial code names was War World to try and give the Battlesystem rules a boost. But the Psionics Handbook did play a role in its design and development according to the Bone, Stone, & Obsidian podcast interview with Tim Brown (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/09/05/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-8/). (The WSG was out-of-print at that point.)
Quote from: tenbones;1116885You know... just go Greybox and you're Faerun is great.
It's all downhill from there. So pick the spot that is your jam and rock on.
One of my favourite personal heresies is that I love the 4E version of the Realms because it upset everything enough that I feel much better about putting my own stamp on the Realms that I did before. (My primary heresy is that 4E remains my favourite RPG.) It's the new Grey Box for me - even if it is no longer new. Oh, and the Neverwinter Campaign Setting is simply superb.
Quote from: SHARK;1116913Greetings!
You know, I remember the Forgotten Realms Grey Box very well, and quite fondly. I think in design and scope, at that point, it certainly was a worthy companion to go along with Greyhawk. I think perhaps, merely a good hardcover book or two beyond that Grey Box would have been fine. Had they kept it at that, Forgotten Realms would be a sort of "evergreen" campaign setting. Simply awesome.:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I would add a few products to that including, inter alia, the Faiths & Avatars trilogy, FR1 Waterdeep & The North, FR5 The Savage Frontier, Lost Empires of Faerun, and the Volo's Guides to the Dalelands, the North, and the Sword Coast.
Quote from: Blankman;1116915There's some good stuff in some of the really early supplements too. The Savage Frontier (FR5) is a really good book for instance, with just the right amount of detail.
Yep, Paul Jaquays did his usual great work with FR5. I used a lot of his material in my 4E Neverwinter campaign.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1116930One of Dark Sun's initial code names was War World to try and give the Battlesystem rules a boost. But the Psionics Handbook did play a role in its design and development according to the Bone, Stone, & Obsidian podcast interview with Tim Brown (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/09/05/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-8/). (The WSG was out-of-print at that point.).
Yeah, Psionics was one of the key features they wanted to emphasize when they began work on what eventually became Dark Sun, IIRC. They wanted a setting where they could showcase those new abilities and Troy Denning was working on something when he ran into Brom (one of the greatest D&D/Fantasy illustrators ever) who was doing this awesome painting of what eventually became the character Neeva. So Troy Denning roped him into the project (ended up creating a character based on the painting and working her into the story) and it all flowed from there.
(https://i1.wp.com/dmdave.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/darksun-heygirl.jpg)
Ima have to check this out when I have the chance. This is the same podcast I mentioned in my last post, where they interviewed Troy Denning. Wasn't sure where it was back then, but this link helped me find them. Gonna post them below, cuz these are must-listen for any Dark Sun aficionados:
Troy Denning Interview Part 1 (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-9-troy-denning-part-1/)
Troy Denning Interview Part 2 (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episodeh/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-10-troy-denning-part-2-2/)
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1116903Yes. And if I ran FR for 5E, that's how I'd do it. Heck, when I ran FR for Fantasy Hero, that's mostly how I did it.
There comes a point in a settings life, if too much crap builds up on top of it, where it starts to affect enjoyment of the original. Not that it can't be done, but it requires an effort of will to shove aside the crap from your mind while getting back into the good stuff. It's why I can no longer enjoy the original Star Wars trilogy--too much effort.
I've been very carefully avoiding all FR stuff for several years now in the hope that one day I'll be able to run the Grey box again.
Quote from: SHARK;1116913Greetings!
You know, I remember the Forgotten Realms Grey Box very well, and quite fondly. I think in design and scope, at that point, it certainly was a worthy companion to go along with Greyhawk. I think perhaps, merely a good hardcover book or two beyond that Grey Box would have been fine. Had they kept it at that, Forgotten Realms would be a sort of "evergreen" campaign setting. Simply awesome.:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
To be perfectly honest... Greybox + their regional Gazetteers circa up to 2e were pretty much perfect. Most of the stuff tacked on from 3e onward was mostly system-service *at best*, or a re-hash for those new to the setting.
I think some of the best stuff ever written for D&D in terms of how it should work in a kitchen-sink setting, stuff that really resonated with me (and continues to until today) was established during this era. Faiths and Avatars/Powers and Pantheon are great examples that pushed the Cleric class into Deity-specific orders with wonderful write-ups for Clerics, layfolk AND militant Paladin orders (if such existed).
The addition of Kara-Tur, Al-Qadim to the Realms gave GM's tons of options. I'd argue Kara-Tur (the boxset) and Al-Qadim were the equal to the Greybox in terms of design and execution.
I've used the Greybox for my Savage Worlds games, and it is pretty fantastic. I intend to dive back in once the SWADE Fantasy book drops. I don't care much for the 5e conception of the Realms for all the reasons you both (and others) have cited. It's become too much of a freakshow with little attempt at considering the conceits of the setting beyond the pet-elements of the given writer at the time.
There is a place for the Freakshow(tm) - it's called Spelljammer. And there is another setting that needs some love.
Am I the only one that loves how the "Why Faerun?" topic has wandered into so many other worlds (e.g., Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.)? If this lasts long enough, I'm hoping to get some good stuff on Birthright.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1116930One of Dark Sun's initial code names was War World to try and give the Battlesystem rules a boost. But the Psionics Handbook did play a role in its design and development according to the Bone, Stone, & Obsidian podcast interview with Tim Brown (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/09/05/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-8/). (The WSG was out-of-print at that point.)
I would have imagined that Darksun is the worst place to boost Battlesystem. When it is hard to keep an individual alive how are you going to have armies marching around enough to justify its use.
Just to make HappyDaze...happy..I would suggest Birthright as the Battlesystem system.
Quote from: tenbones;1116938I think some of the best stuff ever written for D&D in terms of how it should work in a kitchen-sink setting, stuff that really resonated with me (and continues to until today) was established during this era. Faiths and Avatars/Powers and Pantheon are great examples that pushed the Cleric class into Deity-specific orders with wonderful write-ups for Clerics, layfolk AND militant Paladin orders (if such existed).
While I tend to agree with Pundit that D&D does polytheism wrong (as covered in one of his videos), I have to agree that this era saw a refinement of how religions were portrayed in D&D that led to a lot of customization of the cleric class and adaptation of its abilities to fit specific faiths and religious organizations that added a lot of flavor to the game. After a certain point every single cleric in my game had a custom setup and had to be tailor made to meet their faith's specifications.
Quote from: tenbones;1116938There is a place for the Freakshow(tm) - it's called Spelljammer. And there is another setting that needs some love.
Or Planescape :p
Or RIFTS... oh, wait! Wrong system! :confused:
Quote from: HappyDaze;1116943Am I the only one that loves how the "Why Faerun?" topic has wandered into so many other worlds (e.g., Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.)? If this lasts long enough, I'm hoping to get some good stuff on Birthright.
I never got around checking out Birthright :(
But yeah, I love how discussions about FR always tend to devolve into talk about other settings (most of which are better than FR :p ).
Quote from: HappyDaze;1116943Am I the only one that loves how the "Why Faerun?" topic has wandered into so many other worlds (e.g., Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.)? If this lasts long enough, I'm hoping to get some good stuff on Birthright.
Well, given the nature of the topic, it does invite comparisons to alternatives.
Quote from: Blankman;1116914Faerun shows up as the setting of the starter box campaign, and for most of the published adventures, but adventures have to have some setting.
Do they? I don't recall most published modules of the 1e era including a setting, or even elements of a setting. Could be I'm getting senile I guess. Either way, we always dropped modules into our own settings anyway.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1116963But yeah, I love how discussions about FR always tend to devolve into talk about other settings (most of which are better than FR :p ).
Is Darksun better for playing Desert Survival then Forgotten Realms? Well Darksun is Desert Survival 24/7 and on the other hand the Realms has the Anauroch Desert. So do you want to be Camel riding Nomads fighting the Zhents or do you want to be Dune Beetle riding Psionic Half giants fighting cannibal halflings?
Quote from: Shasarak;1116971Is Darksun better for playing Desert Survival then Forgotten Realms? Well Darksun is Desert Survival 24/7 and on the other hand the Realms has the Anauroch Desert. So do you want to be Camel riding Nomads fighting the Zhents or do you want to be Dune Beetle riding Psionic Half giants fighting cannibal halflings?
Presumably if running Dark Sun you'd hack the rules into something more appropriate for the setting.
I wouldn't be running Dark Sun with vanilla 5e - no way.
I'd probably adapt something from the journey rules in Adventures in Middle Earth - I'd ban a lot of spells, there's be rules for defiling etc.
I'd like to thank people who linked to the Bone, Stone and Obsidian podcasts. The interviews with the creators were very interesting.
Quote from: TJS;1116979Presumably if running Dark Sun you'd hack the rules into something more appropriate for the setting.
I wouldn't be running Dark Sun with vanilla 5e - no way.
I'd probably adapt something from the journey rules in Adventures in Middle Earth - I'd ban a lot of spells, there's be rules for defiling etc.
Which is one reason why the Realms is a better setting then Darksun, you need less niche rules.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116984Which is one reason why the Realms is a better setting then Darksun, you need less niche rules.
If by 'better' you mean more suitable for default D&D then sure.
Dark Sun really does need it's own system.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116971Is Darksun better for playing Desert Survival then Forgotten Realms? Well Darksun is Desert Survival 24/7 and on the other hand the Realms has the Anauroch Desert. So do you want to be Camel riding Nomads fighting the Zhents or do you want to be Dune Beetle riding Psionic Half giants fighting cannibal halflings?
You're comparing apples to oranges and desperately missing the point. That's like saying that Star Wars is the best of all fantasy settings, cuz you get to play laser-sword wielding space wizards that can hop around planets with countless alien creatures and any type of environment. So why would you wanna play your puny low tech knights just to have castles when you could play a Jedi and travel to a planet with antiquated cultures that have castles in them?
And the point of Dark Sun isn't Dessert Survival 24/7--that's just a feature of the world. The point of Dark Sun is playing in a brutal alien world, with limited resources and a drastically altered landscape where creatures and cultures have had to adapt in order to survive in an unforgiving land.
Some of the traditional races have been altered to live in the desert and others removed, and new races have been added to highlight the drastic differences of the world--where races like the Thri-Kreen managed to thrive, while gnomes were killed off centuries ago. Metal is scarce, so weapons are typically made of weaker materials that may break. Divine magic is channeled through the elements and arcane magic is a brutal force banned in most places and responsible for the destruction of the land. Life is cheap, slavery is the law of the land, and enslaved warriors are made to fight in the arena for the entertainment of the tired and abused masses.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116984Which is one reason why the Realms is a better setting then Darksun, you need less niche rules.
So which one is it? FR is this bastion of universal adventure because any type of adventure you could possibly want can be played, or FR can't handle proper niche presentation? You are still comparing apples to oranges and claiming that apples are better because we already have apples and apples don't have to be oranges.
Being supposedly adaptable in superficial ways to different things doesn't make a setting great, having an interesting and distinctive feeling and flavor does. And FR is as bland as a can of vegetables.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1116932Ima have to check this out when I have the chance. This is the same podcast I mentioned in my last post, where they interviewed Troy Denning. Wasn't sure where it was back then, but this link helped me find them. Gonna post them below, cuz these are must-listen for any Dark Sun aficionados:
Troy Denning Interview Part 1 (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-9-troy-denning-part-1/)
Troy Denning Interview Part 2 (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episodeh/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-10-troy-denning-part-2-2/)
So according to Troy Denning Darksun came about as a way to combine Leather Bikinis and the Psionics Handbook which is a far more awesome idea then mine.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117002You're comparing apples to oranges and desperately missing the point.
Well if you could just mansplain your point to me we could have a discussion.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1116729Make Ravenloft the core setting of D&D. All retcons are the works of the higher powers! :D
Its also already a "Pick & Mix" setting.
YES!
Ravenloft was the best of the published settings...although I'd like to see someone make a full campaign setting book out of the "implied setting" of OD&D.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1116932(snip) Troy Denning Interview Part 1 (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-9-troy-denning-part-1/)
Troy Denning Interview Part 2 (http://misdirectedmark.com/2018/11/15/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episodeh/bone-stone-and-obsidian-episode-10-troy-denning-part-2-2/) (snip)
I haven't listened to these two yet which is why I didn't quote TD. I hope these are as good as the ones with Tim Brown!
Quote from: tenbones;1116938(snip) I think some of the best stuff ever written for D&D in terms of how it should work in a kitchen-sink setting, stuff that really resonated with me (and continues to until today) was established during this era. Faiths and Avatars/Powers and Pantheon are great examples that pushed the Cleric class into Deity-specific orders with wonderful write-ups for Clerics, layfolk AND militant Paladin orders (if such existed). (snip)
Agreed.
The Faiths & Avatars trilogy actually brought me back to the Realms and to D&D. I always *despised* generic clerics plus
Faiths & Avatars alone provides thousands of campaign and adventure hooks. They also did a great job of reconciling much of the mess the post-Ed Realms pastiche had become at that point... before the mess began again.
Quote from: Shasarak;1116959I would have imagined that Darksun is the worst place to boost Battlesystem. When it is hard to keep an individual alive how are you going to have armies marching around enough to justify its use. (snip)
I believe that they discovered that during its development judging by the lack of attention that Battlesystem received during the DS product line. That said, the second published adventure (not including the one in the boxed set),
Road to Urik, including some mass battles between the forces of two city states - I believe this was a nod to the War World plans. I think there may have been at least one other adventure that also used the BS rules but I could be wrong.
Mass battles in such a resource-less environment make very little sense.
Quote from: TJS;1116989If by 'better' you mean more suitable for default D&D then sure.
Dark Sun really does need its own system.
[heresy] Actually, I have found that 4E is almost ideal for Dark Sun. [/heresy]
Quote from: Shasarak;1116971Is Darksun better for playing Desert Survival then Forgotten Realms? Well Darksun is Desert Survival 24/7 and on the other hand the Realms has the Anauroch Desert. So do you want to be Camel riding Nomads fighting the Zhents or do you want to be Dune Beetle riding Psionic Half giants fighting cannibal halflings?
Anauroch is not where I would try and run Dark Sun in FR with its faux-Bedouin (which I do not use in my Realms): The Shaar Desolation from the 4E version of the Realms, however, is almost ideal, as is the Raurin and Plains of Purple Dust (Raurin and PoPD even have the right faux-real world civilisations).
But give me, as you put it, dune beetle-riding, psionic half-giants fighting cannibal halflings over a crappy ersatz attempt in the Realms any day! :)
I don't really have much positive to say about FR as a whole. The more I read about it the more boring I find it. BUT I still find FR extremely intertwined with D&D in my head. This is mainly because my first exposure to D&D(not rpgs in general but specifically D&D) was Baldurs Gate. A game I adored. Then BG2, Neverwinter Nights etc. And over the years I absorbed so much lore about it that it feels very familiar. And I guess this is the main strength of the setting. So much media exposure made it quite synonymous with D&D itself.
Even to me who loath many of its main aspects; especially boring generic merchant city-republics everywhere with very little defined culture and all the edition overhauls, novels etc.
If I would run it today I would probably go with 1ed/2ed and keep strictly to the Volo guides as main sources and ignore most other stuff.
Quote from: Zalman;1116875I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone thought D&D needed to include a "default" setting at all. (And of course using any previously existing setting is going to invoke shoehorning and/or gutting, given the wealth of legacy material from/for a variety of settings).
WotC uses the "default setting" to promote the Living Campaign. In the case of 5e, the living campaign is Forgotten Realms via Adventurer's League.
Why? People who play in living campaigns buy lots more stuff.
Quote from: tenbones;1116885You know... just go Greybox and you're Faerun is great.
I'd argue the vast majority of settings are best in the original box or book.
I've rarely seen a setting improved
for actual play via the supplement mill or edition rehash.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1116930Oh, and the Neverwinter Campaign Setting is simply superb.
Agreed. I am not a FR fan and I greatly enjoyed the Neverwinter book for 4e. Got to play a short campaign, and I'd love to revisit.
Easily my favorite 4e setting material.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117002That's like saying that Star Wars is the best of all fantasy settings, cuz you get to play laser-sword wielding space wizards that can hop around planets with countless alien creatures and any type of environment.
I would love to see that movie!
I've done something like that with Gamma World, but I love how succinctly you put it. Your summation sounds like crazy fun.
Quote from: Doc Sammy;1117016although I'd like to see someone make a full campaign setting book out of the "implied setting" of OD&D.
Have you seen the PDF that breaks down the OD&D implied setting? Very interesting reading and I've been thinking about running it at some point.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bx-230B8tqxvMmFrNGJFU3hGNnM/edit
Dessert survival?! Mr Creosote?
Quote from: Shasarak;1117014Well if you could just mansplain your point to me we could have a discussion.
You mean like I did in the rest of my post right after the sentence you quoted? But of course you missed it, cuz it was the point. :p
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1117027But give me, as you put it, dune beetle-riding, psionic half-giants fighting cannibal halflings over a crappy ersatz attempt in the Realms any day! :)
Seriously, why would I wanna play some lame generic camel riding nomad when I could play freaking cannibal halfling fighting half-giants with psionic powers, riding giant dune beetles across the desert landscape, with long legged elves sprinting marathons across the sands and bald, barrel chested dwarves building shit all day?
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117045Seriously, why would I wanna play some lame generic camel riding nomad when I could play freaking cannibal halfling fighting half-giants with psionic powers, riding giant dune beetles across the desert landscape, with long legged elves sprinting marathons across the sands and bald, barrel chested dwarves building shit all day?
If my experiences with today's players are at all typical, players would choose to play a camel-riding vanilla human nomad in Dark Sun just for the weirdness factor of it (and they would instead play the cannibal halfling in the Forgotten Realms). I think it's because all players want their characters to be special, but some can't think past the surface of their character, so all of the "specialness" just piles up on it like too much makeup and they end up making characters that are far weirder than any NPCs can even hope to be.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1116930One of my favourite personal heresies is that I love the 4E version of the Realms because it upset everything enough that I feel much better about putting my own stamp on the Realms that I did before. (My primary heresy is that 4E remains my favourite RPG.) It's the new Grey Box for me - even if it is no longer new. Oh, and the Neverwinter Campaign Setting is simply superb.
Even though I tried to get into 4e FR but found it too contrived and completely unnecessary, I still have to agree that the Neverwinter book is great. I have a hard time coming up a specific FR setting book I would call better regardless of edition. For me it is definitely the best setting book wizbro has ever done.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1117029WotC uses the "default setting" to promote the Living Campaign. In the case of 5e, the living campaign is Forgotten Realms via Adventurer's League.
Why? People who play in living campaigns buy lots more stuff.
Sure that makes sense, not "need" but "greed", as it were. But then I'm left scratching my head as to why anyone who doesn't play in Adventurer's League gives a hoot as which setting is used there.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1117048If my experiences with today's players are at all typical, players would choose to play a camel-riding vanilla human nomad in Dark Sun just for the weirdness factor of it (and they would instead play the cannibal halfling in the Forgotten Realms). I think it's because all players want their characters to be special, but some can't think past the surface of their character, so all of the "specialness" just piles up on it like too much makeup and they end up making characters that are far weirder than any NPCs can even hope to be.
I'm not sure it works the other way around. What's commonplace for us (given our real world perspective) would still be commonplace and ordinary for us even if it wasn't common in the game world's context. I think that a lot of people don't even consider the setting and come into it from a detached "this is fantasy!" perspective that doesn't take world immersion and internal consistency into account. And a lot of times this perspective tends to be informed by whatever type of cool art they saw last, that the player liked and wanted to play a character like that.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117044You mean like I did in the rest of my post right after the sentence you quoted? But of course you missed it, cuz it was the point. :p
Well I see the bit about me missing the point, then the bit about Star Wars and the bit about how Dark Sun is not Desert Survival it is Dessert Survival.
Am I with you so far?
Quote from: Zalman;1117063But then I'm left scratching my head as to why anyone who doesn't play in Adventurer's League gives a hoot as which setting is used there.
As FR is the 5e default setting, the majority of 5e books from WotC will reference FR material within, and that's also promoted for the 3PP by the DMs Guild on DriveThruRPG. Thus, WotC will be producing less "setting neutral" books or non-FR setting books. That's why they give a hoot.
I don't give a hoot about whatever default they choose since I don't (and won't) buy WotC products, but I understand the economic choice by WotC and the non-FR fan upset.
Quote from: Shasarak;1117114Well I see the bit about me missing the point, then the bit about Star Wars and the bit about how Dark Sun is not Desert Survival it is Dessert Survival.
In regards to cannibal halflings, Dark Sun IS about Dessert Survival!!
Quote from: Shasarak;1117114Well I see the bit about me missing the point, then the bit about Star Wars and the bit about how Dark Sun is not Desert Survival it is Dessert Survival.
Am I with you so far?
Only in a trollish fashion.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1117123In regards to cannibal halflings, Dark Sun IS about Dessert Survival!!
In a very specific world, with a specific theme, built around specific scenarios that encompass the ENTIRE planet--not just a singular region--where life is so harsh everyone had to take radical steps to adapt to the environment. Which is why Athas has cannibal halflings and Faerun's punny desert doesn't. And one of the many, MANY reasons why a single region of Faerun isn't interchangeable with the entire world of Dark Sun, and no adventure in ANY part of the FR could ever serve as a stand-in for Dark Sun, much like no adventure in Star Wars could ever replace actual Sword & Sorcery world. The two are simply not the same.
Dark Sun isn't even proper Sword & Sorcery (except maybe in a superficial, post-apocalyptic way), but more akin to Sword & Planet with fantasy elements in some respects. It's its own unique world with a specialized theme and material, where most things (including every single race except humans, most classes and both, divine and arcane magic) have their own rules and adaptations that are about playing in
that world, not just generic fantasy in a desert region.
Are you sure Athas really has bigger desserts than Faerun?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1117132Are you sure Athas really has bigger desserts than Faerun?
Almost the entire planet--except for a few tiny forested areas--is desert, so I'm guessing yeah.
So you believe the desserts on Faerun should be easier to survive than desserts on Athas? I'm unsure if FR fans would agree.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1117139So you believe the desserts on Faerun should be easier to survive than desserts on Athas? I'm unsure if FR fans would agree.
FR fans would be wrong, in addition to already being wrong by virtue of being FR fans. Not that that has anything to do with any of the actual points I've made so far--since I didn't bring up desert size or world difficulty per se, but rather key stylistic differences between the settings. But since you bring it up, yes, Dark Sun was specifically made to be about a brutal land, with tougher than normal (for a D&D setting) critters and specialized rules for water conservation and desert survival, since even the environment itself can kill you. So yes, Dark Sun was specifically and explicitly built (by design) to be tougher than the average D&D world--in general, not just within the desert itself, but the ENTIRE world is supposed to be tougher than other D&D worlds. According not to me as a Dark Sun fan, but to the designers at the time.
I'm an FR fan. I'm a massive Darksun fan.
Darksun is ridiculously more dangerous than FR - deserts or otherwise. But the desserts on FR are RIDICULOUSLY better. Have you *seen* Elven angelfood cake? It's DIVINE!!! Whereas in Darksun - you get sweet-beetles lightly roasted and crushed over dehydrated Kank-pod, which is thickened in the heat once you puncture that membrane. No comparison - FR desserts are way better.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117045Seriously, why would I wanna play some lame generic camel riding nomad when I could play freaking cannibal halfling fighting half-giants with psionic powers, riding giant dune beetles across the desert landscape, with long legged elves sprinting marathons across the sands and bald, barrel chested dwarves building shit all day?
As my reply showed, I agree!
If I'm going to be playing a fantasy campaign in a dystopian desert, it will be Dark Sun. It won't be in the Shaar Desolation.
Oh, and it will be the muls building things because they're bred to work. (Oh no, I'm racist!)
Quote from: tenbones;1117156I'm an FR fan. I'm a massive Darksun fan.
Darksun is ridiculously more dangerous than FR - deserts or otherwise. But the desserts on FR are RIDICULOUSLY better. Have you *seen* Elven angelfood cake? It's DIVINE!!! Whereas in Darksun - you get sweet-beetles lightly roasted and crushed over dehydrated Kank-pod, which is thickened in the heat once you puncture that membrane. No comparison - FR desserts are way better.
I retract my previous statements implying universal wrongness on FR fans, and that angelfood cake sounds delicious! Though, talk of Kanks makes me wanna try their delicious honey or some fermented Kank Nectar brews. :p
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1117164As my reply showed, I agree!
If I'm going to be playing a fantasy campaign in a dystopian desert, it will be Dark Sun. It won't be in the Shaar Desolation.
That's the thing, Dark Sun and FR are two COMPLETELY different settings that aren't even in the same sub-genre. FR is milk-toast quasi-medieval high fantasy with recognizable Earth-like cultures, Dark Sun is an alien post-apocalyptic dystopia that bears no resemblance to medieval Europe, Egypt or the Middle East. The two are NOTHING alike and the fact that FR has deserts doesn't mean that therefore you can play adventures there that are JUST like playing Dark Sun.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1117164Oh, and it will be the muls building things because they're bred to work. (Oh no, I'm racist!)
Yeah, but muls are usually bred for the arena, with more incompetent ones used for mining. Dwarves are typically builders because of their focus, though muls and half-giants are also used to carry heavy building materials.
Actually Visionstorm does have one good point about why Darksun is nowhere near as successful then the Realms: No Gnomes.
As 4es failure showed you cut Gnomes from DnD at your peril.
Quote from: tenbones;1117156I'm an FR fan. I'm a massive Darksun fan.
Darksun is ridiculously more dangerous than FR - deserts or otherwise. But the desserts on FR are RIDICULOUSLY better. Have you *seen* Elven angelfood cake? It's DIVINE!!! Whereas in Darksun - you get sweet-beetles lightly roasted and crushed over dehydrated Kank-pod, which is thickened in the heat once you puncture that membrane. No comparison - FR desserts are way better.
I am sure that I have already seen that dystopian future on the news trying to get people to eat bugs.
I go with Faerun because it's the path of least resistance. I could build my own setting to be honest I am too lazy. So I stick with Faerun. It did bother me that with 3E they made at least the core used greyhawk as a setting then went out of their ay to ignore it in favor of Faerun. Why not simply use Faerun for the especially if it was more popular.
Quote from: Shasarak;1117193I am sure that I have already seen that dystopian future on the news trying to get people to eat bugs.
I'm not opposed to the idea of getting extra protein from more renewable sources (meats cheap in the USA because of the meat lobby), but the panicky way they're selling it makes me uncomfortable.
I mean we use plenty of insect material in our food anyway, it's just out of sight out of mind.
I've got two unoriginal points to make about FR. First up, it's f*&%ing boring. Case closed. Second, names. It seems to me that DMs and players, even when steeped in FR lore, struggle with pronouncing, let alone remembering, NPC names. Araevin Teshurr. Ellifain Tuuserail. Galaeron Nihmedu. Methrammar Aerasumé. Pharaun Mizzrym. Etc. Clusterfucks of vowels and consonants, ahoy!
Quote from: Dylan;1117206I've got two unoriginal points to make about FR. First up, it's f*&%ing boring. Case closed.
Open that case up a bit. Boring in what state/with what sources? Boring compared to what alternatives?
Forgotten Realms is the Star Trek Voyager of D&D settings. Warm, comfortable, and not challenging. I don't even say that as a criticism. Sometimes you want the easy and familiar.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1117223Forgotten Realms is the Star Trek Voyager of D&D settings. Warm, comfortable, and not challenging. I don't even say that as a criticism. Sometimes you want the easy and familiar.
So... Elminster is Janeway? The only captain who NEEDED to be courtmartialed (lets admit it, for a utopian post-scarcity society, they produced a lot of military commanders who simply could not follow the rules...)
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1117223Forgotten Realms is the Star Trek Voyager of D&D settings. Warm, comfortable, and not challenging. I don't even say that as a criticism. Sometimes you want the easy and familiar.
Greetings!
*Howling*:D That's just great, Ratman!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Teodrik;1117059Even though I tried to get into 4e FR but found it too contrived and completely unnecessary, I still have to agree that the Neverwinter book is great. I have a hard time coming up a specific FR setting book I would call better regardless of edition. For me it is definitely the best setting book wizbro has ever done.
Well, the diehard fanbase certainly agreed it was unnecessary. I suspect it might have had more success if the world map hadn't been created by randomly smearing the contents of a sick baby's nappy/diaper over a light blue background.
I think one of the reasons the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was so successful was that the people who wrote it were actually participating in a successful 4E campaign. That's not true of quite a few of the 4E books.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117181(snip) That's the thing, Dark Sun and FR are two COMPLETELY different settings that aren't even in the same sub-genre. FR is milk-toast quasi-medieval high fantasy with recognizable Earth-like cultures, Dark Sun is an alien post-apocalyptic dystopia that bears no resemblance to medieval Europe, Egypt or the Middle East. The two are NOTHING alike and the fact that FR has deserts doesn't mean that therefore you can play adventures there that are JUST like playing Dark Sun. (snip)
While in the main I agree with your conclusion that Dark Sun and FR are COMPLETELY different, if you have a look at Elfharrow in the 4E campaign guide (I previously typed the Shaar Desolation which is the overall region, but Elfharrow is the specific part I meant), you will see that there are some common themes especially considering the 4E version of FR is quite dystopian. So, no, my comment wasn't based on simply seeing that FR has deserts but from actually reading the campaign guide.
Oh, and Dark Sun does draw on real world mythology: The city-states are quite reminiscent of Babylon, Mesopotamia, and Sumeria to the point where I plan to use a fair bit of Necromancer Games' Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia in my next campaign. Of course, the Dark Sun-specific stuff will need to be added to the mix.
Quote from: Dylan;1117206I've got two unoriginal points to make about FR. First up, it's f*&%ing boring. Case closed. Second, names. It seems to me that DMs and players, even when steeped in FR lore, struggle with pronouncing, let alone remembering, NPC names. Araevin Teshurr. Ellifain Tuuserail. Galaeron Nihmedu. Methrammar Aerasumé. Pharaun Mizzrym. Etc. Clusterfucks of vowels and consonants, ahoy!
Boring? Only if you choose to make it boring. That's purely subjective personal taste, not "case closed"-objective fact.
Names? Ed generally does a really good job with names; Salvatore typically shits the bed. The ones you mention pass these two basic tests: They are quite easy to pronounce and they communicate that they belong in the FR world. I'm sure that, if you could concentrate more than a microsecond, you would find them relatively easy to pronounce.
Why is an "older, deader" setting easier to update?
Quote from: Ashakyre;1117231Why is an "older, deader" setting easier to update?
Fewer active fans resisting change. You generally have a broader, shallower overview, meaning there are less 'fiddly bits' to polish over, sand down or just ignore. Being deader also means they are not actively changing and warping as you work on them.
Look at just one example: Five years ago there were no Dragonborn in Forgotten Realms. Books were being written from that perspective. Or rather: Dragonborn existed but they were some sort of demi-god servants of the Dragon Gods, transformed from non-scaly races, and only in the distant past. Suddenly, yesterday, an entire continent of Dragonborn appears! With an entire culture, social mores, and explicitely NOT non-scaly races transformed by the Gods.
In a setting that hasn't been updated or touched in thirty years (meaningfully), then its a lot easier to wave your hands and say 'Dragonborn were always around. They mostly live over there, in that place. What? You don't remember? Well... it HAS BEEN thirty years, you know..."
Quote from: Spike;1117234Fewer active fans resisting change. You generally have a broader, shallower overview, meaning there are less 'fiddly bits' to polish over, sand down or just ignore. Being deader also means they are not actively changing and warping as you work on them.
Look at just one example: Five years ago there were no Dragonborn in Forgotten Realms. Books were being written from that perspective. Or rather: Dragonborn existed but they were some sort of demi-god servants of the Dragon Gods, transformed from non-scaly races, and only in the distant past. Suddenly, yesterday, an entire continent of Dragonborn appears! With an entire culture, social mores, and explicitely NOT non-scaly races transformed by the Gods.
In a setting that hasn't been updated or touched in thirty years (meaningfully), then its a lot easier to wave your hands and say 'Dragonborn were always around. They mostly live over there, in that place. What? You don't remember? Well... it HAS BEEN thirty years, you know..."
There have been Dragonborn in FR since August 2008. It's been more than 11 years rather than 5, but your point otherwise stands. My how time flies...
Quote from: Shasarak;1117193Actually Visionstorm does have one good point about why Darksun is nowhere near as successful then the Realms: No Gnomes.
As 4es failure showed you cut Gnomes from DnD at your peril.
I know you probably jest, but I have never actually met or even played online with anyone who actually liked Gnomes. I have only rarely ever even ran into people in social media who professed to like that race, and the few times I have I was dumbfound and some people have even commented on it in replies.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1117227While in the main I agree with your conclusion that Dark Sun and FR are COMPLETELY different, if you have a look at Elfharrow in the 4E campaign guide (I previously typed the Shaar Desolation which is the overall region, but Elfharrow is the specific part I meant), you will see that there are some common themes especially considering the 4E version of FR is quite dystopian. So, no, my comment wasn't based on simply seeing that FR has deserts but from actually reading the campaign guide.
Oh, and Dark Sun does draw on real world mythology: The city-states are quite reminiscent of Babylon, Mesopotamia, and Sumeria to the point where I plan to use a fair bit of Necromancer Games' Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia in my next campaign. Of course, the Dark Sun-specific stuff will need to be added to the mix.
TBH, with the exception of the PHB as a reference for curiosity's sake I totally skipped 4e, and I'm not that familiar with FR in that edition. So the idea of a dystopian FR seems alien to me.
Also, while I concede that there are elements of very ancient middle eastern cultures used as inspiration in Dark Sun, these tend to be more like stylistic choices--particularly their architecture--rather than attempts to represent variants of those cultures in the world. Dark Sun itself is not an attempt at ancient Mesopotamian fantasy, but rather uses stylistic elements of those ancient cultures to invoke an unusual alien feel to the world, while FR is an attempt at ancient-Medieval European style fantasy with Arabic and Persian elements (and Asian elements if you include Kara Tur).
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117242I know you probably jest, but I have never actually met or even played online with anyone who actually liked Gnomes. I have only rarely ever even ran into people in social media who professed to like that race, and the few times I have I was dumbfound and some people have even commented on it in replies.
My wife has always liked halflings, usually in some combination of barbarian, ranger, and/or rogue. However, with 5e, she has instead embraced Forest Gnomes as her favorite (at-will minor illusion and speak with small animals is fun for her). She's not a typical player, and most of the rest of the group forget that gnomes exist and keep referring to her as a halfling (which, to be fair, most of her characters have been). In the most recent game (an Eberron campaign), she's playing a shifter druid and she has had trouble remembering that her base move is 30 ft. rather than the 25 ft. she's used to (not that she spends all that much combat in her normal form anyways... dire wolf and giant spider are so much more effective).
Quote from: Spike;1117234Fewer active fans resisting change. You generally have a broader, shallower overview, meaning there are less 'fiddly bits' to polish over, sand down or just ignore. Being deader also means they are not actively changing and warping as you work on them.
Look at just one example: Five years ago there were no Dragonborn in Forgotten Realms. Books were being written from that perspective. Or rather: Dragonborn existed but they were some sort of demi-god servants of the Dragon Gods, transformed from non-scaly races, and only in the distant past. Suddenly, yesterday, an entire continent of Dragonborn appears! With an entire culture, social mores, and explicitely NOT non-scaly races transformed by the Gods.
In a setting that hasn't been updated or touched in thirty years (meaningfully), then its a lot easier to wave your hands and say 'Dragonborn were always around. They mostly live over there, in that place. What? You don't remember? Well... it HAS BEEN thirty years, you know..."
The other, in my opinion larger, problem with updating the older and deader setting is that it is deader. No one complains when you update anything because no one cares one way or the other.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117242I know you probably jest, but I have never actually met or even played online with anyone who actually liked Gnomes. I have only rarely ever even ran into people in social media who professed to like that race, and the few times I have I was dumbfound and some people have even commented on it in replies.
Its the network effect. You dont care, I dont care but Tommy does so the group chooses to play something else that does have Gnomes.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1117223Forgotten Realms is the Star Trek Voyager of D&D settings. Warm, comfortable, and not challenging. I don't even say that as a criticism. Sometimes you want the easy and familiar.
I'd further contend that it's even closer to Star Trek Voyager's alternate character interpretations from SFDebris (archived here on TVTropes (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/SFDebrisStarTrekVoyager)).
In other words, warm and comfortable on the surface Lovecraftian nightmare beneath the surface.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1117244My wife has always liked halflings, usually in some combination of barbarian, ranger, and/or rogue. However, with 5e, she has instead embraced Forest Gnomes as her favorite (at-will minor illusion and speak with small animals is fun for her). She's not a typical player, and most of the rest of the group forget that gnomes exist and keep referring to her as a halfling (which, to be fair, most of her characters have been). In the most recent game (an Eberron campaign), she's playing a shifter druid and she has had trouble remembering that her base move is 30 ft. rather than the 25 ft. she's used to (not that she spends all that much combat in her normal form anyways... dire wolf and giant spider are so much more effective).
Yeah, most people don't even remember they exist (hence, may confuse a small race PC for a halfling during play), and when they do play them, often it's cuz of secondary reasons pertaining to a gnome subrace with cool tricks that work for a certain character type, or maybe cuz they did something cool with them in a specific setting.
Quote from: Shasarak;1117247Its the network effect. You dont care, I dont care but Tommy does so the group chooses to play something else that does have Gnomes.
Ya, but how big can that network of players be? I have met FAR more people who like playing half-orcs, but not making them a standard race never hurt AD&D 2e, and never stopped anyone from simply including them in their game regardless, even if they're not an official standard race.
Still, Dark Sun's greatest barrier of entry is its uniqueness (which paradoxically is also its greatest strength), cuz everything works differently and most people don't know anything about it. While in FR you don't need to know anything about it cuz its vanilla high fantasy--you've already tried similar stuff even if you've never played that world specifically. But you'll need to read up a bit of material or have someone explain it to you if you wanna try Dark Sun, since it's an original setting that deviates significantly from the norm and NO race (other than human) works quite the same way as standard fantasy.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1116803As a person who hates how Static Star Wars has become, Il say there is a counterbalance to this.
A setting can be "Just-Right" and developing it can simply make it worse. You can always play in older material but its less likely to receive support.
For instance the Development of Darksun Mostly robbed it of any mystery.
Just about all the settings got this rot over time as TSR got it in their heads that these settings "were not fleshed out enough!" which totally contradicts the original idea of giving a framework and alot of blank areas for players to make of it whatever they wanted. So over time every damn hex had to be filled in. Usually in tandem with the idiot assumption that these settings are "not populated enough!".
Quote from: Spinachcat;1116824I could happily disparage FR, but I'm a Rifts fan so that would seem hypocritical.
FR makes sense as the 5e core because of the economic power of the FR brand, and its not realistic to expect a company to not chase the biggest pile of dollars.
Personally, I'd prefer if new editions got new settings, but regurgitation of nostalgia makes more money.
Another reason may be that their RPGA and equivalents have been predominantly set in FR. Thats been ongoing since the 90s. With notable side settings of course like the Living Galaxy and Living Seattle ones RPGA used to run.
Quote from: Zalman;1116875I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone thought D&D needed to include a "default" setting at all. (And of course using any previously existing setting is going to invoke shoehorning and/or gutting, given the wealth of legacy material from/for a variety of settings).
That is easy. Not everyone is good at, or wants to build their own world.
Quote from: Blankman;11169145e D&D doesn't have a default setting. Faerun is mentioned as an example a few times in the PHB and DMG, and the examples of fantasy names for humans in the PHB are from Forgotten Realms cultures, but other than that, there really isn't any default setting material in the core (there are some lists of gods in Appendix B of the PHB, but those include Norse, Celtic, Greek and Egyptian pantheons, as well as the gods from Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Eberron). The DMG has a lot of material on creating your own setting though.
Faerun shows up as the setting of the starter box campaign, and for most of the published adventures, but adventures have to have some setting.
1: 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.
Quote from: Zalman;1116970Do they? I don't recall most published modules of the 1e era including a setting, or even elements of a setting. Could be I'm getting senile I guess. Either way, we always dropped modules into our own settings anyway.
Yes. Early modules were either set somewhere in Greyhawk, or left blank. Bone Hill and Cult of the Reptile God are both set in Greyhawk, But far as I can tell the whole GDQ series is left blank.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1117139So you believe the desserts on Faerun should be easier to survive than desserts on Athas? I'm unsure if FR fans would agree.
Its FR. Even the palm trees are trying to kill you when your pillow isnt.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1117223Forgotten Realms is the Star Trek Voyager of D&D settings. Warm, comfortable, and not challenging. I don't even say that as a criticism. Sometimes you want the easy and familiar.
What the hell Voyager did you watch as that sure wasnt the case.
Quote from: Omega;1117258That is easy. Not everyone is good at, or wants to build their own world.
Providing published settings is a very different thing than calling one of those settings a "default". Having to create your own world really has nothing to do with whether or not WoTC names a default setting.
Quote from: Omega;1117267Yes. Early modules were either set somewhere in Greyhawk, or left blank. Bone Hill and Cult of the Reptile God are both set in Greyhawk, But far as I can tell the whole GDQ series is left blank.
Right, "left blank" means no explicit setting mentioned. So the question "do adventures have to include some setting" is clearly historically "no". I'm not sure how you get a "yes" from your explanation.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117250Yeah, most people don't even remember [Gnomes] exist (hence, may confuse a small race PC for a halfling during play), and when they do play them, often it's cuz of secondary reasons pertaining to a gnome subrace with cool tricks that work for a certain character type, or maybe cuz they did something cool with them in a specific setting.
Points to usernameThough admittedly my username is taken from a joke back in high school, so. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've run a game with a gnome PC... actually I have a demographics thing on my wiki, let me check... since I started tracking characters in games I've run since '05, I've had exactly 2 gnomes in my games.
Compare that to 4 halflings, or 21 humans.
Quote from: Zalman;1117287Right, "left blank" means no explicit setting mentioned. So the question "do adventures have to include some setting" is clearly historically "no". I'm not sure how you get a "yes" from your explanation.
You asked if any modules used the published settings. The answer is Yes. But not all.
Quote from: Omega;1117414You asked if any modules used the published settings. The answer is Yes. But not all.
Ah, not quite:
Quote from: Blankman;1116914adventures have to have some setting.
Quote from: Zalman;1116970Do they?
No, modules do not
have to include any elements of a published campaign setting. Clearly we agree on this point.
I'd be willing to bet that Faerun in part initially came about to move TSR away from Gygax's Greyhawk and his other works. Gary's exit from TSR wasn't an amicable thing and I'd imagine the idea for a brand new setting not associated with Gary had a lot of appeal for the people in charge of TSR at the time. And the initial FR material was actually pretty good.
I personally would've preferred if 5e had released with a slant towards including all the older settings. Even the adventure league could've done 1 season in FR, then another in Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, etc. I think not exploiting these old settings more was a missed opportunity. Paizo adventure paths do well because they have a lot of variety in them. I think D&D groups would've eaten up an adventure module in traditional Faerun then the next one being Spelljammer.
Quote from: Dracones;1117445I'd be willing to bet that Faerun in part initially came about to move TSR away from Gygax's Greyhawk and his other works. Gary's exit from TSR wasn't an amicable thing and I'd imagine the idea for a brand new setting not associated with Gary had a lot of appeal for the people in charge of TSR at the time. And the initial FR material was actually pretty good. (snip)
I believe there was also the issue of Gary being a design bottleneck for anything Greyhawk-related. Ed had a tonne of material for FR that had already been published, and thousands upon thousands of pages of material that had not. So, even before considering what other internal designers and freelancers might do, TSR had access to far more material than Gary had ever produced and was likely to produce - particularly as the end of his time at TSR coincided with his "hookers and blow"-period. So, yes, a fresh post-Gygax start plus no obstacles to product being produced in the quantities that an (inept) management might require.
The Psionics book was "involved" in Dark Sun in the sense that the creators were literally forced to include it by Lorraine Williams because she wanted to force more D&D gamers to buy it.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1117586The Psionics book was "involved" in Dark Sun in the sense that the creators were literally forced to include it by Lorraine Williams because she wanted to force more D&D gamers to buy it.
The 2E Psionics book was pretty good, but still fiddly compared to Gamma World's psionics. When I ran Dark Sun, I used OD&D + Gamma World which ran better for me.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1117602The 2E Psionics book was pretty good, but still fiddly compared to Gamma World's psionics. When I ran Dark Sun, I used OD&D + Gamma World which ran better for me.
I never got around playing Gamma World, so I don't know how good their psionics system was, but I was always ambivalent about 2e's rules. It's been too long so I don't remember specifics, but I thought some of the powers were too gimmicky or of limited usage (or outright useless or pathetically weak in the case of some attack powers), and the PSP costs seemed too arbitrary or prohibitive sometimes. I did like that they treated powers kinda like a Proficiency, though, and preferred that approach to D&D's Vancian magic system, but adding PSP costs on top of having to roll to
maybe succeed in using a power was a bit too much at times and added to the considerable bookkeeping that I already hated from having to keep track of so many spells.
Another thing that was hit or miss for me was Psionic Combat. I thought that the basic rules to establish contact were OK, but having multiple psionic defenses was an over complication that felt arbitrary in its implementation, with different bonuses or penalties against each specific separate type of psionic attack (more bookkeeping), and certain defenses being objectively superior to others against ALL powers, making the need for different psionic defenses pointless and superfluous (EVERYONE was gonna use Tower of Iron Will--the best psionic defense--regardless).
The 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.
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.
True. Love 'em or hate 'em (or feel ambivalent about them) psionics were a major feature of the setting that they managed to work well into the setting's background and lore, even if the designers were basically forced to include them initially as a gimmick to sell the Psionicists Handbook. Part of the reason was that the setting was built from the ground up with psionics in mind since early in the setting's development, rather than added later as an afterthought. Another thing I think helped was the alien feeling of the world, which had an almost sci-fi feel to it that worked well with psychic abilities. And every other beasty had some sort of psionic trick up their sleeves (or scaly claws).
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 (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackMagic). 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*.:D
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*.:D
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.
Quote from: BronzeDragon;1118309This 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.
Christ. A worse setting than Eberron...
but ravnica is good though
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1118862but ravnica is good though
It's not even good as TP (not soft enough).
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1118862but ravnica is good though
I really tried to like Ravnica when I first got it but quickly found I just couldn't. What is it about Ravnica that you think makes it a good 5e D&D setting?
Quote from: HappyDaze;1118878I really tried to like Ravnica when I first got it but quickly found I just couldn't. What is it about Ravnica that you think makes it a good 5e D&D setting?
Greetings!
HappyDaze! Why does Ravnica suck for you? I don't own the book, but the mere advertisements and blurbs I have read for it don't inspire me in the slightest.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I know nothing of Ravnica, so I to am curious to hear about its vast suckitude.
Quick questions for the Ravnica fans: Does the book come with a map of the world or city? If not, and I ask because my quick glimpse through did not reveal one, how do you get a feel for the layout of the place?
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1118942Quick questions for the Ravnica fans: Does the book come with a map of the world or city? If not, and I ask because my quick glimpse through did not reveal one, how do you get a feel for the layout of the place?
There is s map of one (fairly small?) district.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1118952There is s map of one (fairly small?) district.
Thanks. That doesn't seem like much. Is it a playable world? What do you do in lieu of maps?
I bumped a pair of old threads, one about Eberron and one about Ravnica, that will help keep me from retyping a bunch of old complaints. We can probably take those conversations to those threads and leave this one for FR (or not, doesn't really matter too much to me).
Ravinca is Planescape after Disney bought it.
Actually, Planescape is the key to the Worlds. The Forgotten Realms are full of portals. Just decide that the Shaar is caused by Dark Sun's plane "bleeding off" to the FR and go on from there.
Re: Faerun, to me it always a source of ideas and places. This, the various editions (*) do very well, then it is upon you to put everything in an interesting motion. Years ago I posted here about the ending of my 13 years campaign in the Realms. The core inspiration for the overarching plot was the Iran-Contra scandal with the Gods of Good, Devils and Demons as the main factions - and it worked. Go figure.
Edit: (*) Except 4E. I bought the 4E FR books during a trip in Washington D.C. I thought "Well, 4E is pure suckage, but maybe the fluff is good." I ended up throwing them in a bin a the airport before catching my plane home. For days I was worried about the Homeland Security treating the case as a terror attack using weapons of mass imbecilement.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1118878I really tried to like Ravnica when I first got it but quickly found I just couldn't. What is it about Ravnica that you think makes it a good 5e D&D setting?
Did you ever like Coruscant from Star Wars? It's basically that but fantasy. The awe inspiring huge scope of a city that spans an entire world... built into all ecosystems. Then you add in several factions that are all at each other's throats but also need each other to survive in the city and you get a place that's constantly full of shifting goals and interesting complications -- it's a perfect sandbox setting in that sense.
Planescape is kind of similar, it's true, with the multiple factions.
It also offers a chance to see a multitude of exotic races as common city denizens and player races that you normally don't in stuff like FR. (Like loxodons, which are basically elephant-folk.)
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1119194Did you ever like Coruscant from Star Wars? It's basically that but fantasy. The awe inspiring huge scope of a city that spans an entire world... built into all ecosystems. Then you add in several factions that are all at each other's throats but also need each other to survive in the city and you get a place that's constantly full of shifting goals and interesting complications -- it's a perfect sandbox setting in that sense.
Planescape is kind of similar, it's true, with the multiple factions.
It also offers a chance to see a multitude of exotic races as common city denizens and player races that you normally don't in stuff like FR. (Like loxodons, which are basically elephant-folk.)
Coruscant was only one (central, very important) world in Star Wars and it existed by being supported by thousands of other worlds. Ravnica is effectively cut off from pretty much everywhere else and is somehow ("magic" <<
>>) self-sustaining. Beyond that, the factions seem so artificial to me that they beak my suspension of disbelief harder than the magic of the setting. As for exotic races mixing together, you can get that in pretty much every D&D setting these days.
What do you mean, how are they artificial? They all fill a societal niche and need each other.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1119216What do you mean, how are they artificial? They all fill a societal niche and need each other.
The Guilds make no sense to me in the way they are organized, how they are run, and how they interact with each other. And that's because
they are not supposed to make sense as a magical Guildpact governs all of that and requires nothing more than the reader just accept it. The world was made for a card game and it's shoddy constructs are ill-suited for an immersive RPG experience. Hell, I even tried to read one of the Ravnica novels and threw it in the trash after 100-or-so pages because it was just shit.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1118942Quick questions for the Ravnica fans: Does the book come with a map of the world or city? If not, and I ask because my quick glimpse through did not reveal one, how do you get a feel for the layout of the place?
There is an expansion with maps and descriptions of the city's ten districts.
Actually Ravinca could be an interesting place to go in a Planescape setting - a Plane with its own sub-planes. Maybe some PC/NPC come from there. I don't see, however, how it alone can support a meaningful campaign.
Quote from: Reckall;1119277There is an expansion with maps and descriptions of the city's ten districts.
Actually Ravinca could be an interesting place to go in a Planescape setting - a Plane with its own sub-planes. Maybe some PC/NPC come from there. I don't see, however, how it alone can support a meaningful campaign.
Thanks - I will check that out.
To swing this thread back around to Forgotten Realms, Why choose FR?:
Every world needs that killer combo City Dungeon and the Realms has a great one. The combination of Water Deep and Under Mountain together with a side serving of Skull Port is the best I have seen produced for DnD (honourable mention to Ptolus Monte Cook's City By The Spire). You can really run any sort of campaign in Water Deep or just use it as a base to adventure from or even just rip off all of those quirky NPCs to use in your own mega city.
What about the bad guys? Well the Realms has that covered as well. Why have a Dungeon under your city when you can just build your city in a dungeon. Menzoberanzan is a shining jewel in the Underdark filled with thousands of homicidal Dark Elves, the homeland of everyones favourite Drizzt and a fantastic map to cover your wall with. Its the perfect place to run that Evil campaign that you always wanted or to threaten those high level PCs that run roughshod over everything else. Dont settle for second rans like Zhentrim Keep or Luskan.
FR is also home to some of the most "fridge horror" elements, cosmic Mary Sues and the most boring and uninspired design choices you could imagine.
If the Forgotten Realms setting were a painting, it would be an earth-toned portrait of Rey "Skywalker" painted over an older portrait of some sort of necrophiliac tentacle rape scene.
Quote from: Chris24601;1119447FR is also home to some of the most "fridge horror" elements, cosmic Mary Sues and the most boring and uninspired design choices you could imagine.
If the Forgotten Realms setting were a painting, it would be an earth-toned portrait of Rey "Skywalker" painted over an older portrait of some sort of necrophiliac tentacle rape scene.
...what?
The thing I hate most about FR -- besides the fact it's a bloated, overly recotconned mess with world ending disasters happening every year or two -- is how it's perceived by normies as being a generic medieval fantasy setting when it certainly isn't one.
The Realms is a Generic medieval fantasy setting but it is not medieval Europe with magic. Maybe that is where the confusion lies.
Quote from: TJS;1116989If by 'better' you mean more suitable for default D&D then sure.
Dark Sun really does need it's own system.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1117002And the point of Dark Sun isn't Dessert Survival 24/7--that's just a feature of the world.
Dark Sun and Dragonlance both do something really fun in the process of outlining a campaign world. Dragonlance was a pioneering product. It was the first Adventure Path,
and it introduced a new campaign world at the same time that it created a campaign through a series of modules. That's a lot to do at once, but it did a pretty great job of it, from my then-teenage-and-new-to-RPGs perspective. It really wasn't a campaign setting as we know them now, i.e., an encyclopedia and almanac of an imagined setting; instead it revealed just enough of this new setting to let the DM run the campaign. And not just any setting, but one that messed around with a whole Hell of a lot of standard D&D, effectively giving the game a makeover and making D&D fresh to even veteran players. No orcs here - we've got draconians. In fact, we've got dragons as celestials, near the center of a draconic cosmology. We've got steel pieces instead of gold, a map that is quite the departure from your typical FRPG map (to this day, I might add), a
medieval post-apocalyptic setting (still fairly innovative), a tweaked magic system driven by the world's three moons, dragonarmies, a well-developed cosmology/religion, the most thematic series of dungeons you're ever gonna see, awesome isometric maps, kewl artifacts like the crystal staff, the discs of Mormon, amulets of faith, etc. Oh, and a mission of re-discovering the Ancient True Faith (Mormonism! :) ) that still seems pretty bold to me, by D&D standards, all these years later.
And absolutely gorgeous art throughout, to boot.
That's a lot to pack into an AP. Okay, so, the plot was rail-roady. And reading the novels killed all the fun. And decoupling the pregens from their archetypal roles wasn't explained until like the fourth iteration.
It was D&D, but D&D with a well-executed makeover. I'm still impressed with it, all these years later. I'd love to see what Dragonlance did as the model for Adventure Paths; give us a vaguely-sketched-in world and a made-over D&D, along with the campaign.
(All of this is obviously in reference to the original, War of the Lance product line. I pretty much hated everything else they ever published for Dragonlance, novels included)
Dark Sun was similar, in that it did a lot of tinkering with standard D&D rules and tropes.
I'd also love to see WotC give Dragonlance a 5e makeover, if I could trust them to just re-use the original art and stay true to the original aesthetics, only commissioning new art if it can work alongside the old seamlessly. Because the WotL could be a truly great AP, if released as a hardcover with all the writing and design wrinkles ironed out.
Quote from: Shasarak;1120192The Realms is a Generic medieval fantasy setting but it is not medieval Europe with magic. Maybe that is where the confusion lies.
To a large extent, yes, but I'd argue it's only medieval insofar as most of the technology is a mishmash of medieval and early modern. Very little else really has medieval verisimilitude.
Quote from: areallifetrex;1120331To a large extent, yes, but I'd argue it's only medieval insofar as most of the technology is a mishmash of medieval and early modern. Very little else really has medieval verisimilitude.
I would suggest that problem lies with the items available on the DnD equipment list.
all that i retain from my once massive FR collection are the two 2e undermountain box sets, the maps from ruins of zhentil keep box set, and the maps from the netheril boxed set.
I actually quite like the Realms in their original version, particularly including some of what Greenwood said about how they were meant to be before they were somewhat sanitized by Williams-era TSR.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1120735I actually quite like the Realms in their original version, particularly including some of what Greenwood said about how they were meant to be before they were somewhat sanitized by Williams-era TSR.
yeah i liked the dead 3, great villains with heavy player recognition respect, and i really liked the first incarnation of cyric, they should've left well enough alone. if your god of death/dead would seem out of place hanging out in dracula's castle i want no part of it. kelemvor was the natty light of death gods. fuck him right to death with a pineapple.
Essentially, everything that was done with the realms subsequent to its original release tended toward making it worse.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1120888Essentially, everything that was done with the realms subsequent to its original release tended toward making it worse.
As much as I like to hate on FR, I have to admit that this is the main reason I hate FR. It has been arbitrarily revised and superficially redefined in haphazard ways so many times that it's lost all semblance of self-identity, consistency or even consequentiality. Every edition there's some new world changing event that kinda, sorta changes the Realms, but not really, cuz it's only an excuse to introduce some new game convention (like class changes, or new races that arbitrarily HAVE to exist in every D&D world), which somehow necessitates retconning the world's entire backstory and killing half the gods, while most of the cities and geographic regions stay mostly the same (safe minor changes). And every time FR loses a bit of its soul and becomes this misshapen corporatized perversion of what it used to be.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1120735I actually quite like the Realms in their original version, particularly including some of what Greenwood said about how they were meant to be before they were somewhat sanitized by Williams-era TSR.
Probably wouldn't have been so bad if Lorraine hadn't been hellbent on monetizing the Buck Rogers IP at the expense of, well,
everything else.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1120888Essentially, everything that was done with the realms subsequent to its original release tended toward making it worse.
The novels played a major role in its debasement. Even Ed is guilty but, as he has explained, he preferred to write novels about putting his characters in un-Realms-ish situations rather than have other writers do the same.
Practically anything that isn't by Ed or Eric Boyd just doesn't feel right, IMO. Some of Steven Schend's stuff is also good and Rich Baker is very reliable.
One of the reasons I like the 4E version of the Realms is that it helped my players grok that I wanted a Realms that was more Greenwoodian and far less Salvatorean/pastiche-ian. I just wish it had come with a decent map.
4e Realms was neither Greenwoodian nor Salvatorian. That was specifically the idea of 4e to take a big steaming dump on the Realms which no other Realms author managed to do no matter how Mary Sue their protagonists were.
Quote from: Shasarak;11211494e Realms was neither Greenwoodian nor Salvatorian. That was specifically the idea of 4e to take a big steaming dump on the Realms which no other Realms author managed to do no matter how Mary Sue their protagonists were.
I know it's not but, because it was such a radical departure from the past, my players accepted the way I wanted it rebuilt free from the novels that they enjoy. It's Greenwoodian now.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121175I know it's not but, because it was such a radical departure from the past, my players accepted the way I wanted it rebuilt free from the novels that they enjoy. It's Greenwoodian now.
I did something similar with my 4e lvl 1-29 Realms Loudwater Campaign - toned down the specifically-4e stuff, turned up the Greenwoodian flavour. Worked pretty well at least for the first 20 levels! :D
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121175I know it's not but, because it was such a radical departure from the past, my players accepted the way I wanted it rebuilt free from the novels that they enjoy. It's Greenwoodian now.
4e Realms did seem to be designed for people who never liked the Realms.
Quote from: S'mon;1121190I did something similar with my 4e lvl 1-29 Realms Loudwater Campaign - toned down the specifically-4e stuff, turned up the Greenwoodian flavour. Worked pretty well at least for the first 20 levels! :D
There's an element of tabula rasa about the 4E version of FR that I embrace(d); as someone who followed your Loudwater campaign from the beginning, I think that's true of the way you also approached the revised world.
Quote from: Shasarak;11211944e Realms did seem to be designed for people who never liked the Realms.
There's an element of truth in that statement - and yet I have been a fan of FR since the original articles in the pages of The Dragon (as it was, IIRC), have run campaigns since the OGB, and yet I still really like the 4E Realms. (Obviously, I'm an outlier.) The 4E Realms did what I wanted it to do: It got the metaplot out of the world I wanted to run. Also, I had been wanting a more dystopian Realms for some time because there is even more for my PCs to do.
But I will never say a kind word about the map that was put together for FR4E. That was and will always be an abomination that is simply unfit-for-purpose while looking like the near-random smearing of the contents of a sick baby's nappy. I wonder if it might have been better received if the map wasn't inspired by baby shit and if Ed had been persuaded/contracted to write lore on the important areas of Faerun instead of creating a boring new continent with too little detail to make it truly interesting. (I would have loved Returned Abeir to have replaced Halruaa on the map.)
i was a fan until kelemvor became a god then i'm like "into the trash it goes"
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121433There's an element of tabula rasa about the 4E version of FR that I embrace(d); as someone who followed your Loudwater campaign from the beginning, I think that's true of the way you also approached the revised world.
Yeah, I'm not into Metaplot at all, hate the stuff. But I liked the idea of Greenwoodian Realms as a lost Golden Age, and the PCs fighting to restore it & turn back the 'Points of Light' 4e dystopia. Having Orcus as the BBEG worked well. Only thing I didn't like was that Epic Tier PCs tended to outgrow the setting. Heroic & Paragon were great.
I'm enjoying the Princes of the Apocalypse 5e sequel to Loudwater - http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/ - session 14 today then off to see Sabaton at Wembley Arena! :cool:
But it doesn't carry the same dramatic weight, 5e Realms is a lot less grim and there's not much sense the world is on a knife edge.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121433There's an element of tabula rasa about the 4E version of FR that I embrace(d); as someone who followed your Loudwater campaign from the beginning, I think that's true of the way you also approached the revised world.
There's an element of truth in that statement - and yet I have been a fan of FR since the original articles in the pages of The Dragon (as it was, IIRC), have run campaigns since the OGB, and yet I still really like the 4E Realms. (Obviously, I'm an outlier.) The 4E Realms did what I wanted it to do: It got the metaplot out of the world I wanted to run. Also, I had been wanting a more dystopian Realms for some time because there is even more for my PCs to do.
I too am still a fan of the 4th Edition Realms. Partly because of the rule-set but also because it felt like a new leaf. Some of the complaints, like having far too many mid- to high-level NPCs was valid, especially as one leveled up. At low levels all that stuff was somewhat beneath the scope of these "super" heroes but when you start hitting 14th+ level then yeah they should definitely be taking notice. I remember playing in the super-adventure
Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land and the lore had to blow up Elminster's house (of course, he's not home) and state many times that No, he wasn't going to come help his actual neighborhood and no, don't expect any of his friends, the Knight of Myth Drannor, OR any of the high-leveled Elven NPCs in the region to interfere with an actual invasion.
So when they basically blew up part of the Realms and scattered the remains of the multitude of NPCs (jumping a century can do that) it was a breath of fresh air. Not to mention they removed FR-Egypt and Mexico which I always thought were really boring places that I'd never use in my games, with more interesting aspects.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121036The novels played a major role in its debasement.
They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.
Don't remind me. The drow scene was awful enough.
Quote from: Batman;1121463I too am still a fan of the 4th Edition Realms. Partly because of the rule-set but also because it felt like a new leaf. Some of the complaints, like having far too many mid- to high-level NPCs was valid, especially as one leveled up. At low levels all that stuff was somewhat beneath the scope of these "super" heroes but when you start hitting 14th+ level then yeah they should definitely be taking notice. I remember playing in the super-adventure Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land and the lore had to blow up Elminster's house (of course, he's not home) and state many times that No, he wasn't going to come help his actual neighborhood and no, don't expect any of his friends, the Knight of Myth Drannor, OR any of the high-leveled Elven NPCs in the region to interfere with an actual invasion.
So when they basically blew up part of the Realms and scattered the remains of the multitude of NPCs (jumping a century can do that) it was a breath of fresh air. Not to mention they removed FR-Egypt and Mexico which I always thought were really boring places that I'd never use in my games, with more interesting aspects.
Great points which I agree with.
For my current campaign, FWIW, I blew up Elminster's house yet again as part of the background to the game. (It's set in Shadowdale and Daggerdale so I needed him permanently removed, not just simply spellplagued into insanity.)
Neither the not-Egypt or the not-Mexico were part of the real Realms; these were part of the post-Ed pastiche. It's funny how often he gets blamed for TSRisms that he had nothing to do with. That said, I quite like Scott Bennie's take on the Old Empires which included, inter alia, not-Egypt, not-Greece, and not-Babylon. However, I like my 4E version of the Realms without them a lot more.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.
I would really love it if Ed did a new OGB set, say, 5 years before the original OGB and based entirely on his version of FR. No novels. No metaplot. No ridiculous NPCs. But lots of hooks for adventures and campaigns.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.
Ironically, the main reason that FR is the most recognized D&D setting--known even by some outside the hobby--is also the novels, as well as the video games. Most of what I "know" (or used to know, since it's been a while and I've forgotten a lot of it) about the FR came from the novels and video games.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1121791Ironically, the main reason that FR is the most recognized D&D setting--known even by some outside the hobby--is also the novels, as well as the video games. Most of what I "know" (or used to know, since it's been a while and I've forgotten a lot of it) about the FR came from the novels and video games.
EDIT:
Quote from: Snowman0147;1121756Don't remind me. The drow scene was awful enough.
And I was one of the people that contributed to it. :D :p :o
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121748They so absolutely did. The FR was mainly ruined by the novels.
The Realms was fine up until 4e. The Novels had nothing to do with "ruining" it.
Quote from: Shasarak;1121841The Realms was fine up until 4e. The Novels had nothing to do with "ruining" it.
There's plenty of blame to go around, starting about 1 minute into the first planning session after the 1E FR hardback was done.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1121845There's plenty of blame to go around, starting about 1 minute into the first planning session after the 1E FR hardback was done.
Plenty of blame for creating the most popular and authentic DnD setting ever produced.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1121845There's plenty of blame to go around, starting about 1 minute into the first planning session after the 1E FR hardback was done.
There was no 1E FR hardback.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121770For my current campaign, FWIW, I blew up Elminster's house yet again as part of the background to the game. (It's set in Shadowdale and Daggerdale so I needed him permanently removed, not just simply spellplagued into insanity.)
I don't know why you'd need to. Every writeup I've seen about Elminister says something to the effect of 'He dislikes moving openly because he doesn't want the other Major Players in the setting to start doing the same'. Plus, he's often busy dealing with extraplanar threats (which is why Doctor Strange doesn't interfere much in the Marvel Universe).
There's also, of course, Greenwood's own implication that Elminister is not sane in the traditional sense.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1121935I don't know why you'd need to. Every writeup I've seen about Elminister says something to the effect of 'He dislikes moving openly because he doesn't want the other Major Players in the setting to start doing the same'. Plus, he's often busy dealing with extraplanar threats (which is why Doctor Strange doesn't interfere much in the Marvel Universe).
There's also, of course, Greenwood's own implication that Elminister is not sane in the traditional sense.
True, but this was a much better way to set the scene for the campaign. Also, the ruins of his tower became something of a funhouse dungeon that made sense.
Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1121963True, but this was a much better way to set the scene for the campaign. Also, the ruins of his tower became something of a funhouse dungeon that made sense.
Heh, I like that last bit much better. If they thought Undermountain was a mess...
It was not 4E FR that hurt the realms. It was the very vocal fanbase that really don't know what they want or worse claim they want changes to a setting yet not really so they can just keep complaining about the flaws. Before Wotc nuked their forums and other rpg sites a few of the may complaints about FR were:
- Too many high level NPCs
-Too much magic everywhere
-Too many cities with too much population.
-Too many gods
Along comes 4E and they tried to actually fix some of the above flaws and then the fanbase lost their minds. See many never really wanted any changes to the above. They wanted the status quo to remain in place. They simply wanted and still want the luxury of complaining about FR flaws without nothing changing. I am not a fan of 4E FR or 4E in general yet I can respect and appreciate what they tried to do.
Quote from: sureshot;1122167It was not 4E FR that hurt the realms. It was the very vocal fanbase that really don't know what they want or worse claim they want changes to a setting yet not really so they can just keep complaining about the flaws. Before Wotc nuked their forums and other rpg sites a few of the may complaints about FR were:
- Too many high level NPCs
-Too much magic everywhere
-Too many cities with too much population.
-Too many gods
Along comes 4E and they tried to actually fix some of the above flaws and then the fanbase lost their minds. See many never really wanted any changes to the above. They wanted the status quo to remain in place. They simply wanted and still want the luxury of complaining about FR flaws without nothing changing. I am not a fan of 4E FR or 4E in general yet I can respect and appreciate what they tried to do.
Those fucking fans--without the power to make or publish actual changes in entertainment media--always fucking things up by having the audacity to express their opinions in the ass end of the internet. :mad:
Quote from: VisionStorm;1122171Those fucking fans--without the power to make or publish actual changes in entertainment media--always fucking things up by having the audacity to express their opinions in the ass end of the internet. :mad:
I can't tell if you're actually being serious or facetious here. The fact of the matter is "fans don't actually know what they REALLY want" is a legit thing in marketing.
The key part of that statementis the "really" part. Fans know they're dissatisfied and it's good to try and address those problems, but a lot of times what they complain about is just a symptom and so even when it's changed they remain dissatisfied because the underlying cause is still causing issues.
The people in marketing who make huge bucks are those who know how to tease out those underlying issues and make recommendations based on those to fix the real problem. Those who fail will end up with even more backlash and often go all reactionary retrogressive in undoing those changes (see 4E's marketing as a whole... I love the system, but DAMN did they repeatedly put their worst foot forward in presenting it).
Let's take a look at those listed top complaints;
-Too many high level NPCs
-Too much magic everywhere
-Too many cities with too much population.
-Too many gods
The 4E writers took those complaints literally and made those exact changes. But look at them a little closer and you see a pattern; that too many elements of the world are beyond the PCs ability to influence it.
NPCs from the novels were made bigger than the PCs could ever hope to be with big magic to match. There's NO reason Elminster ever needed to be 36th level in 3e instead of just an 18th level wizard... except for some control freak notion by the setting writer that some random home game table would decide it'd be fun to murder them; so they made all those NPCs so impossibly overleveled that even trying to attack them would be folly.
The same goes for certain cities and locations; how dare a home campaign involve one of their iconic locations be destroyed? Let's just make it so impossibly powerful that no force the PCs could assemble could ever oppose it.
And it was not so much the number of gods, but the way their intervention was used to basically railroad PCs, that was annoying.
So, those might have been the surface complaints, but the underlying issue was that bad design choices to reinforce the "canon" Realms left a lot of players feeling disempowered because, even at the pinnacle of power in the core rules, they're still dwarfed by the abilities of the novel protagonists set up as NPCs in the world.
* * * *
The ACTUAL changes the 4E Realms needed was NOT the destruction visited upon it, but a refocus.
Instead of saying a Spellplague wiped out big name NPCs just say make all the NPCs who aren't demigods in Paragon-tier (level 11-20) for 4E because actual 4E demigods are level 21-30 PCs who ascend to lesser god status at the close of level 30.
Elminster at peak power should be a level 20 wizard in 4E, able to deal with all mortal and low cosmic level threats with ease, but still outclassed by true demigods. PCs then are allowed to grow past Elminster about 2/3 of the way up through the levels as they ultimately ascend to the celestial ranks because, if they make it that far, THEY are the protagonists of their version of the Realms.
Similarly, focusing of "Your Campaign is Yours" and it doesn't need to stay in line with the canon of novels that haven't even been published yet would go a long way towards needing to give various NPCs and cities de facto plot armor in the form of impossibly high levels/populations. Its okay if Waterdeep gets wiped out by an orc horde in your game because it's just your game (Seriously, no one loses their shit when a Star Wars campaign ends with the Empire victorious because the PCs screwed up and the Rebel Alliance is destroyed, but the writers for the Realms game line couldn't seem to handle that Elminster could actually die in someone's home game somewhere so made him level 36 in a 20 level game just to be sure).
Likewise, instead of killing off a bunch of gods (that were always going to be someone's favorite), just have Ao lay down a new decree requiring the gods to be more hands off and rely on their clerics and worshippers to advance their goals.
And for God's sake, they didn't need to advance the timeline by more than a century so all the non-nigh immortal spellcasters are dead. The King of Cormyr being level 10 in 4E (i.e. heroes of the kingdom level power) takes care of virtually all the "too many high level NPCs" problem without needing to kill off a single one.
* * * *
A LOT of the problem with 4E could be laid at the feet of marketing pushing how DIFFERENT 4E was from what came before and, further, saying that a lot of the things you liked before weren't actually that fun (i.e. you didn't really like what you like).
If they'd instead put more focus on what was the SAME (and it's still fundamentally a streamlined d20 System with more similarities than differences in the mechanics) both in the Realms and the system as a whole, it might not have had such a negative reception.
Another instructive example of this last part is New Coke (and the similarities to 4Es marketing are why I sometimes have called 4E the New Coke of D&D). Every bind test Coke ran said people preferred New Coke to original Coke, but they neglected the nostalgia and familiarity preferences that people have.
I suspect if they'd marketed New Coke as "Have you noticed that fresher taste? we've been making small improvements based on your feedback to make what you love even better" it would have gone over a lot better.
Instead they went out of their way to talk about how different the new formula was and how "old Coke" wasn't what you actually wanted... with predictable results.
Quote from: Chris24601;1122191I can't tell if you're actually being serious or facetious here. The fact of the matter is "fans don't actually know what they REALLY want" is a legit thing in marketing....
Instead they went out of their way to talk about how different the new formula was and how "old Coke" wasn't what you actually wanted... with predictable results.
As a gamer mostly outside of the D&D sphere I have noticed the fine line WOTC have to walk.
Because D&D fans want their D&D the way they want it:
They want the new edition to be just like the old one, only better.
And don't you dare change anything!
The problem has been exacerbated by WOTC as they have chosen to dive in head first with D&D as a brand, and with FR as the default setting.
Quote from: VisionStorm;1122171Those fucking fans--without the power to make or publish actual changes in entertainment media--always fucking things up by having the audacity to express their opinions in the ass end of the internet. :mad:
They can express any opinion they want. Yet don't complain about a setting having too many gods then when the rpg publisher listens to the feedback reduces the amount of gods. Then complain again that too many were removed. Too many FR fans want it both ways complain about the flaws of FR while not wanting anything to change. Other rpg companies fanbase have the same problem yet the D&D fandom are extra special in that regard. I'm a not a fan everything Wotc did with 4E FR I hated the sheer number of gods in FR many redundant imo. We have the god of War, The goddess of tactical war, the god of chaos of war. We don't need three different gods for the same thing imo.
Quote from: Shasarak;1121841The Realms was fine up until 4e. The Novels had nothing to do with "ruining" it.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1121845There's plenty of blame to go around, starting about 1 minute into the first planning session after the 1E FR hardback was done.
Amongst gamers I knew in the 90s, the Forgotten Realms was already considered something of a joke.
Quote from: TJS;1122259Amongst gamers I knew in the 90s, the Forgotten Realms was already considered something of a joke.
Gamers in the 90s thought that Vampire was a good RPG.
Turns out that people believed a lot of stupid shit in the 90s.
Quote from: Shasarak;1121841The Realms was fine up until 4e. The Novels had nothing to do with "ruining" it.
No. The Realms were seriously fucked up by 2e already.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1122440No. The Realms were seriously fucked up by 2e already.
2e was the high point of the Realms, peaking with the release of the 3e Campaign book. You could make the argument that it slowly got strangled under the control of WotC and certainly current day Realms is nowhere near what it was but understandable given the current state of the DnD department.
Quote from: sureshot;1122247They can express any opinion they want. Yet don't complain about a setting having too many gods then when the rpg publisher listens to the feedback reduces the amount of gods. Then complain again that too many were removed. Too many FR fans want it both ways complain about the flaws of FR while not wanting anything to change. Other rpg companies fanbase have the same problem yet the D&D fandom are extra special in that regard. I'm a not a fan everything Wotc did with 4E FR I hated the sheer number of gods in FR many redundant imo. We have the god of War, The goddess of tactical war, the god of chaos of war. We don't need three different gods for the same thing imo.
Don't forget the gods of nature, of which we have:
• Silvanus (all-father of nature)
• Mielikki (autumn, druids, dryads, forests, forest creatures, and rangers.)
• Lurue (Queen of Talking Beasts, was a chaotic good archfey who was often worshiped as a goddess of intelligent and talking beasts. She was worshiped by many unicorns, pegasi, and other intelligent non-humanoid creatures)
• Rillifane (was the elven god of protection of woodlands and the guardian of the harmony of nature.)
• Eldath (who acted as the guardian of groves and watersheds, her presence was felt wherever there was calm.)
Like.... seriously?
I like open settings with unlimited numbers of deities, I don't see that as a problem. Bugs me more when they have to worship Mielikki in Unther because there's no local nature deity (I just made that up, FR fans). :)
Quote from: Shasarak;11224722e was the high point of the Realms, peaking with the release of the 3e Campaign book. You could make the argument that it slowly got strangled under the control of WotC and certainly current day Realms is nowhere near what it was but understandable given the current state of the DnD department.
They lost me with the Avatar trilogy.
Quote from: sureshot;1122247They can express any opinion they want. Yet don't complain about a setting having too many gods then when the rpg publisher listens to the feedback reduces the amount of gods. Then complain again that too many were removed. Too many FR fans want it both ways complain about the flaws of FR while not wanting anything to change. Other rpg companies fanbase have the same problem yet the D&D fandom are extra special in that regard. I'm a not a fan everything Wotc did with 4E FR I hated the sheer number of gods in FR many redundant imo. We have the god of War, The goddess of tactical war, the god of chaos of war. We don't need three different gods for the same thing imo.
FR fans aren't a monolith. You can have a cacophony of contradictory opinions coming from the same general community on the internet (on almost any topic), but that doesn't make every individual member of that community responsible for the opinions of others. It's not like they have control over it--online communication is inherently chaotic, with people from all over the world pitching in their ideas (as idiotic as they might sometimes be). They also have no control over what conclusions a company's marketing team arrives at or what decisions they ultimately make when opting to make sweeping changes to their product. Ultimately it's up to the marketing team to parse through the feedback and try their best to interpret it, but the community has no control over what others post and there's no org of "FR Fans" that can get together and decide what can be posted or not regarding the topic. And even if there was, such an org would ultimately operate in an authoritarian manner squashing dissenting voices in order to promote their own vision of what FR should be.
I also partly disagree about redundant gods, although I can see how keeping track of many gods dealing with similar portfolios might seem redundant or cumbersome to some people. But that is pretty much the way that gods operated in real life polytheistic pagan pantheons. The Greek, for example, had Ares the God of War, but also Athena as a goddess of tactical warfare (and also Wisdom), Nike Goddess of Victory, and a whole bunch of other gods and minor deities related to conflict (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_deities#Greek_mythology).
The problem is that D&D treats polytheistic practices more like henotheism (worship of one single god out of several) with specialized priesthoods dedicated to that single god, which is not quite how pagan polytheism worked in most cultures in real life, which tended to worship all gods more or less equally and just invoke specific ones on a case by case basis, or some gods might be favored in specific regions, etc. But "redundant" gods with overlapping or even contradictory (or oddly paired) traits are pretty much as staple of real life polytheistic paganism. Pundit covered a lot of this in a video a while back:
[video=youtube;Eb8CBXBciyc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8CBXBciyc&t=935s[/youtube]
Quote from: Pat;1122498They lost me with the Avatar trilogy.
The biggest problem with the Avatar trilogy was that it depicted most of the deities as morons and Ao as a trigger happy idiot.
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1122513The biggest problem with the Avatar trilogy was that it depicted most of the deities as morons and Ao as a trigger happy idiot.
That strikes as one of the more minor problems. A much bigger one is how all the gods, with the possible exception of Torm, are unambiguously presented as petty self-centered hedonists, who don't give the slightest fuck about their worshipers, and abusively neglect them. Which would have made sense if the gods were treated as fearsome beings, who must be propitiated by mortals who fear their wrath, or desire a boon. Except the metatext of the story still treats the "good" and "neutral" gods from a Christian perspective, as if they're innately deserving of love and worship, despite their appalling behavior. And that's not even touching the monstrous implications of the Wall of the Faithless.
Or portraying Elminster as catastrophically criminally negligent and uncaring, or Storm Silverhand as a murderous psycho who needs to be put down. Or Midnight's complete lack of anything even coming close to resembling a personality. The only sympathetic character in the entire trilogy was the supposed villain, Cyric.
Quote from: Pat;1122514That strikes as one of the more minor problems. A much bigger one is how all the gods, with the possible exception of Torm, are unambiguously presented as petty self-centered hedonists, who don't give the slightest fuck about their worshipers, and abusively neglect them. Which would have made sense if the gods were treated as fearsome beings, who must be propitiated by mortals who fear their wrath, or desire a boon. Except the metatext of the story still treats the "good" and "neutral" gods from a Christian perspective, as if they're innately deserving of love and worship, despite their appalling behavior. And that's not even touching the monstrous implications of the Wall of the Faithless.
That was the exact point of the Avatar Trilogy, that Gods have to start to care about their Worshipers.
But I do admit the Wall of the Faithless is pretty pretty cool.
Quote from: Shasarak;1122515That was the exact point of the Avatar Trilogy, that Gods have to start to care about their Worshipers.
But I do admit the Wall of the Faithless is pretty pretty cool.
That could have been the intended point, who knows? But the actual point expressed in the trilogy is that the gods are bratty children, who were given a timeout by Dad (Ao) until they did their chores (picking up their worshipers on the Fugue Plain). That doesn't mean the spoiled brats want to do their chores (care about their worshipers), it just means they were forced to do so under threat of punishment (losing their godhoods), and resented the fuck out of it (and probably their worshipers, too). Except it's worse than that, because the gods, even the supposedly good ones, literally abandoned their worshipers on the Fugue Plain for millennia. And Ao punished them by sending the gods to Faerun, which caused planet-wide catastrophes and untold deaths (way to go godDad).
And if any mortal says fuck this, I'm not worshiping any of these psychotic little brats, what happens? When the mortal dies, they're literally mortared into a wall, where they're stuck, conscious but helpless, until the end of time.
Quote from: Pat;1122516That could have been the intended point, who knows? But the actual point expressed in the trilogy is that the gods are bratty children, who were given a timeout by Dad (Ao) until they did their chores (picking up their worshipers on the Fugue Plain). That doesn't mean the spoiled brats want to do their chores (care about their worshipers), it just means they were forced to do so under threat of punishment (losing their godhoods), and resented the fuck out of it (and probably their worshipers, too). Except it's worse than that, because the gods, even the supposedly good ones, literally abandoned their worshipers on the Fugue Plain for millennia. And Ao punished them by sending the gods to Faerun, which caused planet-wide catastrophes and untold deaths (way to go godDad).
I dont remember worshipers being abandoned for millennia, that seems unlikely to be true considering that Demons and Devils would hardly wait around for a thousand years before coming in to steal souls away.
You could certainly complain about Ao causing death and destruction but there is no evidence that he cares to interfere directly on behalf of individuals unless they are high level named NPCs that have helped to kill off other Gods. To me it is like being mad at Krakatoa for erupting or the Chicxulub asteroid for hitting the Earth, more of a force of Nature then anything to be negotiated with.
QuoteAnd if any mortal says fuck this, I'm not worshiping any of these psychotic little brats, what happens? When the mortal dies, they're literally mortared into a wall, where they're stuck, conscious but helpless, until the end of time.
You literally have a million different psychotic little brats to follow of every different flavour, colour and creed and you could not even pick one? You literally deserve to be mortared into a wall with all of the other dumb as a rock people. Even the people that make a Faustian bargin with a Devil get themselves a better deal then an Atheist.
Quote from: Shasarak;1122527I dont remember worshipers being abandoned for millennia, that seems unlikely to be true considering that Demons and Devils would hardly wait around for a thousand years before coming in to steal souls away.
Which makes it even more abominable.
Quote from: Shasarak;1122527You could certainly complain about Ao causing death and destruction but there is no evidence that he cares to interfere directly on behalf of individuals unless they are high level named NPCs that have helped to kill off other Gods. To me it is like being mad at Krakatoa for erupting or the Chicxulub asteroid for hitting the Earth, more of a force of Nature then anything to be negotiated with.
Except volcanoes and bollides aren't thinking beings that take voluntary action. There's a difference between an accident, and deliberate genocide.
Quote from: Shasarak;1122527You literally have a million different psychotic little brats to follow of every different flavour, colour and creed and you could not even pick one? You literally deserve to be mortared into a wall with all of the other dumb as a rock people. Even the people that make a Faustian bargin with a Devil get themselves a better deal then an Atheist.
What does any of this have to do with atheism? This is Faerun, gods are objectively real. This is maltheism, pure and simple. Gods who are monstrous and wicked, and who must be appeased, or you'll be tortured forever. Which could be quite fun, in a story or a campaign setting (see Valus, for instance). Except they wrapped that up with the sugary coating of the New Testament god is good and loving and perfect, and they did that at the authorial level. Which takes away from the fun, because it's basically like some creep loudly proclaiming on some internet forum that
is great.
Quote from: Pat;1122533Which takes away from the fun, because it's basically like some creep loudly proclaiming on some internet forum that is great.
Ao did nothing wrong!!! :D
Quote from: Pat;1122533Which makes it even more abominable.
It would be abominable if it had happened.
QuoteExcept volcanoes and bollides aren't thinking beings that take voluntary action. There's a difference between an accident, and deliberate genocide.
What is the difference from the perspective of a person caught up in the catastrophe? You can rage against the machinery of your destruction but neither really cares what happens to you.
QuoteWhat does any of this have to do with atheism? This is Faerun, gods are objectively real. This is maltheism, pure and simple. Gods who are monstrous and wicked, and who must be appeased, or you'll be tortured forever. Which could be quite fun, in a story or a campaign setting (see Valus, for instance). Except they wrapped that up with the sugary coating of the New Testament god is good and loving and perfect, and they did that at the authorial level. Which takes away from the fun, because it's basically like some creep loudly proclaiming on some internet forum that is great.
Sure we can use which ever descriptive Noun you like. Realistically what fraction of a percent of the population are there going to be of these people in your average Realms game? When these Maltheists are going through their life getting told that they are going to end up in the Wall of the Faithless for being Faithless and then they die and end up in the Wall of the Faithless is it inherently unfair? When plane traveling adventurers go past the Wall and see Old Joe rotting away in the wall as an object lesson for everyone back on the Prime, would any of them be surprised? I doubt it.
In any case for me, I look at the whole continuum of punishments that a soul can receive after death and the Wall of the Faithless would not rank in the top ten. How many levels of Hell, the Abyss and Carceri are much much worse.
Quote from: Shasarak;1122541Sure we can use which ever descriptive Noun you like. Realistically what fraction of a percent of the population are there going to be of these people in your average Realms game? When these Maltheists are going through their life getting told that they are going to end up in the Wall of the Faithless for being Faithless and then they die and end up in the Wall of the Faithless is it inherently unfair? When plane traveling adventurers go past the Wall and see Old Joe rotting away in the wall as an object lesson for everyone back on the Prime, would any of them be surprised? I doubt it.
In any case for me, I look at the whole continuum of punishments that a soul can receive after death and the Wall of the Faithless would not rank in the top ten. How many levels of Hell, the Abyss and Carceri are much much worse.
I was pointing out the clash between the authorial voice and the setting, and you're trying to justify the setting as if some nonsense henotheistic malthestic-in-denial quasi-religion in a game was a real thing, and somehow both fair and just.
Quote from: Pat;1122514...Except the metatext of the story still treats the "good" and "neutral" gods from a Christian perspective, as if they're innately deserving of love and worship, despite their appalling behavior. ...
So not the Christian perspective.
Quote from: Pat;1122514That strikes as one of the more minor problems. A much bigger one is how all the gods, with the possible exception of Torm, are unambiguously presented as petty self-centered hedonists, who don't give the slightest fuck about their worshipers, and abusively neglect them. Which would have made sense if the gods were treated as fearsome beings, who must be propitiated by mortals who fear their wrath, or desire a boon. ...And that's not even touching the monstrous implications of the Wall of the Faithless.
....
Yeah well, It's written by people who do not understand real world religions or how they actually work.
If I could describe it - it comes across as a hodgepodge religion put together by aethiests/agnostics based upon what they
think religions/religious people are like.
I their defense, nowadays forgotten realms is played by lots of people who do not understand real world religions or how they actually work.
So except for a few outliers posting on the internet; no one really gives a shit.
Greetings!
Let them all be thrown screaming into the Wall of the Faithless forever and ever. Their weeping and gnashing of teeth is like sweet music to the Righteous and the Faithful!:D
Beyond the bare sketchings of cosmology in the Grey Box, I don't see how anyone could take Forgotten Realms cosmology seriously in any way. Whenever I did run FR campaigns back in the day, I just ordered the cosmology as I saw fit. Simple. Good alignment goes to Elysium, neutrals go to the forest, and evil characters get sent to the Abyss. I don't recall too many players ever getting into the cosmology of their characters after they died. Their characters died--time to roll up a new character!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Jaeger;1122545So not the Christian perspective.
The commas in the sentence serve a purpose. The part you emphasized: Statement, clarification of statement, where it goes wrong.
Quote from: Jaeger;1122545Yeah well, It's written by people who do not understand real world religions or how they actually work.
If I could describe it - it comes across as a hodgepodge religion put together by aethiests/agnostics based upon what they think religions/religious people are like.
That's my point. It's the clash between the unquestioned assumptions built into the pieces they adopt with a poor understanding of what makes religion tick, and what that combination of pieces actually says about the setting, that makes the Avatar trilogy so unpalatable. There are always some weird genre or authorial assumptions we have to accept when reading a piece of fiction, but that's one of the biggest breaks in versimilitude I can think of, and I've read a lot of books.
Quote from: SHARK;1122546...
Beyond the bare sketchings of cosmology in the Grey Box, I don't see how anyone could take Forgotten Realms cosmology seriously in any way. ...
LOL but they do!
It's quite unbelievable. But yeah, I've seen people get into the "mythology" of the forgotten realms...
Playing in a D&D campaign for the first time in years, I've had my PC be an "athiest" towards the FR cosmology to hilarious effect from the other PC's in the group who's players are atheists in real life. (Be careful what you say about the "gods" they could get mad at you!) - (but they're just super-powerful assholes who don't deserve an ounce of worship!)
Hilarious to see them stick up for a badly broken cosmology...
Quote from: Jaeger;1122553LOL but they do!
It's quite unbelievable. But yeah, I've seen people get into the "mythology" of the forgotten realms...
Playing in a D&D campaign for the first time in years, I've had my PC be an "athiest" towards the FR cosmology to hilarious effect from the other PC's in the group who's players are atheists in real life. (Be careful what you say about the "gods" they could get mad at you!) - (but they're just super-powerful assholes who don't deserve an ounce of worship!)
Hilarious to see them stick up for a badly broken cosmology...
Greetings!
*Laughing* Exactly, Jaeger! I mean, I was always more into my own campaign world, even back then, as now. I did do some FR though, though as the years progressed, I also read many of the novels, and within the game books, the spellfires, the changing, whatever. Gods dying left and right, "new" gods rising and taking their places, all kinds of divine goddesses breeding with Elminster and these seven special women, as well as an endless cohort of special NPC's in the FR that all seemed to keep a bed warmed for their goddess lover or god lover of choice...the special "Chosen" babies...the changing of cosmology with new novels or editions...AARRGGHH, you know? It all just seemed to become this huge, incoherent, and entirely silly mess.
I'm quite familiar with the history, doctrines, organization, and theology of Christianity and several other world religions, as well as ancient pagan religions, and the FR cosmology seemed increasingly stupid and cartoonish, in a terrible way. The FR cosmology didn't even hold a baseline of inspiration of the consistency, interest, intrigue, or beauty of any world religion. You know? Put some fucking effort into the cosmology of a major game world. I increasingly felt like the people in charge had barely read one book of world religion, sprinkled with a few books on mythology. The cosmology of a "C" grade college student instead of a team of educated, thoughtful adults charged with putting together and writing a cosmological system and framework for a major game line of the largest RPG company in the world. Pretty pathetic. As time got on, the FR cosmology has merely become even more stupid, shallow, and nonsensical. And YES! My god, people take that shit so *seriously*!!? *laughs* Give me a break, you know?:D
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: Pat;1122544I was pointing out the clash between the authorial voice and the setting, and you're trying to justify the setting as if some nonsense henotheistic malthestic-in-denial quasi-religion in a game was a real thing, and somehow both fair and just.
Its not "fair" (as if anything is) but it is just from the perspective of what Gods would do if given the chance.
Quote from: Jaeger;1122553Hilarious to see them stick up for a badly broken cosmology...
Friends dont let friends play gimped characters.
That was one thing I like about 4e FR; I could just use the 4e cosmology, which is IMO by far the best effort TSR/WoTC ever put into creating a cosmology. I still tend to use it in 5e.
Quote from: S'mon;1122575That was one thing I like about 4e FR; I could just use the 4e cosmology, which is IMO by far the best effort TSR/WoTC ever put into creating a cosmology. I still tend to use it in 5e.
This one?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4167[/ATTACH]
Quote from: Aglondir;1122715This one?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4167[/ATTACH]
Yes - I tweak it a bit but overall it works well for me.
Quote from: Aglondir;1122715This one?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4167[/ATTACH]
I love how Sigil is just floating out there unconcerned and unconnected to anything else. :D
Quote from: Ghostmaker;1122740I love how Sigil is just floating out there unconcerned and unconnected to anything else. :D
It would look messy if you draw lines from Sigil to everywhere.
Quote from: S'mon;1122735Yes - I tweak it a bit but overall it works well for me.
Yeah, that's my favorite as well. I like it better than the Great Wheel.
Quote from: Pat;1122498They lost me with the Avatar trilogy.
Exactly. That was the point of no return.
The great wheel isn't really ideal, but I utterly despised the stupid 4e cosmology.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1123071The great wheel isn't really ideal, but I utterly despised the stupid 4e cosmology.
Why? What didn't work for you with the 4e cosmology?
The Astral Sea gave us Planar Sailing which was an interesting option versus the Planescape movement via doors. It brought a Spelljammer quality of sorts to planar exploration. The Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos were interesting because you didn't have to use them as entirely different space, instead you could drop a small segment into various terrains in your setting.
I found 4e's cosmology among the best bits of 4e because you could easily integrate planar intrusions and adventures at low and mid levels, but maintain their exotic and dangerous nature. Yes, all this is high fantasy, but that was 4e's core focus.
But I recognize that radically changing the cosmology played havoc with FR canon. My appreciation for the cosmology was as a jumping off point for creating high fantasy homebrew settings.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1123073Why? What didn't work for you with the 4e cosmology?
The Astral Sea gave us Planar Sailing which was an interesting option versus the Planescape movement via doors. It brought a Spelljammer quality of sorts to planar exploration. The Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos were interesting because you didn't have to use them as entirely different space, instead you could drop a small segment into various terrains in your setting.
I found 4e's cosmology among the best bits of 4e because you could easily integrate planar intrusions and adventures at low and mid levels, but maintain their exotic and dangerous nature. Yes, all this is high fantasy, but that was 4e's core focus.
But I recognize that radically changing the cosmology played havoc with FR canon. My appreciation for the cosmology was as a jumping off point for creating high fantasy homebrew settings.
I agree with all that.
I found a few things needed tweaking for me - eg IMC Hell stayed as a prison plane in the Elemental Chaos, rather than become an Astral Dominion where Asmodeus had killed God*. And the Astral Sea = the starry sky itself, with the astral dominions the stars, something obvious (clue's in the name!) that the 4e designers failed to embrace. I also disliked Torog and never used him, but I liked the idea that burrowing down far enough gets you to the Elemental Chaos and the building blocks of Creation.
Of course this only makes sense for mythic/high fantasy type settings like 4e's Nerath or Forgotten Realms, not for low fantasy inc most swords & sorcery. For my Wilderlands campaign the mythic and scientific realities need to co-exist alongside each other; the mythic being the creation of the Gaea crystalline entity/world-spirit and thus a superstructure upon the underlying pulp-scientific reality.
*Although I like the idea the Devils *think* they killed God & conquered Heaven and, separated from God, are thus in a Hell of their own creation, basically a straight inversion of Philip Pullman's
His Dark Materials where the deluded Christians are in Hell while the knowing atheists/Devils laugh at them.
I'm going to third the "World Axis" as by far the best cosmology D&D ever produced.
The primary reason I feel that way is that it was primarily built to be useful for DMs building adventures.
An infinite expanse of all consuming fire doesn't have any practical use. Likewise, the alignment wheel resulted in a lot of empty space (ex. the transitive planes are mostly just big expanses of nothing) and needless symmetry. The alignment wheel also lumped various deities of different pantheons together who had nothing in common but their alignments instead of being part of a shared culture. Finally, the Great Wheel was sorely lacking in the low-level planar weirdness of medieval fantasy (ex. the mortal stumbling into the realms of the Fae because they turned left instead of right at a certain crossroads at midnight).
The World Axis, by contrast, has both Fey and Shadow worlds that mortals can just stumble into when the conditions are right (or can be more deliberately accessed through magic) and, while dangerous, are not so dangerous that the clever or courageous could not survive long enough to escape back to the Mortal World via the same means they arrived (i.e. you don't need a plane-shifting wizard to create adventures involving the Fae or Shadow Worlds and a party with no magic at all could find themselves in those planes and return home on their own).
The Astral Sea isn't just a vast expanse of nothing used to hop between otherworlds; it's now a sea that can actually be sailed complete with pirates and castaways and the astral planes are islands in it where gods are located due to personal affiliations rather than alignment (i.e. Asgard can have the entire pantheon there in an entirely Norse-themed realm instead of Odin in the Seven Heavens, Thor in Yssgard and Loki in the Abyss because of their alignments).
And the Elemental Chaos is far better both in terms of players being able to adventure there, but also because it creates the more mythical conflict between primordial chaos and the forces of order with the world literally created from the Chaos by the Astral gods of Order (complete with a Titanomacy in the form of The Dawn War where the gods overcame and slew or imprisoned the chaotic forces to claim dominion over the world).
By going straight Cosmic Order vs. Cosmic Chaos (with the unaligned reflection vs. shadow on the other planar axis) and basically removing D&D alignment from the equation they make it far easier on DMs looking to use more traditional mythology into their settings (ex. Ra's solar barge crosses the Astral Sea by day and then through the terrible Chaos every night to be reborn; Olympus is in the Astral Sea, Hades rules the Shadowfell with the forces of primordial Chaos imprisoned in Tartarus below; Asgard is Above, the realms of the fire and frost giants are below and signs of the Dusk War that will end the World are everywhere).
It's just all around a better conceived cosmology/setting than the Great Wheel could ever be.
What they said. Especially about the Great Wheel having needless symmetry.
The 4E cosmology is far from perfect. Not least of its problems is that the 4E team's use of it was relatively barren. What's the point of being able to go to Asgard so that you can have 3 or 4 set piece encounters?
But for home use, you could do a lot worse. I haven't kept the whole thing, and I've tweaked what I have kept, but the alternate fey and shadow dimensions are one of the few things from 4E that have made it into my 5E setting.
I don't know anything about the 4e cosmology, but the Great Wheel and the inner planes had real problems. The forced symmetry compelled authors to try to fill in the gaps, which resulted in a lot of random and repetitive crap, and the weird juxtapositions made it very hard to rationalize a coherent belief system that wasn't highly meta and ironic.
I always treated the elemental planes as contiguous to the Prime, so you can walk to the plane of fire. There's a natural transition, you just have to know where they connect, say in the heart of a desert or a volcano, and the connections may be enduring, ephemeral, or cyclical. The elemental planes, while not part of the Prime, are an extension slash reflection of it, just more focused on one specific aspect, so skills transfer. That gets rid of the zero G and distance problems, and also the dependence on magic-users to get anywhere or survive, making it usable at lower levels. At the same time, there's no limit on really crazy stuff, when deep in the plane. That means I can do a "here lie dragons" on a map, except write down the City of Brass. I also break the forced symmetry of the elements, making it extensible to other concepts, so planes of shadow and forest are also fine. Sounds like the Shadowfell and Feywild would fit in.
For the outer planes of the gods, I broken apart the wheel and reassembled them based on the underlying mythology, each becoming own realm in the Astral. Gladshiem is linked to Hel, as well as the other 7 worlds. Olympus connects to Hades and Tarterus, and so on. The Nine Hells are connected to the Seven Heavens, because of dualistic monotheism. No Loki with a bolthole in Pandemonium, or Sumerian and Chinese gods on adjacent gears in Nirvana. Instead, the titans are in Tarterus, Loki may be in Gladsheim or Jotunheim, and so on. The Astral was sea-ish because I used the void skimmers from the "Fedifensor" adventure in Dragon #67, but otherwise is mostly the same.
The parts of the outer planes that don't correspond to mythologies were reimaginged. Demons are typically monstrous combinations of things humans fear, so the Abyss became the realm of divinities created by human fear. Mechanus became the great machine running creation, borrowing from fiction like Shadowjack, while Limbo became the chaos from which everything emerged, borrowing from even more sources, like Amber or Brust's To Reign in Hell. Others were ditched, or more precisely put aside for the moment until I can think of a good use. Since there's no overall pattern, I can just choose which pieces I want to use, ignore the rest, and add new ideas at any time.
Not sure what I'd do with the Realms. They don't really have a coherent mythology, just lots of little gods that are everywhere, and form loose alliances. Maybe the Weave and Ao would be a good place to start.
I always found the Great Wheel to be forgettable (at best; when I remembered it, I hated it) and I even prefer Eberron's planar cosmology to it.
I would have to agree that the 4e Cosmology was probably some of the worst that I have ever seen, and Fantasy has some pretty bat shit crazy Cosmologies so it takes some real creativity to be among the worst.
Its almost as if someone finally had the chance to cram through their own home brew system.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1123073Why? What didn't work for you with the 4e cosmology?
It seemed basic and random.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1123091What they said. Especially about the Great Wheel having needless symmetry.
Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1123169Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.
But it's mostly abstract or symbolic, while the Great Wheel makes the symmetry literal and manifest. You don't just have 4 ineffable elemental planes, you have 2 energies, 4 para-elements, 8 quasi-elements, and then you have to populate them all with alien ecologies based on subjective free fall and all distances being the same. You don't have Nine Worlds, you have 17 planes arranged based on their precise alignment along two moral and ethical axes, existing cosmologies are sliced and dice to fit in them, and then you have to fill all the corners in as well. Rather than descriptive and inspirational, it's proscriptive and constraining.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1123169Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.
Yes. There is needed symmetry, and then there is the other kind. Probably some in the middle, too (not needed, but not really hurting anything, either). But my criticism on those lines may only partially overlap with what others are saying here. Specifically, I object to the "needless symmetry" of the Great Wheel on the grounds that it:
- Includes decisions that aesthetically numbing and even discordant--a subjective argument that it leads to bad game feel.
- Makes too many decisions that should be left to the GM.
The illogical characteristics don't bother me all that much. All cosmologies are somewhat illogical when removed from the constraints of a specific setting.
It is also highly ironic that if one accept the criticism of 4E that it was too pat, the Great Wheel would have been the most 4E thing in the older material that they could have kept. Yet more one data point that the characteristic problem with all WotC versions of D&D is that they have a difficult time deciding what the hell game they are trying to make, to the point that the competing "visions" bleed through in their finished products.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1123073The Astral Sea gave us Planar Sailing which was an interesting option versus the Planescape movement via doors. It brought a Spelljammer quality of sorts to planar exploration. The Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos were interesting because you didn't have to use them as entirely different space, instead you could drop a small segment into various terrains in your setting.
Good stuff. It wasn't perfect, but it was closer to my ideal 5-plane cosmology:
- Fae
- Demons
- Elementals
- Ghosts
- Angels
With some sort of connector plane (ethereal, astral, whatever.)
Possibly one plane for each of the four elements instead of just one.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1123169Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.
Except they really don't. Cosmology is just how the supernatural world fits together. Very few fit together with the symmetry the Great Wheel employs, particularly with its completely post-modern focus on balance of all things.
Rather, most mythologies are radically skewed towards Order over Chaos (virtually every creation myth involves one or more of the gods defeating the forces of chaos) and of extolling the virtues that culture considers good.
Zeus has no equal and opposite counterpart; he forever overcame both the Titans (imprisoning or slaying them all) and the Chaos-monster Typhon to prove his supremacy over Creation. Olympus sits on high with no rival realms, Tartarus is not an equal and opposite realm, but a prison used by the Olympians to punish the most wicked).
Similarly, in Christian cosmology there is no symmetry. God is the supreme creator, all good, all knowing and all powerful. Satan is just a fallen angel, a creation of God, who has already lost and now seeks merely to drag Men into sin and Hell out of nothing more than spite. There is no scenario where Satan overcomes or even gives challenge to God. Traditionally, it's not even an even split among the angels either... Satan only convinced a third of them to rebel meaning there are twice as many angels loyal to God as chose Satan.
Likewise, Marduk overcomes Tiamat (Chaos) and uses her corpse to build the world and seizes the Tablets of Destiny to secure the rule of Order.
Set and Apophis aren't the equals and opposites of Ra and Horus/Osiris; they're just adversaries they overcome in a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Also, most people's understanding of Egyptian mythology involves cramming together several different civilizations spread across three millennia simply because they happen to have all been in the same place geographically... roughly akin to mashing the Etruscan, Roman and Christian religions together and calling them "The Italian mythology."
I similarly don't recall a Native American cosmology where good, evil, order and chaos must also be kept in balance. Rather their mythologies tend to focus (like most do really) on the natural cycles of the world.
Even science argues against cosmological symmetry; the entire reason we have a material universe was an imbalance in the amount of matter vs. antimatter created in the Big Bang. Further, the universe does exist in a balanced state, but is expanding/cooling and the big question is whether it keeps expanding/cooling forever (heat death) or stalls out and collapses (Big Crunch, possibly followed by another Big Bang).
Even locally our solar system lacks symmetry. 99% of the mass is in the Sun, virtually all the rest is in Jupiter and none of the bodies in system has a mirror orbiting in the same path just on the opposite side of the Sun.
The Great Wheel is an awful cosmology that has almost no relation to genuine mythology and feels entirely artificial (in large part because it is; Gygax just plopped every cosmology he could find into a big rectangle with labels with much more obvious names including Olympus, Nirvana and the Happy Hunting Grounds so you could visit any particular cosmology you wanted). It's whole point is to define and categorize everything into preset boxes so everything is in place... it's like some Autist's dream of the afterlife.
The World Axis is a lot closer to real mythologies with a strong Order/Chaos divide where Order overcame Chaos in a great war at the dawn of history (with Chaos imprisoned or killed), a distinct Realm of the Dead separate from the Realm of the Gods and Realm of Chaos (until Christianity only great culture heroes typically got to reside with the gods and only culture and an otherworldly reflection from which weird folktale magic derives (because every real mythology has weird edge cases that don't quite fit but are maintained from older sources out of tradition... see Saint Christopher or the legend of Saint George and the Dragon for Christian examples of the phenomenon).
The World Axis has a Chaoskampf creation myth, a Titanomacy (Dawn War) that established the present order and even its own eschatology (the Dusk War) and several of the fluff-text sidebars cover various culture heroes (not least of which are the gods themselves... their struggle against the Primordials was a cosmic version of the Adventuring Party (teams of gods with different strengths needed to team up to overcome the extremely powerful but solitary primordials... thus PC parties are literally acting in alignment with the gods on a smaller scale as they battle the forces seeking to tear down civilization).
While 4E gets a lot of flak, the World Axis cosmology is one of the areas generally seen as a positive (to the point that 5e just swapped out the Astral Sea part of it for the Great Wheel, but otherwise left it mostly intact).
FOR ME, the Great Wheel didn't do much for me in any TSR setting (or homebrew) until Planescape, but for Planescape it really rocked over the multiple year campaigns I ran, especially because of the planar borders and Sigil that setting added which made the Great Wheel more "gameable" than previously.
In fact, Planescape even played with the symmetry issues of the Great Wheel. The "balance" of the planes was all important to the setting, thus rumblings in one plane would be felt in its counterpart, alerting PCs (and NPCs) to potential adventures. Also, all the odd locations, like para-elemental planes, added to variety in the setting.
I'm surprised Planescape wasn't fully resurrected for 5e. It's kitchen sink with in-setting reasons for PC parties to be groupings of bizarre weirdos.
Quote from: S'mon;1123079And the Astral Sea = the starry sky itself, with the astral dominions the stars, something obvious (clue's in the name!) that the 4e designers failed to embrace.
In my games, the sky reflected the sea. The "stars" were the reflections of the domains and you could learn to study the "stars" above to sea to identify the dominions and use "astrology" to determine actions and events that may be happening via the Astral Sea. It allowed me to get my Flat Earther on! :)
Quote from: S'mon;1123079Of course this only makes sense for mythic/high fantasy type settings like 4e's Nerath or Forgotten Realms, not for low fantasy inc most swords & sorcery.
Abso-freaking-lutely! But via RAW, 4e was all high fantasy, and mythic at 11th level and beyond. I made 4e work for sword & sorcery (and it was awesome), but I took Kull's axe to most of the book for it to work.
Quote from: Pat;1123179But it's mostly abstract or symbolic, while the Great Wheel makes the symmetry literal and manifest. You don't just have 4 ineffable elemental planes, you have 2 energies, 4 para-elements, 8 quasi-elements, and then you have to populate them all with alien ecologies based on subjective free fall and all distances being the same. You don't have Nine Worlds, you have 17 planes arranged based on their precise alignment along two moral and ethical axes, existing cosmologies are sliced and dice to fit in them, and then you have to fill all the corners in as well. Rather than descriptive and inspirational, it's proscriptive and constraining.
If everything is symmetrical then how come we have 9 alignments and 17 aligned Planes? How come Hell has 9 levels and the Abyss has infinite levels? How do you fit 17 infinite Planes into a Wheel?
How come we have places that can not access the Planes and places that access all the Planes?
Yeah, not so constraining or prescriptive unless it is by a Doctor who is in a real hurry.
Quote from: Pat;1123179But it's mostly abstract or symbolic, while the Great Wheel makes the symmetry literal and manifest. You don't just have 4 ineffable elemental planes, you have 2 energies, 4 para-elements, 8 quasi-elements, and then you have to populate them all with alien ecologies based on subjective free fall and all distances being the same. You don't have Nine Worlds, you have 17 planes arranged based on their precise alignment along two moral and ethical axes, existing cosmologies are sliced and dice to fit in them, and then you have to fill all the corners in as well. Rather than descriptive and inspirational, it's proscriptive and constraining.
Yes, it can be, which is why I don't love it. It's not really classical, it's more modernist. But I like it better than some post-modern melange of gibberish.
Quote from: Chris24601;1123197Except they really don't. Cosmology is just how the supernatural world fits together. Very few fit together with the symmetry the Great Wheel employs, particularly with its completely post-modern focus on balance of all things.
Rather, most mythologies are radically skewed towards Order over Chaos (virtually every creation myth involves one or more of the gods defeating the forces of chaos) and of extolling the virtues that culture considers good.
While you make a certain point regarding the type of symmetry of the Great Wheel (as I pointed out in my previous post, it's a bit too "modernist"), you aren't making a great case for the "whatever thrown together any old way" of the 4e cosmology.
Also, you're absolutely right that classical cosmologies, being unquestionably about making order of the universe, tend toward the dominance of Order over Chaos (or in some cases, of good over evil). They presume a world of laws, of structure. If that wasn't true, why have a cosmology in the first place? Yes, you can have the "everything in perfect balance and equal bearing" that the great wheel has, but that's a very modernist type of thinking.
But if you look at the greatest of classical world cosmologies, they usually tend to show a universe of Law and Chaos connected; order is superior over chaos, but chaos clearly has its place, and places where it rules. This is true of the germanic/norse Yggdrasil, of the tree of life of the Kabbalah, of the Six Worlds of buddhist/tantrist cosmology, of Taijitu of Chinese Taoist/Neo-Confucian occultism, and many others.
i never liked that they tried to "map out" the outer planes at all, for me it was enough that there is an astral and ethereal through which others can be travelled to. i preferred to imagine the cosmos as infinite vague and always changing, i hate the tourist wizard, the way players can cheapen the whole thing with their sure-fire knowledge of how many layers of hell there are, the way it gets reduced to a metaphysical trip to the mall for them.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1123213I made 4e work for sword & sorcery (and it was awesome), but I took Kull's axe to most of the book for it to work.
I used 4e for a swords & sorcery Wilderlands/Barbarian Altanis campaign. But only the pregen PCs I made myself (all Fighters) really fit the tone; most classes didn't work that well. So when I ran my first 5e campaign as a sequel, I started off with all Barbarian Fighter & Rogue PCs to get the right tone. I basically use the 4e cosmology though, at least as the what-is-believed-true.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1123220But if you look at the greatest of classical world cosmologies, they usually tend to show a universe of Law and Chaos connected; order is superior over chaos, but chaos clearly has its place, and places where it rules.
This describes 4e's World Axis, with the Astral Sea above the Elemental Chaos, and the gods victorious over the primordials.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1123220While you make a certain point regarding the type of symmetry of the Great Wheel (as I pointed out in my previous post, it's a bit too "modernist"), you aren't making a great case for the "whatever thrown together any old way" of the 4e cosmology.
Except it WASN'T "whatever thrown together any old way." If you actually bothered to read it instead of maligning it sight unseen or even just read the developer notes (see the "Worlds & Monsters" preview) you'd know that.
The World Axis cosmology was designed specifically to feel more like a real mythical cosmology.
They established a Creation Myth that explains the origins of the primordials and gods. In the beginning there were two realms; one of Chaos amd elemental forces and one of Order, ideas and concepts. At the dawn of the universe those two came into contact. This gave thought to the elemental forces (the primordials) and form to the ideas and concepts (the gods).
The primordials began to create all manner of things, building them up and tearing them down endlessly. It was they who first formed the Mortal World, casting aside pieces that were either too bright or too dark in the process (the too bright pieces became the world's reflection; the Feywild; while the too dark pieces became the world's shadow; the Shadowfell).
They also ended up, almost by accident, creating life. Life that pleaded for mercy when the primordials got bored and decided to tear the whole thing down again. Though it fell on deaf ears with the primordials (who could have just used another section of their infinite realm to create, but didn't want to) the gods stepped in to answer their pleas.
Thus began the World Axis' Titanomachy/Chaoskampf; The Dawn War; where the gods battled the primordials for the fate of the World. The primordials were more powerful, but solitary, so the gods formed teams to overcome them one at a time (the cosmic origin that all mortal adventuring parties echo) and so they eventually slew or imprisoned the primordials and became the divine rulers of the Mortal World.
Many of the monsters and player races were the direct result of this conflict. The dwarves were created as slaves by the primordials, but were rescued by the god Moradin (some dwarves who remained slaves became the Azer and Galeb Duhr).
The elves and orcs were created by the gods Corellon and Grummish, but in the first case of inter-party backstabbing came to blows (it's all fun and games until Grummish loses an eye) and neither side has gotten over it.
The dragons were created by the god Io as war machines. Io was cloven in two by a primordial with his benevolent half becoming Bahamit and his malevolent half becoming Tiamat who each took half the dragons as their own. Where Io's blood fell, the Dragonborn race was born.
The many books of 4E are littered with myths and legends about the gods, primordials and great heroes of past ages. The Underdark was the creation of Torog; a god so crippled in the Dawn War that he can only crawl and in shame hid himself away in the depths of the World where his writhing and crawling about left vast caverns and tunnels beneath the world.
They also developed an eschatology for the cosmology; The Dusk War; when the Primordials will escape their prisons and again face the gods in a final battle (which, like Ragnorok, might just be the end of one cycle and birth of another).
In short, it's anything but "thrown together." It's probably the most coordinated effort to build a cohesive cosmology that anyone employed by TSR/WotC has ever attempted.
Quote from: Shasarak;1123214If everything is symmetrical then how come we have 9 alignments and 17 aligned Planes? How come Hell has 9 levels and the Abyss has infinite levels? How do you fit 17 infinite Planes into a Wheel?
How come we have places that can not access the Planes and places that access all the Planes?
Yeah, not so constraining or prescriptive unless it is by a Doctor who is in a real hurry.
Except I nowhere said or implied that
everything was symmetrical. What I said is the Great Wheel has forced and literal symmetry, which it does.
The 17 aligned planes is a good example. The 8 extreme alignments are laid out in a wheel, with 8 intermediate alignments in between, and then True Neutral is the isolated hub in the middle. If it were envisioned as a 3x3 grid, or if the wheel had spokes, then there would be be an additional 4 intermediate alignment planes, connecting True Neutral with NG, LN, CN, and NE. Not every possible symmetry exists.
But the symmetries that do exist are constraining, because that's still a lot of space to fill out and it needs to be very precisely but arbitrarily ordered. There's not just a plane of evil and a plane of good, or chaos opposed to a universe of order, or even one plane for each alignment. There are 17, and they all need to be unique in terms of topography and populations. But there's no clear and obvious distinction between lawful good, and halfway between lawful good and neutral good, so there's no natural source of inspiration. As a result, creativity became strained, and we ended up not only with both demons and devils, but daemons and demodands; and the upper planes are even less imaginative, with the same relatively small set of spiritual beings scattered across them all.
And the Great Wheel is proscriptive, because everything is forced into one of those planes based an abstract and poorly defined alignment, instead of more natural affiliations, like those in the inspiring mythologies, or even a real theme. As a result, we have to figure out why Hades bumps shoulders with Hel but not any of the other gods of death or their own pantheons, and how mercantalist soul-trading hags who scatter their half-breed descendants across the Prime after nights of passion and terror, mercenary plague-d[a]emonlords in a tower and their motley servitor races, and a horde of inconsistent and random monsters not only fit into the Norse and Greek mythologies, but how they're related to a gloomy emotional imprisonment effect, not to mention their relations with all their planar neighbors and spill-over races. It's just a mess.
Quote from: S'mon;1123223I used 4e for a swords & sorcery Wilderlands/Barbarian Altanis campaign. But only the pregen PCs I made myself (all Fighters) really fit the tone; most classes didn't work that well. So when I ran my first 5e campaign as a sequel, I started off with all Barbarian Fighter & Rogue PCs to get the right tone. I basically use the 4e cosmology though, at least as the what-is-believed-true.
I kept the cosmology for my 4e high fantasy campaigns, but ditched most of it for my S&S campaign. For my S&S, everyone was Human and the classes were Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Warlord. Warlord was kinda pushing it, but it worked in actual play as our Warlord played him as a non-magical Bard / drill sergeant. No magic items either as the theme was "magic = evil & brings monsters out of hell". The no-magic items worked fine as I added the +X via levels.
But even then, it wasn't gritty S&S, but more Marvel comics Conan which for me, totally rocked.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1123244I kept the cosmology for my 4e high fantasy campaigns, but ditched most of it for my S&S campaign. For my S&S, everyone was Human and the classes were Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Warlord. Warlord was kinda pushing it, but it worked in actual play as our Warlord played him as a non-magical Bard / drill sergeant. No magic items either as the theme was "magic = evil & brings monsters out of hell". The no-magic items worked fine as I added the +X via levels.
But even then, it wasn't gritty S&S, but more Marvel comics Conan which for me, totally rocked.
Yes! 4e s&s is VERY Savage Sword of Conan! :)
Quote from: Slipshot762;1123221i never liked that they tried to "map out" the outer planes at all, for me it was enough that there is an astral and ethereal through which others can be travelled to. i preferred to imagine the cosmos as infinite vague and always changing, i hate the tourist wizard, the way players can cheapen the whole thing with their sure-fire knowledge of how many layers of hell there are, the way it gets reduced to a metaphysical trip to the mall for them.
That's a legit complaint.
If I run a D&D/PF campaign again, there are going to be issues with going to an outer plane regardless of alignment. Elemental, astral, ethereal, and demiplanes? Generally not too hard beyond environmental restrictions.
However, because most outer planes (with one exception) are heavily aligned in one way or another, characters will not be able to go very 'deep' into the plane as its very nature pushes at them on a spiritual level. Even PCs whose alignment matches will feel the weight of their flesh and be disturbed by it. Worse, even the nicest denizens are going to be encouraging the party to move along - 'you shouldn't be here yet' if nothing else. On the upshot, this allows for some fun diplomacy action if the party's searching for some ascended soul who's further 'up the ladder' because they need a crucial bit of information.
The only exception would be the Underworld, aka the 'landing pad for souls not yet judged'. The danger there is that when souls present realize the party isn't dead, they might start getting pushy ('Tell my daughter I loved her' and it goes downhill from there). Worse, because the door to the Underworld (in a metaphysical sense) is always open, souls might try to follow the party back to the lands of the living. Greek mythology might be useful for ideas on this.