What other settings should get the FR treatment?

So, they moved the timeline of the Forgotten Realms ahead 100 years, and made some changes--some minor, some drastic--to the setting. Some people like this, some don't, and I'm not interested in rehashing that particular fact here.

What I'd like to know, instead, is what other settings you think could benefit from a timeline jump + major shakeup.

It would real easy to fill this thread with "I don't like setting X, so they should change it, because any change would be an improvement." I'd kinda like to avoid that, too, thanks. What I'm really interested in hearing about is settings that you like, but maybe feel that it's time for a change built on the same foundation, or maybe a setting that you think has potential it hasn't quite reached.

So there it is. What settings (official TSR/WotC or otherwise) do you think would benefit from an FR-style advance?

Greyhawk and Birthright are the ones the spring to my mind.

Well, I may not be a fan of Athas--but it seems like most such fans dislike almost all the later Dark Sun works. A time jump could allow for it to be returned to its original 'grim meathook fantasy' outlook.

Didn't Dragonlance already do this?

Planescape and Spelljammer would need a massive reboot to really work in the new 4e order--but I don't think a Timejump/shakeup event is the right way to go.

Dark Sun. Bring back the post-apocalyptic feel of the first boxed set and undo the damage done by the novels and the second boxed set.

DL's been through more "* Shattering Events" than is fair, but hasn't had a 100 year jump (the War of the Lance is still in some's memories, though I think most of the Companions are dead). Don't think a 100 year jump would fit the way they've done things in past, but I think a clear break from the War of the Lance/Second Cataclysm/War of Souls would benefit it. Won't happen due to the DL Novel line, but hey one can postulate.

Not Eberron, however. 6 months is fine by me.

I'd love to see a reworked Dark Sun and Planescape.

Derulbaskul said:

Dark Sun. Bring back the post-apocalyptic feel of the first boxed set and undo the damage done by the novels and the second boxed set.

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Agreed. The first Darksun box set was brilliant swords and sorcery gaming, resembling a reimagining of Howard's Conan via traditional D&D (no, those horrid AD&D 1e Conan modules do not count). And I'll add. . .

Ravenloft. In my opinion, each subsquent streamlining of the setting gets even better.

Ravenloft (as a setting) started off as an almost satirical mishmash of every iconic Universal Horror film monster with a thin patina of fantasy slapped on for good measure. This was a good idea, but very hard to take seriously.

Every subsequent reissue of Ravenloft since that time has dialed back the campiness of its predecessors, with the Domains of Dread hardcover making Ravenloft an actual, persistent, world setting and editing out some of the more superfluous (or ridiculous) domains.

I'd like to see one more revision that takes down the "A vampire in every coffin, a werewolf in every forest!" trope for good. Stake that sucker, cut off its head, and then burn the corpse. Ravenloft still needs monsters, but they shouldn't be so common as to become mundane.

I'd also like to see fewer representations of monsters or monster hunters from other recognized media. In fact, I think that some classic D&D monsters of a more alien nature (e.g., ropers) re-worked to be slightly darker would come off as far more frightening than yet another cadre of mummies/werewolves/ghosts/vampires/etc.

I'd like to see Dark Sun brought back, and like others have posted I'd like to see most of the later material stripped out and rebooted back to the original box set.

I think its themes of environmental catastrophe are reflected in today's society, and would connect with players.

Out of respect for prior settings, none of them deserve the 4e FR handling.

That said...

I wouldn't mind seeing Dark Sun, but not at the expense of running roughshod over the continuity and its themes to force fit it into full compliance with the PoL setting tropes and even the PoL cosmology. Dark Sun has been out of print for a while, so it would be easier to advance the world ahead one century after the Cerulean Storm and present it with changes without the risk of trampling on recent material like 4e FR did. That might be kind of cool to see if done without retconning whole chunks of previous setting material. I wouldn't run it using 4e rules, but I'd probably buy a 4e DS setting book.

Ravenloft wouldn't really work with the 4e treatment given its status as almost a metasetting, drawing on the various TSR worlds and others. You could have a gothic horror setting, but I don't know if 4e is the best system and style assumptions to support it.

Please leave Planescape alone. Please. It won't work if it's ripped away from its thematic moorings in a 9 alignment axis cosmology, the Blood War, the history and nature of many races that have been retconned and radically redesigned for 4e etc. You could have a planar game in the 4e material, but it would run the serious risk of ending up being a mockery of the actual Planescape setting. Anything but a 4e PS unless WotC allowed it to be Planescape, allowed it to use its cosmology, and didn't put it through the 4e setting homogenizer.

Shemeska said:

Ravenloft wouldn't really work with the 4e treatment given its status as almost a metasetting, drawing on the various TSR worlds and others.

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This has not really been true since AD&D 2e. The Domains of Dread Ravenloft hardcover represented the setting as its own world with rules for native denizens. Subsequent revisionings of the setting built on this.