D&D 4E Default setting for 4E?

[Jürgen Hubert]

I voted for "brand-new setting". Here's why:

- I don't think that Greyhawk would work well. Sure, lots of people remember it from their AD&D1E days, but that's a shrinking demographic. And D&D is the most common entry RPG. So the setting should also be able to interest the younger demographics (which does not mean "dumbing it down" - but there are plenty of instances in fiction and entertainment is appreciated by all age levels) - and I have my doubts a setting that old can do it well. Greyhawk has stayed the same, while D&D - and role-playing in general - have moved on. Sure, plenty of people here have said that Greyhawk contains what is the essence of D&D for them. But how many people of you are below the age of 20? Or even 30, for that matter?

- Forgotten Realms has been done before, and while it isn't quite as old as Greyhawk, it still is threatened of being buried under its own complexity. Exploring the same areas over and over again can't be what the future of gaming is all about.

- While I like Eberron a lot, I have to agree with others that the setting has too much weird stuff on top of the Core Rules - or, to be more precise, on top of the Core Concepts of D&D. There is much in the setting that isn't generic at all - the additional races, dragonmarks, dragonshards, and so on. Thus, it is less than ideal for showing off the Core Rules.

- A brand-new setting would make the most sense to me. One that doesn't require much in the way of rules beyond what's found in the core rules (though you can of course add minor, optional things like prestige classes later on...), and one that's designed to attract new people to gaming.

- Resurrecting a discontinued setting wouldn't really work - while I love most of them, most are too "far out" to serve as the Core Setting. They all have their own niches in which they work perfectly, but a Core Setting should go beyond that.

- Using a Third-Party setting is also unlikely. WotC much prefers to develop their own thing. And the most recognizable third-party settings also have strong elements that distinguishes them from, say, the Forgotten Realms - and I guess that's what made them noteworthy and successful, but that also makes them less than useful for showing off the Core Rules.

- Not using a single "default setting" would also make some sense. But still, WotC will have to publish setting books for 4E very soon after the Core Books are released. And what are they going to do them? Release yet another version of the Forgotten Realms? Possible, but trying out new ground might be a better idea in the long run...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's (yes you guessed it) Scarred Lands!

Won't happen.

The Core Setting should be generic enough so that explaining the world to someone by saying "It's a bit similar to the Lord of the Rings movies" should be a good start. This is the case for Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, but not for the Scarred Lands.

Because let's face it - those movies are the most common entry points to the fantasy genre these days. And WotC would be foolish to ignore that.

 

[Rawwedge]

I rather liked the idea of a completely new 4th ed. setting before I started reading this thread. Now I'm feeling a lot of sympathy for the idea that the effort should be made to keep the game as approachable as possible to new gamers.
I think the level of setting support in the core books now would probably suit a new DM best. IMHO a light 'core' setting should reflect the early flavor of the game. Let the new folks discover their own tastes and preferences on their own as they get to know the game. Specific settings that suit particular tastes already exist and should continue to become available as time goes by.

 

[Yair]

I definitely think a background, vanilla simple implied setting is required. For this purpose, I think GH works best. It's simple, it forms the bacbone of many little D&D details, it works well.

That said, a new setting may work well too. If WotC can decide on a vanilla background setting it may be possible to incorporate some 3e (and 4e?) ideas, or desired themes such as Tolkeinish elves, more naturally into it. I suspect, however, that this will not be the case. Not only will this likely lead to many GH artifacts scattered about, it will divorce the game from its rich history which is likely to lead to a poorer, shallower game.

 

[jollyninja]

That would limit the cleric. If you don't lose a word about pantheons, deities, and clerics as their chief followers, you take away from the archetype. Note that 3e already says that you can have a cleric that doesn't worship a deity, but some ideals. But the option of the deity's champion should always remain there. And for that, a sample pantheon is really useful. Why not just use any pantheon, say, the one they're using now (which is now officially called "D&D Pantheon" - in the core rules, it's just an abbridged version of greyhawks deity roll call, but some of the deities introduced in additional books are new additions, not before seen in any GH book.)

point taken, i just think that in the core it should be all about options, not limitations. Implying a setting creates limitations. I would preffer, if a diety list need be included that it not be the greyhawk pantheon. if they are trying to hook new players, it would be easier to do with information they were more fmiliar with. like the greek/roman pantheon or members of various pantheons to fill the archetypes. ie, what kid doesn't know about thor? put him in there ect.

Now come on, those can very easily ported to whatever deity or nation you happen to have in your campaign: Knight Protector of Generia, Fist of Tyranny, Ravager of Slaughterman The God Of Slaughter, whatever.

The Eye of Gruumsh is more racial than GH specific. This one is actually more or less tied to Gruumsh, with the missing eye thing and all, but even then you'd only have to swap out some flavour and you'd have your generic Orc Berserker of the Bleeding Eyeball Tribe.

knight protector of generia, nice. I would happily port the class, but would preffer that the text in the book be used more for the role the class would fill and who would take it then the story of the fall of gh's great kingdom. I will also grant that gruumsh is a racial diety and therefore does not qualify as GH specific.

Well, that's the problem: They don't want to come out with Greyhawk anything. They have one traditional fantasy setting, and that's the Forgotten Realms. They won't start competing with their own product (look what it did to TSR in 2e). And GH could never beat the FR in popularity. The tons of novels that are written for the Realms and those that are still to be written make it their favourite franchise for vanilla fantasy needs.

So they will let GreyHawk do its job: Being the default setting that is snuck in to provide some premade flavour that is easily discarded, but useful if you just need something, and perfectly usable piecemeal or wholesale..

They should either support a setting with a minimum of a setting book and a players guide/races of book or let it go. If FR is going to be "the setting" that recieves support then why not just make it "the setting" from the outset. I'm not for canning greyhawk but why pseudo support it then make newcomers switch to something else if they want more depth. I think that it would be poor buisiness sense to do that again. having the core say "these are the gods" then having no context in which to use them was foolish for 3e and would remain foolish for 4e. just my opinion.

 

[Nightfall]

Jurgen,

I know it won't happen but you know me. I'm hopelessly delusional about the Scarred Lands.

Which I must pimp again! Scarred Lands!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Maybe it's just me, but, as someone raised in the 90's, vanilla fantasy feels very 70's.

Note that Tolkien started writing his middle earth stuff during WWI, most of LotR was written during WWII, and has been published long enough for your parents and maybe even grandparents to read as kids. It was already old in the 70s.

And that's just the most popular fantasy story around. Others are much older. And yet, the last movies to hit the flicks are only a couple of years old, and were a huge success.

I wouldn't call it 70's, or 50's. I call it timeless.

If WotC is indeed aiming for a new generation of gamers with the new edition, they may think the same way.

And lose many regular customers?

While you can easily add the "flashy" parts to vanilla fantasy, you can't just take a flashy fantasy and take the flashy parts away to make it vanilla again.

And that makes the flashy kit useless for D&D's default rules. As I said: One of D&D's defining traits and main strengths lie in its customisability. You can play flashy games. You can play "true", traditional fantasy. You can play horror, steampunk, and weird stuff like fantasy/sci-fi mix-ups. Take away the general core setting and you cripple DM.

It's like a true master of disuise: It can look however you want it, but in order to do it, its real face must be as average as possible.

I'm coming at it from a standpoint of interest. Greyhawk bores me. Many of my gaming friends love it to death, but can come up with no explanations for this love beyond it being "a classic" and "real D&D."

And is that not reason enough? It may be nostalgia, but for many, it was the first setting for D&D. It will always be the first setting, the one setting others have measure up to. And even if they are far better, you need that one benchmark.

point taken, i just think that in the core it should be all about options, not limitations. Implying a setting creates limitations. I would preffer, if a diety list need be included that it not be the greyhawk pantheon.

Okay, that would work, although it would again be another list of deities that doesn't contain everything. I think the 3e D&D-Pantheon is an interesting mix, and as good as any for standards.

if they are trying to hook new players, it would be easier to do with information they were more fmiliar with. like the greek/roman pantheon or members of various pantheons to fill the archetypes. ie, what kid doesn't know about thor? put him in there ect.

Thor who? I'd say a lot wouldn't be able to place that one. He isn't on any of the Pokemon cards, after all

A mythical Earth pantheon might not be too good an idea, anyway, since it might suggest that D&D is supposed to play on Earth. I don't know how the anti-D&D front is doing right now, but I'd like to play it safe by not supplying them nuklear warheads free of charge to test whether they still have missiles.

They should either support a setting with a minimum of a setting book and a players guide/races of book or let it go.

That would limit the choices to "fully support the setting, including putting out books that would poach on our other settings' grounds" or "not have any sample material in the books", none of which I'd like to see.

If FR is going to be "the setting" that recieves support then why not just make it "the setting" from the outset.

Because the Realms should not be the standard setting. Though the setting itself is pretty much vanilla fantasy, it has too many specifics that would have to be put into the core books.

Besides, it would peter off those who don't like the Realms. Wizards would lose customers over this.

I'm not for canning greyhawk but why pseudo support it then make newcomers switch to something else if they want more depth. I think that it would be poor buisiness sense to do that again.

I have to disagree there. Currently, they can use the GH stuff as examples for everything, and freely add stuff they like and that suits their current needs for D&D supplement X (like the war pantheon in Complete Warrior). People can use those as building blocks - use what they want, discard the rest - for their homebrews. But the settings all have their own stuff - none is unduly favoured by having its stuff in the core rules.

If they made FR the core setting, they couldn't just invent a war pantheon if they felt like it in CW4e, or "Urbanus City God" in 4e's Races of Destiny lookalike.

 

[an_idol_mind]

For me to want more of a core setting, someone would have to convince me that the current status quo is a problem. As is, the only setting specific elements of the core books are the names of some spells (which have simply reached sacred cow status to some extent) and the description of the gods. I don't give a flip about the former (in fact, I've managed to place Mordenkainen et al into the distant past of my setting), and the latter is something I see as important if only as examples in the core rules.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I voted "should not have an assumed setting," but AFAIC voting "Greyhawk" is the same thing. Something very vague and generic (at least, the Greyhawk of 3.x is this way).

If there is a setting, I'd prefer a setting built around the rules (i.e., integration of magic, monsters, etc. in society) rather than an assumption of generic medieval settings and superstitions.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

On the whole deities thing...

A product I'd like to see, but know I never will, would be a collection of the deities and epic level PCs of the Magic: The Gathering World...

But it would be interesting to intersperse a few of them into a 4th Ed setting, to replace those that are too closely linked to the RW and there is no question about how familiar a lot of younger gamers would be with those names.

C'mon...you know Mishra would make a cool sub for Hephaestus...