Pathfinder 1E Paizo - Scourge of Old Worlds?

[Staffan]

but that has not been WOTC's method for updating any of their campaign worlds to 3e to date. sorcerers didn't exist in 2e Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms either, but the 3e versions of both settings have them. along with numerous other 3e-isms (like barbarians, monks, cleric domain spells, monsters with class levels, ad infinitum).

Both FR and GH have always had people described as barbarians and monks. It's just that 2e didn't have any special rules for those kinds of people (1e/Unearthed Arcana did, though), at least not in the core books (there was a Complete Barbarian's Handbook, and Faiths & Avatars had a monk class that was basically a priest with martial arts). Cleric domain spells are a replacement for the special abilities specialty priests got in 2e - if you check F&A, you'll see that one of the most common methods of giving powers to a specialty priest class was to give them a spell-like ability every odd level. So, those are just different interpretations of things that existed in the setting. When doing Dark Sun 3e, they added stuff that actively goes against the way the setting was portrayed in 2e.

To clarify, I wouldn't mind overly much if they made Dark Sun clerics work like 3e clerics, only with a different set of elemental-themed domains to choose from (this is the approach taken by athas.org). It's not what I'd prefer, but I can see why they'd do that. Adding sorcerers and paladins is a different thing, because there are very good reasons why the setting doesn't have that kind of character.

it doesn't seem reasonable to me to expect them to suddenly change their methods and only do "direct ports" from now on with the other settings. i really like the changes that were made from 2e to 3e, and if all the settings were simply "directly ported" over, we'd end up losing the vast majority of the really innovative and IMO best changes to the D&D rules.

And instead we lose what made those worlds unique and interesting in the first place. Athas, once a harsh wasteland where arcane magic requires serious study, gods and philosophies don't grant supernatural power, and where heavy armor both costs as much as a substantial fortification and is liable to kill you by heatstroke, turns into Greyhawk in a desert.

 

[martynq]

Again, I am showing my age. For those of you who are much, much younger than me, Ed Greenwood wrote an article in which he described the process of creating his mythos, well before there was an official FR setting. It appeared in Dragon magazine, and included gods which (for copyright/ownership reasons...Aslan, anyone?) never made it into the official material. This was back in good old 1e AD&D, before the (original) Unearthed Arcana, but after the Deities & Demigods.

Yep, an article in Dragon 54. Also used a version of the Elemental Gods whose names were subsequently changed and didn't at that point have Waukeen.

Martyn

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yep, an article in Dragon 54. Also used a version of the Elemental Gods whose names were subsequently changed and didn't at that point have Waukeen.

They had to change them, I think. Didn't Ed start out with the names from the Melnibonean mythos (then part of Deities & Demigods before someone noticed and told them to take them out)?

 

[martynq]

Yes, I think it was something like that.

Martyn

 

[Richards]

In my opinion, Dragon and/or Dungeon shouldn't revamp any old settings.

Um...you're wrong. Next question?

Actually, Kravell is absolutely correct, as all he's doing is stating his opinion. The stating of one's opinion is, by default, a fact. You might not agree with his opinion, but you can't really tell him that doesn't actually have that opinion. Plus, don't you think stating "you're wrong" and moving on is rather dismissive (and perhaps a little rude)? Messageboards (well, this one, anyway) are meant for discussion and the airing of different sides of an issue, not just saying "I'm right" and "No, I'm right, you're wrong!"

[begin Monty Python reference] It sounds like you could use a session in an Argument Clinic, tetsujin28. Just be careful not to walk into the room where they're having Hit On The Head Lessons. [end Monty Python reference]

Johnathan

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

How did my halfling's flabby gut turn into a trim waist?

How did his feet suddenly become hairless? (in a poof of smoke?)

How did his pipe o' tabacco go missing?

Why can't said halfling take a portal from Sigil to FR/Mystara/Dragonlance/Darksun/Spelljammer/Ravenloft/Birthright anymore?

Why can't I shake hands with a priest of Zeus on the Outlands, or sip tea with a priestess of Bast in the Lady's Ward?

Why haven't I seen any spelljamming ships come to dock in Waterdeep these days?

Why have all the bullywugs taken the last portal from Oerth and gone to the Realms?

Why don't Mordenkainen and Elminster keep in touch anymore?

Lessee.

Must be on one of those 'low carb, high protein' fad diets and no more sedimentary (far worse than sedentary) lifestyle.

Male pattern baldness, a side effect of the above diet or a really good wax job.

The Surgeon General's been warning about it for decades but it was probably ol' Uncle Stickyfingers.

There's now a bunch of 'You must be this tall to use this portal' signs all over. Gnomes and dwarves aren't too happy either.

Priests of Zeus don't like to shake hands and that's not tea.

It's too expensive to move the ships (kinda like with gas prices here) and to make it worse, the local Spelljammer unions are on strike.

Bullywug legs are now a delicacy on Oerth but they're a protected species on Faerun (just from eating not adventurers).

Supposedly the long distance rates are too high but personally I think it was over a girlfriend.

Voila. All questions answered.

 

[dead]

Lessee.

Must be on one of those 'low carb, high protein' fad diets and no more sedimentary (far worse than sedentary) lifestyle.

Male pattern baldness, a side effect of the above diet or a really good wax job.

The Surgeon General's been warning about it for decades but it was probably ol' Uncle Stickyfingers.

There's now a bunch of 'You must be this tall to use this portal' signs all over. Gnomes and dwarves aren't too happy either.

Priests of Zeus don't like to shake hands and that's not tea.

It's too expensive to move the ships (kinda like with gas prices here) and to make it worse, the local Spelljammer unions are on strike.

Bullywug legs are now a delicacy on Oerth but they're a protected species on Faerun (just from eating not adventurers).

Supposedly the long distance rates are too high but personally I think it was over a girlfriend.

Voila. All questions answered.

ha, ha, ha.

I pinched this quote that someone had posted on another RPG site. I don't know if it's already been mentioned or not and I don't know how true it is but it's very interesting:

I am told that the Star Trek TV franchise relied on fans to do the continuity checking, since they were more knowledgeable and had more incentive than the people actually working on scripts. I think the same is true here in Greyhawk. For many people at TSR/WotC/Hasbro/Paizo or whatever corporate avatar we are talking about, at the end of the day this is just a job. For us fans, this is our life! (Sad but true)

 

[La Bete]

Sure, in one's own private campaign they can do anything they want. It doesn't matter if the *official* version is now vastly different.

Fans of a setting, however, expect the setting to be treated with some measure of dignity. Why? Because they have invested in it for so long (indeed, they are one reason the setting is alive).

If you have never supported a setting for many years then you will not understand. You will think it is just a bunch of campaign-setting elitists who are petulant that *everybody else* isn't playing how they play: the old-school hardcore way! This is not the case, however.

Interesting - if I understand you correctly, you claim that the devotion of the fans to a setting gives them a certain amount of "ownership" over the future direction of the material.

So for any person new to the hobby, or someone who never bought the setting when it came out, their only option is to purchase the 2e material, or to go to the relevant fan site?

I'd be inclined to disagree. I played most of the old 2e settings and thoroughly enjoyed them. I will not say that I have agreed with all of the conversions to date, but I am glad to see them in Dragon (which reaches a wider group of people than this website in a way). And I fully support WOTC/Paizos right to ensure that the converted setting material reaches and is accessible to a wide range of fans of DnD.

While I can see peoples somewhat justified attitude towards (for example) paladins in DS, I dont really see it as "dumbing it down" or "catering to the lowest denominator".

An attitude prevalent amongst the setting fans is "do it right, or dont do it at all." My apologies if it offends, but I would rather see the material published than not.

 

[dead]

Interesting - if I understand you correctly, you claim that the devotion of the fans to a setting gives them a certain amount of "ownership" over the future direction of the material.

So for any person new to the hobby, or someone who never bought the setting when it came out, their only option is to purchase the 2e material, or to go to the relevant fan site?

No, they'd buy 3E material that respects some measure of continuity.

If the 3E material has chosen not to respect continuity then, sure, new fans won't notice the difference.

Also, that wasn't my quote about fans "owning" the campaign setting. It was someone else's but I found it interesting.

 

[barsoomcore]

Be careful of terms like "direct port" -- that's a pretty ambiguous notion and what looks direct to one person may not look so to another.

I interpreted "direct port" to mean "put the setting into 3e" rather than "put 3e into the setting."

Okay, are there still questions on my point? It's nice that Staffan, for example, has an interpretation of "direct port", but there's nothing to make any other given person KNOW that this interpretation is the one Staffan means, without this little addendum.

One more time. I'm not arguing for or against any particular change on any particular settings. All I'm saying is that language like, "They should just do a direct port," is less helpful than language like, "There should be no sorcerers in Dark Sun."

The latter statement is arguable, can be defended or attacked sensibly and leads to useful conversation. The former leads only to arguments over what "direct port" means.