This whole, changing the backstory thing...

[Vigilance]

So one of the comments I hear a lot about 4e is how this edition will be "different" from previous edition changes.

How? They're changing the backstory!

Monsters that have been Devils for decades are suddenly Demons, just like that! (Or is it vice versa?)

The Great Wheel is going away.

Mechanics changes are fine I'm told, so long as the underlying backstory doesn't change.

I've been trying to put my finger on why this puzzles me for a bit now, and I finally have it:

The mechanics changes of previous editions changed the backstory of everyone's game WAY more profoundly than anything going on here.

In second edition, the whole makeup of the Cleric spell list changed overnight.

Many gods no longer granted healing or protection spells to their clerics.

Let me tell you, that had a bigger impact on MY homebrew than what extradimensional team some of the players belonged to.

And Bards. They became something completely different between 1 and 2e.

I had a PC Bard, who had clawed tooth and nail to get there, and there was no WAY he was becoming some wimpy druid/illusionist with a d6 HD.

So he became, in effect, the last of his kind. Other Bards whispered about the abilities he possessed as he walked down the street. Abilities they could no longer attain.

Between 2nd and 3rd?

Two words: Human. Multiclassing.

Again, talk about backstory changes!

Either all humans encountered in the past never chose to multi-class for some mysterious reason, while the younger set LOVED to multi-class, or, they suddenly cropped up with new abilities.

And those demi-human level limits? Turns out they were really more of a guideline than a rule and the elves could advance to high levels all along.

Sure, the elf queen stayed at 7th level fighter for 1,000 YEARS, but now, she could put on her muck boots and explore dungeons to get more powerful with the young whippersnappers.

Who knew?

I could come up with some more, but in short: change happens. And every change, even the mechanical ones, change the look, feel and smell of a world profoundly.

I think some of the mechanical changed of previous editions affected the backstory of worlds much more than the Succubus switching teams, and her home being an island in and astral sea as opposed to spinning in the spoked of a Newtonian wheel.

And those worlds survived just fine.

Chuck

 

[Treebore]

I have to say your right. Backstory changes I can ignore or use as I wish.

Rules mechanics you can't.

The assassin is gone. The Bard is now a single class and very whimpy. Monk? Whats a Monk?

Then in 3E Monks are back, BArds are a little less whimpy, and the assassin is now something called a prestige class.

Now with 4E, gnomes are no longer core, different classes are now part of the core, and we are still up in the air about Prestige Classes (last I noticed anyways).

So yeah, the rules changes are bigger than "background". Which is why when I switched from 2E to 3E I totally switched my campaign setting. I switched to Ravenloft and then to Wilderlands. When I switched ot C&C I switched to Erde/Airhde.

If I was going to DM 4E I would likely switch settings again. Probably back to Faerun and maybe even Greyhawk.

I found switching settings with the rules set to be much easier than continuing with Faerun and just changing everyones characters when we switched from 1E to 2E.

Yeah, "background" changes are a heck of a lot easier to ignore.

 

[Li Shenron]

I agree about changing settings. I don't think I can ever update an existing campaign to another ruleset successfully. Anyway I'm the kind of gamer that gladly creates new campaigns or new PC anytime, just to try something different, so it's ok for me.

 

[BBQ]

Well, nothing's stopping you from adhering to some of the older rules and flavor. You can have all the demons and devils you want. I prefer the Erinyes to remain the "Goddesses of Punishment" as they were in Greek mythology anyway, but that's just my personal opinion.

I welcome the eladrin. I've been playing the grey elves/high elves off as a much more magically inclined, fey-like breed anyway. The new edition makes that distinction clear and even. Same with drow (they've been apart from their elven cousins for so long, they're like a different species).

A tiny part of me laments the fact that druid and bard won't be in the first PHB, but that's not really a problem. Few of my players have been playing druids or bards of late, and those NPC bards and druids can simply go into seclusion for a while.

I also welcome the warlock (as do a few of my players). We've loved the warlock class since it showed up in Complete Arcane. We've actually developed a nation ruled by a tyrannical order of warlocks (and their fiendish masters).

The new planar setup actually works better for my world. It used to adhere to the Great Wheel concept, but after the events of "The Apocalypse Stone"... well, the planar make-up and everything wound up changing.

Quite frankly, my campaign setting is ready for the changes. Bring it on.

Also, I'm quite stoked for the new Forgotten Realms stuff. Looks very nice.

Treebore, I might correct you on one tiny note: gnomes are still core, they're just in the MM instead of the PHB. They moved next door, not out of the neighborhood.

I don't see the backstory of my world's history changing. I see it improving, becoming more in tune with the way all the players have been envisioning it for years.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Well, nothing's stopping you from adhering to some of the older rules and flavor. You can have all the demons and devils you want.

Exactly, I can still continue my Planescape campaign of 2 years with the 4th Ed rules.

I really, really dig the new cosmology, but I also love the Planescape/Great Wheel action, and the Eberron cosmology, so it just depends on the campaign setting.

If I run a Dark Sun campaign, it would be another cosmological set-up entirely (the Grey, the Black etc), or Cerilia, or Mystara etc.

I also plan on running an actual Points of Light implied setting campaign fully embracing the cosmology.

 

[Shroomy]

Background changes don't seem too hard to circumvent, Eberron and Golarion do a good job of it in 3.5e.

 

[borc killer]

I've been trying to put my finger on why this puzzles me for a bit now, and I finally have it:

The mechanics changes of previous editions changed the backstory of everyone's game WAY more profoundly than anything going on here.

One thing I think people miss is that there is now NO default world. It has always been proto-Greyhawk or Greyhawk. Now they don’t have to worry about ANY old story lines unless they want to add it into this new points-of-light ‘world’. It must be incredibly liberating for them now to start everything fresh and not have to worry about how mechanics effect the 4000 years of history in Greyhawk.

Greyhawk still runs just the way it is now, nothing’s changed… at least till it gets a 4e update. But when it is updated there is no reason in the world why it would have to use the new cosmology. FR and Eberron are being advanced with the basic changes of 4e in mind but they are destroying their cosmology and that is just how people should handle their own campaigns. Be creative.

As for me… I am making a whole new world based around the points of light idea. It is always fun to start over : )

 

[gizmo33]

I guess it depends on how you translate your rules into the game world. My NPCs never went around saying "well, I'm not just an assassin, I'm of the assassin character class!". Basically assassins remained assassins even if their character class switched to rogue. Illusionist - same thing - somewhat subtle changes in their spell selection but a spell caster who concentrated on illusion spells could still be created in later rules.

The Great Wheel/Succubus situation is a little different, but since many campaign worlds already don't use the Great Wheel I imagine the reverse situation (not using whatever cosmology 4E uses) won't be that hard either.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

To me, it is simply amazing that people can sit around a table and pretend to be elves, dwarves, half-dragons and the like yet when confronted with revisional CRUNCH and fluff changes, they fold like a paper doll.

Frankly, this whole "old guard/grognard" thing is ridiculous. It's a game of imagination - I'm sure it will be easy to pretend to be elves, dwarves and half-dragons in the upcoming edition, too if you plan to convert. If not, well then hey - kudos!

 

[Roger]

And those worlds survived just fine.

Hmmm... did they?

Planescape, Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, Mystara, Spelljammer... if those worlds are surviving, it's only in the meagre of ways.


Cheers,
Roger