OD&D What is Mystara?

[Urriak Uruk]

That is my point, these setting are too deep, diverse, and complex with long histories to summarize these Settings into a line or two.

I honestly think it is important to try to distill these settings into a line or two. If you don't, there isn't a great argument as to why to choose one setting or another. After all, FR, Greyhawk, and Mystara have a lot of themes and tropes that overlap, so it is very important to me to find what makes them distinct.

You really think so? What trope is missing from the Forgotten Realms? There is a FR version just about everything you can think of up to and including a FR version of the Mongolian Horde, Great Wall of China, and more. Look long enough and you find everything in FR.

I think FR does circumvent some of the kitchen sink problems by putting differing things in sufficiently far areas of the world (either geographically or figuratively). I think it still has some of those flaws of doing "too much at once," but I think 5e has done a fair job at keeping those elements distinct (although when you read Undermountain you do get a first-hand experience for how bananas everything is when clustered in the same area).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The more I'm reading these replies, the more I'm thinking that if Mystara is released (big if) it will need a bit of a redesign to ensure it leans heavily into a colorful, pulpy fantasy where the heroes are really these larger-than-life characters.

Definitely would be more of a setting to start off for younger audiences (think He-Man, Thundercats, the Black Cauldron), leaning on that Capcom influence of pixel-art and color. But I don't think that's all bad, especially for kids who just want a power fantasy.

Get Noelle Stevenson and Pendleton Ward involved.

 

[S'mon]

I feel like it's easiest to first talk about what Mystara is not - it's not swords & sorcery. It's not (generally) dark, and it's never gritty (except for Night's Dark Terror). It's not low-magic.

It is about exploration. The call out to Jules Verne is a good one. It's flying ships and At the Earth's Core. It's a thousand wizard kings ruling a magical empire. It's bright 1960s Hollywood - Robin Hood and Sword & Sandals, moustache-twirling villains (probably played by Vincent Price) and righteous heroes. Kirk Douglas as Spartacus would be right at home in Thyatis, Kirk Douglas as a Viking would fit great in Ostland, whereas Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan would be a poor fit in Mystara.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I love the Realms, but it's the closest D&D setting to porn. You have fleshed out sex worker Guild/gangs, enough sex Themed gods/goddess to fill out a pantheon, massive sex temples, sex crazed Archfiends, a magic stripper class (Spelldancer/Spellsinger), several BDSM themed Elf races (Shadar Kai and Drow), it's own terminology for brothels (Festhalls among others), Sex Workers (Coin Lads and Coin Lasses), major Succubi characters, and brothels/orgies/rape and other adult suggest matter in a lot of it's novels. You could make a drinking game out of how often a male character ends up in a threesome with two women in Salvatore's novels. A setting where we find out a lot of Tieflings go into sex work, because other occuptations discriminate against them, If they turned Pornhub into a D&D setting, it'd be the Forgotten Realms. And that is just the sex, not the gory, bloody elements like serial killers stalking the streets of Baldur's Gate, sacrifice males on Drow alters, vivid descriptions of savage torture and multilation, eternal damnation graphically depicted, more acts of magical genocide then you can shake a stick at and that is just the Elves. And people think Ravenloft is the Horror setting.

If they made movie from the novel Elminister in Hell for example, you'd have people puking in threatres. I'll spare you the details.

And the funniest part is that the least family friendly setting is the default setting the gets presented to families. Honestly FR is my favourite D&D setting, but it's the LAST setting I'd encourage kids to play. Greyhawk as heavily connected to FR as it is (they are super close even in physical proximity and share a lot of demihuman Gods and even NPCs), would be the second most graphic. Third most Graphic would be Planescape or Ravnica (mostly because of Rakdos). Ravenloft Fourth most graphic setting.

Mystara, Nentir Vale, Spelljammer or Eberron would be the most family friendly Settings IMHO. If I had kids, those are the setting I'd encourage them to play. When they because adults, then I'd introduce FR. I love FR.

Birthright, Darksun, and the rest would be right in the middle.

Someone mentioned that Golarion was super twisted and graphic at times, but that is because it was the Forgotten Realms, not Mystara that was the core inspiration for Golarion, (although I can see Mystara's influence cultural/geography wise).

I mean...sex existing isn’t porn, but okay.

Also...Shadar-kai are BDSM themed? Lolwut?

Are like...90’s goths BDSM themed, by your reckoning?

A bit over the top, Byronian in melodrama and Marylin Mansonion in edglordy angst, sure, but BDSM themed? Not especially.

 

[Kurotowa]

Mike Mearls calls it "pulp fantasy".

He's not wrong. On a spectrum from Conan to Aragorn, I'd put Mystara closer to Conan and Forgotten Realms closer to Aragorn with Greyhawk in between. Mystara is the setting with the most pulp science-fantasy elements like crashed spaceships and time travel and a hidden world inside the planet. Mystara is the setting where there are no gods, just mortals risen to become phenomenally powerful immortals, some of whom have transcended mortal concerns and some of whom have very much not. Mystara is the setting where Law and Chaos are the defining cosmic forces instead of Good and Evil, which has a great many knock on effects for morality and factional alliances.

If you asked me which setting was most akin to that of Conan, or Elric, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, I'd answer Mystara without hesitation. All of D&D has those in their blood, but the Tolkein influence runs a lot closer to the surface in many of them. You have to pick the ones that really go off on a tangent like Eberron or Dark Sun to escape the pull of those two poles.

 

[S'mon]

He's not wrong. On a spectrum from Conan to Aragorn, I'd put Mystara closer to Conan and Forgotten Realms closer to Aragorn with Greyhawk in between. Mystara is the setting with the most pulp science-fantasy elements like crashed spaceships and time travel and a hidden world inside the planet. Mystara is the setting where there are no gods, just mortals risen to become phenomenally powerful immortals, some of whom have transcended mortal concerns and some of whom have very much not. Mystara is the setting where Law and Chaos are the defining cosmic forces instead of Good and Evil, which has a great many knock on effects for morality and factional alliances.

If you asked me which setting was most akin to that of Conan, or Elric, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, I'd answer Mystara without hesitation. All of D&D has those in their blood, but the Tolkein influence runs a lot closer to the surface in many of them. You have to pick the ones that really go off on a tangent like Eberron or Dark Sun to escape the pull of those two poles.

Yeah, this is like the opposite of my opinion.

It's definitely not Tolkien, but it's not Conan/Elric/Lankhmar either. It's swashbuckling adventure, heroes and villains (despite Alignment being L v C). If it's pulp, it's Raiders of the Lost Ark, not lll Met in Lankhmar. At the darker end it might be Dragonslayer, but never Conan the Barbarian.

 

[gyor]

I mean...sex existing isn’t porn, but okay.

Also...Shadar-kai are BDSM themed? Lolwut?

Are like...90’s goths BDSM themed, by your reckoning?

A bit over the top, Byronian in melodrama and Marylin Mansonion in edglordy angst, sure, but BDSM themed? Not especially.

Read the Broken Chain novels among others in 4e, the Shadar Kai use pain to keep from being devoured by their own shadowy nature. It might not be the same in 5e.

And they loved spiked chains, the weapon of choice for those who feel that whips are sadistic enough.

And it's not porn, but it's the closest to it of any setting.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Here's my take:

Greyhawk = Vanilla D&D
Forgotten Realms = Vanilla D&D
Mystara = Vanilla D&D
Dragonlance = Vanilla D&D but even more Tolkien-esque
Birthright = Vanilla D&D but the PCs are rulers
Spelljammer = D&D in space
Planescape = Planehopping D&D
Dark Sun = Post-apocalyptic D&D
Eberron = D&D meets Indiana Jones

I think describing Mystara as being like Jules Verne, HG Wells and ER Burroughs is rather misleading, given that there are strongly Verne/Wells/Burroughs-ian rpgs out there such as Space: 1889 and Castle Falkenstein. At most Mystara is D&D with some minor Burroughs-ian elements but more than anything else it's straight up wizards, orcs n' magic swords D&D.

 

[S'mon]

I think describing Mystara as being like Jules Verne, HG Wells and ER Burroughs is rather misleading, given that there are strongly Verne/Wells/Burroughs-ian rpgs out there such as Space: 1889 and Castle Falkenstein. At most Mystara is D&D with some minor Burroughs-ian elements but more than anything else it's straight up wizards, orcs n' magic swords D&D.

Well yeah, I was just looking at how it differs from Greyhawk, which is D&D with more swords & sorcery.

 

[The Glen]

One of the biggest differences between Grayhawk is that Mystara doesn't have the obviously evil Nations at least in the known world. Glantri is a glorious mess that tends towards lawful evil but some of the principalities would be considered good or neutral. Thyatis is largely based on Imperial Rome so everybody's backstabbing everybody.

But as far as the rest of them they do make a point of because everybody's so interconnected with everyone else they have to behave themselves. It does have a massive focus on international trade, two of the nations are economic powerhouses and they are more interested in a trade War than a hot War.