D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

hawkeyefan · Jul 7, 2017

Yaarel said:
If you take two different campaign settings and do a mash-up of them, that can cool and intriguing. But that mash-up is only true at your own table. Not every gamer has to mash up these two settings just because you did.

Of course. I don't think anyone is saying otherwise.

I find your Borg analogy pretty apt.....we're all free to decide for ourselves.

Gradine · Jul 7, 2017

Hussar said:
OH hey, I didn't say I agreed with the point. I think that canon arguments are utterly pointless. I'd much rather see a new take on an old setting than a rehash. But, that being said, I know I'm alone in that.

I wouldn't sell yourself short on this point at all. I think there's maybe a confirmation bias regarding the skew on this particular board, but even then a half-dozen-or-so people loudly complaining over and over again does not make an overwhelming claim for setting fidelity. Curse of Strahd was, from what I've seen, still one of the most critically acclaimed and well-loved WotC AP. I'm sure the vast majority of 5e players have never even heard of Acererak until Yawning Portal/this new AP. Greyhawk in particular seems to have a small but diehard fan-base with an overwhelming demand for setting purity and a disproportionate showing on this board.

I mean, Forgotten Realms is overwhelmingly the most popular setting, and there the "new take on the setting" is a constant feature that seems to be the appeal of that setting, rather than a bug. The only modern popular-setting that seems to have a diehard "don't touch that" mentality is Eberron, which was an explicit and deliberate choice from the beginning. And I'd count myself among the minority of die-hard Eberron fans that would like to see an actual update to the setting.

DEFCON 1 · Jul 7, 2017

Yaarel said:
We are the Borg. We will assimilate you. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.

Heh heh! Although in truth that's actually backwards-- they aren't assimilating your technological distinctiveness... you're assimilating theirs by using their rules.

guachi · Jul 7, 2017

Staffan said:
2. If the setting has lain fallow for a long time, go back to its roots. Find the stuff that people liked about the setting, and focus on those. Feel free to alter other aspects of it, and release it as a "reboot". Don't bother too much with later additions, though it they turned out to be largely positive feel free to include them from the start. This is the approach taken by the current TORG: Eternity release, and was the approach taken by the 4e Dark Sun release (which I gather worked out pretty well, particularly when adjusting for being 4e).

I was going to write this and then read your post where you already had.

I think 5e should do this for every setting that isn't Forgotten Realms. Back to basics. Remove as much metaplot as possible. Can't really do that for Dragonlance as it was designed in conjunction with books and a metaplot adventure. But take it back to or right after the War of the Lance. Reset Mystara (lol, like WotC will ever do anything with it) before Wrath of the Immortals.

Sadras · Jul 7, 2017

hawkeyefan said:
I love the extended multiverse. My current campaign makes use of several settings, all connected through Sigil and the Planes. It's actually a combination of several campaigns we've had over the years in different settings.

That is where we are currently at our table - the multi-campaign storyline has just recently started to reveal itself along with how PC and NPC actions as well as setting lore has affected the storylines over the years.

Although it gets a lot of grief by many hardcore Realmers, the Spellplague was very useful for creating upsets within the multiverse.

I love the fact that they've made these connections over the years. It's made this much easier for me. For those who don't like this, I don't understand the difficulty in simply ignoring it. Want Oerth only and no planes? Go right ahead. Want only Toril and the standard Great Wheel cosmology? Go ahead. But if you want more, they give you options.

This. Just like players create their little special snowflake characters, so too DM's are guilty of their special snowflake campaigns.

JeffB · Jul 7, 2017

Sadras said:
Although it gets a lot of grief by many hardcore Realmers, the Spellplague was very useful for creating upsets within the multiverse.

I was all for the shakeup/re-write/re-set of FR. Still needs one, IMO. But it was one of those "great ideas, poor execution" scenarios- which is pretty much 4E in a nutshell. The Spellplague focused too much on changing geography to get rid of things and not changing the dynamics.

Azzy · Jul 7, 2017

Yaarel said:
My difficulty with the 5e ‘Multiverse’, it seems like it is forcing everything in every setting into every other setting. So there is ‘just one setting’.

This is exactly the same mistake the 4e cosmology made, forcing everything into one big super-setting.

Some settings need to be their own concept.

The Multiverse never existed, anytime anywhere.

In my setting, the gods factually cannot exist. Nowhere, nowhen.

Well, the settings referred to in this thread happen to be the official settings (Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Dark sun, Mystara, etc.), not your or anyone else's homebrew settings. Thus, it has no bearing on what you or anyone do(es) with your or anyone else's homebrew settings, nor do your or anyone else's howebrew settings have any relevance to this thread as they are not the official settings.

Chaosmancer · Jul 8, 2017

DEFCON 1 said:
Exactly. In your part of the D&D Multiverse, there are no deities, no one in that setting believes deities exist, other deities are incapable of going there, and no one believes in the theory of the Multiverse.

However, because you are using the D&D 5E rules to play D&D in a D&D world, you are a part of the D&D Multiverse whether you like it or not. Because by definition, if you play D&D you are a part of the D&D Multiverse. That's why you have Fighters that can be Champions or Battlemasters, Wizards of seven different schools, Bards of valor and lore, you fight a specific type of orc, a specific type of goblin, you can face mind flayers and beholders etc. etc.

If you don't want to be a part of the D&D Multiverse, you can't play D&D 5E.

I find this.... trying too hard.

The difference on gameplay is non-existant. Saying: "This is part of the DnD multiverse which impossible to reach from other sections of the multiverse by any and all beings and it is also impossible for any being to leave this section of the DnD multiverse to enter a different aspect of the DnD multiverse."

Is essentially the exact same as "This setting has nothing to do wih the DnD Multiverse"

Insisting there must be a connection when the connection that could exist is so minor and unnoticeable for the sake of making a connection is... well, like I said, it feels like you're trying too hard to accomplish something… whatever it may be

Azzy said:
Well, the settings referred to in this thread happen to be the official settings (Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Dark sun, Mystara, etc.), not your or anyone else's homebrew settings. Thus, it has no bearing on what you or anyone do(es) with your or anyone else's homebrew settings, nor do your or anyone else's howebrew settings have any relevance to this thread as they are not the official settings.

See [MENTION=98938]DeF[/MENTION]CON1 's post as well as the post Yaarel was quoting. What he said was in specific response to being told all games of 5e must exist within the 5e Multiverse of settings.

Remathilis · Jul 8, 2017

Yaarel said:
We are the Borg. We will assimilate you. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.

We at WotC/Borg destroy all unique independent homebrew settings.

We are the collective-verse.

Most RPGs pimp their own settings, and (shock!) a few of them have multiverses. A great example is World of Darkness; each RPG in the line (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changling, etc) assumes to be a in a shared universe, as well as being its own internal struggle. A vampire worries about the Masquerade; but also worries about werewolves which are their traditional foes. The Tremeire stole magic from the Mages (and the mages aren't exactly happy about that). You CAN play WoD as vampires-and-only-vampires (with nary a werewolf or mage in sight), you can mix the settings, or even declare "there are no other monsters BUT vampires; werewolves and mages do not exist", but don't expect White Wolf to produce supplements under that assumption.

D&D's multiverse works on the same assumption. Its a bunch of different settings (with different tropes) that share a similar universe and occasionally bleed over. Much like how a vampire group can face a group of werewolves for a session (while still mostly being concerned about the clans and their machinations), D&D can do the same when Mordenkainen offers to help you fight Strahd and then drop you off in the Realms again.

Shared Universes are the rage in marketing. The success of the MCU in movies (which allows characters and concepts as diverse as mythological beings, advanced tech weapon-makers, WW2 soldiers, space-pirates and sorcerers to all be in an upcoming Avenger's movie) has created a call for media to be "interconnected". The concept is not a new one (the Universal Monsters effectively had one in the 50's, when Frankenstein met the Wolf-Man) but its a popular one and a LOT of media groups are KILLING to set up one asap (I mean, a Transformers or Ghostbusters shared universe?). D&D has had a shared universe since at least the early 90's; why not leverage it?

That being said, WotC doesn't give two-figs if you want to run you're own homebrew with their rules. Individual DMs have always been free to change, repurpose, or modify to their liking. You're homebrew without gods, elves, or the Great Wheel isn't important. White Wolf never cared if you use WoD to run other types of horror (A GM of mine once tried using Hunter/Mage/Vampire to play a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-inspired game, despite being VERY tonally different than any of those), Paizo doesn't care if you run your Pathfinder game on Golarion or on your own homebrew world.

HOWEVER

Don't expect them to start selling you products stripped of their IP to make it fit YOUR vision of the game. WoD isn't going to sell "Generic Modern Horror", Paizo isn't going to release a Supplement that doesn't fit SOMEWHERE on Golarion, and D&D isn't going to make supplements that doesn't fit into the D&D Multiverse. You would have as much luck as trying to convince Marvel that their next movie should be stand-alone independent and not part of the MCU...