D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

doctorbadwolf said:

Then don't buy an Eberron product. Just make your own wworld that is like superficially like Eberron but actually like the core assumptions.

I've no interest in dnd if it is only done one way, and right now it is long past time to use Eberron and Dark Sun, and even Dragonlance, to showcase the greater scope of what dnd is.

What is the point of even having other setting if they all have the same assumptions?

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I'm not arguing for a homogenous Eberron, or an Eberron without its own core assumptions. An Eberron or Dark Sun where gods exist, are real and living and walk among mortals FR-style is, for just a single example, not things I'd like to see in either of those settings.

An Eberron where magical items (or at least the kind of any relevance to adventurers, such as weapons or wands) are as rare as they are in core 5e (and which 5e's mechanics are centered) is of particular interest to me, because I think you could tell interesting stories in that Eberron. Furthermore, you could immediately ignore it, because the original Eberron campaign setting still exists.

I also have no interest in D&D being done only one way. I just happen to feel the exact same way about campaign settings. I'm not interested in Eberron or any D&D setting I'll play countless campaigns in being kept in a vacuum-sealed box, pristine and preserved for eternity. Ironically, for all the "nothing is canon, time never marches forward" purity inherent in Eberron, the setting actually thrives on this by providing dozens of mysteries without answers. Every campaign of Eberron should feel like a different world, but still distinctly Eberron in itself. An Eberron not cluttered by thousands of +1 swords and wands of magic missile can still be distinctly Eberron but potentially presents its own twists (with the added benefit of not throwing off 5e's maths any).

Finally, kindly knock it off with the "don't but Eberron products then" gatekeeper BS, please. It's demeaning and degrades the conversation. You don't have any more or less claim of ownership on the setting as I or anyone else here does.

MechaPilot said:

I don't care about canon either, but I do care about preserving the unique character and feel of the settings. The details can change, but the overall nature of the setting should not.

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Perhaps I'm not being clear enough because I am absolutely not advocating changing the "overall nature" of any setting, but I am very interested in seeing different interpretations of how the details can change, particularly given systemic changes. If all I wanted was to keep the setting pure but get some mechanical updates I wouldn't need any products worth purchasing, all I'd need is a short conversion guide. A $50 5e Eberron Campaign Setting or Dark Sun Campaign Setting book that is literally a retread of older campaign books but with 20 pages worth of character options is not a product I'm interested in, and I can't imagine why anyone else would be.

Gradine said:

.... A $50 5e Eberron Campaign Setting or Dark Sun Campaign Setting book that is literally a retread of older campaign books but with 20 pages worth of character options is not a product I'm interested in, and I can't imagine why anyone else would be.

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Because they do not have the 4E, 3E, 2E, AD&D or whatever else version?

I run Forgotten Realms sometimes. Every decade or so. When I do, I ALWAYS go back to the time of the first boxed set, prior to the Avatar, Spellplague or any other upheaval. I rebuild the NPCs when I need them and make up the unique monsters when I need them if they're not already in a book for the current edition - but I'd love it if they had a book out there that did this for me. I have limited time to prepare for games. I'd rather not spend it reinventing the wheel and restating stuff. It is much faster to read and reference than to rebuild. I'd buy an updated version of the original FR campaign setting where the only updates were to bring it up to 5E stats. It would just be easier to run games in that setting.

jgsugden said:

Because they do not have the 4E, 3E, 2E, AD&D or whatever else version?

I run Forgotten Realms sometimes. Every decade or so. When I do, I ALWAYS go back to the time of the first boxed set, prior to the Avatar, Spellplague or any other upheaval. I rebuild the NPCs when I need them and make up the unique monsters when I need them if they're not already in a book for the current edition - but I'd love it if they had a book out there that did this for me. I have limited time to prepare for games. I'd rather not spend it reinventing the wheel and restating stuff. It is much faster to read and reference than to rebuild. I'd buy an updated version of the original FR campaign setting where the only updates were to bring it up to 5E stats. It would just be easier to run games in that setting.

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But I mean, would you really shell out $50 for a book that is 85% information you either (a) already have or (b) aren't going to use? Would you not prefer a conversion guide that is both cheaper (for cost) and shorter and no-frills (to save time)?

Gradine said:

But I mean, would you really shell out $50 for a book that is 85% information you either (a) already have or (b) aren't going to use? Would you not prefer a conversion guide that is both cheaper (for cost) and shorter and no-frills (to save time)?

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Not all of us still own what we used to own.

I had the Spelljammer, Planescape and Ravenloft boxed sets during AD&D 2e, but I have moved several times since then and they have either been badly damaged or lost over the years. I have other books from previous editions that have fared better, but I'd gladly purchase mechanically updated reprints of the ones that were lost or badly damaged.

Gradine said:

Perhaps I'm not being clear enough because I am absolutely not advocating changing the "overall nature" of any setting, but I am very interested in seeing different interpretations of how the details can change, particularly given systemic changes. If all I wanted was to keep the setting pure but get some mechanical updates I wouldn't need any products worth purchasing, all I'd need is a short conversion guide. A $50 5e Eberron Campaign Setting or Dark Sun Campaign Setting book that is literally a retread of older campaign books but with 20 pages worth of character options is not a product I'm interested in, and I can't imagine why anyone else would be.

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Because a lot of new players would never have played in those settings or own the material.

Also with the lets go back to the start idea using Greyhawk for example. Adding more detail is fine, adding new NPCs would also be fine, but new players will not know what the Greyhawk Wars are for example so when do you set the setting.

Or Dragonlance I guess mot people think War of the Lance for Dragonlance but once again where do you set it? WotL, 20 years later, the time frame of Dragons of Summer Flame, during the Dragon overlords and I am not to sure what happened after that.

Or using the 4E Darksun for example (most people don't bother defending 4E FR any more). They set the timeline just after Kalaks death which is fairly close to the original boxed set. Thats fine (I would prefer Kalak to be aloive) but then they contradicted the setting and themes by adding in teleporting elves (on a low magic world), Dragonborn as Dray they were hidden in the original material and were a secret, also Dragonmen on a world with 1 Dragon as far as the world was aware. Dray also did not turn up to 9 years after the 4E timeline. Oh they removed clerics as well because Darksun had no gods because the 4E cleric was not suited to Darksun and it would have been to much work o design 4 new cleric options I suppose as each one would have needed 11-15 pages (2E managed with around 2 or 3 pages). Oh and 4E had rapid healing as well.

Basically 4E was not a good fit for DS as the game contradicted major themes of the setting and the way they did it. Had they bothered with a decent conversion, gave everyone 1 or 2 healing surges and did justice to the original material it would have been better.

You get the same thing in movies, very rarely is a remake as good or better than the original. By original material I also mean Denning/Tim Brown not the hacks that came latter and wrecked the setting.

MechaPilot said:

Not all of us still own what we used to own.

I had the Spelljammer, Planescape and Ravenloft boxed sets during AD&D 2e, but I have moved several times since then and they have either been badly damaged or lost over the years. I have other books from previous editions that have fared better, but I'd gladly purchase mechanically updated reprints the ones that were lost or badly damaged.

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I would counter this with the fact that most (if not all) of those classic products are available for fairly cheap as PDFs but I also know there's often a strong preference for having the physical product in front of you, so I guess I can see this. I will definitely say that such a product holds no appeal to me, personally, and that I would be more than a little outraged if my only option for accessing said 20-or-so pages of new content was to shell out $50 for it.

Gradine said:

I would counter this with the fact that most (if not all) of those classic products are available for fairly cheap as PDFs but I also know there's often a strong preference for having the physical product in front of you, so I guess I can see this. I will definitely say that such a product holds no appeal to me, personally, and that I would be more than a little outraged if my only option for accessing said 20-or-so pages of new content was to shell out $50 for it.

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Having a physical product would be a greater appeal to me than a digital one, however, the mechanical update aspect that I mentioned would have at least as much appeal.

If WotC would be so kind as to publish a book or PDF(s) containing all of their setting specific 5e crunch updates, I'd gladly get that and then get cheap PDFs of the settings as originally released. Sadly, I don't see them being willing to do that, as it would probably undercut the market for any 5e setting books.

Look what people just spent on the last Dwarven Forge Kickstarter and then ask if there is enough of an appetite for any rpg rpoduct.

Obryn said:

This was, like, a week ago, but I think this sums it up perfectly.

Having seen numerous campaign conversions over the past decades, I honestly think 4e Dark Sun was probably the best-handled of them (and the 4e FR was probably the worst).

The 4e DSCS kept what was core to the setting, and was judicious about its deletions and additions. And it went back in time to - probably - the best period for adventuring, right after the death of Kalak but before the whole rest of the Prism Pentad metaplot. So you have one 'free' city, and the rest of the setting is exactly what you'd expect.

It removed Divine classes. It could do that because of how 4e worked, in general, with its class roles. Yes, Dark Sun 2e had clerics. No, they were not "divine" casters. Solution? An elemental shaman subclass. A good, workable change within the rules framework, while preserving Dark Sun flavor.

Gnomes were removed, again in keeping with the original setting. But it added Tieflings and Eladrin. Tieflings are easy enough; there's plenty of room for more desert raiders on the sands of Athas. Eladrin could have been fumbled badly, but instead they were Dark-sun-ized; the "Feywild" - The Land Within the Wind - is a shattered, broken realm with mere pockets here and there, which you can enter into purely on accident. And the Eladrin are wizard-hating, fiercely secretive psionic warriors. A pretty neat edition, IMO. Dragonborn? I kept them out of the game until the party met Dregoth and his Dray; then they were available.

I ended up even having a Warforged - in this case a sentient golem of bone and obsidian - and it worked better than I had feared. (By this level, the whole sustenance/privation business wasn't an issue anymore.)

No, it's not identical to the 2e setting. But it was a mindful conversion and update, which is what I think is fair to expect from setting re-releases.

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You get it!

Its far more interesting to look at a class like paladin, warlock or sorcerer and then say "how does this fit in this world?" rather than discard it entirely. Not everything will fit in every world, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. If a "purist" DM doesn't want clerics, tieflings, or such in Dark Sun, they can say "no". But its a lot easier to get rid of something than it is to try and put something back into the world. A hypothetical Dark Sun setting should try to get nearly all the classes and as many races as it can (that make sense; I don't advocate for tritons on Athas) but much like the rules itself, its easier to have a default "on switch" that DMs can turn off than have everything turned off by default and force the DM to do the hard work of figuring out how it fits.

This is true of any Official setting really; the first response to "how does X fit" shouldn't be "it doesn't, ban it", that should be the LAST resort.

And again, I don't mean Dark Sun should use the FR/Generic inspired looks and "fluff", even some mechanical differences (such as subraces to represent the Athasian variants) is fine. I don't need orcs in Dragonlance either, but I want to feel I'm playing a D&D game with some variance, not a new game. I want to explore what a Paladin (a champion who has sworn an oath and recv'd power from it) is in Dark Sun, not be told outright it has no place.

WotC's job it to show me how to say "yes", since I already can say "no" on my own.