Two New Settings For D&D This Year

Polyhedral Columbia said:

What's your source for this?

Though I haven't followed all the details, my basic understanding is that Arneson sold the TSR the rights to Blackmoor when he left TSR, like Gygax sold Greyhawk. And that WotC holds the name "Blackmoor", plus the material published in the few TSR products. Basically, my understanding is WotC owns the Blackmoor IP. In order to publish the 3E and 4E Blackmoor texts, he (and his partners at Zeitgeist Games) had to have a license from WotC.

If he (now his Estate) wanted to publish Blackmoor stuff without a license, he would've had to have filed off the "Product Identity" (proper names), like Gygax did with Castle Zagyg.

Blackmoor is mentioned in the 5E PHB (or is it the DMG?). Unless you know differently, I see no reason why WotC couldn't freely use all of the material in the TSR Blackmoor books and also the material in the Zeitgeist books.

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I learned about this while hunting for info about the "Age of the Wolf", the planned 4e product line that got cancelled. It seems that the licences with WotC expired and, at least at the time, weren't renegotiated. I don't now the status of Blackmoor right now, though.

Here is the source, btw:
http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/03/end-officially.html?m=1

Zeromaru X said:

I learned about this while hunting for info about the "Age of the Wolf", the planned 4e product line that got cancelled. It seems that the licences with WotC expired and, at least at the time, weren't renegotiated. I don't now the status of Blackmoor right now, though.

Here is the source, btw:
http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/03/end-officially.html?m=1

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Right, all the source said (I know Havard) is that WotC decided not to renew Zeitgeist's right to use WotC's Blackmoor IP. AFAIK, in the run-up to 5E, WotC cancelled all such licenses, and, unlike the 3E era, doesn't license out its settings. Similarly, Bruce Heard tried to purchase a license to do Mystara 5E, but WotC wouldn't do it - even though Bruce was the main designer for TSR's Mystara line back in the day.

I looked in one of the Zeitgeist PDFs and it says:

"Based on the original Blackmoor setting, associated character and places owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Used with permission, all rights reserved ©1975 Wizards."

Yeah, Zeitgeist was working on another book (Age of the Wolf) for the Blackmoor line, but it wasn't ready by the time the license expired. So that book is not coming out. That's all.

That doesn't mean that Blackmoor is tangled in some complex legal limbo. It just means that WotC's policy is to not license out any settings whatsoever. (Except through DM's Guild.)

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] "Moreover, what are you *cutting* from the PHB to make Dragonlance work? Half-orcs? Forcing all halflings to take the Kender subrace? Maybe tieflings? "

An alternate Setting is different, by cutting things and more importantly by adding things.

With DS it is so easy to do most of the things as refluff of existing races

Humans can stay as they are
Halflings ditto
Elves, use the Wood elf
Halfelves can stay as they are
Dwarves use the hill dwarves
Mul use the Halforcs stats, give Advantage vs. Exhaustion
Halfgiants use the Mountain Dwarves stats give Advantage to strength
Thrikkreen take Dragonborn breathweapon stats for a poison bite, give them +2 dex and +1 wis and some jumping ability

So thats just a Little re using and refluffing there i could imagine you would even be fine with just that.

So now for classes that is a bit trickier:

Cleric use ligth (Fire) war (earth) healing (water) tempest (air) add some elemental stuff maybe the material for the weapons then you are done
Fighter use cahmpion
Gladiator use battlemaster
Rogue use anything but arcane trickster, rogue assasin is the athasian bard
Preserver: Use any wizard but a necromant do soem mechanic for preserving / defiling
Defiler use a wild Magic sorcerer
Templar use a Warlock with Sorcerer King as Patron or a favored Soul like sorcerer who gets his spells from the sorcerer king
Druids of the land circle are no prob at all
Ranger as they are

The rest is not needed for a good dark sun experience

With inferior weapon and armor:

Use the normal stats for inferior materials and increase the die for steel weapons, inferior breaks on a DC10 check when you rolled a natural 1 on an attack

Armor: Be inventive, use armor class 17 for mekillot plate e.g., inferior material should be 1 Point worse in ac

Metal items are 1000x more expensive of course

Ok what is missing? Psionics fleshed out of course baut thats adding.
Also there should be a feat for wild Talent.

So here you go, its just some lines of text and you got a baseline, all you gotta do is fluff it out. I still can use most parts of the core rules, and i do not have much altered mechanics, i do not even Need exta tables for metal vs Obsidian axe the rule is easy to remember.

For everything you are missing, like paladins and gnomes eventually, something new is there. I think you consider this more complicated than me.

Polyhedral Columbia said:

Right, all the source said (I know Havard) is that WotC decided not to renew Zeitgeist's right to use WotC's Blackmoor IP. AFAIK, in the run-up to 5E, WotC cancelled all such licenses, and, unlike the 3E era, doesn't license out its settings. Similarly, Bruce Heard tried to purchase a license to do Mystara 5E, but WotC wouldn't do it - even though Bruce was the main designer for TSR's Mystara line back in the day.

I looked in one of the Zeitgeist PDFs and it says:

"Based on the original Blackmoor setting, associated character and places owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Used with permission, all rights reserved 1975 Wizards."

Yeah, Zeitgeist was working on another book (Age of the Wolf) for the Blackmoor line, but it wasn't ready by the time the license expired. So that book is not coming out. That's all.

That doesn't mean that Blackmoor is tangled in some complex legal limbo. It just means that WotC's policy is to not license out any settings whatsoever. (Except through DM's Guild.)

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Thanks for clarifying. That is the problem of self-learned english.

Remathilis said:

Its a sampler platter. It gives a new player enough of a taste of a world to decide if she likes it and either hunt down older stuff on DMs Guild or Wikis or demand more coverage later.

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I do not believe "sampler platters" attract new gamers.

I know I would not look twice at a perfunctory summary of this new setting called "Dark Sun" (or Eberron, or Birthright) if I hadn't head of it before.

And I believe the attraction of stuffy old AD&D modules (with incomprehensible, more or less, game statistics) is way overrated.

No, sampler platters is meant for grognards. And not all of them - just the ones needing official stamps of approval. The ones with energy to convert old material don't need it. The ones with no energy can't use it, since what they need is full 5e conversions.

The opening up of the setting for DMsG publication will be useful, I'll grant you that. But there's a reason WotC have prohibited non-Realms material. I believe the main reason to lift the ban is D&D's immense success - that a sprinkling of Greyhawk (or whatever settings they plan) can no longer threaten their overall plan of "the D&D setting" (where the franchise will be set).

Talking for myself, I know what I need to get excited by a new (or "new") setting: a lavish product line from a publisher proud to serve it, confident in its core value to the brand. I could get excited by Dragonlance or whatever settings MtG can bring to the table (I haven't played Magic in a very long time, way before there were any talk of "settings"), but what I want and need is what I believe most new gamers want and need: a full campaign guide, brimming with detail, a player's guide with a load of options to offset any prohibited or discouraged PHB content, and a decent set of adventures.

Nothing about this news suggests WotC will commit to these settings even near that degree. Subsequently I believe it is improper to get your hopes up for any substantial resurgence.

To end on a positive note: the very best case scenario is if WotC is partnering up with a third party publisher to bring one of these setting to life. If there is a middle ground to be had between the 3PP taking too much money and being burdened with too much financial risk.

Thank you for reading.

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]

Tbh. the way wotc does it atm, i am satisfied with a rather minimalised solution. They tend to rather serve to the modern Player (which is partially understandable from an economic point of view) and I do not want them to destroy the old Settings vibe by fitting them into all nowadays asumptions.

So in the end i would just like to have an idea how they would officially resolve the hardest Problem childs, like there is

DS

- Psionics
-Halfgiants
-Thrikreen

- Elemental Clerics


Eberron:
- Warforged
- Artificers

Krynn:

-Dragonlances
-Lunar Magic
etc.

And thats about it. Not that i am not perfectly capable to solve these things on my own, like e.g. check out my previous post, or that i need any official confirmation,
i just want to see to which ideas they as "professionals" get, in contrary to the Forums here, maybe it is something interesting i did not think about yet.

Honestly, I do hope that whatever setting they do put forth, they do so in the same way that Ravenloft was put into 5e - as a campaign, and not a setting. I'm being completely and utterly selfish here and darnit, I demand that WotC cater to me. But, frankly, I have pretty much zero interest in a "setting line". Give me a one and done campaign like the recent Ravenloft and I'm far, far more easily sold on whatever setting you want to pitch.

Heck, I'm even going to buy the new AP when it comes out in September. That's bloody near a first for me in all the years I've been gaming. Not buying an AP, I've done that before, but, buying a Forgotten Realms AP? Yup, that will be a first.

Remathilis said:

They made Eberron work with the World Axis, it can work with the Great Wheel if they want it to.

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It honestly didn't work that well when WotC attempted to shove the World Axis into Eberron, and a lot of Eberron fans weren't particularly happy with it. I don't see the Great Wheel working for Eberron, especially since it would break the great conceit of the setting: Baker's Dozen.

Settings EXPLAND and COLOR the base game, they don't SHRINK it.

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You can EXPAND and COLOR the base game while also SHRINKING elements of the game, including player options. These are not mutually exclusive perspectives here.

Remathilis said:

Literally, "if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron" is a selling point.

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Hussar said:

You can argue Eberron all you like, but, again, if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron. Isn't that the tagline? So, yup, we've got Orcus and Teneberous and everything else shoehorned into the setting even when it makes zero sense.

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This catchphrase has a more restricted sense in Eberron than you both think it does:

1. If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron. A monster or spell or magic item from the core rulebooks might feature a twist or two to account for Eberron’s tone and attitude, but otherwise everything in the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual has a place somewhere in Eberron. Also, this is the first D&D setting built entirely from the v.3.5 rules, which enabled us to blend rules and story in brand-new ways. (Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 6)

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It's not much about cosmology (i.e., the Great Wheel), particular entities (e.g., Lloth, Orcus, Vecna, etc.), or verbatim entries (e.g., CE red dragons) but about broadly using core rulebook tangibles (e.g., player options, spells, magic items, monsters, etc.). I don't think that Orcus is ever named in any Eberron core book or supplement. You can use Orcus, but that does not mean that you should, at least not without "a twist or two to account for Eberron's tone and attitude." Tiamat, for example, does exist in Eberron, but she's a different sort of character than how she often appears outside of the Eberron mythos.

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WotC utilizing Magic the Gathering for a setting seems like an all too obvious move in hindsight. I would prefer that D&D supported some of their other settings first, but this is simply good cross-brand promotion on the part of WotC.

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] exactly that.

Eberron has colored Dragons, but they are not necessary of eveil alignment. They got Orc druids. Hobgoblins, Kobolds can peacefully roam around in cities. Drow revere scorpions instead of Spiders. So many things are there but most with a Twist.

Fluffwise it may be the Setting which is hardest to converse, e.g. you just cannot pick the Monster manual and select a red Dragon as the next oponent because chances are that he is one of the good guys.

So that is totally against the core rules by [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] Definition.

Jester David said:

People have been predicting a crossover of MtG and D&D pretty much since WotC bought the company. They've done the fun little PDFs (which likely exist because a former D&D team member got moved to MtG and got creative). I can't imagine the fan reaction will be positive if they do a MtG campaign setting hardcover in place of any of the other classic settings...

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People have been predicting it because it would make major money, so continuing to predict it doesn't seem unsafe. There are several bits and bobs that might point to this being plausible:

- James Wyatt, a member of the M:tG team now, co-wrote last months UA on Centaurs & Minotaurs. When pressed on how these races were different from the MM versions, Crawford said on Twitter that they "weren't the same Centaur." Maybe they we're testing out a M:tG set of races.

- July announcement, which coincides with the release of the Dominara art book and a bunch of other M:tG kerfluffle from WotC. Good time to announce "we are releasing an anniversary M:tG RPG using 5E rules!"

-If the book was coming, technically, from the Magic team even if mainly written by D&D guys, then the booklist trawling might have missed it.

As to angering the fans, well, I'm not sure how big a worry that might be. Bit, given thatany people are reading Stewart as saying there are a couple things coming this Summer, maybe they are going to put out test docs for a couple settings on DMs Guild or some such.

We'll know soon enough.