Pages From The Upcoming Nautical D&D Book!

Jay Verkuilen said:

Yeah, I love those old modules but Yawning Portal was... well... appropriately named. I totally don't get why that was a hardcover. Nice PoD redos of classic modules on DMs Guild? Sure. I suspect they had a production schedule to fill and something wasn't working out.

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I'd charge zero dollars for my conversion of U1 if someone just wanted something functional to use with a pdf of the original and its actual content probably wouldn't be much worse. It'd be a very plain 3 page pdf of an Excel spreadsheet of the encounters with creature stats and treasure. I suppose I could even add a few lines for DCs for things and it'd be 3.5 pages!!)

Pics below found on Reddit, cue the swelling of the Pirates of the Caribbean OST.

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Really makes me want to run a nautical-themed campaign. Tangentially, Path of Exile has great inspiration for a nautical-themed campaign, what with a lot of the game happening around the coastline and coastal environs, involving sailors, and conquerors that use the seas.

EthanSental said:

I’m for a Saltmarsh update no matter how it’s updated!

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Me, too! Especially if they do the whole 3 module arc which was excellent!

My Falling Star wizkids boat arrives today or tomorrow, so I’m even more psyched about a nautical themed adventure. I’ve already did a one shot adventure with a boat I painted from antsey I think and was a blast.

gyor said:

If this is based on Saltmarsh, and the U series which is set in Greyhawk but they set this in FR, a lot of Greyhawk fans are going to be upset. Seriously this silly, FR has a major old school adventure that is widely seen as one of the best, Desert of Desolation, but instead they largely bastardize adventures from other settings, but twisting them for FR.

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The links between the U series and Greyhawk, at least within the series itself, are so anemic as to be nearly non-existent. As far as I can tell, these are all the things that would place them in Greyhawk:

1. When the town of Saltmarsh is described, the book gives the DM a number of parameters to use when building their own Saltmarsh - basically, asking where's the inn, who's in charge, who do they worship, and so on. At the end, it says "On the World of Greyhawk map, Saltmarsh is located here, and there are two larger towns about 20 miles away named Burle and Seaton."

2. At some points in the adventure, books by Nystul and Tenser show up, but play little role other than as loot.

3. In U3, there's an imprisoned NPC who's sent from the Hold of the Sea Princes to investigate things.

That's pretty much all there is to it. The effort it would take to place this in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or whatever homebrew setting you have that doesn't deviate too far from the D&D norm is pretty close to nil.

Personally, as long as they assign content to one setting and then change it, it doesn't bother me too much what they do. Setting an originally setting neutral adventure (or even setting like Kara-tur) into a specific settings is okay. But once you've established something, just leave it there!

Staffan said:

The links between the U series and Greyhawk, at least within the series itself, are so anemic as to be nearly non-existent. As far as I can tell, these are all the things that would place them in Greyhawk:

1. When the town of Saltmarsh is described, the book gives the DM a number of parameters to use when building their own Saltmarsh - basically, asking where's the inn, who's in charge, who do they worship, and so on. At the end, it says "On the World of Greyhawk map, Saltmarsh is located here, and there are two larger towns about 20 miles away named Burle and Seaton."

2. At some points in the adventure, books by Nystul and Tenser show up, but play little role other than as loot.

3. In U3, there's an imprisoned NPC who's sent from the Hold of the Sea Princes to investigate things.

That's pretty much all there is to it. The effort it would take to place this in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or whatever homebrew setting you have that doesn't deviate too far from the D&D norm is pretty close to nil.

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Which is why it would be wise of them to follow the TftYP method - say it was canonically from Greyhawk, say where it was there, and then give suggestions on how to adapt it to other settings.

Sword of Spirit said:

Personally, as long as they assign content to one setting and then change it, it doesn't bother me too much what they do. Setting an originally setting neutral adventure (or even setting like Kara-tur) into a specific settings is okay. But once you've established something, just leave it there!

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Why?

Why be beholden to decisions made decades ago just because it's canon? Who cares?

Hussar said:

Why?

Why be beholden to decisions made decades ago just because it's canon? Who cares?

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We should realize that there is no canon. There are as many world's as there are tables, and some tables run many worlds

Hussar said:

Why?

Why be beholden to decisions made decades ago just because it's canon? Who cares?

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I care. Why would it be wrong for me to care?

I was talking with a friend who is unhappy about the de-canonization (and overwriting) of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I enjoy Star Wars, but couldn't care less about the canonical status of the EU.

As I was trying to figure out his thought process...I realized it's exactly how I feel about D&D canon.

D&D, Star Wars, Marvel, whatever. You get attached to it. It is both official and it is yours. And then someone decides that it is no longer official--in fact official is something completely different. They have taken from you that opportunity to use a common frame of reference with other fans of your recreational franchise of choice. They talk about how TSR split the fan base with too many campaign settings*, but this is splitting the fanbase.

That said, in general, I like how they've handled this sort of thing in 5e. TFtYP gave suggestions for how to set adventures in various world (I think some of them mention the original world it was set in, and some don't--I prefer they always do). I think a few of the mega-adventures do something like that too. And I don't get too terribly upset about things like having Acerak build a mega-dungeon in Chult, as long as they didn't invalidate the original Tomb of Horrors. With the planar nature of the D&D Multiverse, it's not at all unreasonable for high level (or even low-level) beings to visit multiple campaign settings. That even happens in old canon.

*Which I think is a partially incorrect assessment of the issues, but that's beside the point.