What if the core setting of D&D was ALL the settings of D&D?

[Nellisir]

I am coming at this as a Planescape fan rather than a fan of any one terrestrial setting -- that might help you and others understand my perspectives. I'm kind of thinking, "What if the established D&D settings were thematic 'planes' in their own right? How would that change them?"

That clears things up a lot. It's essentially an external perspective on the setting: "I look at this portal and it's kinda misty and dark and smells like burnt blood...must be Greyhawk; that one over there with the rainbows and wet-dog smell is Mystara." (I'm improvising, people...don't freak...). Not that that would necessarily happen in game, but your players would "know" when they enter into Greyhawk, because it would "feel" different.

The thing that pops into my mind is the page art in the 2e accessories for the various settings. Greyhawk had those woodcuts and gold(brass?) text; Forgotten Realms had a more runic/stone look; Mystara...changed with every product. You didn't need to read the text on the page to know what setting you were in.

it will be bigger, deeper, and considerably more dungeony than standard

My God, Jim! It's registering 7 on the dungeony scale! That's almost unprecedented! Expect bas reliefs and esoteric vocabulary from here on out!

Thanks for saying it's a "cool idea."

To quote Delricho, it is a cool idea.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I am going to take your post out of order. Forgive me.

I am coming at this as a Planescape fan rather than a fan of any one terrestrial setting -- that might help you and others understand my perspectives. I'm kind of thinking, "What if the established D&D settings were thematic 'planes' in their own right? How would that change them?"

I think you run the risk of loosing a lot of the nuance that the individual settings have developed. See my comments on Greyhawk below.

No, I don't think so. Not any more than lawful good people and creatures on Faerun are necessarily "Mount Celestian." Undermountain would stay Undermountain. Most of the changes I am proposing -- and again, I'm just spitballing here -- would be as regards Greyhawk itself, to align it more strongly with its defining trait (dungeons, or whatever).

Greyhawk has multiple defining traits depending on which era of Greyhawk you use. Pre-Wars Greyhawk certainly has elements of dungeon exploration as a defining trait; however, once you reach post-Wars Greyhawk you see a transition toward a political war game. Exploration is no longer the defining trait. The Living Greyhawk era varied wildly in focus depending on which region you were in. Finally, you have the Paizo Adventure Path era with The Shackled City and Savage Tide being closer to pre-Wars Greyhawk in theme and Age of Worms being closer to post-Wars Greyhawk in theme.

Maybe it allows homebrewers to occasionally have their PCs encounter a dungeon that /is/ "Greyhawkian," and that should inspire concern in the same way that encountering an Infernal-templated monster in D&D3 inspired concern -- it will be bigger, deeper, and considerably more dungeony than standard. Or maybe their homebrew world is so like Oerth (so "close" to Oerth in the cosmology) that all of its dungeons are Greyhawkian and no one notices.

I don't even know what these words mean. As a player who most strongly associates with the post-Wars, pre-Living Greyhawk era of Greyhawk, "Greyhawkian" elicits a very different response from me than the one you are attempting to convey.

 

[Nellisir]

Greyhawk has multiple defining traits depending on which era of Greyhawk you use. Pre-Wars Greyhawk certainly has elements of dungeon exploration as a defining trait; however, once you reach post-Wars Greyhawk you see a transition toward a political war game. Exploration is no longer the defining trait. The Living Greyhawk era varied wildly in focus depending on which region you were in. Finally, you have the Paizo Adventure Path era with The Shackled City and Savage Tide being closer to pre-Wars Greyhawk in theme and Age of Worms being closer to post-Wars Greyhawk in theme.

I think this is mostly a thought exercise. For instance, if Greyhawk was a demi-plane, what would it be like?

Greyhawk, Mystara, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron are all multi-faceted settings with a variety of overlapping traits; WotC isn't going to strip it all out and turn Greyhawk into Dungeonland.

That said, it's fun to think about.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Greyhawk, Mystara, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron are all multi-faceted settings with a variety of overlapping traits; WotC isn't going to strip it all out and turn Greyhawk into Dungeonland.

I fully endorse Dungeonland/The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror being put into the core cosmology.

 

[DMZ2112]

Sorry for abandoning the thread; my home internet connection tanked and I've been working on it for a week. If any of you know any tricks to getting a third-party PC wireless adapter to play nice with an Airport Extreme router, I'm all ears.

(I'm improvising, people...don't freak...).

I was doing a lot of that myself. Improvising, not freaking.

The thing that pops into my mind is the page art in the 2e accessories for the various settings. Greyhawk had those woodcuts and gold(brass?) text; Forgotten Realms had a more runic/stone look; Mystara...changed with every product. You didn't need to read the text on the page to know what setting you were in.

That's a great analogy.

My God, Jim! It's registering 7 on the dungeony scale! That's almost unprecedented! Expect bas reliefs and esoteric vocabulary from here on out!

You kid, but I would love to play in this campaign.

I don't even know what these words mean. As a player who most strongly associates with the post-Wars, pre-Living Greyhawk era of Greyhawk, "Greyhawkian" elicits a very different response from me than the one you are attempting to convey.

/I/ don't even really know what these words should mean. Figuring that out and making this actually work would require a lot more time and effort than I'm strictly willing to expend without a salary. As with any reboot, no matter how small, people would end up disenfranchised. That's frankly above my pay grade.

 

[steeldragons]

Disclaimer: No, I haven't read the whole thread. So it might have been said before.

This is a bad idea...for "D&D" [tm][c][the brand].

It is a GREAT idea for a personal campaign. A Convergence [if you would] of worlds [from the Thor movie and all of that notwithstanding].

It sounds like it could be great, individually.

As the "default" for WotC/D&D, absolutely not.

Not the least of which, that I can see with my limited prescience, is that not everyone who likes D&D likes all of the settings. This would be a death knell, in no uncertain terms, for ANYone who doesn't like all of the settings [which is, pretty much, I feel, anyone who plays D&D] of people buying anything setting...and potentially game...related.

Not a good idea...from a marketing/business/we want to make as much money as possible perspective.

 

[Jacob Marley]

/I/ don't even really know what these words should mean. Figuring that out and making this actually work would require a lot more time and effort than I'm strictly willing to expend without a salary. As with any reboot, no matter how small, people would end up disenfranchised. That's frankly above my pay grade.

Ah. You made up terminology and when challenged on the meaning of said terminology state that it is not worth your time to define it. Nice! [/rolls eyes]

 

[DMZ2112]

Ah. You made up terminology and when challenged on the meaning of said terminology state that it is not worth your time to define it. Nice! [/rolls eyes]

It's actually [MENTION=70]Nellisir[/MENTION]'s terminology. I was purposefully avoiding minting the word precisely because there are people like you on these forums.

But if it were relevant, I'd have defined it. As it stands, it means, "like Greyhawk in some fashion," and that is sufficient for the purposes of this thread.

 

[Nellisir]

Ah. You made up terminology and when challenged on the meaning of said terminology state that it is not worth your time to define it. Nice! [/rolls eyes]

Let's all try to be civil, please. He didn't refuse to define them; he said he didn't know. There's a difference.

For the record, the suffix -ian means "of, related to, or resembling" (1), so Greyhawkian would mean of Greyhawk, related to Greyhawk, or resembling Greyhawk. As Greyhawk is a setting, and as previously stated by you (2), and accepted by myself (3), it has multiple defining traits and the term Greyhawkian would thus pertain to something that had similar multiple defining traits.

The traits are intentionally undefined or poorly defined in this thread. For one set of definitions, you might look at Nitescreed's essay (copied here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2iuh6&page=4?4Es-Rejection-of-Gygaxian-Naturalism#194) or reference the various primers, essays, and articles listed in this thread ( http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?298070-A-World-of-Greyhawk-primer ). In the context of this immediate thread, however, each person should assign their own definitions and traits to the term Greyhawkian (or Mystarian, Realmsian, Krynnian, Birthrightian, etc).

One person could attempt to assemble a definitive definition of "Greyhawkian", but the time and effort to do so would be prohibitive without a strong emotional or financial incentive. DMZ2112 lacks such incentive ("...without a salary.") (4) Furthermore, attempts to do so would inevitable exclude certain people as there are binary choices to be made (ie, Wars/not-Wars), likely resulting in bad feelings, which DMZ2112 has no desire or reason to take on the burden of such ("...above my pay grade.")(4). He was throwing out an idea to think about, not a finished proposal.

My own example, which was written tongue-in-cheek, contains some examples of what a few of my Greyhawkian traits might be, to wit bas-reliefs and esoteric vocabulary. The inclusion of bas-reliefs stems from the use of such by Zagyg to trap deities below Castle Greyhawk (or such is my recollection), and again as a trap in Tomb of Horrors (as depicted, I think this might actually be a high relief, not a bas- or low relief. Mea culpa.) The esoteric vocabulary is a meta-reference to Gary's writing style and his frequent inclusion of etymons and other quasi-archaic idiosyncrasies.

My list of traits need not be yours. That's OK. This is a "what-if", not a "this-is". You are encouraged to present your own ideas of how this would work.


(1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/-ian
(2) http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-amp-D/page5&p=6232693&viewfull=1#post6232693
(3) http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-amp-D/page5&p=6232794&viewfull=1#post6232794
(4) http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-amp-D/page5&p=6233717&viewfull=1#post6233717

 

[Dragonhelm]

That was one of the big points of Spelljammer, Planescape, and Ravenloft in 2nd Edition - to connect the various D&D worlds.

I've played under that model, as well as the idea that each setting has its own cosmology. In the end, the conclusion I have come to is to decide on a game-by-game basis what cosmology you want to use. If I'm playing Dragonlance, then no, it's not tied to other worlds. If I'm playing Spelljammer, then Krynnspace is a part of that.