D&D 5E Mike Mearls on Settings

[Hussar]

In addition to FR and Greyhawk (and Dragonlance) not being that distinct from each other to the average person, I don't think that Mystara was that distinct either. Between FR, Greyhawk and Mystara, they were the general settings of certain editions or variants of the game system, whatever general elements were introduced to the game they were just dumped into those settings. Kara Tur was originally intended to be in Oerth and the Greyhawk setting, until it was actually placed inside of Forgotten Realms.

I also don't think we can use UA to go by what they might release, since after all they did have that UA on Modern Magic a while back ago, but I highly doubt they'd come up with Urban Arcana (a D20 Modern setting) or whatever Modern day Urban Fantasy setting anytime soon.

I'm going to disagree on the Mystara thing. Mystara was pretty distinct. You had flying ships (Voyage of the Princess Ark for example) and the idea that the goal of a PC (at the time) was ascension and becoming an Immortal. That, right there, sets the setting pretty far from any stock D&D. If I was going to update Mystara to 5e, Immortal rules would be the way to go.

/snip

Alternatively (and this would be PURE GOLD), they could set it around 800 years before the original in the time when the survivors of the cataclysm were taking hold of the Flanaess (the area of the 'world map everyone knows) and Vecna leads his evil empire from the Keoland Valley whilst the barbarians and civilisations of the time try to oppose his inexorable rise to power.

An Age of Vecna campaign would require the most work, but would be fantastic!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this idea. FANFUGGIN'TASTIC. You get the whole Post-Apocalyptic feel, a very dangerous world (Points of Light to use a 4eism), where the PC's are the ones involved in massively shaping the world to come. True, you'd have to eject pretty much all of the lore for the setting since none of the current kingdoms exist, but, WOW, what a great idea.

Please WotC, gimme this. I'd buy this in a heartbeat. Although, looking at the timeline, you might have to go a bit further back. 800 years back, you have the Kingdom of Aerdy become the Great Kingdom which extends all the way to Greyhawk city. Although, this would place it about 200 CY, meaning the start of the Age of Great Sorrows when you have a bunch of Death Knights basically ripping apart the Great Kingdom.

And, this would mean no Castle Greyhawk as well. But, yeah, totally get behind this idea. Empire in the process of falling apart, chaos, destruction, anarchy and massive population migrations. COOL.

 

[Henry]

I understand what "steampunk" means. Eberron actually is not intended to invoke the steampunk aesthetic. Pulp and noir, yes. Any sort of punk (which actually has its own connotations as part of the compound word), it does not have. In some ways, noir is similar to punk, but they are definitely not the same thing.

Agreed emphatically. There's more Doc Savage and The Shadow in Eberron than there is Girl Genius or Space 1889.

For that matter, WotC REALLY should have licensed someone like Big Finish to do a radio drama of Eberron; I think it would have been a pretty nice hit. I can just imagine a hard-nosed rogue detective and his Girl Friday Sorcerer (or vice versa) and their reverb-voiced Warforged ex-soldier manservant tracking down a ring of Emerald Claw cultists and their simister queen Vol form their plot to Rule Eberron (tm)...

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm going to disagree on the Mystara thing. Mystara was pretty distinct. You had flying ships (Voyage of the Princess Ark for example) and the idea that the goal of a PC (at the time) was ascension and becoming an Immortal. That, right there, sets the setting pretty far from any stock D&D. If I was going to update Mystara to 5e, Immortal rules would be the way to go.

Don't forget The Savage Coast, it's got a Gamma World-esque vibe with mutants running around everywhere.

 

[The Scythian]

I understand what "steampunk" means. Eberron actually is not intended to invoke the steampunk aesthetic. Pulp and noir, yes. Any sort of punk (which actually has its own connotations as part of the compound word), it does not have. In some ways, noir is similar to punk, but they are definitely not the same thing.

While steampunk is used to describe things like The Difference Engine, which Eberron doesn't really feel like, it's also used to describe a style that is more pulpy and is inspired by 19th century proto-science fiction. Eberron, with its airships, telegraph offices, automatons, trains, and the like seems to obviously and consciously be evoking this. If you don't see it, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm really into hardboiled detective fiction and film noir. Now, it's been over a decade since I read through any Eberron materials, but besides the existence of a detective-like class in the setting, I don't remember anything that made it look or feel especially noirish. But maybe that was developed in later materials, or ones I never saw.

 

[ssvegeta555]

Meh, I rather not see yet another bog standard fantasy setting #65862. Give us something different for once. Or at least return to some beloved, but often neglected settings like Planescape.

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[Caliburn101]

Nothing about Greyhawk with the "it has grittier rules" is going to make Greyhawk more distinct in the non-hardcore fan's mind. FR was also just as gritty when those rules existed in D&D, as it got it's start towards the latter periods of 1e. And I don't remember a thing that stated that Forgotten Realms would be "D&D but easier". And that's not counting the fact that 3e tried and failed to have GH as the assumed default. Grittier rules do nothing for making a setting distinct from another, sure Dark Sun has grittier rules that go beyond "GH gritty" with things like thirst/dehydration and weapon breakage but it's got a lot more than just "there's no Harpers and other good guy groups" for what makes it distinct from other fantasy worlds.

Forgive me, but there appears to be a measure of guesswork in your post. Have you played or run both gameworlds?

For my own part, I've been playing since 1978, and can confirm (merely due to being there) the following;

Greyhawk is grittier - less forgiving and far more morally ambiguous.

FR was not on ANYONE'S radar until 2nd edition, and then it was the alternate campaign which few played by comparison. It really took off with 3rd Ed.

Greyhawk did not 'fail' - it was deliberately dropped for the kitchen sink world of FR for commercial reasons.

Of course grittier rules make settings more distinct if applied to them..! 5th Edition especially is pretty easy to survive and prosper in due to HP rules, magical healing and recovery proliferation and the all-too-easy CR balance.

I'm just coming to the end of a campaign set in Greyhawk with 5th Edition, and this with a group of friends who haven't played in it before (except for one of them), but all of them have played in FR.

I have had plenty of feedback from them about how 'dark and dangerous' Greyhawk is, and what a refreshing change from generic D&D it has been for them. They have also expressed a desire for me to use Greyhawk to run the upcoming GURPS Dungeon Fantasy rpg as they are all fans of GURPS (as I am) and want a gameworld which reflects the far more gritty and dangerous combat and dying rules in that system. They are the ones who made the 'it's like D&D meets Game of Thrones' observation I referenced in my post.

Now maybe all six of us are blowing smoke, or maybe the 120 years plus tabletop rpg experience round the table is able to see how different Greyhawk is to FR without the majority of them being 'hardcore fans' of the gameworld.

I am sure Mearls and crew will do the rather obvious differences between the two gameworlds justice. Those who haven't come across it before due to the saturation of FR through the system since 3rd Ed. will be able to make up their minds themselves.

I for one would predict they will have no problem differentiating them.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not sure I could fully put it into words. While I much, much prefer to home brew and play in home brew, if I was forced to use one of the "vanilla fantasy" published settings, I would be quite comfortable running or playing Greyhawk; be less happy, but accepting of running or playing Mystara; roll my eyes but deal with playing Krynn; drink heavily before playing the Realms; and find something else to do rather than playing with a Realms purist. There's a difference that goes beyond the basics -- but, yeah, to the cursory player, there really probably isn't. Heck, if all you've ever seen of the Realms is the SCAG, there probably isn't any meaningful difference at all.

This.

Eberron = pulp adventure/steampunk

1) Eberron is also very much a "kitchen sink setting." The developer mantra has always been something along the lines of "If it exists in D&D, then it has a place in Eberron."

2) I'm not sure if I would call Eberron "steampunk" at all. There is scarcely any 'steam' nor 'punk' to be found. Steampunk gravitates towards the Victorian period, while Eberron draws from a variety of different eras. Eberron's mixed up chronological aesthetics stems from how the development of magic has made allowed for more rapid "technological" and cultural changes in some areas of society, while also being "medievalist/renaissance" in others. Eberron (and its magitech) evokes post-Great War (WW1), early 20th century pulp adventure, and noir aesthetics. A lot of Eberron's aesthetics even draw upon the popular genres of early films: noir, Westerns, (romantic) swashbuckling action-adventure, etc. There's unsurprisingly also a bit of Indiana Jones in there too. The Ark of the Covenant and Holy Grail are basically just magical MacGuffins.

Agreed emphatically. There's more Doc Savage and The Shadow in Eberron than there is Girl Genius or Space 1889.

For that matter, WotC REALLY should have licensed someone like Big Finish to do a radio drama of Eberron; I think it would have been a pretty nice hit. I can just imagine a hard-nosed rogue detective and his Girl Friday Sorcerer (or vice versa) and their reverb-voiced Warforged ex-soldier manservant tracking down a ring of Emerald Claw cultists and their simister queen Vol form their plot to Rule Eberron (tm)...

Agreed, and definitely a neat idea.

While steampunk is used to describe things like The Difference Engine, which Eberron doesn't really feel like, it's also used to describe a style that is more pulpy and is inspired by 19th century proto-science fiction. Eberron, with its airships, telegraph offices, automatons, trains, and the like seems to obviously and consciously be evoking this. If you don't see it, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

That seems less about "steampunk" and more about how magic essentially replicates early 20th century and 19th century technological developments.

I'm really into hardboiled detective fiction and film noir. Now, it's been over a decade since I read through any Eberron materials, but besides the existence of a detective-like class in the setting, I don't remember anything that made it look or feel especially noirish. But maybe that was developed in later materials, or ones I never saw.

In the introduction of the Eberron Campaign Setting, it provides ten points about the setting for newcomers. One of which is that it's a world of intrigue, sabotage, spies and espionage, corruption, crime boss, competing trade families, archaeological-focused universities, etc.

/snip

Greyhawk is grittier - less forgiving and far more morally ambiguous.

Agreed. Though it's a "homebrew," I find that Matthew Colville's campaign, as he details on YouTube, was heavily inspired by the feel of Greyhawk and old school D&D gaming. (It also stresses Law vs. Chaos over Good vs. Evil, which I find refreshing.) Greyhawk and Colville's campaign definitely feel different from Forgotten Realms-type fantasy. That said, it's undeniably more difficult to make a sell about the difference between settings based on what "feels" different, when aesthetics often form a clearer point of distinction for most casual fans or potential fans.

 

[Davelozzi]

FR was not on ANYONE'S radar until 2nd edition, and then it was the alternate campaign which few played by comparison. It really took off with 3rd Ed.

I'm going to have to disagree here. Besides being featured in Dragon for years, the Realms hit the ground running in release in 1987. I used to see people reading Darkwalker on Moonshae and The Crystal Shard all over the place. Soon after there were computer games that were popular. By the time the 2e era ended, there were hundreds of Realms products. It was way more ubiquitous than any other campaign world long before the 3e relaunch.

That said, I do concur that Greyhawk tends to run grittier, though to a large extent, the experience with any game works is largely reflective of how the DM you played with ran it.



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[Mercule]

While steampunk is used to describe things like The Difference Engine, which Eberron doesn't really feel like, it's also used to describe a style that is more pulpy and is inspired by 19th century proto-science fiction. Eberron, with its airships, telegraph offices, automatons, trains, and the like seems to obviously and consciously be evoking this. If you don't see it, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm really into hardboiled detective fiction and film noir. Now, it's been over a decade since I read through any Eberron materials, but besides the existence of a detective-like class in the setting, I don't remember anything that made it look or feel especially noirish. But maybe that was developed in later materials, or ones I never saw.

We can agree to disagree. Keith Baker has repeatedly used the word noir to describe certain aspects of Eberron. I also want to say that I've heard him object to the use of the term steampunk, though he may have just been part of the conversation and not objecting to someone else objecting to that description. Either way, I'm really just coming from the perspective of "as originally intended".

I'm starting to see where you could use Eberron for steampunk, but it wouldn't be according to the original themes. Not that that's wrong. It's just not the same thing as "obviously and consciously" evoking it. It didn't.

 

[Mercule]

I'm going to have to disagree here. Besides being featured in Dragon for years, the Realms hit the ground running in release in 1987. I used to see people reading Darkwalker on Moonshae and The Crystal Shard all over the place. Soon after there were computer games that were popular. By the time the 2e era ended, there were hundreds of Realms products. It was way more ubiquitous than any other campaign world long before the 3e relaunch.

Agreed. The entire reason why Rangers got TWF in 2E is because the Drizzt novels had gotten enough popularity. I can't recall whether they removed TWF from drow at the same time, or not. Rangers and TWF were not even considered before then, though.

A friend and I each picked up the gray box, when it was released. I found it to have a handful of interesting ideas, but be rather pointless, over all. For some reason, the maps really bothered me -- I just hated the geography of the Realms. I unloaded mine, right away, but my friend kept his and ran a short campaign around Cormyr.

I actually figured the setting had so little value that it'd fade away in a couple years. Man, was I ever surprised. What I hadn't counted on was that TSR had decided to scrub Gygax's signature from things, following his ouster, and intentionally positioned the Realms to push Greyhawk aside. That doesn't mean that other players didn't see value in it that I didn't, but the Realms' rise over Greyhawk was definitely something that was intentional.

That said, I do concur that Greyhawk tends to run grittier, though to a large extent, the experience with any game works is largely reflective of how the DM you played with ran it.

Again, I agree. Whether related to the change in editions or not, there was a shift in how the game was often run, during the late 1980s. I think a lot of it actually comes from the epic story arc of Dragonlance, but that's beside the point. Greyhawk saw its heyday during the "old school" years. The Realms rose during the "epic worlds" years.