D&D 5E Mike Mearls on Settings

[Shasarak]

And as you say, it gets even worse when you give some Al-Toril organizations a space presence - notably the Red Wizards of Thay, and the empires of Shou Lung and Wa. If they have access to spelljamming tech and their competitors don't, why haven't they just won?

If you look at the map of Shou Lung then it seems like they have already won in that they already have a vast empire. I am not sure about the absolute advantage that Red Wizards would get from Spelljammers that being able to instantly teleport anywhere in the world does not already give them? Would Spelljammers help them to defeat the Simbul? Most likely just end up in a spectacular crash the same as when the Elves tried to use their Spelljammers against the Devil-Elf Army.

And the issue of trade rears its head as well. Al-Toril is a complete world. There's very little Al-Toril would need to, or even desire to, import from beyond the planet itself.

No one ever trades with a complete world. There are always going to be some bits that need something that they dont want to make - which is why you have trade.

That's why the Astromundi Cluster was a much better Spelljamming setting than Grey-/Realm-/Krynnspace was - it didn't have whole planets. It was all just a bunch of asteroid clusters, which depended on contact with other clusters for survival.

Astromundi might have been alright if you could get out of it but I personally found the whole "locked inside the sphere" idea lame.

 

[Staffan]

For me the memorable thing about Planescape was that it was the Hub for all the Planes and not just its own independent thing.

I think we can all agree that Planescape was far more successful and popular as a setting than Spelljammer. I think this can be traced back to these three things:

1. The Planes were already an established part of D&D, so Planescape just gave us a new perspective on them. Spelljammer instead added in something wholly new, and that something was definitely not to everyone's tastes.

2. Not as much silliness.

3. A greater focus on the Planes, particularly Sigil, as their own thing rather than a way of getting from one place to another. Certainly, Planescape books had the occasional reference to other settings (for example, IIRC the factol of the Fated was originally from the Realms), but those were made in passing, and the focus was on the planar stuff. By comparison, Spelljammer spent maybe a dozen pages in the original boxed set on Greyspace, Realmspace, and Krynnspace, and also had sourcebooks made for each of those.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

For me the memorable thing about Planescape was that it was the Hub for all the Planes and not just its own independent thing.

That absolutely wasn't the appeal for just about anyone, as I don't think anyone liked the setting because it was linked to the Forgotten Realms. When the most specifically important Prime Material world (Ortho) was one that didn't even have it's own campaign setting, and the video game that's quite strongly tied to the setting's identity nowadays didn't even touch on the other campaign settings, it stands to reason that the strongest thing about PS was that it was mostly independent of the other settings.

 

[Shasarak]

That absolutely wasn't the appeal for just about anyone, as I don't think anyone liked the setting because it was linked to the Forgotten Realms. When the most specifically important Prime Material world (Ortho) was one that didn't even have it's own campaign setting, and the video game that's quite strongly tied to the setting's identity nowadays didn't even touch on the other campaign settings, it stands to reason that the strongest thing about PS was that it was mostly independent of the other settings.

I doubt that the most important prime world is one that no one has ever heard of.

Besides the real beauty was that the Planescape Hells were the same as the Forgoteen Realms Hells which were the same as the Greyhawk Hells and Krynn? Well, they just believe whatever they want.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I doubt that the most important prime world is one that no one has ever heard of.

It clearly was the most important prime world as far as the setting went, because it was the home world of the Harmonium. None of the campaign setting worlds really had much of an impact over the Planescape setting beyond being occasionally name-dropped in someone's background. Duke Darkwood being from Oerth had no impact over Planescape, and the character himself had no impact over Greyhawk the world he came from. But Ortho was far more important as one of the big players in terms of the factions came from a prime world noted for having an Armenian-like "incident" on some of it's races.

 

[Shasarak]

I think we can all agree that Planescape was far more successful and popular as a setting than Spelljammer. I think this can be traced back to these three things:

1. The Planes were already an established part of D&D, so Planescape just gave us a new perspective on them. Spelljammer instead added in something wholly new, and that something was definitely not to everyone's tastes.

2. Not as much silliness.

3. A greater focus on the Planes, particularly Sigil, as their own thing rather than a way of getting from one place to another. Certainly, Planescape books had the occasional reference to other settings (for example, IIRC the factol of the Fated was originally from the Realms), but those were made in passing, and the focus was on the planar stuff. By comparison, Spelljammer spent maybe a dozen pages in the original boxed set on Greyspace, Realmspace, and Krynnspace, and also had sourcebooks made for each of those.

Spelljammer did have to get a lot of information into the first boxed set that had not been covered before and it also suffered by trying to be a resource for both the Homebrew DM and the Setting DM. I guess it is easy to look back through the lens of the current release strategy and think that they should have doubled down with Realmspace at the start.

 

[Shasarak]

It clearly was the most important prime world as far as the setting went, because it was the home world of the Harmonium.

I am not really following the chain of logic here. Is it: the Harmonium are the most important faction in Sigil and the Founders of the Harmonium came from Ortho so therefore Ortho is the most important Prime world?

None of the campaign setting worlds really had much of an impact over the Planescape setting beyond being occasionally name-dropped in someone's background. Duke Darkwood being from Oerth had no impact over Planescape, and the character himself had no impact over Greyhawk the world he came from. But Ortho was far more important as one of the big players in terms of the factions came from a prime world noted for having an Armenian-like "incident" on some of it's races.

If you rank Armenian incidents highly in terms of important settings then you should not discount Athas from contention.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I am not really following the chain of logic here. Is it: the Harmonium are the most important faction in Sigil and the Founders of the Harmonium came from Ortho so therefore Ortho is the most important Prime world?

If you rank Armenian incidents highly in terms of important settings then you should not discount Athas from contention.

All 15 of the factions from Sigil are equally important, they're certainly more important than any of the sects/non-Sigil based factions. The Harmonium are a significant faction to the setting, because they're based in Sigil as its police force with an extremist agenda for the cosmic forces of Law. What happened on their homeworld of Ortho with the rise of it's idealogical movement and their purge/forced exile of certain races like Elves, shaped them into the highly authoritarian faction they become, none of the other factions have any strong origins connected to any of the prime worlds out there. For the most part the other 14 factions were all formed in either Sigil or the planes, not having their roots from any single world being more like a convergence of like-minded people from all over the planes. Athas has very little to do with any of the factions, but Ortho clearly does because of the one faction that has it's origins there.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Guys, it's obvious what genre Eberron falls into:

Khyberpunk.

 

[Oofta]

Guys, it's obvious what genre Eberron falls into:

Khyberpunk.

Wait, that can't be right! There's no "punk" aspect to Eberron because we aren't instructed to speak with bad english accents for have a copper fetish!