D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[Zardnaar]

You could get there through the inner elemental planes (on a one way ticket). I have also read fan based Spelljammer material in DarkSun Space.

That is fan based, Athas was in its own multiverse.

There were a few exceptions to Athas, one could in theory get there via the astral planes but Athas had its own planar structure- 4 elemental planes, astral plane, The Black and Grey.

There was only 1 way to leave Athas at least in the original rules. Getting to Athas was remotely possible AFAIK (the Gith got there), but practically impossible. My players spelljammed there with a hold full of metal greatswords (before we knew about the actual rules we only had DS +spelljammer boxed sets at the time). The Dragon seized their cargo since it was worth several million gold pieces (they wanted to trade it for gems).

 

[Shasarak]

That is fan based, Athas was in its own multiverse.

Not really, it was still connected by the Planes. It was still in the Phlogiston.

There were a few exceptions to Athas, one could in theory get there via the astral planes but Athas had its own planar structure- 4 elemental planes, astral plane, The Black and Grey.

There was only 1 way to leave Athas at least in the original rules. Getting to Athas was remotely possible AFAIK (the Gith got there), but practically impossible. My players spelljammed there with a hold full of metal greatswords (before we knew about the actual rules we only had DS +spelljammer boxed sets at the time). The Dragon seized their cargo since it was worth several million gold pieces (they wanted to trade it for gems).

I would not have seized their cargo. I would have just paid them in ceramic coins.

 

[SkidAce]

Desert Monk.

 

[Staffan]

Athas was cut off with very few exceptions such as Dregoths planar gate, the Ravenloft mists (which were multidimensional).

That was a later addition though - in the original boxed set, there was nothing inhibiting planar travel. The Encounters chapter says that "Fiends from the Outer Planes Appendix (MC10) can travel to and from Athas at will, but do so rarely, only when summoned by a dragon or a great wizard." You also had the Black Spine adventure, which was based around an attempted Githyanki invasion.

The planar blockage didn't become a thing until Defilers & Preservers, which was one of the last books of the line.

I could see monks meditating in the harsh wilderness of Dark Sun.

The Will & The Way, the Dark Sun-specific psionics splatbook, had a psionicist kit called the Sensei which traded some psionic power for unarmed combat skills. Monks, or some other form of martial artists, make perfect sense in Dark Sun - it's a world where good weapons are rare, and where mental discipline is encouraged in the form of psionics. That's pretty much the same kind of environment that encouraged the development of unarmed martial arts in our world.

IMO, the main reason the monk wasn't included as a core thing in Dark Sun was that it wasn't a core thing in AD&D 2nd edition. It was removed from the 2e rules for some reason.

It's less to do with the Great Wheel (that is a different thing altogether). How much of the PHB is valid? (Races, classes, equipment, or spells?) How much of the DMG? How many monsters from the Monster Manual? How much new stuff needs to be made to have it even function at a basic level? At a certain point, DS looks less like a D&D setting and more like a new game stapled onto the D&D combat system.

I hope you never looked at the Jakandor setting for 2e. That would totally blow your mind. Humans only, limited to a certain number of kits matching the two cultures involved, limited equipment (although not as much as Dark Sun), pretty much no sapient monsters around. Removing those things lets the setting focus on the things that do matter, mostly the conflict between the spiritual, honorable, and warlike Knorrmen and the intellectual, pragmatic, and conservative Charonti.

To me, D&D is a toolbox. Every race, class, spell, feat, monster, magic item, or piece of equipment is one of the tools in the box (it's a box of holding). Depending on what you're building, different tools are appropriate for the job. If the thing being built doesn't need a hacksaw, I don't use a hacksaw to build it just because I have to use all my tools. Similarly, if elves don't belong in the setting, I won't feel required to put them in.

 

[Mouseferatu]

That was a later addition though - in the original boxed set, there was nothing inhibiting planar travel. The Encounters chapter says that "Fiends from the Outer Planes Appendix (MC10) can travel to and from Athas at will, but do so rarely, only when summoned by a dragon or a great wizard." You also had the Black Spine adventure, which was based around an attempted Githyanki invasion.

The planar blockage didn't become a thing until Defilers & Preservers, which was one of the last books of the line.

I had totally forgotten this (or maybe I never realized, since I was introduced to the latter/revised boxed set prior to the original).

Thank you for pointing this out. I still feel like the planar isolation is an important aspect of the setting, but I acknowledge that others might have solid canon reasons for disagreeing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm not the person you were asking, but I would not be surprised in the least if next year's November release was a "guide to the multiverse" sort of thing with short introductions of various settings and their mechanical uniquenesses, followed by opening those settings up for the DM's Guild.

That's what I'm hoping for. I think it will also have some companion online supplies to stuff, and maybe a book the same year like Yawning Portal but with each adventure set in a different world.

 

[Zardnaar]

I had totally forgotten this (or maybe I never realized, since I was introduced to the latter/revised boxed set prior to the original).

Thank you for pointing this out. I still feel like the planar isolation is an important aspect of the setting, but I acknowledge that others might have solid canon reasons for disagreeing.

Cannon kind of broke down later in Darksun (and other TSR worlds) as the original authors left and freelancers were hired. This is how we ended up with surfing Druids on Athas later in the setting (the author expected them to be cut, they were not). I'm leaning towards ignoring the events of the Prism Pentad and most of the splat books after 1992.

The Monk was removed from 2E as they thought it was not thematic to have them. Gary included it in 1E but was never really happy with it and was planning on removing them in his version of 2E apparently. In OA he claimed the Monk was finally in its rightful place, I assume David Cook and the other designers for 2E agreed with him.

I would exclude them for thematic reasons, the wuxia thing is kind of the opposite to DS.

 

[Remathilis]

I hope you never looked at the Jakandor setting for 2e. That would totally blow your mind. Humans only, limited to a certain number of kits matching the two cultures involved, limited equipment (although not as much as Dark Sun), pretty much no sapient monsters around. Removing those things lets the setting focus on the things that do matter, mostly the conflict between the spiritual, honorable, and warlike Knorrmen and the intellectual, pragmatic, and conservative Charonti.

Heh, I literally almost ended one of my sentences above "relegated to the dust bin of history like Jakandor".

Jakandor though was a one-off product; it wasn't one of the major worlds of D&D. Nor did ever receive much in the way of updates past 2e. Dark Sun is a far-larger product that Jakandor (or Council of Wyrms, or Ghostwalk, or a dozen other micro-settings made during D&D's history). If its going to be showcase world of D&D, I expect more of it than some one-shot world from 20 years ago.

To me, D&D is a toolbox. Every race, class, spell, feat, monster, magic item, or piece of equipment is one of the tools in the box (it's a box of holding). Depending on what you're building, different tools are appropriate for the job. If the thing being built doesn't need a hacksaw, I don't use a hacksaw to build it just because I have to use all my tools. Similarly, if elves don't belong in the setting, I won't feel required to put them in.

Again, as a homebrewer, I agree with you. A DM should be able to edit and remove what he wants from his world. However, An Official D&D setting is an ambassador for the entire game; it should make an effort to use as many elements of the game as it can. (Note, I did NOT say *ALL* of them). A setting where nearly every class is either re-written or removed is, to me, a bad ambassador. I mean, I can use 5e right now to play Star Wars if I was willing to add a Jedi class, remove every spellcaster option, replace every D&D race with an appropriate SW one, add blasters and lightsabers, and chuck the monster manual into an airlock, but you wouldn't say Star Wars makes a good D&D setting, would you?

Eberron manages to be unique despite everything in the 3.5 Core being legal in it. Ravenloft is hella unique without banning a single class (and re-fluffing a single race). Greyhawk is unique without changing a single thing at all (so I am told ;-) ) On the other end, I see no reason why Dragonlance can't absorb 95% of the current PHB (with exceptions made for a subrace of Halfling called Kender and maybe a few subclasses for paladins, fighters and wizards). Dark Sun should, at the very least, be able to take 85% of the PHB and make it usable. It might take re-fluffing and some new subclasses/subraces (and a few removals; I'm ok with gnomes and half-orcs getting the boot if replaced by interesting replacements) but this notion that you can't have a cleric, monk, sorcerer, tiefling, or warlock in a thinly disguised Conan expy is ridiculous. Think bigger!

So do what you want for your D&D world/game; its yours. But WotC should be selling us settings that try to at the very least not invalidate most if not all of the PHB.

 

[Zardnaar]

Heh, I literally almost ended one of my sentences above "relegated to the dust bin of history like Jakandor".

Jakandor though was a one-off product; it wasn't one of the major worlds of D&D. Nor did ever receive much in the way of updates past 2e. Dark Sun is a far-larger product that Jakandor (or Council of Wyrms, or Ghostwalk, or a dozen other micro-settings made during D&D's history). If its going to be showcase world of D&D, I expect more of it than some one-shot world from 20 years ago.



Again, as a homebrewer, I agree with you. A DM should be able to edit and remove what he wants from his world. However, An Official D&D setting is an ambassador for the entire game; it should make an effort to use as many elements of the game as it can. (Note, I did NOT say *ALL* of them). A setting where nearly every class is either re-written or removed is, to me, a bad ambassador. I mean, I can use 5e right now to play Star Wars if I was willing to add a Jedi class, remove every spellcaster option, replace every D&D race with an appropriate SW one, add blasters and lightsabers, and chuck the monster manual into an airlock, but you wouldn't say Star Wars makes a good D&D setting, would you?

Eberron manages to be unique despite everything in the 3.5 Core being legal in it. Ravenloft is hella unique without banning a single class (and re-fluffing a single race). Greyhawk is unique without changing a single thing at all (so I am told ;-) ) On the other end, I see no reason why Dragonlance can't absorb 95% of the current PHB (with exceptions made for a subrace of Halfling called Kender and maybe a few subclasses for paladins, fighters and wizards). Dark Sun should, at the very least, be able to take 85% of the PHB and make it usable. It might take re-fluffing and some new subclasses/subraces (and a few removals; I'm ok with gnomes and half-orcs getting the boot if replaced by interesting replacements) but this notion that you can't have a cleric, monk, sorcerer, tiefling, or warlock in a thinly disguised Conan expy is ridiculous. Think bigger!

So do what you want for your D&D world/game; its yours. But WotC should be selling us settings that try to at the very least not invalidate most if not all of the PHB.

Something like Darksun excluding stuff would be somewhere between the PHB and Basic D&D which excludes most of the PHB- 4 races and classes.

5E was supposed to support a variety of play styles, the PHB gives you the tools and even then there are only 4 core races and classes. FR is the 5E ambassador, not every product needs to conform to the PHB and even Greyhawk a faithful adaption of that would exclude a lot of stuff- no Dragonboorn, Tieflings and Drow maybe (NPC's only?) possible racial and alignment restrictions come back etc.

Dragonlance would exclude Halflings and Half Orcs and have some sort of moon magic mechanic.

 

[Remathilis]

Did we not already have that with the 4e Dark Sun that had everything in the PHB shoe horned in somewhere on Athas? Personally it is hard for me to say if that helped or hindered the product more then the actual rules set did.

I would much rather have, for example, a Dragonlance setting book that specifically had Kender instead of Halflings and Draconians instead of Dragonborn while including a side bar for the DM on ways that they can include Halflings and Dragonborn on a case by case basis.

4e Dark Sun is probably the template I would go with. It omitted the cleric and paladin (as well as the all the grid-filler divine classes) but I can easily see cleric getting returned with his elemental focus. That means we lose... paladin? Even then, I could see vengeance paladins being a thing. 4e certainly made room for bards (with casting!), druids, monks, sorcerers, warlocks, rangers, and a lot of other 4e oddities (warlords, wardens and shaman for example). As for races, each "athasian" race is easily a subrace of dwarves, elves, and halflings. Omit half-orcs and gnomes if you must, but replace them with muls and thri-kreen. Add the Mystic, a few rules for non-metal weapons and armor, and a few new backgrounds and you have a Dark Sun that fairly compatible with the PHB yet doing its own thing.

For Dragonlance, you just need to again replace half-orcs (man, half-orcs get no love!), and add a Halfling subrace called "Kender". Add a few subclasses to represent wizards of high sorcery and knights of Solomnia, and you're all set. Again, 3e did a good job of fitting in the 3e classes like sorcerer, monk, and barbarian; all you need to do is explain warlocks and its all good. Everything else is flavor and gravy.