D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[Hussar]

/snip

I would not blame the settings fans for reacting to the poor treatment that they have received over the past six years or so.

Case in point.

 

[Shasarak]

So Ravenloft was never meant to be a living setting in its own.? It's only visited from others? That's where my lack of history trips me up I thought it was a fully fledged setting that could host campaigns without needing outside support?

I think he means that Ravenloft consists of different lands that have essentially been stolen from their home planes - for example the Ravenloft mist comes down and takes Lord Soth from Dragonlance and creates a Domain for him that is the same as the area around his Castle in Dragonlance.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Notice.

There are quite a bit of DMs who find it ‘problematic’ to ‘adjust’ an official campaign setting.

They feel saddled with the rules-as-written and flavored, and sometimes even feel betrayed.

The DMs who feel this way, are always ones who care alot about the D&D game.

The rules-as-written must have a light touch. Each campaign setting should probably come with multiple ‘expansion’ products. This makes it easy for DMs to purchase expansion packs that they want to opt-in to, and to reject expansions that fail to interest them.

This way, DMs can easily keep unwanted assumptions 100% out of their rulebooks and their games.

In my own case, if the Great Wheel of Planescape and all of its polytheism was a separate expansion pack, while the Players Handbook made no mention to it, then I would be at peace and able to enjoy the game better.

Different DMs are sensitive to different things, but we can all benefit from compartmentalizing the options.

I disagree that it's WotC's responsibility to cater to the sensitivities of DMs and players. I think it's up to the DMs and players themselves to decide what material to use or not.

I mean, I get the appeal of rule books written exactly to my personal preference...but it's simply not a realistic expectation.

So Ravenloft was never meant to be a living setting in its own.? It's only visited from others? That's where my lack of history trips me up I thought it was a fully fledged setting that could host campaigns without needing outside support?

As [MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION] said, the many realms that made up the Demiplane of Dread, the setting for the Ravenloft game, were each made for a particular dark lord. These realms were the domain of a dark lord, but also their prison as well. Each of these dark lords was taken from another world...Toril, Oerth, Krynn, or any number of unnamed worlds.

Typically, the PCs in Ravenloft adventures are drawn through the misty barriwrs from their world and into the demiplane of dread. So the setting was its own, but it was conmected to the other worlds and interacted with them.

 

[MechaPilot]

Look at the reactions to Curse of Strahd in this thread. Complaints about how they reworked the setting and then jammed it into Forgotten Realms.

Are you citing the co-opting of a setting into an FR supplement as an unreasonable complaint? I have to ask, because I can't be certain if you are from the text and tone of your post.

And, then there's this:

However, that doesn't require timeline changes or massive changes to the settings, especially changes that run contrary to the themes and character of the setting.

But, what about changes in that timeline that ran contrary to the themes and character of the setting?

They should be avoided. The identity of a setting lies in its character and themes, its quirks, its flaws, all the things that make it unique. Stray from that and all you have is yet another FR supplement. Which, I suppose, there's nothing inherently wrong with. Just don't slap the name of a different beloved setting on it and try to sell it as something other than FR Supplement #47.

 

[MoonSong]

Make Sorcerers defilers and Wizards preservers.

It should be backwards. It is the wizard's power the one that is artificial. I'm growing more and more tired of portraying sorcerers as "the wrong way to do magic".

even Greyhawk a faithful adaption of that would exclude a lot of stuff- no Dragonboorn...

Should I point out that Dragonborn were originally the Dragonborn of Bahamut? Dragonborn were born on Greyhawk.

Why? Because the Variant Human is the only version of the Human that appeals to me. The racial abilities improvements are modest, being +1 in contrast to the ‘superhuman’ +2. But the extra feat puts the finger on Human versatility. And if the player decides to get a feat that grants +1 with a minor feature, to boost an ability to +2, well, that is excellent too, because every once in a while, there is a Human that really is super-smart, super-strong, super-charismatic, or so on, who even the ‘superhuman’ races admire.

Link to the PRD in the credits and quote human verbatim. That version has bonus feat, +2 to any score and +1 skill point. Just add at the end "you can choose to split the bonus into +1 to two scores instead.

 

[Yaarel]

It should be backwards. It is the wizard's power the one that is artificial. I'm growing more and more tired of portraying sorcerers as "the wrong way to do magic".



Link to the PRD in the credits and quote human verbatim. That version has bonus feat, +2 to any score and +1 skill point. Just add at the end "you can choose to split the bonus into +1 to two scores instead.

I feel they should have made the Sorcerer and the Psion the same class. Call it ‘Scion’. Mystic is fine. This class is for natural innate magic. Different ‘bloodlines’ focus on different themes. A Human bloodline may well have psychics running in the family.



‘PRD in the credits’ ?

 

[Hussar]

Are you citing the co-opting of a setting into an FR supplement as an unreasonable complaint? I have to ask, because I can't be certain if you are from the text and tone of your post.

Unreasonable? Perhaps not. Depends on how far you want to take it. Considering that the CoS was barely linked to FR, I'd say that co-opting the setting is perhaps a bit of a strong description. As was mentioned, what something like one page of material in the entire module talks about links to FR? Yet, we've seen more than a few posts, including ones in this thread, saying that they had lost interest in the module because of that.

So, is it "co-opting the setting" or is it a minor element of a much larger work that can be easily ignored?

They should be avoided. The identity of a setting lies in its character and themes, its quirks, its flaws, all the things that make it unique. Stray from that and all you have is yet another FR supplement. Which, I suppose, there's nothing inherently wrong with. Just don't slap the name of a different beloved setting on it and try to sell it as something other than FR Supplement #47.

But, what do you do when half the fans of the setting don't like something that came later in the setting? I mean, every setting has fans who will say, "Nothing past the Grey Box" or "Only this far and no further". How do you present an updated setting that will appeal to the broadest possible when you know that any choice you make is going to make some very vocal people very, very loudly angry?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Serious question; Do you think Curse of Stahd was worse for not including Powers Checks, Fear/Horror/Madness, Curses, and Magic Alterations to Divination, Necromancy, and Summoning spells?

It wasn't until I played CoS that I realized how little those things really added to the setting. Aside from some heavy-handed ways to control your PCs, they do little to invoke a gothic horror mood. It still felt like Ravenloft. A few other settings could stand to let go of the extra "mechanical baggage" as well; does tracking Krynn's moons really do much to wizard PCs except include more bookkeeping? Did Action Points make-or-break Eberron's pulpiness? Was there ever a session of Planescape enhanced by going to Carceri and spending 10 minutes figuring out what the pluses were on your magic gear or if your cleric even had spellcasting ability?

I'm not saying each world should be a Realms clone, but I think a lot of settings opted for "different for different's sake", which bred a lot of the 2e problems with cross-compatibility.

I think Action points do make a difference for Eberron, which is why I liked playing Eberron so much in 4e.

But most of those, you're right.

What each setting does need is the player and dm options, like races, subclasses, items, monsters, etc

 

[Chaosmancer]

One particular part of this discussion that confuses me centers around the idea of rewriting races for every setting.

I mean, yeah, you need to note the cultural differences and such but to take the cannibal halflings of darksun as an example... aren't the current halflings good enough mechanically? I mean, they are still halflings in Dark Sun, just wild and cannibals, nothing about their mechanics has to change to fit that.


And, to me, that seems to be true for a the vast majority of these instances. Sure, Kender were enough of a thing they might warrant their own sub-race, but have any of the major settings really changed elves so drastically that we couldn't just use one of the sub-races available? The Dark Sun elves were pretty radically different and I can still see Wood Elves being a perfect match for them

Though, I suppose elves are also a bad example, because elves are a bit notorious for their 101 different flavors in 3.X and 2e

 

[Zardnaar]

One particular part of this discussion that confuses me centers around the idea of rewriting races for every setting.

I mean, yeah, you need to note the cultural differences and such but to take the cannibal halflings of darksun as an example... aren't the current halflings good enough mechanically? I mean, they are still halflings in Dark Sun, just wild and cannibals, nothing about their mechanics has to change to fit that.


And, to me, that seems to be true for a the vast majority of these instances. Sure, Kender were enough of a thing they might warrant their own sub-race, but have any of the major settings really changed elves so drastically that we couldn't just use one of the sub-races available? The Dark Sun elves were pretty radically different and I can still see Wood Elves being a perfect match for them

Though, I suppose elves are also a bad example, because elves are a bit notorious for their 101 different flavors in 3.X and 2e

Its easy to have Athasian subraces though. I am using the phb races culturally refluffed. I don't use subraces though. Stouts are the jungle halflings, wood elves are athasian elves hill dwarves are athasian. Its close enough for now and saves me work.