D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Zardnaar]

Honestly, I know virtually nothing about Ravnika, nor do I care. AFAIC, it's a red herring and a total non sequitur. Whether some element fits or does not fit in one setting has zero bearing as to whether that exact same element does or does not fit in another setting. The only reason it keeps being brought up is to confuse and cloud the issue. It simply does not matter one whit.

Would it have broken Ravnica to add dragonborn? I dunno. Who cares? Is there some tie to Greyhawk from Ravnika that I'm unaware of? Some point of comparison?

Is Ravnika the second most popular D&D setting out there? Is it one of the most requested settings in the history of the game? Is it the baseline for an entire edition? No? Then why do you keep bringing it up? Who cares?

Nope Ravnicas an example of not all phb races belonging.

It even says this in the PHB. Not all races belong everywhere.

I don't mind new races where it makes sense or for settings built from the ground up.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

4e WAS pretty bad in a special kind of mediocre failure kinda way though. Dont know if thats part of what he means but it might be. It really did also screw up a lot of previous material. Im gonna stop talking about 4e. Im starting to think about things like their linear alignment system and its hirting my brain.

 

[Azzy]

Considering it doesn't have drow, duergar, sverfneblin, derro, half orcs, half elves, kenku, aarakrokra, tabaxi, tieflings, aasimar, illithid, or gods yes I'll defend that hill gladly. Adding every race to a setting turns it into the watered-down pablum that the forgotten realms has devolved into. It's not that it has all those races, it's also that it doesn't have the races common in other settings, making Mystara unique. Mystara was created separately from Greyhawk and the realms so its core races are different. It has its own monsters, its own races, and it's own identity.

Well, you're not quite right there. When Mystara became branded as Mystara (in its switch to 2e AD&D), it gained a lot of those things including illithids and half-elves and non-gold metallic dragons, etc. So, that ship sailed long ago and far away never to be heard from again. Of all things, Dragonborn are an easy fit. Drag and drop (dragon-drop?).

And since you mention the tabaxi, I thought I'd share a bit of trivia. Tabaxi and Rakasta are two implementations of the same thing (a rip-off of the Kzinti as used in Tom Moldvay & Lawrence Schick "Known World" campaign)—Moldvay created the Rakasta for BX D&D and Schick created the Tabaxi for AD&D.

 

[Azzy]

I need another rehash of the Giants/Drow or Slavers or Tomb of Horrors modules about as much as I need another version of the Death Star in the next Star Wars movie.

You win the internet.

 

[Zardnaar]

Nerath wasn't bad, it was kind of like early Mystara or maybe GH/FR.

Well, you're not quite right there. When Mystara became branded as Mystara (in its switch to 2e AD&D), it gained a lot of those things including illithids and half-elves and non-gold metallic dragons, etc. So, that ship sailed long ago and far away never to be heard from again. Of all things, Dragonborn are an easy fit. Drag and drop (dragon-drop?).

And since you mention the tabaxi, I thought I'd share a bit of trivia. Tabaxi and Rakasta are two implementations of the same thing (a rip-off of the Kzinti as used in Tom Moldvay & Lawrence Schick "Known World" campaign)—Moldvay created the Rakasta for BX D&D and Schick created the Tabaxi for AD&D.

2E Mystara wasn't well regarded. I picked it up at clearance sale prices circa 1997 or 1996. It came out 94 iirc.

I lost the monster manual for it I liked that one.

It didn't do well. I have those old CDs for the setting, the two boxes set, boxed set adventure of that not French chapel.

Whole lot was around a hundred bucks iirc or around $50 USD at the time. Also got the poor wizard almanac and book of facts.

The BECMI stuff is better. Mystara is a better fit for Dragonborn than Greyhawk IMHO. It's a lot less serious in tone.

And has flying jet powered Gnome cities.

 

[Coroc]

Honestly, I know virtually nothing about Ravnika, nor do I care. AFAIC, it's a red herring and a total non sequitur. Whether some element fits or does not fit in one setting has zero bearing as to whether that exact same element does or does not fit in another setting. The only reason it keeps being brought up is to confuse and cloud the issue. It simply does not matter one whit.

Would it have broken Ravnica to add dragonborn? I dunno. Who cares? Is there some tie to Greyhawk from Ravnika that I'm unaware of? Some point of comparison?

Is Ravnika the second most popular D&D setting out there? Is it one of the most requested settings in the history of the game? Is it the baseline for an entire edition? No? Then why do you keep bringing it up? Who cares?

Ok, but then we are arguing about taste, not systematic or rules baseline.
And the thing is that no one seems to care about not all base and optional phb races being in the ravnica setting, which would be probably because they did not want to alter the tone of the setting.
Otoh it seems to be of utmost importance that a possible greyhawk 5e has to be streamlined to the 5e fluff defined by the phb, even the optional. There the tone is not important to the same people.
So that's the thing greyhawk and ravnica explicitely do not have in common but they should, no matter if you personally think it matters or not. Some guy here on the forum asked for a different game system for darksun because in his opinion it could never be made compatible to 5e.

Since we are arguing about taste aka fluff and not rules I can argue I do not like the distinctive tone and taste a PC dragonborn would have for me in some official 5e greyhawk product, and if I would buy the product I would mod dragonborn out of it, and if this would not be possible for whatever reason I would not buy it. If this is the better argument for you, and weighs in more heavily than a clean analysis then be it.

 

[Azzy]

2E Mystara wasn't well regarded.

Whether that is true or not is immaterial.

 

[Zardnaar]

Whether that is true or not is immaterial.

Not a good look if it's in the clearance bin 2 years later.

I kind of liked it as 2E was expensive here. 1995 phb $45 iirc. $35 bucks for the complete book series. I still have price tags under the plastic seal I put on them.

 

[Azzy]

Not a good look if it's in the clearance bin 2 years later.

I kind of liked it as 2E was expensive here. 1995 phb $45 iirc. $35 bucks for the complete book series. I still have price tags under the plastic seal I put on them.

You anecdote is noted, and still immaterial.

 

[The Glen]

Not a good look if it's in the clearance bin 2 years later.

I kind of liked it as 2E was expensive here. 1995 phb $45 iirc. $35 bucks for the complete book series. I still have price tags under the plastic seal I put on them.

Mystara suffered greatly from TSR's nuke everything phase. When they put the setting on its ear with Wrath of the Immortals and switched it to 2nd edition the sales plummeted. If Wizards wants to introduce mystara to 5th edition just retcon it back to 1,000 timeline. Wouldn't be unprecedented they've largely undone the spellplague because that was terribly received. Time travel is a major plot point in mystara with one of the paths of immortality requiring it. The beauty of the setting was yes some of it was goofy but most of it was dead serious. It's kind of like the Galapagos of D&D. Since it was developed separate from the other settings it evolved its own unique biome which most people remember for the originality of the monsters and races while also keeping the human civilizations distinct.