D&D 5E Chris Perkins drops 2020 hint!

[Parmandur]

Look whatever you want to do at your table is totally cool, and I encourage that sort of free-flowing play; it can be pretty fun. But we are talking about what may be released as official content, and what you're talking about is pretty immersion breaking as a lot of people silo their campaigns.

It is easier to remove content than to add it, and the siloed approach is not how WotC is treating their IP by default (I've seen some of what is in the new Eberron book on cosmology, for instance).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think quite a few planescape and spelljammer people played that way. Even more for the rare chrominancer fans.

I like the idea that Dark Sun is Eberron in the far future. Profligate use of magic has lead to Dragonshards being exhausted, Khyber and the Ring of Siberys being mined out, leaving Eberron, now known as Athas, itself the only source of magical energy. The Dragonmarked houses have mutated into the Sorcerer Kings.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Sorry, I really try to be polite and to use an assertive tone, but sometimes my unintentional rudeness is because I am too used to be hard with myself, and lack of respect by other people.

We will see more modules of gothic horror genre, not only set in Ravenloft. This setting will come back but the metaplot will be paralyzed for a long time. The plot for the time of the unparalleled darkness is ready but not the script, and we don't know plans for after. Maybe they are going to remake "Shadow Stalkers", the minisetting from d20 Past, or a total reboot of "Masque of the Red Death" because Gothic Earth is too close to real life History, with some uncomfortable threads about the past, and because a fantasy counterpart allows more freedom to allow new things, for example dinosaurs in tropical regions. WotC would like to publish its own version of the Call of Cthulhu, and now Lovecraft's myths are public domain, aren't they? This d20 system will need a lot of work because these games are more about investigation and surviving psychological stress, not about exploring dungeons and killing monsters.

The best gothic horror tales should have got some almost-hidden or subliminal morale, for example:

- We become monsters when we forget moral principles of Natural Law as mercy or the respect for the human dignity.

- Tyrants, and toxic people, want to destroy your faith you to become coward and submissive. Don't allow it.

- We are responsible for our actions, we can't be always blaming others or circumstances because we aren't victims by the fate. Warning against the prelearned helplessness

- Wealth, prestige, fame, social status, love conquests, are nothing when you lose your soul.

- The highest fear should be the punishment in the afterlife by divine powers.

- When you face death and suffering then you don't want to be only a stupid bohemian having fun and enjoying life. You shouldn't worry about getting a higher social status but to leave a positive legacy for the next generations.

- Your fight to get the supreme status is useless if after sacrifices you notice you haven't got true respect because the rest want to behead you because you have become a too tall poppy.

- Is your life too boring? You should thank because you can breath one more day. They are others worse than you fighting for the survival.

My forecast for the background of the setting is Strahd von Zarovich will be the eternal darklord of Barovia, because is the iconic character of the franchise. But maybe we will discover he isn't totally guilty but also victim by a supernatural conspiration. Maybe his family was cursed by enemies and Tatiana an innocent peasant used as bait for a trap to cause the fall in the dark side. Some surprise could be characters exchanging souls or bodies.

In the future the creatures from the demiplane of the dread could conquer, invade or infect a world from the prime material plane, maybe that ruled by vampyres. And some haunted zones from the land of the mist could be teletransported temporally to different (cursed) zones from different worlds. One of my ideas is a post-apocalypse where walking dead were eaten by gnolls and werehyenas (and other mutant therianthropes). Other idea is a mixture of giants and trolls like in the anime "Attacks on the titans".

* My mind is open to the idea some naives from Athas, the Dark Sun world, could leave this and go to other worlds before the genocide wars and the rise of the sorcerer-kings. Somebody told me in this forum there was a gladiator circus in Sigil, or a neighbour with the name Tyr.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It is easier to remove content than to add it, and the siloed approach is not how WotC is treating their IP by default (I've seen some of what is in the new Eberron book on cosmology, for instance).

I'm in support of the little blurb in Eberron's book stating how to bring it's cosmology into the greater D&D cosmology. I'm just arguing against a "DC Crisis" event; those things are a mess in the comics, and would be an even bigger one for D&D.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We agree it is too soon for an "infinite earth crisis" but this could happen in a future if they need a really good excuse for a reboot of the multiverse (and allowing new races or classes in previous worlds). I don't like the idea of a world being saved by a little group, so little group. It is like betting all to only one card. The reader is used to notice this happens because in the end the victory will be for the heroes again, always. When Captain America has said "It's time to save the world" so many times, the effect is lost, it isn't the same emotion as the first time.

For metagame effects I defend the concept of time spheres, parallel worlds or uchronies in D&D multiverse because this would allow more freedom to alter the lore or adding changes, for example one story about kingpriest of Istar empire in Krynn becoming demigod, but he is cursed and sent to a shadow domain where his nemesis will be lord Soth. The time dragons and chronomancers in the scripters' hands could be used as "joker cards" in future mass media franchises.

I have got other hypothesis: the mass media producers could ask WotC a new setting with modern technology (do you remember the teleserie "Carnival Row"?) because is cheaper for action-life adaptations. Then WotC had to create a XX-XXI century version of "Masque of the Red Death"... and then Hasbro could suggest to use this world for a mash-up of the "hasbroverse" (transformers, G.I.Joe, Rom Spaceknight, Action Man..). This setting with modern technology isn't ready for the d20 system, but it needs its own updated version of d20 Modern.

It would be fun. A movie by Universal Pictures about a group of young people, with some teenages, being abducted to the demiplane of the dread, and they face menaces like the men-eater three hags, or Maligno, the carrionet, the level of violence wouldn't be harder than R.L Stine's Goosebumps. In the end after some sacrifices the characters come back to home, but their home wasn't our Earth but a different world (and the screen shows something like a broken Liberty statue in the beach). (At least I have had fun telling this crazy idea)

* What a pity but the Gate-towns from Planescape should be recovered as hooks for new stories. If I am not wrong the ban or prohibition against the factions in Sigil by the maid of the pain isn't applied in the gate-towns.

* How would be a dark domain in the land of the mists based in Eberron? You can imagine the paranoia caused by the changeling infiltrated as spies in the capital cities from the core?

* The vrylokas and revenant, PCs from Heroes of Shadow should return for Ravenloft, shouldn't they?

 

[Parmandur]

I'm in support of the little blurb in Eberron's book stating how to bring it's cosmology into the greater D&D cosmology. I'm just arguing against a "DC Crisis" event; those things are a mess in the comics, and would be an even bigger one for D&D.

I'm in support of the little blurb in Eberron's book stating how to bring it's cosmology into the greater D&D cosmology. I'm just arguing against a "DC Crisis" event; those things are a mess in the comics, and would be an even bigger one for D&D.

From what I've seen, it is more than a little blurb...

 

[Urriak Uruk]

From what I've seen, it is more than a little blurb...

I saw it, it's about half a page I'm pretty sure. Unless there's more i missed.

 

[Arnwolf666]

I'm in support of the little blurb in Eberron's book stating how to bring it's cosmology into the greater D&D cosmology. I'm just arguing against a "DC Crisis" event; those things are a mess in the comics, and would be an even bigger one for D&D.

I don’t mean exactly like they do it. I am sick of the rewriting continuity and merging earths crap. But a good crossover. Even if it’s a light crossover. Something like the rod of seven parts each in a different world. But if U think i was referring to the way they do it. Heck no. I don’t want that crap. I’m sick to death of cataclysms on individual worlds much less one on a miltiversal scale. Although I did like die vecna die.

 

[Count_Zero]

I've given a little thought to Chris Perkins remarks - and the thing with Curse of Strahd wasn't just that it was an adaptation of a classic adventure, but it also opened up a classic campaign setting on DM's Guild. Dragonlance might fit with that. On that basis, I could see one of the Planescape adventure books getting adapted, with Sigil getting formally opened up on the DM's Guild as well. I could also see Mystara getting similar treatment.

 

[gyor]

I like the idea that Dark Sun is Eberron in the far future. Profligate use of magic has lead to Dragonshards being exhausted, Khyber and the Ring of Siberys being mined out, leaving Eberron, now known as Athas, itself the only source of magical energy. The Dragonmarked houses have mutated into the Sorcerer Kings.

I see Ravnica being Eberron's future, Athas would Toril future if it keep blowing itself up and killing its Goddess of Magic.