D&D 5E Revisited Setting News: Its not the 2023 Classic setting, but rather for 2024

[dave2008]

No it makes the action casual & forgettable, there is no meaningful emotional conflict or risk to using them so it just the "too bleak, stopped caring" trope in print & at the table. Everyone the players meet is some flavor of capital E Evil on the absolute morality axis, the only one doing or possibly struggling with doing anything "amoral" in DiA is zariel & she too is stuck on the absolute morality axis gone sideways.
blackrazor carries more "hmm... I dunno" questions of morality.

That "HAHA IT'S EVIL... LOOK HOW EVIL IT IS" miss is something I unfortunately expect to be continued with any of the new stuff coming along that involves darker & more serious concepts like darksun & such if we see them at all.

I really don't know what your talking about. If you or your players don't see the horror of using souls to power a car, I think that is on you. Maybe it is in the adventure, IDK, I just know what I have read about it.

 

[overgeeked]

I really don't know what your talking about. If you or your players don't see the horror of using souls to power a car, I think that is on you. Maybe it is in the adventure, IDK, I just know what I have read about it.

Most players and DMs completely ignore the horror that the PCs gain power by snuffing out souls by the dozen.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would say the 2nd edition version dropped the corny jokes and tried to be a serious WoD style horror setting. The 5e version takes it quite seriously, but is less emo. Really, it has been many things over the years. There is no one true Ravenloft.

I agree with most of that, but through all of it, the character of the place, and in particular the worldbuilding, was rarely if ever contradicted. That's what VRG destroyed, and why I can't accept it as Ravenloft.

 

[Faolyn]

I wish the players I run D&D games for were like that. They mostly just cower and hide from any danger that's not comfortably beneath their level. Weirdly, the Cthulhu players I have are way braver with their characters and choices.

CoC players know they're doomed, no matter what. It's literally the point of the genre and the game. So there's no reason not to go in and meet the horror.

 

[teitan]

So does a lich. The soul coin-op vehicles aren't raising the bar any. a lich & all kinds of other stuff does that. check the grimdark entry on tvtropes

DiA falls squarely in the bold bits. The few exceptions like the page106unicorn torture cage powered barrier are lost in the absolute morality silliness. Players aren't trying to cajole sapient creatures into a similar murderbox they need to watch slowly suck the victim dry while driving around, they just pop a coin in the slot. It's not even difficult to carry the coins around to activate as magic items or pop them in the slot to power the car.

Sure a lich does yeah but a lich isn’t the players having to make a decision to torch someone forever to take the easy path or risk certain death in… HELL is it?

 

[teitan]

See, they could probably get away with any setting that includes or has room for everything in core 5e, and can be retrofitted to current sensibilities without changing the setting too much. Eberron, Theros, Ravnica, and Wildemount meet both qualifications. Ravenloft was too different and/or old fashioned for WotC to accept a proper adaption, and Dark Sun, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer will be the same.

Seriously, just wait for the Guild once whatever WotC publishes comes out. Releasing the IP is all WotC is good for at this point.

If you say so buddy.

 

[Faolyn]

See, they could probably get away with any setting that includes or has room for everything in core 5e, and can be retrofitted to current sensibilities without changing the setting too much. Eberron, Theros, Ravnica, and Wildemount meet both qualifications. Ravenloft was too different and/or old fashioned for WotC to accept a proper adaption, and Dark Sun, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer will be the same.

Seriously, just wait for the Guild once whatever WotC publishes comes out. Releasing the IP is all WotC is good for at this point.

What didn't you like about VGR?

 

[Mecheon]

Just one quick thing (As I've long put my opinion out there that Greyhawk doesn't offer enough on its own as a setting in this day and again hence our multiple, multiple threads trying to pin down what Greyhawk's identity is):

There are Greyhawk specific monsters like the Greyhawk Dragon

Those have been generic-fied as Steel Dragons since.... At least 2E. Yeah I know they did a lot of "There's this SUSPICIOUS SIMILAR dragon in Greyhawk called the Greyhawk Dragon" but, they're the same. Same powers. Same gimmick

 

[overgeeked]

CoC players know they're doomed, no matter what. It's literally the point of the genre and the game. So there's no reason not to go in and meet the horror.

Likewise, it's a game, so there's no reason not to go in and see what happens.

 

[Faolyn]

Likewise, it's a game, so there's no reason not to go in and see what happens.

Right. When I play CoC, I'm perfectly fine with my character going insane and dying, and not necessarily in that order. It's practically CoC's entire purpose. You don't play that game to actually kill monsters. You maybe kill some cultists and some very minor entities and, if you're lucky, banish the more powerful ones, or prevent them from being summoned in the first place.