WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Micah Sweet]

But if WotC had done a completely different horror setting (say, Innistrad or Something New) then the fans would hoot and holler about how Ravenloft was ignored in favor of some new hotness. This would have been made doubly worse if any elements from the older setting got reused in the new one (either directly or indirectly). WotC would be ignoring a memorable IP (or two, if they opted for new over Innistrad) and start with a brand-new, never used IP because they were afraid changing the Vistani of Ravenloft would hurt some Superfan's fee-fees.

If I had known what they would actually do with Ravenloft in 5e, I certainly wouldn't have complained about a new setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Keep in mind that as of Domains of Dread, several Darklords were pulled from every TSR setting in print. Vecna, Kas and Azalin were all from Greyhawk. Tristan, Easan and Hazlik were from Forgotten Realms, Tsien Chiang from Kara-Tur, Vlad Drakov from Taladas, Thakok-An from Dark Sun, Meredoth from Mystara, Boyar Gregor Zolnik from Birthright, and Lord Soth from Dragonlance. (And it's been a minute, I might have missed one). So while the PCs might have become more local, many of the lords themselves were from all over the Multiverse.

Sure. Not sure what the point of that is.

 

[Remathilis]

If I had known what they would actually do with Ravenloft in 5e, I certainly wouldn't have complained about a new setting.

But you wouldn't have. You'd have compared the new setting to the Old Ravenloft, and probably been very upset that Ravenloft was snubbed for some new idea WotC wanted to use rather than honor the classic setting they did. In a way, it's a Catch-22. A new setting would have been viewed as a replacement to Ravenloft and thus hated. Releasing an updated Ravenloft would be hated for changing the setting. An un-updated Ravenloft would be hated for dragging in all the offensive tropes that should rightly be removed. It's kinda like WotC knew they were going to piss off someone, so they opted to for the one that gave them the most brand recognition with the least amount of headache.

 

[Zardnaar]

But you wouldn't have. You'd have compared the new setting to the Old Ravenloft, and probably been very upset that Ravenloft was snubbed for some new idea WotC wanted to use rather than honor the classic setting they did. In a way, it's a Catch-22. A new setting would have been viewed as a replacement to Ravenloft and thus hated. Releasing an updated Ravenloft would be hated for changing the setting. An un-updated Ravenloft would be hated for dragging in all the offensive tropes that should rightly be removed. It's kinda like WotC knew they were going to piss off someone, so they opted to for the one that gave them the most brand recognition with the least amount of headache.

One can do a somewhat faithful update while fixing problematic things.

Spelljammer is Spelljammer in name only and a bad product from what people are saying here (I'm not buying it).

If they want the do drastically different stuff make something new over butchering the past.

We know they canupdate old stuff well eg Eberron they just don't bother with the classic settings.

 

[Staffan]

Where?

("Toril", or possibly "Abeir-Toril", is the FR world, but where is the "Al-" prefix coming from?)

The folks of Zakhara refer to the planet on which they live as Al-Toril. And since they are way more civilized than the northern barbarians of Faerûn, that's the name I use for the world.

 

[Remathilis]

One can do a somewhat faithful update while fixing problematic things.

Spelljammer is Spelljammer in name only and a bad product from what people are saying here (I'm not buying it).

If they want the do drastically different stuff make something new over butchering the past.

We know they canupdate old stuff well eg Eberron they just don't bother with the classic settings.

It could be because Eberron didn't need as much clean up as Ravenloft or Spelljammer did. It's newer, built on different assumptions, and was designed with modern D&D in mind. It didn't have as many outdated tropes or weird side-rules to consider (though it still had a few, such as how it originally handled the drow of Xen'drik).

 

[Vaalingrade]

One can do a somewhat faithful update while fixing problematic things.

What would even be left of Dragonlance?

And the only part people seem to care about in Planescape would be gone too. That's 2022-2023 just gone.

 

[Lanefan]

Except casuals ARE existing customers.

I’ll go even further, lots of those “casuals” buy every book from D&D as well, they just started in 4e and 5e and therefore value different game elements than the “hardcore” posters on this site.

But why stop there? Many of the “hardcore” fans on this site DON’T even buy that many WotC products. Specifically @Lanefan doesn’t own any 5e products,

::raises hand:: Hey, yes I do; though not many: the core three books, LMoP box set, Princes, and a couple of other bits and bobs. And some 5e-era minis.

Which is about the same amount of material I also have for each of 3e and 4e.

 

[Staffan]

That has never been TSR or WotC's belief. Even in 3E Eberron and the Forgotten Realms, they had a different arrangement of planes, but it was acknowledged that the "real" multiverse was also out there.

In 3e, each setting had their own cosmology, with the possibility of traveling between them via the Shadow Plane. Greyhawk had the Great Wheel, the Forgotten Realms had the World Tree, and Eberron had its orrery. But you couldn't plane shift from Eberron to, say, Bytopia.

There are many reasons why settings should keep their cosmologies separate. One is that the Great Wheel, as previously mentioned, is bad. It is far too intertwined with alignments, and is far too check-boxy.

Another is that high-level gaming often heads out toward the planes. And that causes all sorts of weirdness if the settings are connected. If a group of adventurers travel from Greyhawk and slay Orcus on his home plane, does that mean that Orcus is also dead in the Forgotten Realms? If Ao strikes Tyr blind, does that mean that Tyr is blind in other worlds too? That whole thing gets much easier to deal with if we accept that the Forgotten Realms cosmology have their own Tyr and Orcus.

A third is that cross-setting stuff is disruptive. A world where flying spaceships that can travel across the globe in less than a day exist in large enough numbers to make spacefaring civilization viable is going to look very differently from your typical fantasy setting. That's why I say that I don't mind a Spelljammer campaign making a stop in Waterdeep or Huzuz, but Waterdeep and Huzuz should not have to be designed to take spelljamming vessels into account.

And in the 1E and 2E eras -- the height of Dragonlance -- it definitely wasn't true. The Great Wheel was the default setting and Dragonlance was a TSR project.

I don't really have a dog in the fight about Dragonlance in particular, other than noting that the Planescape supplement On Hallowed Ground had separate entries for Tiamat and Takhisis, whereas it was clear that the Tyr in the Faerûnean pantheon was the same one as in the Norse pantheon.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Spelljammer is Spelljammer in name only and a bad product from what people are saying here (I'm not buying it).

I shall inform you this is not true. It’s very much Spelljammer, and is an ok product. It’s main flaw is that it’s short and does not go quite as into detail as it should. Basically it could have used another 30 pages or so.