D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Hussar]

Maybe I'm missing something - but if I wanted to run 5e in Mystara/the Known World, wouldn't I do that just by running 5e in Mystara/the Known World?

I mean, the map is there in the Isle of Dread, the Gazetteers are there on DriveThruRPG. How do Sorcerers fit into Glantri? It's your table, you make it up!

Off the top of my head:

1. How do I ascend to an immortal in 5e?

2. When my player wants to play a Diaboli, where would I find the stats for that?

Can I make it up? Sure. But if I have to make it up, then it’s not supported is it?

Which speaks to the “mile wide, inch deep” approach. It’s not terribly unreasonable to say that’s not really support in most senses. If I have to homebrew large swaths of the campaign in order to use the published setting, then isn’t it fair to say that setting has not received much support?

 

[Mecheon]

Off the top of my head:

1. How do I ascend to an immortal in 5e?

2. When my player wants to play a Diaboli, where would I find the stats for that?

Can I make it up? Sure. But if I have to make it up, then it’s not supported is it?

I mean, I'm not sure I'd call those essential parts of Mystara. Immortal play was late game optional stuff, Diaboli are an obscure race and, if looking at obscures, there's dozens in FR alone. I'd say the lack of Lupin is more relevant than Diaboli

Not everything is there, sure, but these are hardly the most essential things

 

[Hussar]

I mean, I'm not sure I'd call those essential parts of Mystara. Immortal play was late game optional stuff, Diaboli are an obscure race and, if looking at obscures, there's dozens in FR alone. I'd say the lack of Lupin is more relevant than Diaboli

Not everything is there, sure, but these are hardly the most essential things

The point being there’s a lot of mystara that is more than just flavor. Heck, domain management was a big deal.

To be fair I didn’t use lupin as my example because I couldn’t remember the damn name.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I still think it comes down to "what do you mean by support?" If you say you need something like Domain Management, well, if the DMG downtime and Bastion rules get close enough, does that now count as Mystara? Or do we need a Mystara book with more specific downtime rules?

Do you need stats for the obscure 2e era species, or is it good enough to hit the major points? The Verdan are actually in the game right now, but I've still never heard of anyone using them, and I only know they are related to FR because I've read their entry. You could do "pretty goblin with weird powers" and that might cover them well enough for the majority of people.

Or do you need adventures sold for that setting? Because for Ravnica, Theros, Strixhaven and Eberron... that seems to be the only thing really missing. They aren't selling unique adventures set in those settings. Eberron gets close, because it is part of Vecna, but the other three are quite literally fully contained in their single book. So would support look like WoTC trying to sell Theros adventures? And can WoTC do that without losing money, since it would be a very small market looking for that?

 

[Remathilis]

Maybe I'm missing something - but if I wanted to run 5e in Mystara/the Known World, wouldn't I do that just by running 5e in Mystara/the Known World?

I mean, the map is there in the Isle of Dread, the Gazetteers are there on DriveThruRPG. How do Sorcerers fit into Glantri? It's your table, you make it up!

Sure, an experienced DM familiar with both the original setting and the nuances of the edition it was written for could find the appropriate materials needed to run 5e Mystara, heck if they were adept enough, they would find fans who have done the work for them. But that a HUGE amount of work compared to buying Rising from the Last War and running Eberron using that. I mean, the DM would even half to KNOW about Mystara, a setting who last saw material printed 30 years ago and aside from a few mentions has had nothing new added since. People who started in 3e or onwards probably have never heard of it unless they started reseaching the back history of the game. (It doesn't help that many of the most memorable elements, be it the Isle of Dread, Keep on the Borderlands, tortles or rakasta/tabaxi were all mined out and given to Oerth or Toril).

Which is why support, be it even as thin as Spelljammer or Planescapes, is important. It creates an on-ramp for new fans. Its why having Greyhawk in the DMG matters; it gives a new DM or someone whose knowledge of editions doesn't span decades a way to know that setting even exists.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I'm going to agree with this here. I mean, how much support has Theros gotten? Strixhaven? Ravenloft I would say got support - a full AP and a setting guide. Dragonlance? That's not really supported by WotC.

But, again, it does come down to definitions. Is opening up something on DM's Guild support or not? You could make the argument either way. My point of view is that while opening something up on DM's Guild allows others to support a setting, it's not really a case of WotC supporting that setting.

I mean, sure, there's some fantastic stuff for Spelljammer on DM's Guild. But, as far as WotC goes, it's one AP and a couple of very, very slim setting guides.

WotC has shown in the last 10 years that they have virtually zero interest in doing any more big setting guide books anymore. I can't blame them, really. But claiming that WotC is currently supporting seven settings is stretching the definition of "support" a bit much.

As I said, WotC has neither the interest nor the resources to support ongoing book lines for seven different settings. You would create the scenario of settings cannibalizing other setting's sales because most people do not have the money or interest to buy seven different settings all at once. So WotC has opted to lightly touch on each setting and then let the DM find or create their own beyond it.

If you wanted the deep lore dive of yesteryear, then decide which setting or two you would want focused on the exclusion of all others. Maybe Faerun and Eberron? (They are perennial favorites). All other settings getting harvested for parts and only nodded to in restrospectives? Because you can't have Deep cuts on seven worlds, so you sacrifice Greyhawk, Planescape, Ravenloft, Dragonlance and Spelljammer to get more info on Faerun or Eberron. That's the Sophie's Choice.

 

[Staffan]

Yeah, other than printing Eberron adventures, which would be nice but not needed... what more could they do?

I mean, you have about 15 countries crying out for sourcebooks – five of which shared one back in 3.5e. But there's still precious little material available on the Shadow Marches, Demon Wastes, Eldeen Reaches, Droaam, Darguun, Zilargo, Mror Holds, Talenta Plains, Q'Barra, Valenar, and the Lhazaar Principalities. There are also lots of other parts of the setting that could use an update to 5e, or just delving deeper into various aspects. I mean, I know that's not the MO of Wizards these days, but IMO setting support does require some flow of product.

 

[Von Ether]

Maybe I'm missing something - but if I wanted to run 5e in Mystara/the Known World, wouldn't I do that just by running 5e in Mystara/the Known World?

I mean, the map is there in the Isle of Dread, the Gazetteers are there on DriveThruRPG. How do Sorcerers fit into Glantri? It's your table, you make it up!

D&D, at its heart, is a tool kit. It's just as valid for the answer to be, "My version of Mystara has no sorcerers."

At the time, the AD&D books for Mystara/Karameikos mainly focused on politics because rule wise, there was nothing exotic or fancy to add. And the rare races were also squirreled away in different supplements, so if you didn't have those those, then you never had them in your game (or even knew they existed as options.*)

For Mystara, I'd start with the free WotC 5e Basic Rules. My "expansions" would be curated parts of the player's handbook only. That actually sounds refreshing for a change of pace. And the project is even easier since Goodman Games has translated several of those adventures into 5e already.

*With no internet, a gamer could miss out on whole game lines if their rare FLGS never stocked them or sold out and never re-ordered. I never knew about the Lupin until I found the Red Steel box in the bargain bin of a game store in another town.

 

[Staffan]

The point being there’s a lot of mystara that is more than just flavor. Heck, domain management was a big deal.

To be fair I didn’t use lupin as my example because I couldn’t remember the damn name.

Mystara has a bit of the same problem as Greyhawk: it doesn't really have an identity beyond "The BECMI D&D world". If it's in BECMI, it's in Mystara. If it's in Mystara, it's in BECMI.

So domain management isn't so much a feature of Mystara as it is of BECMI. And as I recall, while the AD&D version of Mystara transferred over some of the mechanical stuff (e.g. secret schools of Glantri), domain management was not among those things.

 

[Von Ether]

I mean, you have about 15 countries crying out for sourcebooks – five of which shared one back in 3.5e. But there's still precious little material available on the Shadow Marches, Demon Wastes, Eldeen Reaches, Droaam, Darguun, Zilargo, Mror Holds, Talenta Plains, Q'Barra, Valenar, and the Lhazaar Principalities. There are also lots of other parts of the setting that could use an update to 5e, or just delving deeper into various aspects. I mean, I know that's not the MO of Wizards these days, but IMO setting support does require some flow of product.

Source books? That would be only one book with with about 8 to 10 pages a piece. It think that's what WotC for them back in 3e, I think. (Explorer's Edition?)

It's well established in the industry that the deeper the tier of supplement, the smaller the return. Heck, CGL couldn't even justify doing five Inner Sphere faction books as the first two sold so poorly. So doing 15 sourcebooks for Eberron's regions would be a catch 22 at best.

Then again, this is what the DMs Guild is for. You can either find what others have written up or sell what you created lore wise.

For example, here's what DMs Guild Q'Barra

Dungeon Masters Guild - Eberron -

www.dmsguild.com