D&D General Wildly Diverse "Circus Troupe" Adventuring Parties

[Remathilis]

Yes they are all fictional creations that draw on the same (real-world) mythology, so certain similar elements show up in them. No reason for the lazy "actually they are the same deities as the ones from Toril" slop that we've been subjected to.

You realize that dates back to 2e Planescape, right?

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Then again, D&Ds Greatest Strength is apparently bringing a cleric of Corellon to a Dragonlance campaign...

It's more like the greatest strength is that each table can decide for themselves whether this is ok. That would be perfectly fine at my table, and I haven't yet played with any DM who was controlling enough about the setting to disallow such things, but it's also completely acceptable to put restrictions on the settings at your particular table. Everyone can have fun in the way that works for them, and that's awesome

 

[Remathilis]

Those games all have a tiny fraction of the player base that DnD 5e has. I bet they would all love it if DnD abandoned one of it's biggest strengths by consolidating everything down to one setting*

*Not that WotC could even do this if they wanted to, they tried to stop third parties from publishing but failed, and certainly have no control over DMs homebrewing

You know, Tales of the Valiant and Pathfinder are both open gaming. How many other settings but Midguard and Golarion are there for either of them? They are certainly no harder to design for then D&D, and probably are a great deal easier. Then again, how much effort does KP or Paizo put in supporting any other settings?

WotC might not have much control over 3pps riding their coattails, but they could have made it that buying Van Richten's Guide wasn't potentially a lost sale to Adventures in Faerun or Rising from the Last War. Rather than support 10 settings with one book each, we could that one setting with 10 books devoted to it, starting with the PHB.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Yes they are all fictional creations that draw on the same (real-world) mythology, so certain similar elements show up in them. No reason for the lazy "actually they are the same deities as the ones from Toril" slop that we've been subjected to.

Except in some cases it's very blatant and direct, Morgion flat out uses name Anthrax as one of his other names to make it clear who he is supposed to be.

Then again, D&Ds Greatest Strength is apparently bringing a cleric of Corellon to a Dragonlance campaign...

In old editions if a Cleric of another deity showed up on Krynn they would instantly get brainwashed to worship corresponding god from Krynn until they leave, which was also stupid.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Rather than support 10 settings with one book each, we could that one setting with 10 books devoted to it, starting with the PHB.

You do realize some people already are calling Forgotten Realms D&DBorg, as in "You will be assimilated"? I've seen on this very forum how pissed people were when 80's cartoon or Lowryn were made part of the Realms, imagine if WotC came tomorrow and said entire Dark Sun setting is actually somewhere in Anauroch Desert, it would suck.

Glares at Apollo PUT THAT VOLLEYBALL DOWN THIS INSTANT!

 

[Remathilis]

It's more like the greatest strength is that each table can decide for themselves whether this is ok. That would be perfectly fine at my table, and I haven't yet played with any DM who was controlling enough about the setting to disallow such things, but it's also completely acceptable to put restrictions on the settings at your particular table. Everyone can have fun in the way that works for them, and that's awesome

But if it's D&D's greatest strength, why do we have threads like this where DMs bemoan how their player's characters are disconnected from the settings? That's my point.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Rather than support 10 settings with one book each, we could that one setting with 10 books devoted to it, starting with the PHB.

Yeah don't get me wrong, I actually would love to see a "standard 5e setting" that WotC supports with lore and adventure arcs and such. I don't think it would solve any of the "problems" being discussed in this thread (which aren't actually problems in my opinion), but I do think it would be great to have for DMs who are either new or don't have much time to spend homebrewing content

 

[Not a Decepticon]

But if it's D&D's greatest strength, why do we have threads like this where DMs bemoan how their player's characters are disconnected from the settings? That's my point.

That does seem to me to be very much a DM's problem with getting the players immerssed in the setting.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

But if it's D&D's greatest strength, why do we have threads like this where DMs bemoan how their player's characters are disconnected from the settings? That's my point.

A few people on an internet forum having a complaint about something that can easily be addressed by simply communicating expectations to the people at your table does not make it an actual problem that should be addressed by changing an entire game design that is loved by millions of people.

 

[Remathilis]

You do realize some people already are calling Forgotten Realms D&DBorg, as in "You will be assimilated"? I've seen on this very forum how pissed people were when 80's cartoon or Lowryn were made part of the Realms, imagine if WotC came tomorrow and said entire Dark Sun setting is actually somewhere in Anauroch Desert, it would suck.

Glares at Apollo PUT THAT VOLLEYBALL DOWN THIS INSTANT!

I've already said it's too late. The smoke isn't going back in the bottle. But I'm just reiterating the issue with players creating characters that don't fit with the DMs setting is almost exclusively a D&D problem and there is a reason you don't see it often in other RPGs.