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

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't consider Starfinder a Pathfinder setting because it's essentially a different game with it's own PHB and Bestiary and unique classes and species. But I'll look into Labyrinth.

The game is different, but they share the same setting.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The game is different, but they share the same setting.

I would argue that even that is a real big stretch for a lot of people because a critical plot point of Starfinder is that Golarion has been completely removed from it. Indeed, that is supposed to be the eternal unsolved mystery of Starfinder: where the f#$k did Golarion go, why does no one--apparently not even the gods themselves!--remember anything about its disappearance, and why is it they do know that Golarion hasn't been destroyed or harmed despite being totally inaccessible?

It's hard to call Starfinder "sharing the same setting" when literally the entirety of what makes it the world of Pathfinder has been neatly excised. I mean, I guess there's the rest of the star system Golarion used to be in, but that's pretty slim pickings. You could just as easily assert that Star Wars and Star Trek "share the same setting", they just occur in different galaxies of that single setting, making any actual travel between them impossible even though you could--theoretically--observe one galaxy from the other.

 

[TiQuinn]

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!

Been that way since Kara-Tur and Al Qadim, honestly. I would simply ignore it if I didn’t like it. I’ve had to do that countless times in the past, even with just metaplots designed specifically for FR.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would argue that even that is a real big stretch for a lot of people because a critical plot point of Starfinder is that Golarion has been completely removed from it. Indeed, that is supposed to be the eternal unsolved mystery of Starfinder: where the f#$k did Golarion go, why does no one--apparently not even the gods themselves!--remember anything about its disappearance, and why is it they do know that Golarion hasn't been destroyed or harmed despite being totally inaccessible?

It's hard to call Starfinder "sharing the same setting" when literally the entirety of what makes it the world of Pathfinder has been neatly excised. I mean, I guess there's the rest of the star system Golarion used to be in, but that's pretty slim pickings. You could just as easily assert that Star Wars and Star Trek "share the same setting", they just occur in different galaxies of that single setting, making any actual travel between them impossible even though you could--theoretically--observe one galaxy from the other.

Well, if they are separate settings I don’t like either of them. Indeed the reason I never played Starfinder after buying it is the inbuilt setting didn’t suit the stories I wanted to tell.

 

[Hussar]

Though a hellish feywild does sound like an interesting adventure. If I was warned that's what the details was like before we went there.

Oh, totally. I was all set on this very Kafka-esque adventure where things were very, very weird, and the players were just totally lost. Not only did they completely expect a totally different adventure based on their own assumptions of the Feywild, they didn't even agree with each other what the Feywild was supposed to be which meant they wound up confusing each other just as much as I was confusing them.

Needless to say, that was not one of my more successful DMing experiences. But, to be fair, it was very much a learning experience.

But, again, yeah, this ties into the idea that D&D is a fantasy toolbox. AFAIC, it has never really been that. There's a reason people talk about D&D being a genre unto itself. I recently had the experience of playing with an experienced gamer that had not played D&D since the 80's. He is a huge Warhammer fan and never got into D&D. When we played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, he was so lost so much of the time. It was really eye opening to see just how much I had absorbed over the years without really realizing it.

It sort of becomes an Uncanny Valley situation where everything is close... but not quite right.

 

[ECMO3]

I have no problem with the "Circus Troupe" party and I am fine with that kind of diversity, you be you!

What bothers me is when people want to bring controversial or political topics into their character or the game or when they want to over-sexualize the game, often under the guise of being "LGBT friendly". That is fine for some groups I guess, but I am looking for fantasy and escape when I play D&D and having these things which cause friction IRL being part of the game does not appeal to me. I like to leave those real world problems in the real world.

That kind of thing is usually handled in session 0 though and either myself or the players who want that will look elsewhere.