But here's the thing... The absence of something in previous edition doesn't mean that the setting is encased in amber and not allowed to grow with and assimilate new options introduced to the game. Adding in a platoon of dwarven wizards doesn't rewrite the setting, it just introduces a new facet that was afore unbeknownst.
Well, actually... There's Melf and his favorite acid arrows.
You mean during 1e, when Unearthed Arcana allowed elves to become high priests (assuming they have the necessary ability scores).
They didn't have to at all, they just decided (without my input, no less) and ruined things in so doing. They could have simply hand-waved the differences away and no one would have blinked.
Because they unwarrantedly believe that they needed to do that in the change from 1e to 2e for some reason I cannot fathom. However, FR was spared a RSE when it was upgraded to 3e.
Well, Dark Sun and Ravenloft both had RESs in the middle of an edition. And FR had the Horde shaking some realms.
The vast majority of people who ever lived on this planet are not recoded in any history. The tiny fraction of people who do get recorded is entirely coincidental, yes.
No, Spelljammer was poorly executed, lacked content and had ship combat rules that are simply not fun. There changes to the setting (such as getting rid of the sillly phlo stuff) were improvements.
It’s a forum, of course opinion, and I dislike false modesty.
Sometimes (most of the time) you need to abandon the old ones, and focus on the current ones.
All Coke is revolting. Sticking “new” in the label just caused people to notice. Stick an “Old” label on the same stuff and your customers think they’ve scored a major victory.
4E was badly sold, not a bad game.
Aside from the “thou shalt not change a jot or tickle” brigade not many people care about Ravenloft anyway. There are plenty of better horror RPGs available. The 2nd edition boxed set or anything remotely resembling it would never have sold. It was a boring mess of an attempt to compete with Vampire the Masquerade, and totally misunderstood the horror genre. CoS had the good sense to go back to the original module for inspiration, rather than the bad campaign setting.
D&D was always corporate slop. It just needs to be corporate slop with contemporary appeal.
Imagine if this wasn't the case with any of the D&D settings. A Dwarf from Greyhawk would have lore and species features that would set them apart from a Dwarf in the Forgotten Realms. The elves wouldn't be identical because like the Dwarves, their lore and species features would be different. There would be numerous Dwarf and Elf pantheons on every world. And so forth.
So, you could say that they took the easy way out by making them all the same for every world in terms of species features and different when it came to their lore.
Nitpick: Melf. Litteraly "Male Elf"
Counterpoint: when was the last time a Bond film was culturally relevant? They have stuck stubbornly to the same formula (handsome while male actor, quippy dialogue, gadgets, Bond girl, supervillain with genius plan, title song, etc). The tropes were so well worn even the parodies have parodies at this point. And Brosman and Craig's attempt to "modernize" were very shallow adjustments. Which is why each Bond movie comes and goes with little fanfare. A blip of discussion on "who is the new Bond girl?" Or "what will they do different?" That eventually boils down to a mediocre box office and is quickly forgotten. It's been that way for 30 years at least.
