D&D 5E (2024) WotC Should Make 5.5E Specific Setting

[mamba]

Any IP that changes things (movies, games, beer, whatever) with the assumption that they can attract new consumers and keep the old ones are fools.

they have 10 times the player base now that they had then, and most of the old ones are not playing any longer. They would be fools to try to capture the old audience rather than a new one

 

[Remathilis]

This would be a lot of work for the designers in both TSR and WoTC. 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.

Well part of that problem TSR (and later WotC) brought upon themselves by trying to support a half dozen different settings while also keeping at least a veneer of compatibility between them. The other part was players expecting each setting to provide a unique experience compared to other settings as opposed to "slightly different seasoning D&D". And TSR didn't do any favors for itself straddling between each setting having a unique subset of rules and mechanics and then also sharing a common PHB with its own unique flavor and assuming everyone will figure out what fits and what doesn't.

If TSR had focused it's efforts on maybe a few (at most) settings and on making the differences purely tonal and additive (rather then mechanical and subtractive) we would be in a much better place now.

 

[Maxperson]

Can you answer the question please, @Maxperson? Is it your contention that it is entirely coincidental that these elements only appear in a setting after they appear in the rules? That these elements were always part of the setting, just off screen? And, their appearance "on screen" has absolutely nothing to do with their appearance in the rules?

Is that correct?

It's neither coincidence, nor important. The game changes and every setting in the game reacts retroactively to add in those elements from the very beginning. Settings, not being tied to any rule set, work with any rule set.

There is no issue with these elements appearing, but the reverse is not true. If in 6e elves vanished from the game, settings would have to explain their absence somehow. If however 6e created a brand new race, there would be no need for any explanation for them to be in any setting, because it's just not remarkable that a setting that has 99% of it's history and lore unknown to us, has a race that we haven't seen until 6e.

 

[Maxperson]

And VGR fixed a lot of the stupidities that were introduced in the 2nd edition boxed set.

But wasn't very good to build a movie around.

 

[Hussar]

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.

This would be a lot of work for the designers in both TSR and WoTC. 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.

Or, to put it another way, the lore of the setting was dictated by the mechanics. The PHB says that elves and dwarves are X and the settings incorporate that.

Which is precisely what I've been saying all the way along. Settings are defined by the mechanics. Not exclusively, of course, but, in large part.

 

[Hussar]

Settings, not being tied to any rule set, work with any rule set.

Question.

Why do I need to change the setting with each new edition? If a setting was system agnostic, then I shouldn't need to change it in order to use it with a new edition or rule set.

Answer? Settings are defined by rulesets. That you can later change a setting to incorporate new rules is simply further proof that settings are defined by mechanics.

 

[Maxperson]

You can make them different if you want too - “our elves are different” is even a well known trope (tropes that are used too much are called cliches). But you are probably not going to want to different-ise everything in the PHB. That makes the setting lose focus. Eberron sometimes sails a bit too close to that reef.

And yet Dark Sun remains very popular, despite every race but human being either new or changed, weapons and armor being very different, magic being different, psionics being prominent, and so on.

 

[Maxperson]

Question.

Why do I need to change the setting with each new edition? If a setting was system agnostic, then I shouldn't need to change it in order to use it with a new edition or rule set.

Answer? Settings are defined by rulesets. That you can later change a setting to incorporate new rules is simply further proof that settings are defined by mechanics.

You don't need to change it at all with a new edition. Revealing what was always there because of a new addition is not a change to the setting. A change would be if a race was known to be there and it vanished because of a new edition.

For example, when Dragonborn came out and were revealed for the Forgotten Realms, they didn't need to crash another planet into Toril for them to be there. They could just have just have new products have them present as if they were always there and there would have been no issue. However, because dragons and dragon blood is so powerful, Dragonborn in my game are around CR 5 right out of the gate without any class abilities placed on top, so they are not usable as a PC race. That is a change to the setting for my game as a known race is not the same as it was.

 

[Maxperson]

they have 10 times the player base now that they had then, and most of the old ones are not playing any longer. They would be fools to try to capture the old audience rather than a new one

And they would be fools not to try and capture both.

 

[Corinnguard]

Well part of that problem TSR (and later WotC) brought upon themselves by trying to support a half dozen different settings while also keeping at least a veneer of compatibility between them. The other part was players expecting each setting to provide a unique experience compared to other settings as opposed to "slightly different seasoning D&D". And TSR didn't do any favors for itself straddling between each setting having a unique subset of rules and mechanics and then also sharing a common PHB with its own unique flavor and assuming everyone will figure out what fits and what doesn't.

If TSR had focused it's efforts on maybe a few (at most) settings and on making the differences purely tonal and additive (rather then mechanical and subtractive) we would be in a much better place now.

Paizo did its' fans a favor then by sticking to one official setting for both of its' PF editions.