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The use of death knights, including a prominent tragic villain death knight, proves Dragonlance is a gothic horror setting and really no different than Ravenloft.

Absolutely. The people who think a modern RPG should be printed like a 70s zine is mind boggling...

San Cian and Godsbreath were my favorite

There is also Journey Beyond the Radiant Citadel, where several if the authors give additional information on their specific areas. It's not much, but it is more. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/403298/journeys-beyond-the-radiant-citadel

Counterpoint: the Scream franchise is clearly in the horror genre but absolutely bucked the trend of weak protagonists and immortal monsters. Sydney has killed more Ghostfaces than there have been movies (easy when each movie has 1-3 of them). The Classic Three (and later Core Four) are almost...

I've long stopped following FF (12 was the last one I owned and 9 the last one I completed) but I would wonder how much Ivalice would be popular with people looking at the FF TTRPG and expecting a more FF7 style world. That's kinda my problem with it: I would probably want something that...

I'd argue Final Fantasy doesn't have any single aesthetic but (like D&D) a bunch of shared tropes over multiple settings. It's hard to look at Final Fantasy 4 (which feels very traditional of a kitchen sink D&D world) Final Fantasy 8 (which is very futuristic) and Final Fantasy 15 (which is...

D&D really excels at Horror-themed Dark Fantasy. More Castlevania than Silent Hill. You can juice a more traditional horror style out of D&D, but I find it works best when it's doing D&D stuff in a horror background.

Darklords I think. She was her own domain lord and all three desert domains later formed a cluster. She's also covered in Domains of Dread. I think she lost her dark lord status in VRGR but kept the same story.

And people wonder why their players PCs don't match the setting lore... 🙄

This is why Ravenloft gained the reputation for places campaigns go to die. I said everything I needed to say above. A setting that is only there to torture your players (Dark Sun, Ravenloft) is a useless setting..

I'm not disagreeing, only pointing out Golarion does with one setting what D&D does in six. Clearly it's not as focused as something like Shadowrun, but it's a damn sight better than what D&D does

It's a carrot and stick scenario. Old Ravenloft enforced Gothic horror only via stick. You were beaten down with fear, horror, powers checks, crippled abilities, etc. Ravenloft later embraced both carrot and stick (3e Arthaus provided lots of "become a monster" PC options mixed with classic...

It's a far cry from 2nd edition, where the Ravenloft-inspired classes (avenger, anchorite, arcanist, and G*psy) were weaker than the bog standard fighter/cleric/mage/thief and you were better off not playing them as they were mostly a trap option.

Heroes of Horror, which had nothing to do with Ravenloft (the Setting).

Pathfinder is even more focused. If you buy a book for PF, you know everything in the book works with Golarion. You don't have to decide if a kender spellfire sorcerer with a dragonmark is possible. In Pathfinder, it is and there is lore for it Then to play an elf, your player needs to buy and...

But your still stripping stuff out regardless. I'd rather the game give me a default place for a samurai or a psion or a tabaxi then to dump the options into the next player book and tell DMs "you figure out where it fits."

That's the other foot. I don't want D&D to be the floor wax and dessert topping system. I want D&D to do D&D well and other games to handle horror or low magic or Apocalypse wasteland. I realize this is a controversial stance. But I find D&D tries too hard to be everything to everyone and ends...

Yeah and that's the problem. Have you seen how the lore of elves is basically nothing? That's because they aren't allowed to have a culture because every setting has a unique culture for them that doesn't mesh with any other. If D&D had one setting (let's just use Greyhawk as the example) you...

On a purely rational level: D&D needs less settings, not more. Too much of D&D is fractured into settings that are 65% alike but 35% different enough that options don't port over well. Dragonlance elves aren't exactly the same as Greyhawk elves. Ebberon's planes aren't configured like...