4E Campaign Announcement Time/Date

[Shemeska]

I think Spelljammer seems the most likely, right now.

Dragonlance is another contender. Dark Sun is a third. For some reason, though, I can't shake the feeling that it will be Spelljammer.

-O

I wouldn't wish that fate on Spelljammer fans, and I don't think the setting would be a financial success for WotC since it strikes me as much more of a niche setting (and WotC doesn't have the late and brilliant Nigel Findley to write for Spelljammer now).

Mean as it sounds, if the 2010 setting is Spelljammer, I'll call it now that there will be another round of Xmas layoffs at WotC.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Personally for me a 4e Planescape without the Great Wheel and Alignment being a actual force in the universe would be perfect for me. Since well that is essentially the Planescape my group has always played.

My hopes personally go:

• Planescape
• Spelljammer (if it was to be reimagined I would love to see it be one with Aether Ships and such, very Steampunkish/Pseudoscience style)
• Dark Sun

 

[Pour]

Please, please, please may it be a new setting. So much is spent every edition trying to recapture the old settings. Great though they are, better to utilize 4e's strength as an easily adaptable rule set to apply to older, existing setting material (or 3rd party material) and instead focus on new worlds.

In the spirit of 4th edition and its aim to draw in new audiences, create a world for the new audiences, generate interest through the unknown, through anticipation, and maybe win some on-the-fence fans in the process. I can speak for one existing fan by saying I'd be pleased with a new world.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Different cosmology, different in-game history, no Blood War, the goofy 4e alignment system, etc.

IMO:

Cosmology: Semantics. Astral plane, astral sea, limbo, elemental chaos, above, below, in between, it doesn't matter.

In-Game History: "Clueless Prime" stuff + mostly unimportant legacy material. Sure, primordials and deities might be very important for the Clueless, but PS takes a broader view, where gods and primordials and demon princes and lords of the nine and whatever are all just part of one big "things you should not try to punch in the face" kind of being. A lot of the early 1e history and such, while interesting, isn't important to the play experience of Planescape, so I can see leaving that ambiguous: it's there if you want it, but there's not much of an impact on the current setting.

No Blood War: This is "advancing the timeline" plus the "clueless prime" stuff. There's an uneasy down-time in the constant war which may erupt frequently into all-out grand-scale warfare, just not frequently doing so on the Prime. As far as the Clueless are concerned, there's no blood war, but you'd be a fool to think that just 'cuz the Abyss ain't marching on Malebolge right this very moment that it means that everyone's all hunky-dory. In fact, this gives me a broader idea for making the fiends key antagonists in PS4e. Perhaps the yugoloths brokered a peace agreement in a scheme to unite the lower planes, and now they have to try and keep it together long enough to do something with it, while covert agents of Good work through adventurers to sew the seeds of conflict and rivalry in the armies of evil.

4e Alignment System: A savvy viewer sees that the 4e alignment system is just a slightly more abstract version of the alignment system 2e and 3e used. There are still beings of ultimate order and entities of eternal chaos, they just aren't called out as such in explicitly mechanical terms. I don't think the concept of, say, Bytopia hinges on any two-phrase keyword. It's personality doesn't change, and in 4e it's open to the forces of evil as well as the forces of (Neutral-Lawful) Good.

I think PS4e could work for these reasons, and I am looking forward to running a PS4e game at some point in the future.

 

[Obryn]

I wouldn't wish that fate on Spelljammer fans, and I don't think the setting would be a financial success for WotC since it strikes me as much more of a niche setting (and WotC doesn't have the late and brilliant Nigel Findley to write for Spelljammer now).

Mean as it sounds, if the 2010 setting is Spelljammer, I'll call it now that there will be another round of Xmas layoffs at WotC.

Remember that settings aren't the investments they used to be. A 4e setting isn't an ongoing product line with support ad-infinitum. It's a pair of books and an adventure.

FWIW, I think 4e could do right by Spelljammer very easily. It's a wahoo setting - even moreso than Eberron - with a lot of chances for swashbuckling flair. Honestly, I think it's a better fit for 4e than it was even for 2e. High adventure is 4e's thing, and I can't think of many adventures higher than Spelljammer.


I'd also love a Dark Sun revival. I wouldn't expect to love the entire setting, but seriously? I don't much care. I'd look at it as the best mechanical toolbox possible for the setting flavor in my original box set. Frankly, TSR already did crazy and unpalatable things to it - so it's not like I even enjoy where they left the setting off. I would give it a fair shake, though - like I said, even where Dark Sun left off is hardly Dark Sun at all.

NOW. With that said, I don't see what new races and classes Spelljammer would need. Honestly, I don't know how they'd fill a Player's Guide. I mean, there's Giff, but really who cares much about them? Dark Sun has a much clearer collection of unique races & classes to offer. Also - elemental power source, anyone?

-O

 

[ggroy]

Remember that settings aren't the investments they used to be. A 4e setting isn't an ongoing product line with support ad-infinitum. It's a pair of books and an adventure.

...

NOW. With that said, I don't see what new races and classes Spelljammer would need. Honestly, I don't know how they'd fill a Player's Guide. I mean, there's Giff, but really who cares much about them? Dark Sun has a much clearer collection of unique races & classes to offer. Also - elemental power source, anyone?

If there's not enough interesting stuff to fill a setting Player's Guide, they could in principle change plans and just release the Campaign Guide and one module for such a setting. In lieu of a formal Player's Guide hardcover book, they could release a 32 or 64 page "gazetteer" softcover book for the setting.

Who knows? They could even break the formula, and release two settings next year in the campaign guide + module format.

 

[Mark]

(. . .) there will be another round of Xmas layoffs at WotC.

That's likely to happen anyway. And we'll know there's a new edition in the works by the spate of hirings that take place a couple of years before it's release. The corporate cycle is inevitable.

 

[Nai_Calus]

That's something I will never understand... The old books won't be burned by WotC fire squads. If a new edition of a setting is published that does not fit your taste, just ignore. The very idea that peoples prefer that their setting die of neglect rather than differs from their cannon is strange.

No, they aren't going to come and burn my Planescape books if they do it. Problem is, the new version is going to be the one you're most likely to encounter as a player. It's 'new', it's what people have access to without expensive as hell stuff on eBay, it's going to become the most common thing.

Take FR. Say I want to join a FR game. Say I can't stand D&D 3.5 anymore and would rather stab myself than play it(Which is true). Most FR games I'm going to find, then, are going to be 4e. Most of them are going to be using 4e FR. I don't want to play 4e FR because it's an abomination, so I have to find either someone running an older version of FR under 4e rules, someone still doing 1e or 2e AD&D, or play an edition I don't like at all.

So say Planescape 4e does come out, say it does make me facepalm like it most likely would. Guess what I'm probably going to find? 4e PS games. No one's going to take my 2e PS stuff away, but I'm not really going to be able to play original-style PS either.

I could DM, yes, and run whatever I want however I want, but I hate DMing.

 

[Cam Banks]

Regarding Dragonlance, you know what's most important and significant and personally meaningful to me is that this is the 25th anniversary of the setting. This year, with the release of Dragons of an Hourglass Mage, and the last few books in a collection of trilogies coming in, this year's the big silver.

They could shock everybody and release a Dragonlance sourcebook next year, and an adventure, and a campaign guide. But it's so not my concern at the moment. I mean, can't we celebrate what it is and was and could be this year, and not take all of the celebrations as hints as to a 3-book product line the year AFTER its anniversary?

Cheers,
Cam

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

Regarding Dragonlance, you know what's most important and significant and personally meaningful to me is that this is the 25th anniversary of the setting. This year, with the release of Dragons of an Hourglass Mage, and the last few books in a collection of trilogies coming in, this year's the big silver.

They could shock everybody and release a Dragonlance sourcebook next year, and an adventure, and a campaign guide. But it's so not my concern at the moment. I mean, can't we celebrate what it is and was and could be this year, and not take all of the celebrations as hints as to a 3-book product line the year AFTER its anniversary?

Cheers,
Cam

So, Cam, what you are seemingly saying is that you don't know anymore than the rest of us on whether or not the next setting is Dragonlance. I am not trying to be rude(I have the utmost respect for you, and would very much like to have your signature on my copy of the Sellsword), but people have been using your statement that next year is not Dragonlance as the definitive stake through its heart.