D&D 4E 4E Devils vs. Demons article

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The dirty secret of 3E: The best support for the game was often from a third party publisher, and not from WotC. Them effectively ceding the old cosmology to folks like Paizo and Necromancer is something you guys should be celebrating, not mourning. Imagine a City of Brass-style boxed set for the Nine Hells.

 

[Psion]

Well, I'm not going to read the intervening 6 pages, and I'm sure this stance has been reflected before, but...

It's cool for a setting.
Not cool for an edition of the game. That's entirely too much setting-style writing for a toolkit style baseline that I expect out of D&D.

Psuedo-edit: Yup, right before I hit post, I see Sammael has hit the nail on the head.

 

[Shade]

The dirty secret of 3E: The best support for the game was often from a third party publisher, and not from WotC. Them effectively ceding the old cosmology to folks like Paizo and Necromancer is something you guys should be celebrating, not mourning. Imagine a City of Brass-style boxed set for the Nine Hells.

If they truly ceded it, whole-cloth, I'd be dancing in the streets.

Instead we have to settle for stealth names and so on.

Let's all visit Glyph, City by the Pinnacle. :\

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Mostly nitpicking, but Lisa Stevens, the last brand manager for Greyhawk, said:

I don't think Lisa's wrong, but her comment does ignore the real reason the Forgotten Realms was chosen as the singular supported setting: novels. Greyhawk's never been successfully "merchandised" as the Forgotten Realms have.

Think, too, of all the PC games based on the Forgotten Realms, compared to one for Greyhawk - which didn't come out until 2003.

 

[Glyfair]

Them effectively ceding the old cosmology to folks like Paizo and Necromancer is something you guys should be celebrating, not mourning.

I'll also note we don't know they are doing that. Yes, the core cosmology is changing. More than likely they won't cover the older cosmology for a while to allow the new one to sink in. That doesn't mean they won't revisit it.

Consider that they have mentioned releasing a setting a year. From comments it seems likely they will be very limited releases (one or two books), but they also are considering older settings. Maybe they'll release Planescape in 2010 or later. They'll revisit the old cosmology in the context of a setting, rather than as part of the core.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I am betting that they will revisit the Great Wheel as the Greyhawk Campaign Setting cosmology, myself.

I would personally prefer if it were Planescape, but I don't think it's likely.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I am betting that they will revisit the Great Wheel as the Greyhawk Campaign Setting cosmology, myself.

That does make the most sense. And would probably get the material out faster, since while we're not guaranteed either a Greyhawk setting book or a Planescape setting book, I reckon we'd see the former before the latter.

 

[Erik Mona]

The current edition is always the best edition of an rpg - unless it's the last edition.

I think you'd find a fair amount of disagreement with this statement around 1989, 1990, and 1991 or thereabouts. Second Edition kind of sucked, and a lot of people knew it right away.

--Erik

 

[Shade]

My bets:

2008 - FR
2009 - Eberron
2010 - Dragonlance
2011 - All-new setting (probably latter)
2012 - 5e

Check back in 5 years and mock me then.

 

[occam]

Also, I have noticed that this development will help to easily integrate the third party material from Beyond Countless Doorways and Phil Reed's DM's Directory of Demiplanes.

I wonder if that's part of the point: open up the cosmology to provide more of an opportunity for third parties to incorporate planar material into the implied setting.