4e Flavour that works for me

[MerricB]

Although 4e is flavour-light, it's not completely flavourless. Every so often, there's a gem that has survived the over-happy editing process.

My particular favourite is the history that links the Azer and the Galeb Duhr with the titans; they are dwarven slaves, changed by their links with the elemental chaos and their primordial masters.

In fact, the entire recasting of the elements, with the ancient primordials, their giant and titan successors and suchlike, it something I'm really, really happy with. It sort of depresses me that there isn't more of it in the books.

Is there background material I don't appreciate so much in 4e? Definitely; although I can't think of it just at the moment. It'll come to me.

What works and doesn't work for you about the implied world of 4e?

Cheers!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Depends on what you mean by "works": Happily use it more or less as is? Rarely. As an inspiration to riff upon? It happens, but I wouldn't call it frequent. An an illustration of that they were trying to achieve, so that I can mesh the mechanics with something of my own? Quite often.

For example, I don't care for the whole dwarven backstory thing, at all. There are a few bits and pieces that I might use as a starting place for a rift. But I appreciate that they told me what they were thinking, because it makes it easier for me to do my thing.

Likewise, the tiefling flavor leaves me completely cold, but I can swap gnomes for tielfings (even the same racial stat adjustments), radically adjust the flavor, and get a darker gnome that I like better than the tiefling--or any version of D&D gnome so far.

I guess you could say that I don't so much build off the flavor as react to it. Still, the reaction is useful enough to me that I wouldn't want the flavor completely removed. Besides, plenty of people seem to like it as is, and it is not as if they could really satisfy me on this issue, anyway.

Now what does work is the broader picture, the Points of Light things. In contrast, something like Eberron (sp?) doesn't get it done for me at this level, even though I quite enjoyed the flavor in certain (isolated) pieces of it. Or as a better example, I really love the Arcana Evolved flavor, but chose not to use the default setting, as it would involve too much rework of assumptions to make the big picture something I wanted to do.

 

[MerricB]

Interesting thoughts; thanks muchly for posting them.

You've reminded me of some of the flavour that doesn't work for me: tieflings. Partly it's the tiefling artwork, which I detest, but I also have a lot of trouble working out why they haven't been eliminated in the core world by annoyed humans.

(In my Greyhawk campaign, they look almost entirely like humans and have a different backstory).

Cheers!

 

[Wormwood]

Fluff that makes me happy:

1. The Points of Light in general.

2. The Tiefling backstory. I'd dearly love more Dragon articles to flesh it out, but everything I've read so far about the Hell-Chained Empire drips with possibilities. I can't wait for my game to hit high enough levels that I can start them on the path to Bael Turath.

3. The Feywild---some of my players have taken to this like ducks to water. Being able to slip unwittingly into the dark, mysterious lands of Faerie? Yeah, that's absolutely my kind of fantasy.

4. The Shadowfell. Initially I was unimpressed, figuring it was something akin to the greek afterlife---but

Spoiler

Umbraforge

has gone a long way to inspiring me to flesh out certain areas of the shadowfell and maybe set up some sort of base of operations for the PCs.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I adore the Feywild in that I love how it has been included into the core of D&D and thus has created so many Fae creatures. I have altered the Feywild though in any game that include it, it is much more like Arcadia from Changeling: The Lost.

Raven Queen she is the first D&D god I actually like. The only thing to come close before then was Lady of Pain but she isn't a God, so doesn't really count. In my case I emphasize her being much more like Morrigan, but also with a touch of Neil Gaiman's Death personality.

There are lots of little bits of fluff that I like, such as Primal being spirit-oriented and such. But those two are the two big ones that stand out.

 

[crash_beedo]

In core, I like the 'Seed of Evil' planted in the Elemental Chaos that created the Abyss; I like the demons as corrupted elementals and some of the Demon Princes as corrupted Primordials.

I agree that the Shadowfell and Feywild are very cool and am looking forward to Manual of the Planes now; prior to SoW I wasn't keen on the Shadar-Kai, but they're growing on me in a Goth-out Cenobyte sort of way... Eladrin and the Fey have been well done so far, and I'm glad to see P1 introducing the Fomorians and evil Fey.

Dragonborn... yeah, not doing it for me as much; some of my players seem to like them, so that's fine. I currently have two Tieflings in the group (naturally enough they chose to be 'brothers') and they appreciate the Hellboy-look of the race.

I'm most interested to see how Asmodeus and the 9 Hells are further developed in Manual of the Planes; Fiendish Codex was one of the few 3E books I loved and I plan on keeping the 'Primordial Pact' and 'Blood War' intact.

I don't know if Vecna was an evil deity in any 3.X settings, but he's working well in my current campaign as one of the great evils; elevating him to god-hood is working out.