D&D 4E 4e Island

[Xethreau]

I think this is a really good idea. I congratulate you for not completely tossing out 4e stuff, but still remaining neutral to it. On your island, I recommend you keep as close to 4e flavor as possible, as to get the "full effect" that the new races, monsters, etc give it.

 

[The Shadow]

I was visualising an island where all the 4E lovers go, which is then towed out to sea and exploded.

They called it the "Vertical Deportation" back during the French Revolution...

 

[Vempyre]

However, I've been running games in my own campaign world for over twenty-five years.

I personally think this answers your own question.

How did you switch from basic to AD&D, then from 2E, then 3E? Each edition brought tremendous changes to the game in cosmology and often classes and races.

Look at your campaign's past, it will answer your question.

But yea, a separate island to test the waters if it's what you want, is a good idea. Or just wait in 2009 for the druid and missing classes that you need to flesh out your campaign to come out, then switch. By that time you will have the true portrait of what 4E is, too.

 

[quindia]

I think this is a really good idea. I congratulate you for not completely tossing out 4e stuff, but still remaining neutral to it. On your island, I recommend you keep as close to 4e flavor as possible, as to get the "full effect" that the new races, monsters, etc give it.

That's the general idea. I'm using the fluff to save some time. While the island won't be large enough to be the site of the lost Dragonborn empire, I have decided that it was an outpost. There will be ruins from the Empire and possibly degenerate descendants - caveman equivalents of Dragonborn on the portion nearest the continent. The island will definitely be POL, with only one decent sized town and several smaller forts, each ruled independently as tiny little citystates. Civilization has been established, however tenuously, because of the discovery of silver, or rare timber, or magic beans - I don't know yet. Everything will be left fairly vague and I'll fill in the details as the PC's stumble around looking for adventure.

 

[kennew142]

Only 6-8 years on my personal campaign setting, and I'm happy to say... I think I can finally play it in DnD without having to completely rewrite this system. ^_^

Of course, I could be wrong, but mechanically speaking, the game seems to better represent the sort of thing I've been aiming for since I first started working on my campaign setting. Still looks like I'll have to make a few houseruling and rewrite some of my custom material, but hey. I had to do that in every other system. This sounds like one where most of my work will just be creating custom stuff, not rebalancing the rules by hand >_<.

This was my reaction as well. 4e seems to be very close to the system I've been trying to create through house rules since the 80s. I should be able to run my new campaign (a reboot of a very old and long running homebrew) better in this system than I've ever been able to do in earlier editions.

What I've done in the past, when new editions or new game systems came into vogue in my group, is to change the locale in the campaign.

In 1st edition, the campaign focused on a massive city sitting atop a plateau that was riddled with caverns and dungeons. It was called Mnemencidon back then.

In 2nd edition (and then later in GURPS), it focused on the isle of Alba off to the west of the western continent.

In GURPS (and then 3e) it focused on a powerful trading city by the bay.

In 3.5 I switched mainly to FR and Eberron for my home games.

In 4e, I will return to Elocia, the city on the bay. Ironically, it isn't too far from that first campaign setting of mine, the city on the plateau - although I've changed the name from Mnemencidon to Karthis.

When I change editions and/or game systems, I will often do some reimagining, but will leave the world mostly intact. Given the opportunity, I will also change the locale and start over with new characters.

 

[Valdrax]

Obviously I can do that, but then I'm down to six core races. I know gnomes and the like are in the MM, but they certainly won't be presented with the all of the advanced racial powers that we've heard about - at least not in the detail of those in the PHB.

Well, two points:
1) There were only 7 core races in the 3.0/3.5 PHB. 6 is not a huge difference, and 5 are races in common between the two. The half-orc will be available on D&D Insider online very shortly after 4e is out. Thus you will be left -1 Gnome, +1 Eladrin.
2) A lack of racial feats is lamentable, but it doesn't represent a lack of power -- there will be plenty of *other* feats that you can take at each level. You don't *have* to buy racial feats to have a viable character.