[Ampersand] Bill Slavicsek on campaign settings

[Spatula]

Really? They honestly think that people who only bought FR stuff and never Eberron stuff (or vice versa) will start buying Eberron stuff just because they changed the color of the books?

Well, they've already done it - Races of Eberron was given a brown cover "player book" look, as opposed to the Eberron line look, despite being filled mostly with Eberron fluff. There maybe be other books they've attempted this with as well, but that's the only one I own. It's a fine enough goal... the setting-branding makes it easy for fans & detractors to identify books for buying or shunning but they want you to buy everything.

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide releasing in August, for example, is a separate and unique setting on one hand, while being totally core D&D on the other. That means you can play a strictly Forgotten Realms campaign, or you can borrow the bits you like best to use in whatever D&D campaign you're playing in. This has always been true, but you wouldn't believe how many players were reluctant to cross the streams like that.

...and with good reason, given the drastically higher power levels in FR books.

This really makes me wonder about what they're doing to with Dark Sun, or Ravenloft, or any other setting that deviates siginificantly from the norm, since by their very nature they would seem to be resistant to cross-pollination.

 

[TheSleepyKing]

Ugh. I hate this plan. I was already afraid that they'd make the entire Realms culturally homogenous and now it looks like they want to eliminate any deviation from the default D&D setting from their worlds, just so they can make adventures that will work anywhere. As Irda Ranger noted, how do you do significantly different and interesting settings if everything has to conform to "core" D&D assumptions? Why would I buy both Eberron and FR (and whatever other settings they release) if all of them are going to be fundamentally the same?

 

[Minicol]

Ultimately, players know best what kind of character they want to play, and if it's not going to ruin everybody else's fun then why not let them play a Warforged Cleric in Dark Sun? Is it that hard to imagine in a game with a spell called Plane Shift?

I suppose you have never played Dark Sun.
The life expectancy of such a character would be less than a round. Everyone would want to kill it and turn his metal into weapons.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As it stands now new players need really only the PHB to play. With this new system new players in a year will feel they need at least 6-12 books and in 2 years the number could be 20+ and a DDI subscription.

AND you'll still only NEED the PHB to play. If you're poor, cheap, or frugal it shouldn't take you any more effort to figure that out than it does now.

Fitz

 

[Hussar]

Really? They honestly think that people who only bought FR stuff and never Eberron stuff (or vice versa) will start buying Eberron stuff just because they changed the color of the books?

I am also puzzled with the "any Core supplement will also be a FR/Eberron supplement" thing. So a supplement talking about the newest plan of the Zhentarim to take over the trade between Sembia and the Dales will also be just as usefull to Eberron?

Most likely it means we will never again see such supplements detailing anything setting specific (beyond the 3 books) but only bland unassigned core stuff. And that is definetly not "also Eberron/FR", it's just bland core like in every other edition before. Nothing new

This has been addressed, but, it appears the message isn't taking.

The 3 setting books will be full of all sorts of setting goodness. However, what you won't have is a multitude of books covering the same topics, just for different settings. Instead of Serpent Kingdoms, for example, you'll get a Scaly Folk supplement that details creating your own adventures using Serpent people.

Then, you simply use the setting books as a guide to tweaking the Scaly Folk book and designing adventures.

And, for you Realms/Eberron/Whatever goodness, there will be Dragon.

 

[The_Fan]

I suppose you have never played Dark Sun.
The life expectancy of such a character would be less than a round. Everyone would want to kill it and turn his metal into weapons.

Quick fluff change and make warforged ceramic instead of metal?

 

[Nork]

I think doing a single campaign setting book and PHB per setting is a good idea.

One of the problems Dark Sun had was too much specific information that spoiled the entire setting.

I think Eberron was a very good setting in that after reading the material, you could sit down and take the world in any direction you felt like and do what ever the hell you wanted to do with it. Nobody would jump up and say 'oh this is a alternate version of the setting'. Because all you had was the general starting point and no path or ending point is described.

A campaign setting should be a starting point and nothing more. If you want to know what happens, or why something is the case, play a game in that setting to find out one possible interpretation.


I think Dark Sun has a serious Eberron potential, in that from the start of the setting one of the big ideas was 'you can find ANYTHING out in the desert'. Take anything from any source book, swap the magic for psionics, make it willing to kill at the drop of hat, and your good to go.

 

[hong]

Quick fluff change and make warforged ceramic instead of metal?

Kevlarforged!

 

[Serendipity]

"So under 4th Edition, we're making every product look like a core product. "

See, to me this means either

a) marketing nonsense that means, semanticly, nothing.

b) they're going to jam stuff I could actually use into something I wouldn't otherwise buy in order for me to buy it. No great surprise there. Still nosewrinkley though.

Nothing they can do or say will make me give money for Realms products. Beyond that, I'll let them try to convince me.

 

[Andor]

So under 4th Edition, we're making every product look like a core product. The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide releasing in August, for example, is a separate and unique setting on one hand, while being totally core D&D on the other. That means you can play a strictly Forgotten Realms campaign, or you can borrow the bits you like best to use in whatever D&D campaign you're playing in. This has always been true, but you wouldn't believe how many players were reluctant to cross the streams like that. I say cross away!

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.