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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 4028571" data-attributes="member: 18">If that's so, it's because those settings are being presented really badly, I'd suggest. Both settings have very different "themes" and rather different tones. Mechanically? Yeah they're not wildly dissimilar, but I've never bought a setting book for it's mechanics, that I can think of.I mean, look at Planescape. You could play that without a single mechanic. Sure, some stuff flavours it a bit more, but mechanically, it's virtually identical to "vanilla" AD&D 2E. I didn't buy it or play it for the mechanics, though. I bought it and played it for the feel, for the atmosphere, for the setting details for the adventure hooks and so on. Most of the most interesting stuff (i.e. portals and stuff shifting planes) doesn't even HAVE mechanics, just fluff.I think what you're talking about are basically the opposite of settings. Generic place-based mechanics books (which existed in 3E with some vague campaign materials thrown in). They can exist alongside settings, but they can't replace settings.I mean, here's the thing for me - sure, perhaps setting books only sell to the 50% of DMs who don't play homebrews (don't buy that running a homebrew = never buying setting books, myself, most "homebrew" DMs I know have many setting books, they just don't use them as setting books per se), but equally, these books full of mechanics seem to me to be far more likely to sell to the 50% of homebrew-type GMs than the setting-oriented GMs.YMWV, of course. I think both settings and "generic mechanics books" will and should co-exist in 4E, and may overlap, but have entirely different purposes.</blockquote>

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