Bringing back old product lines as one-shot books

[Alzrius]

- Darksun is funny about moving the time line up a couple hundred years I suppose. I was a big fan of the origonal setting, before the whole Kalak being assassinated thing and Tyr becomeing a freecity. I liked the feel that the world was hopeless in a way, but you'd still fight tooth and nail.

It's hard to imagine what a couple hundred years would do to Darksun, would Rajad(???) (wow, I can't remember his name! the guy locked up in the prison by Dragon and co, it's been too long!) have broken free? if so what are the ramifications... have more (epic gesalt psion/wizard hehe) Sorcerer Kings fallen? et cetera.

It'd be an interesting read if I used that section or not, of course.

Did you read that issue of Dungeon? I liked the three-century advancement, and I think you would too. It was something of a return to the old "hopeless world" scenario, since it went back to having six of the seven city-states be rules by nigh-invincible Dragon Kings. Rajaat is still imprisoned, and there is actually a new sorcerer-king!

 

[JDowling]

Did you read that issue of Dungeon? . . . Rajaat is still imprisoned, and there is actually a new sorcerer-king!

No, I haven't. I read about it having paladins and sorcerers and I threw up my hands in disgust as a knee-jerk reaction

Rajaat, ah, I was close and both spellings could be pronounced quite similarly heh

to be picky - new sorcerer-king is impossible unless he has power from a different source. I believe the "epic" Darksun book (Dragon Kings? god it's been a while), or one of the other books clearly stated that the elemental vortexs (or whatever they were called) had all died, or something as to not establish any more lines of power to similarly power beings.

that is not to say a new dragon or avagon (spelling) was impossible, but the ability to impart magical power to their templars was cause by gaining the attention of an "elemental vortex" (i think that's what they were called) and those weren't around anymore, or weren't interested.

to be not so picky - it's a neat idea, and I often toyed with the idea of there being a new Sorcerer King appear on the scene, something of an upstart in the proverbial sand box of Athas ("bah! wretched new blood, who does he think he is anyway" etc)

Maybe I should pick up those issues at some point. I read over at the wizards board that the origonal author pretty much disagreed with how it was printed, and the editor added a lot of the really junky parts (paladins, et cetera).

 

[Alzrius]

to be picky - new sorcerer-king is impossible unless he has power from a different source. I believe the "epic" Darksun book (Dragon Kings? god it's been a while), or one of the other books clearly stated that the elemental vortexs (or whatever they were called) had all died, or something as to not establish any more lines of power to similarly power beings.

The part about living vortexes as the source of templar magic was in Dragon Kings yes, but it was later retconned in Defilers & Preservers: The Wizards of Athas. That book stated that it was a connection to the Dark Lens that let the existing sorcerer-kings grant templar spells. So, that means that Atzetuk, the new Dragon-King, could theoretically have somehow gotten his hands on the Dark Lens when he became a dragon, so then he could grant spells also.

 

[reanjr]

That didn't stop there from being Ravenloft and Dragonlance articles in Dragon #315. Of course, you could make cases that that was Paizo, not WotC, and that neither of those articles really built on anything that hadn't been done already, etc.

It may be because it was a periodical. The license is probably fairly specific over what types of media it covers.

Streamlining in regards to the rules is another. 3E did away with a lot of extraneous rules (such as how priests of specific mythoi are now all clerics with different domains), and for better or for worse, that'd happen on any setting update. Is it really worth making old kits into prestige classes, for example, when you could also justify them with a few feat and skill choices? Worse is the question of what to do about rules in 3E that weren't around in 2E. The inclusion of, say, monks into a campaign that had none before ("Monks? There are no monk orders in Cerilia!") is the sort of thing that riles the old guard up very quickly. However, it is a question that needs to be addressed, because while things like that weren't present in the 2E incarnation, it was because they didn't exist, not because of a desgn choice, and updating the campaign means possibly including updates in things like this.

As for the inclusion of 3e stuff, I think it primarily depends on the setting. Some intelligent thought should give some good answers. Let's take Dark Sun as an example. Monks can easily fit into the setting. There are already monastic-like groups of psionicists (or psions, now) that would do well to integrate the monk into their order (Order ). Psychic Warriors are perfect for the setting. Paladins? I don't think so. I don't think anyone else thinks so either, except maybe WotC (vicariously through Paizo). Sorcerers I certainly can see fitting into the setting, especially for the non-plantlife wizards from Defilers and Preservers that drew their magical energy from the Black, the Gray, or the Cerulean Storm.

The last stumbling block is the world-setting itself. Namely, should it be seen as having been frozen from the last products, or does it need to be advanced? This is a separate query from the previous ones, but no less important (I, for example, loved seeing Dark Sun get pushed three centuries into the future, even though I hated seeing them shoehorn in paladins and sorcerers). On the one hand, some purists will demand that a campaign setting not have advanced, since otherwise its more tampering with something they already know and love. On the other hand, many fans of the older settings won't want to buy fluff material that might as well be word-for-word with their old boxed sets. Again, there is no easy answer here.

I think advancement is important. It distances the new campaign from the original and gives old players something new. It can be used as a catch-all to explain rules changes, too (like Dark Sun's new races), similar to how Forgotten Realms was handled with the Time of Troubles and 2e. Most importantly, it allows them to publish new material without destroying the old.

It's questions like these that prevent the beloved older settings from being revived by WotC.

Most of these questions should probably be handled on a per-campaign basis, anyway. I would love to see Wizards do this, but I don't expect it in the least.

 

[reanjr]

It's hard to imagine what a couple hundred years would do to Darksun, would Rajad(???) (wow, I can't remember his name! the guy locked up in the prison by Dragon and co, it's been too long!) have broken free? if so what are the ramifications... have more (epic gesalt psion/wizard hehe) Sorcerer Kings fallen? et cetera.

It'd be an interesting read if I used that section or not, of course.

Well, the Sorcerer-Monarchs were around for several hundred (thousand?) years before the original campaign. Then in a decade span, massive changes happened again. It's conceivable that nothing has really happened since then (not already foreshadowed in old 2e products). Dregoth taking over Raam is probably pretty much a shoe-in, though.

And it's Rajaat.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Here's how you do it: you get your 3.5E books out, and you get your original setting books out. You take all the setting information from the original books, and then you must see what mechanical aspects have to be transferred.

That last is the only thing which makes a conversion difficult.

Wizards have spent the last four years putting out tools for creating your own campaign setting. Surely some of those tools apply to the conversion? Good. Use them.

Why do Wizards have to do it for you?

When you have your mechanical conversions done (for those elements that are actually important to your game), write up a few descriptions of them and submit them to Dragon! That way you share them with everyone else. Remember those Campaign Classics articles? They'll happily print further such articles, I wager.

Cheers!

A lot of folks hate making up/converting entirely new mechanics, though. There's nothing in the 3.5 core rules to effectively mimic some of the clases/kits/monsters/spells/feats/abilities that you'd need to make Al-Qadim (just for example) really feel like Al-Qadim.

As for WotC "doing it for me," well, two comments.

One, because that's what they do--print rulebooks people (hopefully) want.

And two, I didn't necessarily want WotC to do it for me. In many cases, when my current contracts are complete, I'm willing to do it for WotC.

 

[BOZ]

i'm very glad i started this thread.

even those of you who disagree with the idea fundamentally have pointed out things that Wotc (or a company they might choose to license to) would have to watch out for if they did try this.

what such a book would need would be to sum up how to make such a campaign run in 3.5. sure, you could do this yourself (and many have) and would therefore not need a book - but if you are willing to do it yourself, why complain if the company puts out an official book? make you feel like you wasted your time doing it yourself?

and the points that some (merric in particular) only serve to reinforce what i said earlier - you already have the older books to use as reference material. sure, a spelljammer book might only have a few paragraphs for the Astromundi Cluster - if you want to run your campaign there get the original book for all the flavor and crunch you need! what the new sourcebook would feature would be how the spelljamming ship rules work, and how the classes/PrCs are updated, and give you some practical information. an SJ book, for example, might introduce the setting to people who were toddlers in 1991 and haven't even heard of "D&D in space", then someone my age might show them the original books.

get where i'm coming from? do it, do it right, you'll win over some old fans and make some new ones in the process. and so what if one book (the "campaign setting" book if you will) doesn't cover everything? did the FRCS not cover everything on the setting - and if so did you not buy it for that reason? how silly!

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I would love to see Spelljammer and Al-Qadim/Arabian Adventures one shot books. I have all the sourcebooks published for these lines, but, for me, it's the rules I need updating to 3e/3.5. A lot of people didn't like the Spelljammer minigame in Poyhedron, but at least it presented 3e rules for spelljamming.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Thotas]

Not only do I like this idea, I actually prefer campaigns to be written up along these lines. I like a nice framework to start with, and then do my own thing in. That's why I'm gung-ho for the "backdrops" feature in the Dungeon -- that's the level of detail I want. By the time the third or fourth extra-detailed-supplement comes out, a published campaign world is now a bunch of stuff to memorize, and someone else's megastory is now the focus of the supplements instead leaving me room to do my thing. For example, if I'd been running a FR campaign in which the PCs were having a great time with a rivalry with the Zhentarim, I'd have been very unhappy with WotC telling me they had been defeated by someone else in the "official" progression of the world. Yuck.

 

[I'm A Banana]

One of the many reasons they will not do this is because no matter what comes out it will likely piss off loyalists while not attracting many new people.

Case in point: Dark Sun.

If they were to do this, I'd have them disregard the hardcore fans, but that simultaneously would alienate the base of people most likely to buy it. The reason I'd have them disregard the hardcore fans is because the hardcore fans are going to demand a much stricter adherence to the rules and mechanics of the setting that remains true to it's 2e or earlier (and likely deeply flawed ) incarnation than to the playability and appeal of the setting done with the 3.5e rules firmly in mind.

In effect, the people most likely to buy the revised settings are the same people who'd take a "my way or the highway, WotC!" approach to how to handle that new setting -- the people who have given it a lot of thought (and maybe already have a home version) themselves.

That said, I, personally, would adore this idea. Give me an FRCS-sized book chock full of the new setting: Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape, Birthright, I'd buy 'em all.

In addition, I'd groove on 'cultural supplements' a la Oriental Adventures, which, in my mind, is one of the perfect ways to do a cultural campaign setting, capturing the myth, lore, and legend of an area without overt adherence to history or facts, while cultivating a world that works on it's own terms. But in my mind, that's subtly different than a true campaign setting...

Aaaanywho, that's my $.02. Any campaign setting produced now will alienate it's most likely purchasers because of the divergent philosophies between earlier editions and 3e. I have a feeling WotC would rather lay the campaign over 3e than translate 3e through the campaign. That's how I would love it. But the core audience usually isn't that tolerant of other interpretations than their own, 'accepted' one.