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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4720603" data-attributes="member: 40961">First, lets split this up into two questions.  The quote from Kamikaze Midget isn't an assertion that 4e can't actually do a setting like Dark Sun.  That would be silly.  Its an assertion that he's worried that WOTC's "everything is core" philosophy will, should they ever publish Dark Sun 4e, cause them to adulterate Dark Sun with some undefined, inappropriate game element, or fail to include some vital undefined, necessary game element without which Dark Sun isn't Dark Sun. So, [1] is "can 4e accomplish genre X?" and [2] is "will WOTC, under its present team and philosophy, succeed at or even attempt genre X?" [1] is probably a "yes" for pretty much any genre you might want, with a few caveats.  Magical McGuyver isn't well supported.  This is the generally unnamed genre in which players take on the roles of magic wielding engineers who solve problems through lateral thinking and careful analysis and lawyering of the game rules.  You may have experienced it in 3e.  If not, imagine a group of 1e adventurers entering a dungeon armed with ten foot poles, pitons, hammers, a water clock, two donkeys laden with additional supplies, and twelve henchmen whom they don't expect to survive long enough to have to pay.  Now, make all of that equipment into magical items instead of mundane gear, and you have Magical McGuyver.  Not every 3e game worked this way, but some did, and 4e seems to have gone out of its way not to support it. [2] is a little more complex.  I do think there are some genres of play that WOTC might choose not to support, and I think that there are some settings that will likely get a genre overhaul.   I'm really not worried about Eberron.  If my concern about 4e's treatment of Eberron were expressed as a number, it would be negative.  Eberron's genre is already 4e style fantasy.   I'm also not worried about Dark Sun.  Its a bit of "grim and gritty" means high fantasy pulp, and in that context the grim and grittiness is largely a matter of description and setting detail and a few setting specific rules (side effects of magic use, psionics for all), so I think it will be fine.   Ravenloft, on the other hand... I think 4e will have problems with it for the same reason that 3e did.  It seems to me to be more at home in E6 than in any edition of D&D from 2e onward.  The very idea of an epic level hero in Ravenloft seems a bit wrong to me.  By that level you should be dead or evil or dead and evil both at once.  I'm not sure that my vision of Ravenloft will be supported, simply because its too low magic (for PCs) and too low fantasy (again, for PCs). So... I do think that WOTC may choose to alter settings where the implied assumptions about heroes are not the same as in 4e, or to not release such settings.  That being said, I don't think that the implied assumptions about 4e PCs are very deep, particularly if we're talking about assumptions reflected in actual game rules.  Ravenloft conflicts, in my opinion, because one of the assumptions is that you progress up to, potentially, level 30.  And Ravenloft will either need to change that, or to put a lot of work into making a satisfying epic level game in a setting where you are supposed to push back the night, but never defeat it.</blockquote>

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