Unearthed Arcana Crawford On Lots Of Stuff! Release Tempo, Video Games, OGL, Conventions, Unearthed Arcana, 2018, Tia

Crawford confirms the brilliant strategy of the D&D team. Thanks for posting the highlights Morrus. Sales and fans returning to D&D are proof that they are doing something right.

Bravo!

 

[Zil]

The Wizards Three articles from Dragon Magazine, written by Ed Greenwood.

There's a good synopsis and list of articles here .

I never cared for those articles at the time and I'm kind of surprised that WoTC considers them Canon. Maybe because Ed Greenwood wrote them? I guess they made a better impression on other folks.

 

[Zaran]

I feel like the multiverse thing is just a cop out. Having a list of gods from Greyhawk doesn't mean we what we need to run a 5e campaign in that world. Shoehorning everything into the Forgotten Realms because that setting is the most popular is to me the same as adding Scrappy Doo into a popular cartoon because kids can relate better.

 

[neobolts]

As a gardener familiar with what happens when you plant seeds, I'm assuming there's going to be a very low rate of sprouting from those. Unless it's as bad an analogy as I expect.

Maybe he planted epic spell seeds.

 

[fritsk]

'nimble' is corporate speak for not much staff, lots of outsourcing and no long term planning.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Sounds to me like some lame corporate plan to cut costs.

 

[Uchawi]

If there is a multiverse approach, then they need to embrace the multiverse, and all we have is FG. It probably has to be more then just add this adventure to this spot in this world. It would be interesting to see cross influences.

 

[Mad Zagyg]

Er...I've been playing since 1977, and what you just described sounds awesome to me!

To me it feels the same as Gandalf showing up in the The Force Awakens to help Luke on his quest to defeat Khan, who failed to defeat his enemy Dumbledore in some other universe.

The choices are being made for monetary reasons, not for the purposes of good story creation. I mean, I get it. They are a business and that has to come first. They're obviously trying to consolidate everything into less brands so we all buy everything they release (full disclosure: I will). They're afraid to splinter the player base into Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Krynn, etc. It makes sense. It just doesn't make for good story-telling, unfortunately. My argument is that they don't need to bastardize classic lore so frivolously. The people that are drawn to the classics generally like the classics where they are. The people that don't care are generally not affected by nostalgic gimmicks, so it seems like a net loss to keep wedging it all into the Realms. Why not just let the Realms be the Realms? If the Realms isn't cool enough to power itself with its own history and lore, then why is it the most popular setting?

I recognize that I am merely expressing my superior opinion.

 

[R_Chance]

To me it feels the same as Gandalf showing up in the The Force Awakens to help Luke on his quest to defeat Khan, who failed to defeat his enemy Dumbledore in some other universe.

The choices are being made for monetary reasons, not for the purposes of good story creation. I mean, I get it. They are a business and that has to come first. They're obviously trying to consolidate everything into less brands so we all buy everything they release (full disclosure: I will). They're afraid to splinter the player base into Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Krynn, etc. It makes sense. It just doesn't make for good story-telling, unfortunately. My argument is that they don't need to bastardize classic lore so frivolously. The people that are drawn to the classics generally like the classics where they are. The people that don't care are generally not affected by nostalgic gimmicks, so it seems like a net loss to keep wedging it all into the Realms. Why not just let the Realms be the Realms? If the Realms isn't cool enough to power itself with its own history and lore, then why is it the most popular setting?

I recognize that I am merely expressing my superior opinion.

The multiverse idea was in D&D from the beginning. It's in the cosmology as first put forward in The Dragon (I don't remember the exact issue). That's why there are prime material planes (plural). It's why all the material in the original supplements was done for D&D as a whole. I'm old (my students say ancient). I started playing in 1974 and the connection between Greyhawk and Blackmoor (for example) was a given. Originally both were set in the Castle and Crusades Society as miniature campaigns / settings. Later it evolved into pretty much all the settings existing as separate prime material planes... I'm surprised anybody doubts that this was the idea, if not from the beginning, certainly before AD&D came out. They roped in other games / genres later as well. Gamma World for example. And, iirc World War II (Tractics). They weren't as dogmatic about separating things. Of course, without going back and doing a lot of research (and I'm prepping for a new school year) it's all imho.

 

[Mad Zagyg]

There is no doubt about it. The multiverse idea was absolutely a classic D&D concept.

And yet, we refer to The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Lost Caverns of Tsojocanth, The Tomb of Horrors, Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Scourge of the Slavelords, Queen of Spiders, etc as classic Greyhawk adventures. We don't refer to them as classic multiverse adventurers. They are things that are wrapped up in the fabric of what makes Greyhawk so awesome. You CAN make sense of Mordenkainen journeying to Toril and roasting hot dogs over a campfire with Elminster. But Mordenkainen belongs to Greyhawk just like Gandalf belongs to Middle Earth. Just like Elminster belongs to the Forgotten Realms. What we've seen so far isn't really a rich exploration of D&D's many multiverses. What we've seen is D&D's rich multiverses being imported into the Forgotten Realms. I know that's an overstatement, because so far we've really only seen Elemental Evil assimilated. My point is in specific reference to Crawford's mention that we might see the same sort of thing with future products.

I'm just saying that I disapprove of that path. Hopefully my worries are unfounded and we'll have an adventure path set in Greyhawk.

 

[jrowland]

Perhaps we'll even see a series of adventures where the heroes face Zhengyi who has taken up residence in Tusmit (greyhawk) after some epic mass combat defending a pass leading beteen Ket and Veluna/Bissel. The AP will culminate in taking on Orcus in Thanatos. Although I feel like I've played that before. FR in your Greyhawk maybe?