D&D 4E D&D Fluff Wars: 4e vs 5e

[TwoSix]

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Floats? I have gun-toting warforged to carry my boat.

 

[Imaro]

The aesthetic of Eberron can be deceptive that way. The railroads only connect the most fortunate locations along trade routes - which is now disrupted by the Mournland - and most townships and villages would likely be unable to make regular use of the airships. Wroat, the capital of Breland, is surrounded by forests. There are keeps and forest around the area, but there is not actually much in terms of nearby towns and cities. Even around the metropolitan Sharn, we only have a few forts on the outskirts, a handful of villages, but mostly wilderness. Considering that much of this area, including Sharn, was once under the control of the goblinoid Dhakaani Empire, so there are likely goblin ruins or even ambitious hobgoblins in the wilderness who seeks to make their own Darguun.

I guess I can kind of see that but I don't think it's inspirations (pulp, dark fantasy and noir) along with it's advanced magic as tech, easy transportation methods across the wilderness, large cosmopolitan city aka Sharn and so on just don't seem, IMO, to naturally align with a PoL aesthetic... I would be curious to read Keith Baker's thoughts on this though, you wouldn't happen to have a link to his comments about it being a PoL setting would you? My google fu doesn't seem to be working.

 

[TwoSix]

I guess I can kind of see that but I don't think it's inspirations (pulp, dark fantasy and noir) along with it's advanced magic as tech, easy transportation methods across the wilderness, large cosmopolitan city aka Sharn and so on just don't seem, IMO, to naturally align with a PoL aesthetic... I would be curious to read Keith Baker's thoughts on this though, you wouldn't happen to have a link to his comments about it being a PoL setting would you? My google fu doesn't seem to be working.

Probably at http://keith-baker.com ,although I couldn't tell you where. My memory agrees with Aldarc, I remember Keith making comments in that vein.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The 4e design team created the notion of the "points of light" method of D&D and instantly fell in love with it. So it became their mission statement. The whole game had to be re-witten to accommodate it. So the default mode for D&D was built around this notion, almost to the exlcusion of any other style of play.

My memories of the era are now fuzzy, but Worlds & Monsters had a lot of "This is how D&D is" parts of it, and nearly all of them assumed a PoL style world.

So, you are basing your sweeping statements about the whole game being re-written to that end and the exclusion of almost all other styles of play, on a vaguely-recalled pre-release promotional publication. In light of the fact that there are significant sub-systems that are at odds with the implications of the PoL concept, and that 4e was certainly used with more styles of campaign than just the PoL default, I think we can disregard those specific claims.

OTOH, and much more on-topic, I think it's an interesting insight into the fluff of 4e, so much of which was pointing in the PoL direction. And, it's one that I'd missed, not having been much interested in (really, somewhat suspicious of) 4e prior to release. Another example of fluff you might not expect to stick to the PoL concept that none-the-less did in 4e was the Astral Sea. As above, so below (or vice versa by order of publication). The Astral Sea had been ravaged by the Dawn War, the Lattice of Heaven destroyed, and the surviving Divine Domains could be viewed as 'points of light' (where they're not points of greater darkness ruled by evil deities).

they avoid a large amount of that with Eberron, which seemed a lot less PoL than either Nerath or Post-SP Realms was made.

I agree with that, too, though it seems some folks have found a degree of PoL-ness in Eberron.
I don't find it that way, so much, at least not on Khorvaire, Last War notwithstanding (terrible as it was, it seemed more like it settled things than that it destroyed civilization - maybe I misinterpreted it, though). Cyre/the Mournlands gives a goodly region of Dark, of course. Xen'drik OTOH, provides the traditional D&D wilderness with ruins of a lost civilization to be explored and plundered, which isn't /that/ different from PoL, I guess.

But, I dive more deeply into mechanics than settings as a general rule. :shrug:

 

[Imaro]

Probably at http://keith-baker.com ,although I couldn't tell you where. My memory agrees with Aldarc, I remember Keith making comments in that vein.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

 

[Remathilis]

So, you are basing your sweeping statements about the whole game being re-written to that end and the exclusion of almost all other styles of play, on a vaguely-recalled pre-release promotional publication. In light of the fact that there are significant sub-systems that are at odds with the implications of the PoL concept, and that 4e was certainly used with more styles of campaign than just the PoL default, I think we can disregard those specific claims.

:shrug: I offered my opinion. You want cited sources, you're sorely out of luck.

 

[Parmandur]

After FR was released in 4E, there was a huge uproar on the official forums about protecting any potential update of Eberron, especially on the scale of what was done to FR. I believe the Eberron timeline in 4E was only moved up by a year or so and remained mostly unchanged. I also recall Keith Baker/Hellcow writing in a blog entry or maybe here how Eberron was already a PoL setting. Sure we think of the magnificent floating towers of Sharn, but most places aren't Sharn. Eberron had a few dotted townscapes across a vast wilderness littered with scattered ruins, intrigue, and adventure.

IIRC, Eberron was not moved forwards at all, on purpose, while Dark Sun moved the timeline backwards! That approach to metaplot, eschewing it entirely, seems to have become the new norm.

 

[Tony Vargas]

:shrug: I offered my opinion. You want cited sources, you're sorely out of luck.

You cited a source and I'm fine with it. PoL was a thing designers talked about pre-release. I found the idea of it taking on a 'mission statement' significance interesting in the context of settings & fluff.
As it turns out the rest of what you had to say was opinion applying only to yourself, that's an end to it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'll see if I can find a hard-copy of Manual of the Planes at my FLGS, which as a large collection of used DnD stuff for sale.

Otherwise, I get it from Drive Thru RPG.

dmsguild has a lot of the dragon and dungeon mag issues for 5$ each, too. I will they'd put them into collections at a reduced per issue price, but still, 5 ain't bad.

Anyway, I agree with 95% of the OP.

Also, the idea that FR isn't the default setting is just silly. At best, it's nit picking a technicality.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I guess I can kind of see that but I don't think it's inspirations (pulp, dark fantasy and noir) along with it's advanced magic as tech, easy transportation methods across the wilderness, large cosmopolitan city aka Sharn and so on just don't seem, IMO, to naturally align with a PoL aesthetic... I would be curious to read Keith Baker's thoughts on this though, you wouldn't happen to have a link to his comments about it being a PoL setting would you? My google fu doesn't seem to be working.

Sharn, itself, is a PoL setting. The majority of the city is right out of a gritty noir pulp story, with some areas of safety. It's an urban PoL, and always has been.


Anyway, I still would rather have a setting book for Nentir Vale/PoLand than any more FR publications. It was a great setting, even if it wasn't complete. Possibly in part because it wasn't complete.