Mouseferatu said:
If so, I think you got my point completely backwards.
No, I think I grokked your idea just fine, I know it wasn't about DS, I just noticed that the words you chose to describe Kara-Tur and Al-Quadim being shoehorned into the Realms are similar to the initial reaction I have to the idea of the Feywild being shoehorned into Dark Sun (or, to look at it another way, Dark Sun being shoehorned into the 4e core setting's assumptions).
Mouseferatu said:
The Feywild is not, in and of itself, a setting.
This raises a curious ancillary point in my mind. What separates the Feywild (or the Shadowfell or almost any other plane for that matter) from a complete setting?
It has protagonists (eladrin, gnomes, "good fey"), antagonists (fomorians, "the unseelie fey"), "neutral parties" (primal power source folks), its own distinct flavor ("nature and arcane magic run wild!"). It doesn't come with its own class or monster book, PC and DM options, etc., but I really think it *could*, easily.
What makes a setting, in and of itself, a setting? The Feywild hasn't been called out as a unique setting, but it seems like it would support it easily. Is all it takes that branding, that label, or is there something else?
Figuring out this may get close to the idea of why I'm kind of skeeved out by the idea of making every 4e setting have a functional Feywild (or any other plane being forced onto any other setting, for that matter).
Mouseferatu said:
Al-Qadim was a setting, that was (I believe after the fact) shoe-horned into a larger setting. My arguments against doing so have nothing to do with whether or not FR gains or loses by AQ's (or Kara-Tur's) addition, and more to do with what AQ and KT lose by being made part of something larger.
I see the distinction, but I think there's a similarity here, born out by the language.
If you replace FR with "4e's core setting" (which includes the Feywild, the Shadowfell, and all the World Axis stuff), and KT/AQ with "4e settings", I think the argument remains the same.
The idea that settings should remain distinct, and not be forced into any over-arching whole, is at the core of both of these. By giving Dark Sun (or any setting) a Feywild is a lot like giving KT/AQ a Faerun.
I think that's why the language would be so similar. It's expressing the same thought: an independent setting should remain independent. Dark Sun doesn't need to fit into the 4e World Axis model. Neither did FR or Eberron. The setting needs be itself, first and foremost.
Unless the Feywild had been presented as a fully functioning and independent setting unto itself, and was later smushed into Dark Sun (or any other setting), I don't really see the two situations as analogous.
4e's Feywild is part of 4e's core setting, part of PoLland, and not inherent to the 4e experience. So putting Dark Sun into that model is not unlike putting Al-Quadim in Toril.
The Feywild also may have qualities that make it functionally a setting (at the very least, even if it is not its own, it is part of a different setting). So cramming it and Dark Sun together is not unlike putting Kara-Tur in Toril.
It's a little different in specifics, but I think the overall effect carries the same sort of idea: a setting should retain its own integrity. Putting the Feywild in Dark Sun is equivalent to putting Dark Sun in 4e's core setting, which would be something like making Dark Sun a continent in FR. I think you can see why such a thing would be potentially troubling.
Not that it couldn't be pulled off, of course.