D&D 4E Do you really want Greyhawk and Dragonlance for 4e

[Dragonhelm]

Instead of swapping the time period, how about an alternate timeline? You take most of the core of the setting, but then change a few key bits that take the history in a different direction. So it is still in the same timeframe. Old setting material is often 75% compatible (in the story, not mechanics). The geography, climate, customs, etc. are much the same. But the story line, threats, etc. are very different.

We already have six alternate timelines from Legends of the Twins. Perhaps one of them might fit.

 

[A'koss]

Greyhawk & Planescape were by far my favorite settings. Without any real support for either of those settings, there wasn't much motivation for me to get into 4e.

Greyhawk is home to the bulk of the most revered adventures in D&D history. Low populations... very PoL... The most powerful organizations in the world are largely neutral or evil. And Greyhawk has, bar none, the most impressive array of powerful villains of any of WotC's settings.

Just think of all the recognizable villains to come out of Greyhawk: Iggwilv, Vecna, Kas, Graz'zt, Acererak, Tharizdun, St. Kargoth, Iuz, Lord Robilar, Eclavdra, Lolth (even if FR effectively stole her), the Princes of Elemental Evil, Demogorgon, Fraz'Urb'Luu, Tuerny the Merciless, Kyuss, the Queen of Chaos & Miska the Wolf-Spider...

If they do decide to re-visit the setting again, just start with it's strengths and work out from there.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

I agree there are other stories, but the Age of Mortals seems too generic for me.

I would prefer to go back a ways.

I am championing the idea of returning to the time period just after Legends. It worked for Dark Sun, it would probably work here.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

By the way, I am working on a proposal for Dungeon and Dragon magazine for Dragonlance. Hopefully WotC will accept it. It will be set in the post-Legends timeframe.

 

[fletch137]

Aww man if they revived the Princess Ark series, but set it in the PoL campaign instead I would be in heaven!

::blink blink::

Too brilliant. I've been hoping for some 4e Mystara AND long for a detailed description of the core 4e setting. The idea of combining the two into a new Princess Ark series never occurred to me.

Scribble, that's inspired.

It always makes me laugh when people act like there wasn't anything new in 4E. What is Nentir Vale? That explicitly qualifies as new.

I mostly agree. This nebulous Middle World setting is pretty awesome in the broad strokes, I just really need it to ground itself for a little while. As cool as the Astral Sea and Shadowfell are, I need more of the world the PCs are probably spending more of their time in.



As far as Greyhawk goes, I'm still not convinced that it's a distinct campaign setting. All it really has going for it in my mind is name recognition, and they've already started burgling that with Lolth, Mordenkainen, Tomb of Horrors, and other tie-backs to the early days of AD&D.

I played all sorts of Greyhawk back in the AD&D days and Living Greyhawk, but even after all of that I can't think of anything I could do there that I couldn't do with Forgotten Realms, PoL, or even Eberron. All it could really boil down to is "in your Greyhawk campaign you can call your wizard a 'Silent One'."