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

[Subtlepanic]

Speak for yourself.

I think somebody mentioned it upthread, but 2E was great for bringing out new stuff. I really miss that. 4E seems obliged to "catch up" with everything that's come before. Not just the settings, but all the class options, the splatbooks, everything. That's kind of boring.



But of course, I jest - in reality it's not nearly as soul-crushingly depressing as I first made out.

Oh, look. Undermountain.

*Climbs back onto wheel*

 

[ForeverSlayer]

With Dragonlance, you'd get:

• 3 new races (or at least racial variants): Kender (Halfling), Draconian (Dragnoborn), and Irda (Deva?)
• Additional support for Minotaurs
• A setting without Drow, Tieflings, or Half-Orcs.
• A great opportunity for new setting-specific character themes (e.g., Knights of Solamnia, Wizards of High Sorcery, Tinker Gnomes, Servant of a True God). This is something I thought was well done in Neverwinter.
• New paragon paths (i.e., High Sorcery Initiate, Heretic Wizard, Ordained of a True God)
• Possible new mechanics for aerial mounted combat.

I could also see Dragonalnce introducing some sort of high-drama mechanic, since the setting has strong elements of romantic fantasy. No idea what that would look like.


Also - WoTC doesn't have to do it. 4e doesn't have the 3e OGL, but third-party content is still doable. Just don't know if the amount of work it would take for a third party would be worth the returns. Not having the marketing suport or the "official" branding that WoTC has alone will make it difficult to sell beyond a nice market (a niche among fantasty RPGers, who are themselves, a niche market)

Let's not forget a new magical item............wait for it...........wait for it..........the Dragonlance!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Well- kind of for the same reason saying "You can just make it all up" to someone who likes lots of flavor text is annoying to that person.

For someone who doesn't like a ton of flavor text for settings, dealing with the extra stuff isn't as easy as "just ignoring it."

It's there- That might seem like a small thing, but for someone like me? It gets in my brain and "infects" it. No matter what I try to do, it's always there lingering, and subconsciously pushing out other thoughts I might have.

Players also tend to just expect it. Try as you might to say "Elminster doesn't exist in this world." It's just not that easy. They build their characters or take actions sometimes based on flavor they expected was true. They don't even think to ask "What is X" when there is already a pre-baked answer. They just assume the written flavor is true, and I have to spend more time undoing that.


For someone like me- I just want the start of an idea. It kicks off my imagination and I start filling in the gaps.

Now that doesn't mean I don't want ANY support for the setting. I love things like the old Elminster's Notebook articles in Dragon. They give you a little snippet of an idea, but not the entire thing. Just enough to hook you and make you think what IS that thing anyway.

It's actually easier to ignore what is already there than to completely create something from nothing.

Leaving the work up to the individual just screams laziness as a designer when it comes to a premade campaign setting. They could have easily taken the PoL generic setting and made it like they did the Forgotten Realms while leaving the Forgotten Realms just the way it was. I can almost promise you that if they had left the Realms intact then they would have had a hell of a lot more people buying it and begging for more than what they have today. Forgotten Realms is all about the stories and the NPC's that they involve. If you didn't like the NPC's then you didn't use them, if you didn't like the particular history then you didn't use it. It's just that simple. There is no hard explanation for it, it's just that simple.

Points of Light: Barebones setting for DMs to use and make up whatever he/she wants.

Forgotten Realms: Setting full of deep and rich history that is made possible by the NPC's as well as PC's coming in and carving their own notch in the history books.

 

[Scribble]

It's actually easier to ignore what is already there than to completely create something from nothing.

Two things though.

1. For you maybe, not for me.

2. I'm not talking about something entirely from nothing. I'm talking about something from small incomplete snippets of info.

Leaving the work up to the individual just screams laziness as a designer when it comes to a premade campaign setting.

I think this phrase is bantered about too often.

I don't see if as laziness. I see it as someone giving me a good starting point. D&D involves a lot of creativity; It's one of the things I like so much about it.

Even so, sometimes the imagination needs a spark- I just don't want it clogged up with too much info.

Tell me there's a strange tower on the plains where locals see strange lights emanating from the windows at night.

You don't need to tell me what's causing the lights,. whose tower it is, or what's in the tower. My imagination will immediately start to fill in the blanks. It's almost like a mystery has been presented and I have no choice but to start solving it.

Maybe you can ignore what they say when they fill in those blanks, and I applaud you for that skill, but I've found that over the years my imagination sparks better when they don't.

When they do, I sort of just go into passive mode. I read what's there, and have to actively force myself to ignore it.

And I'm willing to bet that most if not all of the people who like bare bones style settings are like me.

If you didn't like the NPC's then you didn't use them, if you didn't like the particular history then you didn't use it. It's just that simple. There is no hard explanation for it, it's just that simple.

No, as I said it's not. You just apparently don't accept that.

Forgotten Realms: Setting full of deep and rich history that is made possible by the NPC's as well as PC's coming in and carving their own notch in the history books.

That started as a bare bones setting, and some of us liked it better that way.

Yeah- I realize my happiness comes at your expense, but... I don't care that much.

 

[GameDoc]

WOTC also owns the rights to the name dragonlance and all associated plots, characters, etc. If it's obviously dragonlance it'll get some form of legal action.

Curses! Foiled Again! [Shakes fist ruefully at the heavens]

Completely forgot about that little, but vey important detail.

 

[Pentius]

RE: Heavily Supported FR vs. Broad Brush Stroke FR.

The big problem with this divide, in my experience, isn't the divide between the Dm and their edition of choice's level of FR support. I mean, I'm with Scribble in that I find it hard to ignore published canon, but if you like published canon or have an easier time ignoring, good for you. The problem is that there are two main types of FR fan: the canon nut, who loves having and reading umpteen sourcebooks, novels and playing all the games, and then you have the fan who loves the thematics, the conceptual ideas behind it, and doesn't want to read all that as opposed to letting their imagination do it. For most FR groups, that'll be fine, but if you're a DM who just wants the broad strokes, god help you unless every single one of your players is the same way.

I think somebody mentioned it upthread, but 2E was great for bringing out new stuff. I really miss that. 4E seems obliged to "catch up" with everything that's come before. Not just the settings, but all the class options, the splatbooks, everything. That's kind of boring.



But of course, I jest - in reality it's not nearly as soul-crushingly depressing as I first made out.

Oh, look. Undermountain.

*Climbs back onto wheel*

I get where you're coming from, but I don't it find as depressing. 4e has more of a history to catch up to(and thanks to 2e, they'll probably never get every setting updated). 2e didn't have 11(?) years of 2e history or 8 years of 3.x history to answer to. In addition, 2e was out for so much longer than 4e has been, that they had the time to make all those settings. If 4e runs for a decade, I'm sure we'll see plenty of new stuff.

 

[SSquirrel]

With Dragonlance, you'd get:

• 3 new races (or at least racial variants): Kender (Halfling), Draconian (Dragnoborn), and Irda (Deva?)
• Additional support for Minotaurs
• A setting without Drow, Tieflings, or Half-Orcs.
• A great opportunity for new setting-specific character themes (e.g., Knights of Solamnia, Wizards of High Sorcery, Tinker Gnomes, Servant of a True God). This is something I thought was well done in Neverwinter.
• New paragon paths (i.e., High Sorcery Initiate, Heretic Wizard, Ordained of a True God)
• Possible new mechanics for aerial mounted combat.

Ofcourse, 4E Halflings already beat up Kender and took their stuff I know they don't taunt and aren't delusional kleptos, but the 4E halfling sure looks like a kender and are not the settling down type. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see new life breathed into Dragonlance. I was really happy to get to talk to Margaret Weis on Sunday at GenCon for about 10 minutes since I was one of about 2 people at her booth at that point

I think they could do a 4E DL book and have things set in several different eras, like was talked about in the original book as well as the Star Wars books. Here are some ideas for running a game in the pre-Cataclysm era. Here are the changes for the post-War of the Lance (default) time period. Actually, the PoL version of Dragonlance would be the era between the Cataclysm and War of the Lance. That would be pretty perfect. I'd be ok w/pretending the whole 5th Age stuff never happened personally.

They have proven they don't mind saying "No really, that isn't in this world" in 4E w/Dark Sun. They can still add a sidebar about how it's always at DM discretion and they could add a Dragonlance button to the Manage Character tab of the CB if they really needed. Really what it comes down to is probably what would Margaret and Tracy think of the whole thing and where does the IP sit currently. If WotC owns it entirely, they would have the right to do what they want with it, but I don't really see a new edition of DL happening w/o at least one, if not both, of Margaret and Tracy being involved.

 

[AlioTheFool]

Well- kind of for the same reason saying "You can just make it all up" to someone who likes lots of flavor text is annoying to that person.

For someone who doesn't like a ton of flavor text for settings, dealing with the extra stuff isn't as easy as "just ignoring it."

It's there- That might seem like a small thing, but for someone like me? It gets in my brain and "infects" it. No matter what I try to do, it's always there lingering, and subconsciously pushing out other thoughts I might have.

Players also tend to just expect it. Try as you might to say "Elminster doesn't exist in this world." It's just not that easy. They build their characters or take actions sometimes based on flavor they expected was true. They don't even think to ask "What is X" when there is already a pre-baked answer. They just assume the written flavor is true, and I have to spend more time undoing that.


For someone like me- I just want the start of an idea. It kicks off my imagination and I start filling in the gaps.

Now that doesn't mean I don't want ANY support for the setting. I love things like the old Elminster's Notebook articles in Dragon. They give you a little snippet of an idea, but not the entire thing. Just enough to hook you and make you think what IS that thing anyway.

I would take this opportunity to say "that's what DDi is for." I hope that's not taken wrong because I'm not trying to start trouble. I just think if you want short and sweet, the blog-style article format in the e-mags is perfect.

When I purchase a book (expensive ones at that) I want to be able to sit and read it for an extended period of time. Most of the hardbacks released for 4E were very hard to read due to a textbook-like quality. That's great if you only want crunch and the minimum story, but that's not what I'm interested in.

I definitely understand your position, and I don't want to seem unsympathetic, but there is an outlet for what you're looking for. Obviously you'd lose out on the mechanical information contained in things like Campaign Guides, but I don't know how to resolve that fairly for both sides.

Let's not forget a new magical item............wait for it...........wait for it..........the Dragonlance!

I think dragonlances are going to be in that Mordenkainen book.

 

[Scribble]

When I purchase a book (expensive ones at that) I want to be able to sit and read it for an extended period of time. Most of the hardbacks released for 4E were very hard to read due to a textbook-like quality. That's great if you only want crunch and the minimum story, but that's not what I'm interested in.

Well I agree with you there- the 4e books need work as far as flavor goes, but I don't agree that the only way to put flavor in a book is to "over-saturate" it with info about the topic.

White Wolf is really good at it in my opinion, maybe even the best. I can sit and read a white wolf book from cover to cover not once thinking it felt dry, yet at the same time they never give you the full answer- just enough to get me hooked and get my imagination going.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Well I agree with you there- the 4e books need work as far as flavor goes, but I don't agree that the only way to put flavor in a book is to "over-saturate" it with info about the topic.

White Wolf is really good at it in my opinion, maybe even the best. I can sit and read a white wolf book from cover to cover not once thinking it felt dry, yet at the same time they never give you the full answer- just enough to get me hooked and get my imagination going.

What do you define as "over-saturate" when it comes to flavor that's in a book?

The 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and Lost Empires of Faerun were wonderful books.