Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Does it seem like Nerath was dropped like a bad habit?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6357714" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>I think the reasoning for this is less "pretend 4e didn't happen" and more WotC's insistence that Nerath isn't actually a distinct D&D setting but rather just "the" D&D World.</p><p></p><p>So, from the standpoint of a fan, the Nentir Vale and Nerath and all its associated proper nouns and cosmologies and histories and events are absolutely a distinct, different, unique, D&D setting. It's among the pantheon of Basic Fantasy Settings -- Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and now Nerath. </p><p></p><p>But 4e took pains to articulate that Nerath = D&D. It wasn't that Nerath had a sucking Abyss at the center of an Elemental Chaos, it was that <em>D&D had a sucking Abyss at the center of an Elemental Chaos</em>. It wasn't that Nerath was a world of points of light in the darkness, it was that <em>D&D was a world of points of light in the darkness</em>. It was part of 4e's eager desire to re-define and re-brand everything that it had One True World and every product written in 4e outside of specific campaign settings was about this One True World which was also definitive of D&D. And even the 4e campaign settings couldn't escape it entirely: Dark Sun has a Feywild and Returned Abeir brought the dragonborn, because they are D&D worlds and D&D worlds in 4e all had Feywild and dragonborn because they were just variations on Nerath. </p><p></p><p>The reasoning for this re-definition is, I imagine, deep within the re-branding efforts that caused 4e to re-define a lot of things. But the fact that this was how Nerath was billed originally makes it hard to disentangle from "default D&D."</p><p></p><p>I just think they haven't quite figured out how to present the world in a way that isn't "default D&D" yet. </p><p></p><p>Like, if you look at the worlds of D&D, they all have kind of unique selling points -- FR is all about the history and magic of the place, the intense and dramatic events. Dragonlance has the defining epic adventure of D&D at its heart. Greyhawk is a bloody Swords & Sorcery world of wars and kingdoms in conflict. Nerath....you could maybe highlight the "points of light" aspect or the cosmology or something, but it's a little harder to disentangle from Any Random D&D World. And their efforts haven't been focused there quite yet. It looks like bits of Nerath are making it into 5e's game as options (Turathi tieflings, dragonborn, etc.), not as a cohesive whole. </p><p></p><p>I bet that one of the most useful things you can do to get WotC to pay attention to Nerath again is to actively continue fan support of the setting yourself. Get together a community of folks who totally dig Nerath and who want to catalogue its information and develop rules in 5e for things that were unique to it (like elemental demons!). If there looks to be a demand for it, I'm sure it'll go a few pegs up WotC's concern-o-meter. </p><p></p><p>For me personally, I think I'll like Nerath a lot better as a distinct D&D setting than I did as the One True D&D setting, so I'd be interested to see what big fans of the setting might produce that make it stand out from the DL/GH/FR crowd. The first thing I'd like to hear is "Why would I play in Nerath instead of in any other setting?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6357714, member: 2067"] I think the reasoning for this is less "pretend 4e didn't happen" and more WotC's insistence that Nerath isn't actually a distinct D&D setting but rather just "the" D&D World. So, from the standpoint of a fan, the Nentir Vale and Nerath and all its associated proper nouns and cosmologies and histories and events are absolutely a distinct, different, unique, D&D setting. It's among the pantheon of Basic Fantasy Settings -- Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and now Nerath. But 4e took pains to articulate that Nerath = D&D. It wasn't that Nerath had a sucking Abyss at the center of an Elemental Chaos, it was that [I]D&D had a sucking Abyss at the center of an Elemental Chaos[/I]. It wasn't that Nerath was a world of points of light in the darkness, it was that [I]D&D was a world of points of light in the darkness[/I]. It was part of 4e's eager desire to re-define and re-brand everything that it had One True World and every product written in 4e outside of specific campaign settings was about this One True World which was also definitive of D&D. And even the 4e campaign settings couldn't escape it entirely: Dark Sun has a Feywild and Returned Abeir brought the dragonborn, because they are D&D worlds and D&D worlds in 4e all had Feywild and dragonborn because they were just variations on Nerath. The reasoning for this re-definition is, I imagine, deep within the re-branding efforts that caused 4e to re-define a lot of things. But the fact that this was how Nerath was billed originally makes it hard to disentangle from "default D&D." I just think they haven't quite figured out how to present the world in a way that isn't "default D&D" yet. Like, if you look at the worlds of D&D, they all have kind of unique selling points -- FR is all about the history and magic of the place, the intense and dramatic events. Dragonlance has the defining epic adventure of D&D at its heart. Greyhawk is a bloody Swords & Sorcery world of wars and kingdoms in conflict. Nerath....you could maybe highlight the "points of light" aspect or the cosmology or something, but it's a little harder to disentangle from Any Random D&D World. And their efforts haven't been focused there quite yet. It looks like bits of Nerath are making it into 5e's game as options (Turathi tieflings, dragonborn, etc.), not as a cohesive whole. I bet that one of the most useful things you can do to get WotC to pay attention to Nerath again is to actively continue fan support of the setting yourself. Get together a community of folks who totally dig Nerath and who want to catalogue its information and develop rules in 5e for things that were unique to it (like elemental demons!). If there looks to be a demand for it, I'm sure it'll go a few pegs up WotC's concern-o-meter. For me personally, I think I'll like Nerath a lot better as a distinct D&D setting than I did as the One True D&D setting, so I'd be interested to see what big fans of the setting might produce that make it stand out from the DL/GH/FR crowd. The first thing I'd like to hear is "Why would I play in Nerath instead of in any other setting?" [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Does it seem like Nerath was dropped like a bad habit?
Top