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Dragon 338: Returning to Athas, part1
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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5212046" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>Because I trust you, Obryn.... <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>A Sidebar World</strong>: The feywild is another plane of existence. It's not Athas. It's somewhere else. So it is its own place, alongside the place of the Dark Sun campaign setting. It's somewhere else to go, with its own factions and threats and problems. It's not part and parcel of the setting, it is beside the setting. It doesn't have sorcerer-kings. It doesn't have half-giants. It doesn't have kanks. Or maybe it has super-powered magi-kanks. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> Either way, it's not part and parcel of the setting, but alongside it. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>A Known Quantity</strong>: Anything the PC's use becomes something of a known quantity. If an eladrin PC teleports through the Feywild once per encounter, he's doing it 2-3 times per session, over and over again, over the course of every encounter in the entire campaign. It becomes something of a trusted tool, that obeys some rules very familiar to at least that PC, and, via that PC, the entire party. It's also true that it is a known quantity of the back-story of any Eladrin PC, making it at least a tangential element of one character's practical knowledge. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Usable by the PC's</strong>: Again, the blink elf teleport. Which is part of why one of my own ideas for using eladrin in Athas that I gave above (because, as will be familiar to those reading my posts, I don't think that's really a bad idea) was to refluff it as a <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bralani.htm" target="_blank">bralani</a>-style whirlwind. This keeps eladrin with essentially the same ability (maybe they can't go through walls?), but doesn't use another plane to achieve the effect. Bralani exist already in 4e, so this wouldn't even be out-of-product-identity territory for the eladrin. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Available for Escape from Athas</strong>: If it's a place you can travel to for short periods, or in background material, it's a place you should be able to travel to for long periods, in play. Even at .1%. It would be a desirable place to travel to (no sorcerer-kings ruling over you, protective psionic eladrin, no harsh sun, no harsh weather, no raiding groups of barbarians). Thus, it would be the goal of many characters aware of it. Any group with an eladrin PC is going to be aware of it, because such a PC makes frequent use of it, and likely includes it to some degree in their back-story. Such a group is more likely to want to use this to get out of this horrible place, into some place a little less horrible. It's certainly not inevitable, but I imagine the eladrin characters that the party interacts with that are totally OK with not being in the feywild would be a minority. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong>Like a cell phone in a horror movie</strong>: Because of the availability of escape, if I as a DM wanted to instead focus on the problems of Athas, rather than of the sidebar world of the Feywild, and the party wants to escape Athas by use of the Feywild, they're forced to contrive some method to prevent the PC's from accessing it in any way more significant than the mechanics of a teleport or two.</li> </ul><p></p><p>Like I said right in that first reaction post, this isn't even a dealbreaker for me as a DM. It's easy enough to declare my own eladrin different, my own Dark Sun feywild nonexistent, my own world free of cell phones. But it does suck that the official design team isn't doing the work for me, that eladrin are less awesome than they could be, and that the official setting has this big elephant in the room that, I think, kind of messes with the feng shui of the place. And it does make me skeptical of the ability of the official team to produce truly unique settings within the framework of 4e (though, again, like I pointed out early on in this conversation, a departure like Gamma World might scratch the spot nicely). </p><p></p><p>If that fairly reasonable dispute about a fairly minor point in what looks to be something I'm going to be overall a fan of makes me a hater in someone's mind, I think that poster may need to re-calibrate their Criticism Detector. Because "I think adding the Feywild hurts the feel of Dark Sun" is at least a notch or two below a Helen Thomas-level scandal, though you wouldn't know it from the tone of some of the reactions here. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5212046, member: 2067"] Because I trust you, Obryn.... ;) [LIST] [*] [B]A Sidebar World[/B]: The feywild is another plane of existence. It's not Athas. It's somewhere else. So it is its own place, alongside the place of the Dark Sun campaign setting. It's somewhere else to go, with its own factions and threats and problems. It's not part and parcel of the setting, it is beside the setting. It doesn't have sorcerer-kings. It doesn't have half-giants. It doesn't have kanks. Or maybe it has super-powered magi-kanks. ;) Either way, it's not part and parcel of the setting, but alongside it. [*] [B]A Known Quantity[/B]: Anything the PC's use becomes something of a known quantity. If an eladrin PC teleports through the Feywild once per encounter, he's doing it 2-3 times per session, over and over again, over the course of every encounter in the entire campaign. It becomes something of a trusted tool, that obeys some rules very familiar to at least that PC, and, via that PC, the entire party. It's also true that it is a known quantity of the back-story of any Eladrin PC, making it at least a tangential element of one character's practical knowledge. [*] [B]Usable by the PC's[/B]: Again, the blink elf teleport. Which is part of why one of my own ideas for using eladrin in Athas that I gave above (because, as will be familiar to those reading my posts, I don't think that's really a bad idea) was to refluff it as a [URL="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bralani.htm"]bralani[/URL]-style whirlwind. This keeps eladrin with essentially the same ability (maybe they can't go through walls?), but doesn't use another plane to achieve the effect. Bralani exist already in 4e, so this wouldn't even be out-of-product-identity territory for the eladrin. [*] [B]Available for Escape from Athas[/B]: If it's a place you can travel to for short periods, or in background material, it's a place you should be able to travel to for long periods, in play. Even at .1%. It would be a desirable place to travel to (no sorcerer-kings ruling over you, protective psionic eladrin, no harsh sun, no harsh weather, no raiding groups of barbarians). Thus, it would be the goal of many characters aware of it. Any group with an eladrin PC is going to be aware of it, because such a PC makes frequent use of it, and likely includes it to some degree in their back-story. Such a group is more likely to want to use this to get out of this horrible place, into some place a little less horrible. It's certainly not inevitable, but I imagine the eladrin characters that the party interacts with that are totally OK with not being in the feywild would be a minority. [*] [B]Like a cell phone in a horror movie[/B]: Because of the availability of escape, if I as a DM wanted to instead focus on the problems of Athas, rather than of the sidebar world of the Feywild, and the party wants to escape Athas by use of the Feywild, they're forced to contrive some method to prevent the PC's from accessing it in any way more significant than the mechanics of a teleport or two. [/LIST] Like I said right in that first reaction post, this isn't even a dealbreaker for me as a DM. It's easy enough to declare my own eladrin different, my own Dark Sun feywild nonexistent, my own world free of cell phones. But it does suck that the official design team isn't doing the work for me, that eladrin are less awesome than they could be, and that the official setting has this big elephant in the room that, I think, kind of messes with the feng shui of the place. And it does make me skeptical of the ability of the official team to produce truly unique settings within the framework of 4e (though, again, like I pointed out early on in this conversation, a departure like Gamma World might scratch the spot nicely). If that fairly reasonable dispute about a fairly minor point in what looks to be something I'm going to be overall a fan of makes me a hater in someone's mind, I think that poster may need to re-calibrate their Criticism Detector. Because "I think adding the Feywild hurts the feel of Dark Sun" is at least a notch or two below a Helen Thomas-level scandal, though you wouldn't know it from the tone of some of the reactions here. ;) [/QUOTE]
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