D&D 5E Enough about Darksun, is there anything preventing a 5.5E Birthright remake?

[Bagpuss]

Birthright would absolutely work in the modern day.

The devil of it is... there's nothing -special- about it.

Going to have to disagree.

Like yeah, playing a ruler is cool, fighting wars is fun, but you can do that in literally any campaign setting. And often do in Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. Eberron is everything Birthright is, plus -other- stuff.

I can't think of any other campaign setting where level 1 you start as ruling a kingdom. I mean you could do that in any campaign setting, but none of the rules or structure of the settings really support that. Cerilia is fractured into lots of small nations making politics an essential part of the setting much more so than any other settings you mention. The domain system is set up to support ruling a kingdom unlike every other setting. But not only are the countries fractured but the religions are as well, so you have multiple religions that worship the same god, but don't get along, adding a whole other level to the politics.

Then you have unique a halfling race that can step into the Shadow World, elves that hate humans with a passion, the whole bloodline mechanic, and blood theft. Also you have the issue with magic being attached to the natural state of the land, so the more developed a region is the less magical it is, the Battle Magic mechanics. The fact that the key monsters are unique, you don't have a load of Gorgons, you have The Gorgon.

There are loads of things special about it.

Best of all NO GNOMES, that alone is a huge selling point.

 

[Bagpuss]

Kingdoms of nobles ruling over peasants with no democratic elections?

You mean like most of human history and still very common today?

Rulers in endless wars?

Actually it isn't endless, there are plenty of periods of peace and lots of political manoeuvring, war is just one branch of politics. "Good" nations are even at peace with "evil" goblin nations and trade with them.

Magic Blood only a few select rulers have?

All rulers have magic blood, you can't rule with out it, hence "Birthright". But none rulers can also have magic blood, in fact a significant number of people are blooded (but not rulers), just when you rule your link with the land strengthens that bloodline. Which why someone with a weak bloodline might want to overthrow a ruler and replace them. With the right tools even the unblooded can steal the magic blood from others.

People with a "Birthright" to rule others?

Again like human history and plenty of current societies.

Sounds fairly bad.....

Well not so much bad as what folks would call "problematic" and interesting problems, that make the setting engaging.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

- There are no gnomes in Cerilia.

- Tyrion Lannister: HOLD MY WINE CUP, BABE!

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Today the bloodline mechanic can be playes with help of special apps downloaded to tablets, allowing a faster game.

* My suggestion is the creators should read some good book and psychology articles about the keys of a right leadership, and how to avoid the toxic bosses.

* The Feywild of Cerilia could be an interesting point to fund new settlers. Maybe this is the true home of Cerilian gnomes, of course, with their own troubles.

* The strategy gamers who have to build cities, camps and manage resources to create and feed armies... could learn some lessons about war economy. By fault of wrong management victories could become phyrric because they aren't enough ready for the next battles.

* Birthright setting is perfect for a D&D: Total War, or to be licenced to Paradox Entertaiment, a company with enough experience in the strategy genre.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Not familiar with the setting, despite my age. However, it sound to me that it should be a boardgame or an RTS type game. I really doubt it would sell as an RPG to the core D&D audience.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, nowadays, it wouldn't get made, definitely. Churches of the same god that openly politick against each other, widespread xenophobia and racism (the elves explicitly hate humans and the human realms can always take a break from politics to beat up some goblins), plus the whole literal divine blood and mandate to rule. Even 30 years ago, they realised that the otherwise appropriate tagline that a marketing team had come up with - Blood and Honour - was also a former German motto from WWII, and was thus totally unusable..

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You mean like most of human history and still very common today?

The real world is full of really bad sh*t. People play fantasy games to get away from it.

 

[Tonguez]

While the setting itself is pretty much straightforward Renaisance Europe pastiche, for its time Birthright was one of the best setting that DnD ever produced. It gave a variety of human cultures ranging from the feudal Anuireans, Rujik Vikings and Khinasi Moors, through to Germanic Bretch, which by invoking the Hanseatic League allowed for playing the fantasy Merchant-Prince instead of the typical Warlord. The Shadowwalker Halflings are my favourite take on Halflings and I liked that Elfs were mysterious and xenophobic fey.
But the greatest thing about Birthright was they built the mythic feel of unique Boss Monsters, within a wider melee of Hero-Kings while at the same time maintaining a low magic and low powered world. I for one liked tht magic in general was difficult and relatively minor except for Blooded Heroes and legend-making Realm spells.

That said TSR was going through death pains and the domain system and adventures modules for Birthright are mediocre. Its also a fact that many newer games like Adventurer Conqueror King, Dungeon World and even Blades in the Dark all have rules for building and running Holdings that are better integrated with the adventuring part of the game than Birthrights ‘bloodline regency’ achieved. Indeed Pathfinders Kingmaker campaign did a better job of showcasing its system than King of the Giantdowns ever did, and indeed most Birthright modules probably play better with modern rule sets.

I’d love to see some more political adventure modules put out, but feel that WoTC have already been beaten on modern domain management rules that better integrate with the epic adventure style of DnD and the push to go from level 1 to 20 in a single campaign arc (rather than a good dynastic style of a Birthright game)

 

[aco175]

They could take some of it and combine it with something like MCDMs Strongholds and Followers to make a set of rules for having a kingdom and how to play/battle other kingdoms. Then you could play 'Birthright' in Greyhawk or FR.

 

[Arakhor]

Birthright games were popular to play online, if only because you could abstract the game to "just" the domain management and courtly politics, and thus worked really well in play-by-post format.

I was involved in a series of games over six years or so, which featured a "domain-only" ruleset and an increasingly variant Cerilia.

 

[Bagpuss]

The real world is full of really bad sh*t. Some People play fantasy games to get away from it.

Fixed it for you. People play RPGs for all sorts of reasons. I mean the particular example I was commenting on the was kingdoms without democratic elections, I don't think you will find that a particularly uncommon occurrence in most fantasy RPGs. Not sure it is a reason to call out Birthright.