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

[TheSword]

I stand corrected, thanks. I just checked on the birthright.net site, where all we 12 still talk about BR and there, for some reason, said both must be willing.

It might be a house rule put in by the community. Maybe too many PCs kidnapped Gavin Tael and invested themselves a nice fat bloodline boost!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

t I think was the best TSR world ever made, Birthright.

I wouldn't call it the best but top 5 and best of what hasn't been touched in years...

BUT I would do a ground floor restart (like 4e darksun did) and introduce a new version of the world made with the modern classes in mind... But YEAH bring on the warlord plesase...

I know some people (maybe it was even here on enworld) made 'not warlords' called nobles... but I want 2 separate classes... a mastermind background class and an in your face lead from the front class.

 

[Digdude]

If ever a world was made for the Warlord class, this would be where it would shine. I think whats lost in talking about Cerilia, is all the wierd nuances to the game, such as the "Highlander" style blood theft, the low but epic magic, the game of thrones level political intrigue and of course the ever looming threat of the sauron-like rampage of the Gorgon.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think we have crept into double figures, but don't worry some of us will die of old age soon enough.

Bever played it but liked reading the material. . Its always been the black sheep of the settings.

 

[Arakhor]

Bloodline divestiture is not easy to start with, and if this hypothetical democracy relies on shifting the realm's bloodline from ruler to ruler, no blooded character is ever going to volunteer, as they would have to surrender  their own bloodline (it having merged with the realm blood) after their tenure.

 

[Zardnaar]

Bloodline divestiture is not easy to start with, and if this hypothetical democracy relies on shifting the realm's bloodline from ruler to ruler, no blooded character is ever going to volunteer, as they would have to surrender  their own bloodline (it having merged with the realm blood) after their tenure.

You might volunteer if option B was death/imprisonment or if you acquired it in the same way.

I'm fine with the bloodline mechanics it would be a problem if it was race based or whatever.

I haven't read the boxed set since 1999 though.

 

[CleverNickName]

Bloodline divestiture is not easy to start with, and if this hypothetical democracy relies on shifting the realm's bloodline from ruler to ruler, no blooded character is ever going to volunteer, as they would have to surrender  their own bloodline (it having merged with the realm blood) after their tenure.

Nobody would ever sell their soul to the devil, either...right?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I don't know a lot about this setting, so I might be very off-base, but I think the reason WotC isn't going to revive it has very little to do with the lore content being too whatever or not enough whatever. It could be a setting filled with proficiency bonus worshiping Ardlings (or whatever you imagine their secret dream setting is), and I think it would still be a no go, because the fundamental premise requires a substantial new rules subsystem. WotC really doesn't seem to like adding additional rules systems to the game (at least not ones with any meaningful complexity), and domain level management requires a substantial new rules subsystem. It also begs for a solid approach to mass combat, something 5e has yet to crack. It also just seems like a premise more at home in an era when player characters were expected to attract followers and establish strongholds, which is really not baked in to 5e D&D. And if players are doing things on a month by month scale, we probably need more robust handling of downtime as well.

Current 5e also generally struggles with shifting to a different scale of play, either in terms of combat scale, time scale, or zooming out to a management game. I don't know that this is necessary a rules limitation per se, so much as an issue of 5e players being so rarely asked to do something on a different scale that way that it is jarring and weird to shift to using their characters in a different way. 5e D&D is conceptually a system where you always have the same abilities, and even when you are out of initiative your character's life consists of 10 turns per minute, each with action, bonus action, and reaction. Shifting into different subsystems where you have different abilities is not something WotC is particularly interested in.

Which all sounds like reasons to me why someone could do a really cool Birthright-inspired supplement, or a 5e clone reworking the system from the ground up to support that sort of play, with applicable abilities baked deep into the classes and such (which I think is what I would need as a 5e player, for it to really be a satisfying experience). But WotC won't be the ones to do it.

 

[Panzeh]

Yeah, Birthright, like most of the 2e settings from the 90s was meant to highlight something they made, and in this case, it was domain level play- a world built around domain level play, right down to its lore. Instead of shunting off that level of play to high levels, that's kind of the point of the setting. You don't need Birthright to do that, certainly, but it's hard to find anything more supportive toward it.

I think the downside is, most people really were never all that interested in domain level play in the first place, so a world based around domain-level play was always going to be a non-starter. Most of the groups i've had chafe against even beinging a few porters along for their adventure- most people seem to really just prefer being the PCs against the world.

 

[Dire Bare]

Bloodline divestiture is not easy to start with, and if this hypothetical democracy relies on shifting the realm's bloodline from ruler to ruler, no blooded character is ever going to volunteer, as they would have to surrender  their own bloodline (it having merged with the realm blood) after their tenure.

Well, not in the setting as is . . . . but it wouldn't be hard as a DM or a designer to develop a democratic nation that developed a peaceful, likely magical, transition of the bloodline to the next democratically elected leader.

Making automatic enemies of practically all other blooded scions . . . .