D&D 5E First World: Possibly One of the New D&D setting?

[teitan]

Fizban's literally say it can be historical. A line directly from the text;

Whether it is regarded as interpretive myth or historical record, "Elegy for the First World" offers an explanation for the common elements that appear in the legends and mythology of so many worlds across the Material Plane.

“Whether”

 

[teitan]

I hope so. We need to see another example of the First World to be sure.

I don’t think we do because the track record is… it’s true because nothing from WOTC lives up to your fears and speculations. You never have to use any of it nor are you forced to use it. Even if they change something it’s words you are free to ignore forever and a day from now. Mechanical changes are one thing and those are fairly generic, MotM was an overhaul but amounts to not much (in fact the changes I’d say aren’t worth the price if you already have Volo and ToF) but the fiction and campaign settings? The writing is clear, you don’t have to use it. Plenty of people, most, run home brew so…

 

[teitan]

As long as the original story can be used in-universe, that all sounds fine.

It sounds fine In general because it’s their game.

 

[teitan]

Lore from the PHB, maybe, but how often are they actually portrayed as being outcast? Also, they're usually seen as attractive, which is a big difference in how the game treats them, sadly.

That’s because no one wants to play “ugly”. Everyone’s character online looks like some sort of super model, even the “thick” characters. Sam Riegel always described how Nott was this hideous looking goblin with sharp teeth but the artwork she looks like a stereotypical skinny teen goth girl with green skin from a Hot Topic ad before they started using more real world models. Fan art of orcs, described variably as porcine, etc are often just… a young Pierce Brosnan or Johnny Depp with muscle and a lengthened canine tooth.

 

[teitan]

Ravenloft is the exception. And every single change made was either to get rid of problematic content or change it in a way WotC thought would improve the setting (changing some Dark Lords to be less obvious ripoffs of horror books/movies, removing the Core because WotC wanted to focus on Ravenloft being a horror setting and having domains of dread be right next to each other doesn't enhance the feeling of isolation key to running effective horror campaigns, etc).

But there was still grumbling. There were people complaining about the changes to Eberron when it came out. Less complaints than there were for the 4e version, because its changes were bigger, but there were people complaining about 5e's changes to the setting.

Spelljammer I assume will only be barely changed. The only real problematic stuff with the setting can be easily ignored by not updating them at all to 5e, and the main change that some people are complaining about (the Phlogiston being replaced with the Astral Sea) was also made because it would make the setting more fun for more people. Dragonlance might get some major changes (Kender, Gully Dwarves, maybe Draconians, High Sorcery, etc), but will probably be not as changed as Ravenloft was.

I think SJ will be highly modified to be less silly by the looks of it. Probably the most of all of them.

 

[dave2008]

It means that they possess a shard of themselves, some of lesse4r or greater power in each universe. Those shards can be re-assembled which is what is happening under a current DC arc, such that Darkseid has become more powerful than when his fall devastated the multiverse.

Ok, so pretty much what I quoted from the DMG for divine ranks and very similar to the Great Wyrms in Fizbans. What is your issue then? Personally that is not how I construct my deities. In my cosmos, deities are absolute.

Yes it does have basis in real science as we still have issues with certain particles IIRC, and this sort of solves that, mathematically speaking. And this would not just be human centric, in any way. And ties into Shroedinger's Cat, and all to do with collapsing wave functions.

It has been way to long since I have study this in any meaningful way so I can't really argue with you. However, when I did, I came to the conclusion a lot of it was bunk and I am sticking to that conclusion. I recently meet a physicist friend for happy hour we he was discussion the competing theories of reality and how we don't have a unifying model. How the current models are actually at odds and can't both be correct (at least not how we currently understand them). I got into him a little bit about time been a false construct, but that is another issue. The point is, the math doesn't work currently. It only works to a point and then breaks apart. I personally don't care to much about the math. I look at it from an energy perspective and an ignorance perspective. If you wish to discuss more I guess you could DM, but I feel I have spent to much tome on this topic already.

At least there is decent lore in it, it explains a whole heap of things. Which is better with what we have, or rather don't have - which is anything useful.

Again, that is subjective. I don't like the little bit you described, but I'm not likely to invest more into it at this time. I already have lore I like, and a lot of originates from WotC/TSR. I find it very useful myself, though as will all things rpg, I modify it to my needs.

If it made under OGL, then that it obeys official WotC rules, and thus is just as canon as anything else until Wizards say otherwise. At least that is how I see it.

That may be how you see it, but that is wrong. As I mentioned in another response, they can't use the Dungeons and Dragons name, logo, or WotC IP with OGL. It is not official, end of story. The can use many of the rules because legally the rules can't be copyrighted. WotC can't control the rules. Like I said, if you want this to be cleared up legally, talk to a publisher or their legal council. Your simply wrong.

Now, I personally have no need for "official" WotC content and use 3PP stuff all the time. It is great, but it is not official. I don't care about that though. IMO, the only things that are official are what I use at my table.

And quite frankly the Jetpack stuff is absolutely brilliant.
Same for Midgard and Southlands. And the art is simply brilliant. Heck there is a lot of 3PP on KS, or Pledge Manager that is well worth a look.

While I disagree about the brilliance of Jetpack's stuff. The art in the JetPack books I have is great, but I am less enthralled with the stat blocks they come up with. Thought they are better than the "epic" content from WotC. I do own a lot of other 3PP content. Particularly if it is Epic & Immortal D&D stuff as that is really my favorite genre. But I have backed a bunch of KS, and bought a lot of stuff from DMsGuild and DrivethruRPG.

 

[teitan]

Micah literally said that it was better to keep a race who all had birth defects due to being cursed in the womb because, historically, that's what people believed.

See I could use that by having a family with a child WITH birth defects as part of a story that the family assumes is cursed to show that it’s not true that people born with birth defects are always cursed and that such people are rare and the people who bestow such curses are truly the evil ones and those who assume they are cursed are ignorant. Caliban as they were are very much of a different time and place and way of thinking. One day the way we think now will be seen as wrong but portraying people with birth defects as evil and cursed is definitely in the gross area.

 

[teitan]

Human template. Human racial statistics. Whatever you want to call it.

If caliban are humans and not cursed but people think they are like you want to claim, then they use the human racial information. Free feat, 4 extra skill points, etc. And no Outcast Rating.

If they are actually cursed in the womb, like the 3x books said, then they don't get to use the human racial information. They're supposed to use the half-orc racial info, which means +2 Strength, -2 Int, -2 Cha, darkvision, etc., and a base OR of 5.

That’s only if you use feats.

 

[teitan]

So, you agree now? Because I completely agree with that last sentence. The old stuff with the real-world bigotry is still there, it just shouldn't be in modern conversions of the settings. Changing settings from older editions a bit is fine because the previous stuff still exists, publishing newer versions of the settings opens them up for the DMsGuild, and removing the real-world bigotry that is a part of quite a few settings is good if it lets new players experience the good parts of them without all of the bad stuff.

We good now?

Can I disagree that tinker gnomes are meant to be laughed at though? They’re steampunk before steampunk. They were inventors and a trope of the inventor, and a real world thing for inventors, is that their inventions often failed spectacularly. The Artificer is a great way to bring tinker gnomes up to date by bringing them a competency that many players and the AD&D system was unable to display as it was used in the days when Dragonlance was at its peak. Gnomes were kind of a forgotten race until tinker gnomes came along and while 3.x tried to give them an identity as “bards” it was Dragonlance that gave us, for example, the gnomes of Lantan and the idea of them being inventors and steampunky clockwork geniuses that is so common rather than the awkward perverts of the Bard gnome or the identity-less gnomes of AD&D.

 

[Rogerd1]

Ok, so pretty much what I quoted from the DMG for divine ranks and very similar to the Great Wyrms in Fizbans. What is your issue then? Personally that is not how I construct my deities. In my cosmos, deities are absolute.

Basically in Midgard / Southlands, all the deities are wearing masks, not so much in a Discworld way, but more in that one with a Domain of Lightning, and weather, could literally shape change and be several gods all at once.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Now this goes a bit further, and essentially has the god as cosmic entities, but they are not called Zeus, or Thor, but more Null, or Void

Now Dark Matter introduces Mega-Damage (likely incorporated from Palladium), in addition to Mega-Creatures and Mega Magic. It also has something on dragons.

Few gods exist monolithically across the Cosmos. In actuality, such deities are personified concepts like Infinity, Death, Chaos, or Null. Despite never meeting, their worshipers are united by the same transcendent revelation and choose to place their faith in a higher absolute — far beyond the petty squabbles of gods.

Born from an egg incubated within a dying star, an eternal dragon is an avatar of destruction and greed, far more powerful and terrifying than even the most ancient terrestrial wyrms. On midnight-black wings, they soar through space, each seeking to amass a planet-sized hoard of its own. Immortal Wyrms. Eternal dragons have existed, quite possibly, since the beginning of time. Some say that they are the true children of the dragon gods, while others say they are fallen gods themselves, banished to the Material Plane.

While, for eons, powerful wizards and sorcerers have been able to alter the fabric of reality, gods have had total reign of their own planes of existence, and demons, dragons, and all manner of eldritch creatures have leveraged their arcane might to bend worlds to their will, the common person has always had little to no contact with the arcane or the fantastical.

Which I thought you might like?

It has been way to long since I have study this in any meaningful way so I can't really argue with you. However, when I did, I came to the conclusion a lot of it was bunk and I am sticking to that conclusion. I recently meet a physicist friend for happy hour we he was discussion the competing theories of reality and how we don't have a unifying model. How the current models are actually at odds and can't both be correct (at least not how we currently understand them). I got into him a little bit about time been a false construct, but that is another issue. The point is, the math doesn't work currently. It only works to a point and then breaks apart. I personally don't care to much about the math. I look at it from an energy perspective and an ignorance perspective. If you wish to discuss more I guess you could DM, but I feel I have spent to much tome on this topic already.

There are multiple multiverse models that Tegmark postulated. Type I which has another universe past the borders of our own, and in it there is another you, another version of everyone - human or otherwise. Some taken slightly different routes. Some are exactly the same. This leads to type II which has universes under different rules.

Type III is the one we are discussing, and the one you abhor.

Type IV is every type of universe exists, whether using Earth-like or totally alien physics - this is the model that Doctor Who EU uses, such that universes of beings composed of sound exist and so forth. I won't get into Brian Greene's versions here.

Again, that is subjective. I don't like the little bit you described, but I'm not likely to invest more into it at this time. I already have lore I like, and a lot of originates from WotC/TSR. I find it very useful myself, though as will all things rpg, I modify it to my needs.

Well in it the gods, and various servants have no soul, and are essentially complex programs. Sort of like how in Clash of the Titans, and the sequel, how Poseidon says that mortals have an afterlife but the gods cease to exist. It is a war of souls, and whoever has the most will win. It has Clash of the Titan type gods, Alastors, and machine intelligences. It really is excellent and my ramblings do not do this setting justice.

That may be how you see it, but that is wrong. As I mentioned in another response, they can't use the Dungeons and Dragons name, logo, or WotC IP with OGL. It is not official, end of story. The can use many of the rules because legally the rules can't be copyrighted. WotC can't control the rules. Like I said, if you want this to be cleared up legally, talk to a publisher or their legal council. Your simply wrong.

Okay.

Now, I personally have no need for "official" WotC content and use 3PP stuff all the time. It is great, but it is not official. I don't care about that though. IMO, the only things that are official are what I use at my table.

While I disagree about the brilliance of Jetpack's stuff. The art in the JetPack books I have is great, but I am less enthralled with the stat blocks they come up with. Thought they are better than the "epic" content from WotC. I do own a lot of other 3PP content. Particularly if it is Epic & Immortal D&D stuff as that is really my favorite genre. But I have backed a bunch of KS, and bought a lot of stuff from DMsGuild and DrivethruRPG.

Jetpack also have a Spelljammer type setting about to hit Pledge Manager called Darkstorm Realms.

In fact if you liked 4e cosmology, then Gurps Cabal and Champions Mystic World take it all a step further and is also well worth a look. Some of the ideas are truly excellent.