RangerWickett
Legend
The Eberron setting book just came out, which has a few new character options, including dragonmarked subraces, and a variety of new gear.
But the setting doesn't change the core mechanics of D&D.
The original Dragonlance mostly forbid divine spellcasting, and tied wizard magic to moon phases. Dark Sun had defiling that caused magic to suck the life out of living things, creating vast swaths of desert.
Check out the optional rules in the DMG when it comes to planar travel. If you based a campaign entirely on another plane, that world's planar traits would alter some underlying assumptions of the game. An all-shadowfell game might have you dealing with 'shadowfell despair' every day. If the whole campaign is in Arcadia, then the 'psychic dissonance' optional rule would basically force everyone to be LG or LN, and the 'planar vitality' optional rule would make people immune to fear and poison.
Ysgard has an optional rule where anyone who dies there resurrects the next morning. That would upend a lot of assumptions about how to play the game.
Have you ever played in a setting where the rules of reality weren't quite the same as the default of D&D (or of whatever ruleset you were playing)?
In the ZEITGEIST adventure path, one of the minor traits of the world is that gold rings block teleportation. If a person is wearing a gold ring, they can't teleport. If you surround a jail cell with a gold ring, someone can't teleport out of it.
Two other traits of the world restrict the duration of magical flight to five minutes, and prevent summoned creatures from sticking around for more than five minutes. All of these have reasons behind them that matter to the plot of the adventure path, and they're fairly minor.
But how far can you step away from default rules before you get uncomfortable?
Would you accept an Ysgard-style game where it's impossible to bleed to death, but death is still possible if someone decapitates you (aka, Highlander)? What about one inspired by the video game Myst, where divination magic doesn't work on islands? If you've watched the TV show Supernatural, salt actually drives off ghosts, and other mundane tricks can protect you from monsters, which might be a fun way to give low-level adventurers tricks in a setting with lots of horror tropes. In a game inspired by His Dark Materials, would you be cool with each PC having a bonded familiar? What if the GM handed each player a copy of their 50 page setting bible, said, "You're all proficient in History as a bonus skill, so you have to read this"?
I've been playing D&D for 23 years. I like trying new things. But how far is too far?
But the setting doesn't change the core mechanics of D&D.
The original Dragonlance mostly forbid divine spellcasting, and tied wizard magic to moon phases. Dark Sun had defiling that caused magic to suck the life out of living things, creating vast swaths of desert.
Check out the optional rules in the DMG when it comes to planar travel. If you based a campaign entirely on another plane, that world's planar traits would alter some underlying assumptions of the game. An all-shadowfell game might have you dealing with 'shadowfell despair' every day. If the whole campaign is in Arcadia, then the 'psychic dissonance' optional rule would basically force everyone to be LG or LN, and the 'planar vitality' optional rule would make people immune to fear and poison.
Ysgard has an optional rule where anyone who dies there resurrects the next morning. That would upend a lot of assumptions about how to play the game.
Have you ever played in a setting where the rules of reality weren't quite the same as the default of D&D (or of whatever ruleset you were playing)?
In the ZEITGEIST adventure path, one of the minor traits of the world is that gold rings block teleportation. If a person is wearing a gold ring, they can't teleport. If you surround a jail cell with a gold ring, someone can't teleport out of it.
Two other traits of the world restrict the duration of magical flight to five minutes, and prevent summoned creatures from sticking around for more than five minutes. All of these have reasons behind them that matter to the plot of the adventure path, and they're fairly minor.
But how far can you step away from default rules before you get uncomfortable?
Would you accept an Ysgard-style game where it's impossible to bleed to death, but death is still possible if someone decapitates you (aka, Highlander)? What about one inspired by the video game Myst, where divination magic doesn't work on islands? If you've watched the TV show Supernatural, salt actually drives off ghosts, and other mundane tricks can protect you from monsters, which might be a fun way to give low-level adventurers tricks in a setting with lots of horror tropes. In a game inspired by His Dark Materials, would you be cool with each PC having a bonded familiar? What if the GM handed each player a copy of their 50 page setting bible, said, "You're all proficient in History as a bonus skill, so you have to read this"?
I've been playing D&D for 23 years. I like trying new things. But how far is too far?
