How much of the old setting(s) in the new setting?

[Mouseferatu]

So over in the thread about the changes to demons and devils, and the planes, I commented on the fact that I really like most of what they're doing. However, there is one element that I dislike, and that's the use of Tharizdun. If the new setting is not Greyhawk, I'd prefer they not use any of the Greyhawk-specific deities.

The thing is, upon further reflection, I'm not sure why I feel this way. I don't object to them using names like Mordenkainen's disjunction or the Eye of Vecna. I don't object to the inclusion of Demogorgon or Graz'zt.

So why is it that Greyhawk gods bother me in the new setting, but other elements that were original to Greyhawk do not?

And the answer is, I'm not 100% sure, but I think it has to do with the context in which I first encountered the various names. I first "met" Mordenkainen and Vecna and the demon lords in the 1E core books, before I knew Greyhawk from Toledo. So to me, even though they might be original to Greyhawk, they don't say "Greyhawk" to me. They say "D&D."

OTOH, I first met the Greyhawk deities in a Greyhawk-specific context. So even though some of them appear as a "generic" pantheon in 3E, when I see the names, I don't think "D&D" in general; I think "Greyhawk" in particular.

Anyway, I'm not sure I have a point to all this. But I figured I'd throw it out there, see what (if anything) it sparks.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

It's a very valid question to ask, as it's largely the source of arguments about retcons and whatnot.

The new core is an entirely new setting - we've been explicitly told that it's not Greyhawk. But people tend to overlook this when familiar names show up, especially in the line of "So the succubi just magically became devils?" No. These succubi always were devils. But it can still be a bit of a tough sell when a bunch of gods suddenly have dopplegangers running around in alternate universes.

Still, it doesn't really bother me that much. I don't expect most deities to change that much in terms of powers and personality, and I think it'd be bothersome to have St. Cuthbert in one world and St. Kuthbert in the next. I can accept Superman being Superman in Red Son while at the same time accepting him as Superman in other contexts, and by the same token can accept Asmodeus as the same character colored into a new setting.

 

[Aloïsius]

Let's see... Before 3e, I played in "generic D&D setting". Basicaly, I played in a club, with a lot (and a lot...) of DMs, and we played mostly one-shot adventures. This means that the world somtime looked like Greyhawk, sometime like FR, sometime like something else. The stories were about the characters anyway. So I don't have sentimental attachement to those settings.

With 3e, things changed : I used to DM in the 3e FRCS and Eberron.

So, for me, the question is : does it make a difference if 4e use the silver flame as an example rather than Pelor or Heironeous ?

I think not. The red wizards in DMG 3.5 was not a problem, I won't be shoked by Mielikki instead of Ehlona in 4e PHB.

 

[Lackhand]

I never really grokked Rao. Which made some things (Crook of whonow?) somewhat difficult.

But if they started using him, I'd be okay.

As long as they use the names as close to thematically appropriately as possible, I'm thrilled.
For instance, Acererak as a vistage annoyed me a little: He's at the focus of a bunch of necromancers, so we're going to make the person with a rules-based reason to talk about him a different class.

But this change is just Tharizdun starting the Temple of Elemental Evil a little early. It's weird, because I, too, thought that the elemental thing was only a part-time gig for the Big Evil, but I'm perfectly sanguine with his new role.

I think we'd all have a bad reaction to Mordenkainen the God of Magic (or Mansions, or Watchdogs); that seems like an abuse of the name.
But taking a name and broadening it, brushing off the cruft and putting it to work?

I can get behind that.

 

[Shade]

I'm grokking some of this, Mouse.

If WotC wants to start from scratch and build a whole new setting, then leave the existing stuff alone so it can come back later, unchanged.

I'd have far less of an issue with the changes to the demons, devils, etc. if they'd just left them out altogether and focused on new things.

I don't want to see Malcanthet the devil queen of succubi or githyanki who were never enslaved to illithids and so forth. If they found demons and devils so confusing, I with they'd simply had "fiends" in 4e, not used names like succubi and balor, and moved on. If they need a big bad to associate their new fiends with, don't use Tharizdun...make up some new guy.

That way at least us old guard could hold out hope that what we love would someday come back relatively unscathed.

 

[Erik Mona]

Sounds like WotC is taking the names that "say D&D" to their design staff, divorcing them from some or all of their historical context, and rebuilding everything from the ground up in a way that incorporates what they want to incorporate and ignores what they want to ignore (which, in the case of Greyhawk, will be almost everything).

It's actually a rather intelligent way of going about things, but it's going to look like a deformed mongoliod stillbirth to a lot of people for a while.

I think the best way to cope is to just say: This isn't Greyhawk. It looks like Greyhawk in some ways, and some of the names are familiar, but they're not trying to make a new Greyhawk (yet). They're trying to make a new D&D, and they're cloaking it in familiarity by using names like Vecna or Tharizdun or Pelor or whatever, mostly to keep people interested in to keep some tangential ties to old stuff just for fun.

The concept of a god so evil he must be locked away for eternity is COOL, and I can imagine lots of the people at WotC (none of whom are Greyhawk "scholars" in the same way some EN World posters are) think that's an idea worthy of including in their core setting. And they're right about that.

Another good example is Vecna. Cool. Been a part of the game from the beginning. I have every reason to expect he'll be part of 4e. I strongly suspect that this will mean we'll get a Vecna who was a powerful lich in the past, who lost a hand and eye, and who (maybe) is a god of secrets.

I strongly suspect we will NOT get a powerful Ur-Flannae mystic who, among other things, destroyed the town of Fleeth in ancient Keoland in the era of the Great Migrations.

People who couldn't care less about Greyhawk (at least 80% of the D&D audience and probably something like 97% of the Wizards of the Coast staff) don't know anything about Fleeth, or the Ur-Flan, or Keoland, or the Great Migrations. And there's a valid argument that says they shouldn't have to, particularly if Greyhawk is not being seriously supported as a D&D setting (which it isn't, clearly).

It does seem, however, that Greyhawk may be under consideration as a 4.0 "setting book," so the degree to which that book presents the "classic" feel of the world or a new version of the world more in line with fourth edition multiversal and rules-based assumptions will be, for me, one of the most interesting elements to watch in the developing story of fourth edition D&D.

--Erik

 

[Beckett]

I've never been familiar with Tharizdun. I know there was an adventure about him, and I've seen the name in a few source books, but I don't recall him getting a column of text in the Greyhawk box set. I know he's tied to that setting, but to me he's as generic and transplantable as Bigby or Tenser.

I guess my feeling on setting and flavor elements: I don't want them to use something just because that's how it's always been done, but if something fits right, go ahead and use it.

 

[Lackhand]

The thing is, the stuff you want *can* come back unscathed.

The use of dwarves in the Forgotten Realms doesn't influence the use of dwarves in Eberron.
And there are definitely some changes there!

This paves the way towards them *actually* publishing a Planescape 4e, and furthermore, if you prefer that which is presented in FC I and FC II... use that.

Yes, the monster manual says that succubi are devils in 4e... So houserule it. In your game, they're not, they're demons again. They're trying to get away from alignment differentiators, making that kind of change even easier.

You want to use the elemental planes as originally presented? Dig out the rules for avalanches, for drowning, for being in a burning building, or for aerial combat.
Use them.
Tadaa, the original planes again!

It's *less* kitbashing than most DM-designed campaigns have to do, I think, because you have the fluff still written out for you already.

I think the problem is reducible to, as many are, "will the rules let me model X in my campaign". And we don't know what the rules are for falling are, or being on fire, or drowning, or plane shifting, and those are the ones that really matter.

What I think would *really* shut down a by-the-book Great Wheel cosmology is the lack of the Plane Shift spell. And I don't think too many people would be that up-in-arms about that. The rest is just a campaign-book away, innit?

And you already own the books.

 

[Glyfair]

And the answer is, I'm not 100% sure, but I think it has to do with the context in which I first encountered the various names. I first "met" Mordenkainen and Vecna and the demon lords in the 1E core books, before I knew Greyhawk from Toledo. So to me, even though they might be original to Greyhawk, they don't say "Greyhawk" to me. They say "D&D."

This makes sense to me. I started as AD&D was being released (the PHB was released just a month or two after I got into D&D, the MM had been out for a few months). Greyhawk didn't exist except as the designers' homebrew campaign. The published campaign setting based somewhat on that world wouldn't appear for a few years.

So, to me everything that was described was D&D. Vecna? Tenser? Invoked Devastation? All D&D things from homebrews that were added for flavor to D&D.

I personally would be very annoyed if they just had "Floating Disk" as a spell in a set. However, I could care less if they come up with a different incarnation of "Tenser" (as long as his spells made sense for the character).

 

[Stoat]

At the risk of derailing the thread, how is the Tharizdun described in the blog different from the Tharizdun of Greyhawk canon?

I've got a passing familiarity with him/it, but not enough to appreciate how 4E is changing things.