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

[grimslade]

Just curious why you thinks its an intelligent move? The mongoloid stillbirth is turning me off a bit.

I respect everything you have done with Greyhawk in Dungeon and I am not even a Greyhawk fanboy. I think Paizo stayed pretty true to Greyhawk from the Dungeon adventures my DM ran for us. Doesn't turning what you know and love into a mongoloid stillbirth bother you just a bit?

Call an onion a rose and it still stinks like an onion. To me thats what they are doing with core fluff.

If anything I would prefer things be totally new abandoning Tenser, Vecna, etc. That would be a real act of creativity.

I am obviously not Erik but I think it comes down to how much can you simplify 20 years of canon (I'm giving the 3E years off because not much canon was added). A new edition would need a pretty lean amount of Greyhawk or Great Wheel or Planescape to fit in the pages. I'm not too sure that a pared down canon item wouldn't look like a 'mongoloid stillbirth' (can't we get a better term?) to a new comer or an old hat.
So you have a choice: either a cliff notes version of past fluff or a new start. If you have a love of the material you may go with the Cliff Notes. If the old fluff just cheeses you off or you can't find a way to fit it with the new mechanics, you might want to start fresh.
I think the new devil and demon fluff stems from the removal of the classic alignment system. There is a metric ton of lore about demons and devils. It all lays on the fact that originally they were created in AD&D as exemplars of their codified alignment. Demons are Chaotic Evil, Devils are Lawful evil. You take out the underpinning of alignment and you need a rewrite of 30 ears of canon and then you need to distill it down to fit in the initial core rulebooks for 4E. It's a lot of work. Is the payoff worth the work? What else might clash?
I still keep finding Baatezu and Tanaari references in my canon. Who let those in? ;P

 

[broghammerj]

So you have a choice: either a cliff notes version of past fluff or a new start. If you have a love of the material you may go with the Cliff Notes. If the old fluff just cheeses you off or you can't find a way to fit it with the new mechanics, you might want to start fresh.
I think the new devil and demon fluff stems from the removal of the classic alignment system.
I still keep finding Baatezu and Tanaari references in my canon. Who let those in? ;P

The cliff notes version is fine if you don't contradict the past canon. A new start is fine and something I would actually agree with. However, we are not getting a new start. We are trying to make a new shirt out of an old pair of pants. When I put that shirt on it will look mighty funny.

Half or partial changes develop ridiculous things like Baatezu and Tanaari. "Change for the sake of change" to use the cliche being thrown around.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

If they love the concept of the evil locked up God they could have lifted it and given him a new name like Morgoth Ernie the eeevil entity and nobody would have complained.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I dislike the direction these fluff changes are going since it will be more work for me to incorporate (or counter-ignore wotc) 4E at my table. I can actually appreciate wryly that Tharizdun will affect the Eberron universe or whatever. My eye will be on FR and Eberron to see how much they adopt of these new 'core' cosmology changes.

My prediction: close to zero.

Well, the Forgotten Realms cosmology needs some tightening up, actually.

The precise details of things like the Plane of Shadow or whatever in the Eberron cosmology might be adjusted, but I'd be surprised if they actually changed the orrery setup.

You might see Eberron's transitive planes described as the Astral Sea and the Shadowfell, but I doubt they'll eliminate Fernia and Risia just because they eliminated the Elemental Plane of Fire.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Statistically speaking, I expect "no one" will complain about the use of Tharizdun.

 

[mhensley]

4e killed Greyhawk and took its stuff.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If anything I would prefer things be totally new abandoning Tenser, Vecna, etc. That would be a real act of creativity.

It would be pointlessly abandoning 30 years of IP.

The core changes are intended to make D&D easier for new players. It may not succeed, or may not be a worthy goal, but that's the intention.

Abandoning "Tenser" as a name does not make D&D any easier for new players. Making the planes have obvious application within games is making the game easier. Reorganizing demons and devils so that new DMs see an obvious way to use them differently makes the game easier. (And since they've mentioned yugoloths more than once already, I suspect their role has redefined a bit. No more standing around on street corners in Hades and announcing that they're the Original Gangstas for them.)

If they decide to keep classic bits of IP -- including those used in the titles of modules, for instance -- divorcing them from their settings and reusing them in essentially the same iconic ways as always, but in a setting-neutral fashion is the way that they pretty much have to go with. So Tharizdun isn't (probably) stuck beneath a temple a few blocks away from Iggwilv's old ranch house, he's placed in an iconic situation and, if anything, his importance in the game line is elevated, not diminished.

 

[grodog]

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). [snip]

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.

This isn't anything new, really, either: it's just the next logical step in the development of the support (and I use that term very loosely) paradigm that Greyhawk has been provided by WotC (excepting LG, EttRoG, and Paizohawk).

 

[grodog]

I have to say it: the name, Tharizdum, sounds silly. (quick 10 seconds thought: I like it "gygaxed" into Thar Za Doom... reminds me of Thulsa Doom... hey, waitaminute! Tharizdum DOES sound awfully similar to Thulsa Doom!)

FWIW, Rob Kuntz originally coined the name Gygax based Tharizdun on, though I don't recall offhand if it was inspired by REH or not.

I liked the feeling of dread and mistery back in 1e and 2e when the "elder evil so destructive it had to be locked away by the collective might of all gods" was unnamed

Definitely like that sense of lost ancient gods, too (a la the Lovecraftian mythos)!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This isn't anything new, really, either: it's just the next logical step in the development of the support (and I use that term very loosely) paradigm that Greyhawk has been provided by WotC (excepting LG, EttRoG, and Paizohawk).

Actually, this was explicitly set up at the end of Expedition/Greyhawk. Castle Greyhawk is explicitly in play for all settings at the end of that module.