Zardnaar
Legend
Over the years TSR/WotC have released a lot of settings some of which are beloved while others I think barely anyone played (Birthright?). Back in the day we had most of them at least the main boxed set least. Even in the 90's (or 80's) the settings had several problems though and htis continued through to 3E and 4E.
1. They split the player base. This was a contributing problem to TSR dying but the mismanagement there was so massive I don't think it mattered. Each setting had novel support, adventures, splat books etc. A Darksun splat probably would not sell to fans of Ravenloft or whatever and only hard core collectors would have the "gotta get em all" mentality. These days you probably won't get much beyond the setting book and maybe an adventure but that is a good thing and its also what the DMGuild is for. I also don't see WoTC selling something like Planescape at a loss- which TSR apparently did.
2. Metaplot.
Most setting (Eberron and Golarion being exceptions perhaps) had metaplot which means the story advanced in novels and product support. Great idea in theory but they often ruined whatever you liked about the setting in the 1st place. Darksun and Dragonlance would be prime examples of this IMHO. This is compounded by Realms Shaking Events. One big problem with 5E conversions of some setting is this metaplot. For example where would you start with a Dragonlance conversion? Most people probably think of Dragonlance as the War of the Lance and its immediate aftermath but you also have the War of Souls timeline.
3. Realms Shaking Events (RSE)
RSE is a term used to describe things that drastically alter the setting. This means the Time of Troubles for the 2E Realms along with the Spellplague. 3E Realms was reasonably subdued by comparison with Bane and the Shadovar returning. TSR had a nasty habit of this with RSE in most of their settings. The problem with this is they often blow up whatever happened to appeal to you about the setting as will. Dragonlance is a prime example of this along with Darksun and the events of the Prism Pentad. Spelljammer had the Unhuman War II, Ravenloft had the Grand Conjunction, Planescape has the Great Modron March etc. This was compounded by.
4. Railroaded plot heavy adventures
These adventures were often low quality as well. With the lead up to 2E TSR started to move away from the early Dungeon hacks and similar basic adventures probably around the launch of Dragonlance, UA and Dragonlance saved D&D but they kept this trend up to the early to mid 90's. There are not to many classic Darksun or Dragonlance or Spelljammer adventures people fondly remember because most of them were crap. These adventures were often tied to the novel lines where the PCs were glorified witnesses to the characters and events of those novels. Sounds like fun right? This is also why there are not many 2E adventures in lists of "Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time". 4E was not the 1st edition of D&D to make crap adventures and while 2E can do better than 2 good adventures 4E can claim its not by a lot. And most of the good 2E adventures came late and are generic (Return to the Tomb of Horrors, The Night Below etc) or are in Dungeon magazine. Hoard of the Dragon Queen is a masterpiece by comparison here.
As some of you know I have been working on a conversion of Darksun that is faithful to the 1991 original. This is because I did not like the plot of the Prism Pentad, if The Dragon has to die I think it is a good goal for the PCs. Darksun was an interesting world earl in the product cycle but they killed off The Dragon and 4/7 of the Sorcerer Kings. Once again if a Sorcerer King is to die a PC should be the one to do it IMHO.
Does this mean the designers of today should be a slave to the decisions made 20+ years ago. The answer IMHO is yes and no they should respect whatever made the original setting appealing in the 1st place but they shold be able to have the freedom to update the mechanic that are faithful to the original concept but they do not have to mirror it 100%. For example casting spells in Darksun should be able to have the defiling option, how that defiling is expressed in game mechanics I am more liberal about. Its also OK to have the rules differ from the core rules and I think something like Mystara and Greyhawk would benefit from having alignment and racial restrictions returned to the game while its a bad idea for the PHB game. On Greyhawk this ouwld mean the Ranger has a stonger identity than the PHB one along with the Paladin who. Not all classes and races need to exist on all worlds either and we will have 3 kitchen sink settings soon anyway (Ravnica, Eberron, FR)and wondering around with Drow and Dragonborn doesn't really fit settings like Dragonlance, Darksun, and Ravenloft. Warforged on Athas (at least as a PC option)are also silly even if they are made out of Atahsian materials as it gets around the food and water thing which is a major element of Darksun.
Not all setting will appeal to all people and that is fine. A lot of the settings you may have noticed overlap with another genre- Greyhawk is kinda Swords and Sorcery, Eberron is magitech, Darksun post apocalyptic survival/gritty. Personally I do not like Ravenloft and Dragonlance much but there is not much they can do to make it appeal to me that won't offend the fans of those settings so I don't expect them to change it to suit my tastes. Sometimes I like gritty (Darksun) sometimes I like whimsical (Mystara) and I can even buy into Spelljammer and had fun with it circa 1995/early 96. I don't really want a shared multiverse where it is to easy to get from say Athas. A warforged wizard teleporting to Athas with a portable hole full of metal weapons kind of ruins the Athasian setting and there is always some muppet who wants to play a Kender on Greyhawk or a Half Orc/Drow on Krynn (maybe maybe if you are playing Spelljammer). I regard players like that as the sterotypical CN players who are more disruptive to the point I would rather not play with them than have them stink up the game.
Note I am fine with things like that on worlds like Eberron, I just don't want every world to be like Eberron (or FR or whatever). I would be fine with a Kender Apocalypse, genocide is justified on those things- sometimes evil is right.
As for the metaplot issue the way I would del with it is to go back to the original and provide the tools to play in other timelines. Using Darksun as an example if used the 1991 setting as an example to play the 4E version you just replace the Half Giant with the Goliath advance the timeline by a month and use the 4E fluff. If the 4E fluff is the new cannon I still don't have my classical Half Giant and the events of 4E are cannon, the original set had no cannon as such the world was very mysterious. Same thing with the revised boxed set those races in it can go under the optional rules along with the Half Giant as Goliath idea and then if you liked the Prism Pentad plotline you can pick up where the 2E material left off if you like. However if you use the revised boxed set the events of the Prism Pentad become cannon.
The other main advantage about original material l is that it has been over 20 years for a lot of these setting sometimes 25+ since they have had any official support. If you use the original setting as your reference it gives a new generation the opportunity to play those settings how they like. They can do their own stories and/or pick the events they prefer. They can go and get the 2E or 4E or 3E Darksun material and do what they want with it WoTC job IMHO is to provide the tools for that setting. For Example Darksun
Races
Dwarf
Human
Halfling
Elf
Half Elf
Kreen
Half Giant
Mul
Optional Races
Goliath (as Half Giant option)
Aarakocra
Pterrans
And they give you the rules for defiling, psionics etc. They will probably have to make some hard choices over things like 2E vs 3E/4E Bards for example. Other things are a lot easier to integrate such as Champions=Gladiators or Battlemasters=2E fighters.
Obviously some settings won't make it, I don't expect to see Birthright anytime soon but good bets are Darksun and Spelljammer. Greyhawk is almost the default PHB. Generic settings like Nerath Greyhawk etc also do not need much work and could be folded into a Races of the Multiverse type book as you can still use the fluff from other settings that do not have much in the way of unique mechanics. For example if you wanted ye olde Greyhawk you can use the 1983 boxed set and chose what races and archetypes you allow. I also think its reasonable for some setting to have the classes associated with that setting to make an appearance (Nerath warlord, Darksun psionics, Eberron artificer etc). One of the older semi generic worlds would also be nice as well since we're getting a lot of new stuff (Greyhawk, Mystara or Dragonlance).
A setting or multiverse book could also include rules for settings that had minimal changes over the PHB rules (Mystara, Dragonlance etc). They do not need the full conversion treatment just the mechanics for that setting and you can use the fluff from a previous version.
So that is basically it. Respect the genre/theme the setting is trying to do, don't contradict the setting for no good reason, its OK to make them different and provide the tools so the players can chose what point in the settings metaplot they want to play in.
1. They split the player base. This was a contributing problem to TSR dying but the mismanagement there was so massive I don't think it mattered. Each setting had novel support, adventures, splat books etc. A Darksun splat probably would not sell to fans of Ravenloft or whatever and only hard core collectors would have the "gotta get em all" mentality. These days you probably won't get much beyond the setting book and maybe an adventure but that is a good thing and its also what the DMGuild is for. I also don't see WoTC selling something like Planescape at a loss- which TSR apparently did.
2. Metaplot.
Most setting (Eberron and Golarion being exceptions perhaps) had metaplot which means the story advanced in novels and product support. Great idea in theory but they often ruined whatever you liked about the setting in the 1st place. Darksun and Dragonlance would be prime examples of this IMHO. This is compounded by Realms Shaking Events. One big problem with 5E conversions of some setting is this metaplot. For example where would you start with a Dragonlance conversion? Most people probably think of Dragonlance as the War of the Lance and its immediate aftermath but you also have the War of Souls timeline.
3. Realms Shaking Events (RSE)
RSE is a term used to describe things that drastically alter the setting. This means the Time of Troubles for the 2E Realms along with the Spellplague. 3E Realms was reasonably subdued by comparison with Bane and the Shadovar returning. TSR had a nasty habit of this with RSE in most of their settings. The problem with this is they often blow up whatever happened to appeal to you about the setting as will. Dragonlance is a prime example of this along with Darksun and the events of the Prism Pentad. Spelljammer had the Unhuman War II, Ravenloft had the Grand Conjunction, Planescape has the Great Modron March etc. This was compounded by.
4. Railroaded plot heavy adventures
These adventures were often low quality as well. With the lead up to 2E TSR started to move away from the early Dungeon hacks and similar basic adventures probably around the launch of Dragonlance, UA and Dragonlance saved D&D but they kept this trend up to the early to mid 90's. There are not to many classic Darksun or Dragonlance or Spelljammer adventures people fondly remember because most of them were crap. These adventures were often tied to the novel lines where the PCs were glorified witnesses to the characters and events of those novels. Sounds like fun right? This is also why there are not many 2E adventures in lists of "Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time". 4E was not the 1st edition of D&D to make crap adventures and while 2E can do better than 2 good adventures 4E can claim its not by a lot. And most of the good 2E adventures came late and are generic (Return to the Tomb of Horrors, The Night Below etc) or are in Dungeon magazine. Hoard of the Dragon Queen is a masterpiece by comparison here.
As some of you know I have been working on a conversion of Darksun that is faithful to the 1991 original. This is because I did not like the plot of the Prism Pentad, if The Dragon has to die I think it is a good goal for the PCs. Darksun was an interesting world earl in the product cycle but they killed off The Dragon and 4/7 of the Sorcerer Kings. Once again if a Sorcerer King is to die a PC should be the one to do it IMHO.
Does this mean the designers of today should be a slave to the decisions made 20+ years ago. The answer IMHO is yes and no they should respect whatever made the original setting appealing in the 1st place but they shold be able to have the freedom to update the mechanic that are faithful to the original concept but they do not have to mirror it 100%. For example casting spells in Darksun should be able to have the defiling option, how that defiling is expressed in game mechanics I am more liberal about. Its also OK to have the rules differ from the core rules and I think something like Mystara and Greyhawk would benefit from having alignment and racial restrictions returned to the game while its a bad idea for the PHB game. On Greyhawk this ouwld mean the Ranger has a stonger identity than the PHB one along with the Paladin who. Not all classes and races need to exist on all worlds either and we will have 3 kitchen sink settings soon anyway (Ravnica, Eberron, FR)and wondering around with Drow and Dragonborn doesn't really fit settings like Dragonlance, Darksun, and Ravenloft. Warforged on Athas (at least as a PC option)are also silly even if they are made out of Atahsian materials as it gets around the food and water thing which is a major element of Darksun.
Not all setting will appeal to all people and that is fine. A lot of the settings you may have noticed overlap with another genre- Greyhawk is kinda Swords and Sorcery, Eberron is magitech, Darksun post apocalyptic survival/gritty. Personally I do not like Ravenloft and Dragonlance much but there is not much they can do to make it appeal to me that won't offend the fans of those settings so I don't expect them to change it to suit my tastes. Sometimes I like gritty (Darksun) sometimes I like whimsical (Mystara) and I can even buy into Spelljammer and had fun with it circa 1995/early 96. I don't really want a shared multiverse where it is to easy to get from say Athas. A warforged wizard teleporting to Athas with a portable hole full of metal weapons kind of ruins the Athasian setting and there is always some muppet who wants to play a Kender on Greyhawk or a Half Orc/Drow on Krynn (maybe maybe if you are playing Spelljammer). I regard players like that as the sterotypical CN players who are more disruptive to the point I would rather not play with them than have them stink up the game.
Note I am fine with things like that on worlds like Eberron, I just don't want every world to be like Eberron (or FR or whatever). I would be fine with a Kender Apocalypse, genocide is justified on those things- sometimes evil is right.
As for the metaplot issue the way I would del with it is to go back to the original and provide the tools to play in other timelines. Using Darksun as an example if used the 1991 setting as an example to play the 4E version you just replace the Half Giant with the Goliath advance the timeline by a month and use the 4E fluff. If the 4E fluff is the new cannon I still don't have my classical Half Giant and the events of 4E are cannon, the original set had no cannon as such the world was very mysterious. Same thing with the revised boxed set those races in it can go under the optional rules along with the Half Giant as Goliath idea and then if you liked the Prism Pentad plotline you can pick up where the 2E material left off if you like. However if you use the revised boxed set the events of the Prism Pentad become cannon.
The other main advantage about original material l is that it has been over 20 years for a lot of these setting sometimes 25+ since they have had any official support. If you use the original setting as your reference it gives a new generation the opportunity to play those settings how they like. They can do their own stories and/or pick the events they prefer. They can go and get the 2E or 4E or 3E Darksun material and do what they want with it WoTC job IMHO is to provide the tools for that setting. For Example Darksun
Races
Dwarf
Human
Halfling
Elf
Half Elf
Kreen
Half Giant
Mul
Optional Races
Goliath (as Half Giant option)
Aarakocra
Pterrans
And they give you the rules for defiling, psionics etc. They will probably have to make some hard choices over things like 2E vs 3E/4E Bards for example. Other things are a lot easier to integrate such as Champions=Gladiators or Battlemasters=2E fighters.
Obviously some settings won't make it, I don't expect to see Birthright anytime soon but good bets are Darksun and Spelljammer. Greyhawk is almost the default PHB. Generic settings like Nerath Greyhawk etc also do not need much work and could be folded into a Races of the Multiverse type book as you can still use the fluff from other settings that do not have much in the way of unique mechanics. For example if you wanted ye olde Greyhawk you can use the 1983 boxed set and chose what races and archetypes you allow. I also think its reasonable for some setting to have the classes associated with that setting to make an appearance (Nerath warlord, Darksun psionics, Eberron artificer etc). One of the older semi generic worlds would also be nice as well since we're getting a lot of new stuff (Greyhawk, Mystara or Dragonlance).
A setting or multiverse book could also include rules for settings that had minimal changes over the PHB rules (Mystara, Dragonlance etc). They do not need the full conversion treatment just the mechanics for that setting and you can use the fluff from a previous version.
So that is basically it. Respect the genre/theme the setting is trying to do, don't contradict the setting for no good reason, its OK to make them different and provide the tools so the players can chose what point in the settings metaplot they want to play in.
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