D&D General Joe Manganiello: Compares Early 5E to BG 3 . How Important is Lore?

[Mournblade94]

I see no point. Greyhawk has never had prohibitions on races in 1e or 3e and was never curated prior. The only curation I've ever heard for Oerth comes from grognards who can't accept anything that Gary didn't write as canon.

It didn't have to be curated due to the time. It was the default throughout the books. Most of the Alpha series modules were set there. It was the setting for AD&D. I would argue the gonzo races that 5e allows now, with Furries, Ninja Turtles, and everything else is not the tone intended for Greyhawk. Its fine if people want to play those races (as long as I'm not the DM) but using those races suggests a much different tone than is suggested in anything but Eberron. I have no idea what Wildemount is like, but if they created that they should have just used that as the default 5e setting. The creators from everything I hear made it work for the modern flavors.

Now Forgotten Realms is less curated because they unfortunately made that the default setting.

 

[Remathilis]

It didn't have to be curated due to the time. It was the default throughout the books. Most of the Alpha series modules were set there. It was the setting for AD&D. I would argue the gonzo races that 5e allows now, with Furries, Ninja Turtles, and everything else is not the tone intended for Greyhawk. Its fine if people want to play those races (as long as I'm not the DM) but using those races suggests a much different tone than is suggested in anything but Eberron. I have no idea what Wildemount is like, but if they created that they should have just used that as the default 5e setting. The creators from everything I hear made it work for the modern flavors.

Now Forgotten Realms is less curated because they unfortunately made that the default setting.

It was a setting for OD&D. It's absolutely gonzo. It has a crashed spaceship, a portal to Wonderland, and a god with six shooters. An actual Catholic Saint is a deity there. Try again.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't think we can call Eberron Kitchen Sink. That is full technology levels above a traditional Medieval Setting.

"If it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron" is a key part of its creed and you can't get any more kitchen sink than that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think we can call Eberron Kitchen Sink. That is full technology levels above a traditional Medieval Setting.

To be fair, while the tone is quite different from the old standard, one of Eberron's mandates was that anything D&D has a place there.

 

[Mournblade94]

It was a setting for OD&D. It's absolutely gonzo. It has a crashed spaceship, a portal to Wonderland, and a god with six shooters. An actual Catholic Saint is a deity there. Try again.

How does an actual saint make it gonzo. That's like saying Zeus as a god makes it gonzo. Murlynd you'd know about from Dragon Magazine or a Spoon. Dungeonland was a portal but as a module it was not that weird. D&D Monsters replacing wonderland casts. Barrier Peaks was absolutely the Dying Earth Flavor and Isekai flavor the old fantasy authors were using. The Packaging for GreyHawk was a classic High Medieval Knight. If you look at the source books it was pretty standard. If you wanted to play modules which were add ons you got Dungeon land or the Original origin of the Mindflayers.

Otherwise it was pretty standard Medieval Fantasy. More standard than the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Mournblade94]

To be fair, while the tone is quite different from the old standard, one of Eberron's mandates was that anything D&D has a place there.

I don't know Eberron. I saw the modern urban elements and Didn't bother with it. To me the mage tech precluded any sort of Medieval inspired fantasy. You can place anything in it but if you wanted to do 13th Warrior Inspired dark ages fantasy it seems a bit hard. But I don't know Eberron.

 

[TheSword]

Temple of Elemental Evil was SHOEHORNED into the Realms. It should not have been sent there.
Tomb of Horrors was Greyhawk. Larloch is the most powerful Lich in the Forgotten Realms. Now Acerak is causing problems in Faerun, so it DOES invalidate the Lore of the realms. Tomb of Horrors wasn't the problem as much as Acerak. Placing Acerak in the REALMS was the cash grab. They didn't have faith in the Tomb of Horrors on their own. Tomb of Annihilation should have been Greyhawk.

If Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Strahd had nothing to do with the realms.. well then I wasn't talking about them in the first place.

Woah woah woah.

There are hundreds of liches in FR. Since when did the inclusion of one invalidate the others?

What in Tomb of Annihilation (a new location paying homage to the Tomb of Horrors) invalidated FR lore. At no point does the book say that Acerack is more or less powerful than Larlock. Larlock isn’t involved with this story.

I love FR and FR lore and the spellplague/abeir story was an abomination but I don’t see how 5e has done anything but right the balance.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't know Eberron. I saw the modern urban elements and Didn't bother with it. To me the mage tech precluded any sort of Medieval inspired fantasy. You can place anything in it but if you wanted to do 13th Warrior Inspired dark ages fantasy it seems a bit hard. But I don't know Eberron.

You can't play 13th Warrior in Sharn. But you can't exactly in Constantinople in the real world time period of 13th Warrior either. Different kingdoms and continents have different themes and population densities.

 

[Mournblade94]

Woah woah woah.

There are hundreds of liches in FR. Since when did the inclusion of one invalidate the others?

What in Tomb of Annihilation (a new location paying homage to the Tomb of Horrors) invalidated FR lore. At no point does the book say that Acerack is more or less powerful than Larlock. Larlock isn’t involved with this story.

I love FR and FR lore and the spellplague/abeir story was an abomination but I don’t see how 5e has done anything but right the balance.

I didn't actually say 5e made anything worse. I said it didn't go far enough in just picking it up.

Acerak is not just another lich though. His campaign was world ending and really felt like a shoe horn. Marvel has lots of heroes now lets bring Superman to the Marvel Universe. The implications would matter greatly.

I'm not just talking about D&D though. I'm talking about remakes in General whether its Movies, D&D, or other games. Every bit of our entertainment is beholden to Marketing. Forgotten Realms is the money maker so now all adventures are being thrown in there. Lord of the Rings is popular so we're just going to try to make an arbitrary show about it because it has a built in fanbase.

Im making a more general statement about the problem with entertainment whether its Rings of Power, Or a live action remake of an animation.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not just talking about D&D though. I'm talking about remakes in General whether its Movies, D&D, or other games. Every bit of our entertainment is beholden to Marketing. Forgotten Realms is the money maker so now all adventures are being thrown in there. Lord of the Rings is popular so we're just going to try to make an arbitrary show about it because it has a built in fanbase.

The thing is that to me this has always been the Forgotten Realms. And it's why I detest the Realms. There are just too many piles and piles of lore for it (with the first major retcon being the Avatar Trilogy of course). And I don't find the lore as engaging as e.g. Marvel 616.