D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[MechaPilot]

Look at Orbyn's example on Eladrin in my quoted post. Eladrin are Super-Elves who live in the Fairie plane. On surface, it'd be really easy to say "they don't fit Athas" and not allow them. Especially since they had no "historical" prescident before 4e either. Yet WotC found a way to integrate them. That is so much cooler than "Due to the lack of connection to the Feywild, there are no Eladrin on Athas".

Maybe, but it's also far less appropriate than saying "they would ordinary be excluded because Athas lacks a connection to the feywild, but here's a modified version that fits with the themes and character of the setting." If you're talking about allowing a single player to make a single Eladrin PC, you can make a virtually infinite number of excuses for how that character arrived on Athas without originating there because of all the magic in all the worlds of D&D (as I said earlier, it's just as easy as saying a character from any other Palladium game was drawn through a portal into RIFTS Earth).

There are times hardline no's cannot be avoided (orcs on Athas or Krynn for example) but those should be things that are important to the setting (such as orc's role in the game going to draconians). But I'd rather see those moments be fewer and poignant rather than "its not the way it was in 2e".

Sorry, but I have to call BS. There is no "hardline no" as it relates to the races of individual characters, for reasons I already mentioned. An orc PC fits into Krynn just as well as an Eladrin PC does to Athas. However, having a section that explains "this is why they were excluded, here is a modified version that fits with the setting, and here are ideas for bringing in PCs of that race from other settings" is inclusive, thorough, and educates people new to a setting about the intended character and feel of the setting while giving DMs tools to ignore that intent if they so choose.

Anyone who wants to use the world as it was in 2e is a PDF on DM's Guild away; the updated versions should be UPDATED.

As soon as the 2e PDFs start including mechanical update appendices for every edition that comes after, I'll agree with you on that.

The 4e Dark Sun and Eberron, 3e Realms and Dragonlance, and Arthaus Ravenloft should be the Gold Standard on how to make a setting fit with a new edition's rules. I think if WotC has any honest intention of updating those settings, they will resemble THOSE products closer* than the 1e/2e box set versions.

"Arthaus Ravenloft?" I've never head of a product called that. A quick Google search appears to indicate that you're talking about the 3e Ravenloft books. If so, I liked those books. I liked what they did with the dark lords and land masses changing (I didn't have a problem with Soth losing his domain or with that Necropolis domain nestled within Darkon), and I liked what they did with the Weathermay twins taking on Van Richten's mantle in his absence. Notably, all of those things are in keeping with the tone and character of Ravenloft.

Also, just realized this, if Van Richten were a mage he'd darn near be John Constantine. Fighting the supernatural forces of evil, loses friends and loved ones frequently during the fight, repeatedly has tragedy visited on his family by the supernatural, struck with enduring guilt.

Grow and evolve.

That's making things a bit personal don't you think? I have no problem with changes, I just want them to be in keeping with the feeling, the tone, and the character originally intended for the settings. You can play it as jumpscare slasher "horror," but Ravenloft should always be designed primarily with a gothic horror feel in mind because that is the identity of the setting.

 

[Remathilis]

,FR and Nerath to do that why defile Athas?

Isn't Athas already defiled? Isn't that the point?

 

[MechaPilot]

And they took the path that was suggested on the WoTC forums they made them optional, only 4 core races and it seems a lot of DMs do not allow them. I'm not a fan of tieflings either although they are fine in Planescape and FR to a lesser extent although I do not play modern FR timeline except for the APs and when I do I play in the 14th century.

If they updated 4E Darksun to 5E I would do the same thing I did then and not buy it. Enough gamers made that decision to bury 4E.

If you want to run around with Kender Wild Mages, and Dragonborn Paladins and Teifling Warlocks you have the core rules, FR and Nerath to do that why defile Athas?

Everything is optional Zard. The PHB and DMG are a toolkit for creating the kind of game one wants to run. You don't have to allow any one thing if you don't want to, and the books should have been explicit about that right from the jump, instead of shoving some stuff behind a curtain that illusorily makes them "double secret optional."

 

[Obryn]

The enhanced ability score, DS races and wild talents were Darksun though it was different to the PHB and that is what a campaign setting should be.

Its also the change they made to the Templars having them as arcane casters where them and the clerics drew their power from the same sources.

The Eladrin thing as I said, low magic world, teleporting elves.

At east the l4E conversion was not as bad as 4E Relams. Since they have dumped the 4Eisms of the Realms if they ever do Darksun again I am confidant they will do the right thing and Mearls is a 2E fan. 4E Darksun was not universally awful the art was decent for the most part, and the timeline idea was not without merit.

Like I said - I think you're bringing in a lot of baggage here and not looking at the material on its own merits. For one thing you can't just glide past "increased ability scores and incredibly powerful PCs" when you're complaining about healing rates.

And no, Dark Sun is not a low magic world. Where are you even getting that? Are you hanging your hat on a magic/psionics distinction here, because damn near every creature and NPC in the entire setting is throwing around psionic powers left and right. Short-ranged, infrequently-teleporting psionic Eladrin (whose teleportation isn't even arcane, so I feel comfortable calling it psionic, too) are seriously small potatoes compared to the supernatural stuff being thrown around left and right.

Nobody is defending the 4e Realms here, so I don't know why you're even bringing that up other than the aforementioned baggage.

 

[MechaPilot]

Hey you just said you've never seen it. I was just saying, "uhhhh..."

Fair enough.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm not arguing for a homogenous Eberron, or an Eberron without its own core assumptions. An Eberron or Dark Sun where gods exist, are real and living and walk among mortals FR-style is, for just a single example, not things I'd like to see in either of those settings.

An Eberron where magical items (or at least the kind of any relevance to adventurers, such as weapons or wands) are as rare as they are in core 5e (and which 5e's mechanics are centered) is of particular interest to me, because I think you could tell interesting stories in that Eberron. Furthermore, you could immediately ignore it, because the original Eberron campaign setting still exists.

I also have no interest in D&D being done only one way. I just happen to feel the exact same way about campaign settings. I'm not interested in Eberron or any D&D setting I'll play countless campaigns in being kept in a vacuum-sealed box, pristine and preserved for eternity. Ironically, for all the "nothing is canon, time never marches forward" purity inherent in Eberron, the setting actually thrives on this by providing dozens of mysteries without answers. Every campaign of Eberron should feel like a different world, but still distinctly Eberron in itself. An Eberron not cluttered by thousands of +1 swords and wands of magic missile can still be distinctly Eberron but potentially presents its own twists (with the added benefit of not throwing off 5e's maths any).

Finally, kindly knock it off with the "don't but Eberron products then" gatekeeper BS, please. It's demeaning and degrades the conversation. You don't have any more or less claim of ownership on the setting as I or anyone else here does.

If you can't buy low level magic items from a licensed guild crafted in most cities, you've changed a core, fundamental, assumption of Eberron just to make it more like core.
And I can't just simply ignore that, I have to do work to create a magic item economy, because the items are different from past editions, and the core pricing model doesn't make any sense in a world like Eberron. OTOH, you could play Eberron how you're talking in any edition, by simply...saying magic items are more rare.

Finally, I'm not gatekeeping anything. Eberron is what it is, and it's a way of playing dnd that currently has no support in 5e. Using Eberron as a vehicle to explore a different way to play dnd is more valuable than using it to explore how to play Eberron like it's FR.

 

[Obryn]

However, having a section that explains "this is why they were excluded, here is a modified version that fits with the setting, and here are ideas for bringing in PCs of that race from other settings" is inclusive, thorough, and educates people new to a setting about the intended character and feel of the setting while giving DMs tools to ignore that intent if they so choose.

That's kind of the thing, though. The races and classes you find in 2e settings are all there because they were 2e settings, and that's what was in the AD&D 2e rulebooks.

I simply don't think that's a very firm foundation for the "intended character and feel of a setting." It's not like these settings were created from whole cloth; they were created from the elements of AD&D 2e, and included them into the mix with rare exclusions. If Dragonborn and Tieflings had been a core race in 2e, they would have been addressed in the Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc. settings, too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And they took the path that was suggested on the WoTC forums they made them optional, only 4 core races and it seems a lot of DMs do not allow them. I'm not a fan of tieflings either although they are fine in Planescape and FR to a lesser extent although I do not play modern FR timeline except for the APs and when I do I play in the 14th century.

If they updated 4E Darksun to 5E I would do the same thing I did then and not buy it. Enough gamers made that decision to bury 4E.

If you want to run around with Kender Wild Mages, and Dragonborn Paladins and Teifling Warlocks you have the core rules, FR and Nerath to do that why defile Athas?

Warlocks were always appropriate to Dark Sun, and the other things don't even exist in 4e Dark Sun.

 

[MechaPilot]

That's kind of the thing, though. The races and classes you find in 2e settings are all there because they were 2e settings, and that's what was in the AD&D 2e rulebooks.

At least in part, that's accurate. Where it's inaccurate is when old races were excluded or altered to fit the character of the settings (i.e. cannibal halflings, etc).

I simply don't think that's a very firm foundation for the "intended character and feel of a setting." It's not like these settings were created from whole cloth; they were created from the elements of AD&D 2e, and included them into the mix with rare exclusions. If Dragonborn and Tieflings had been a core race in 2e, they would have been addressed in the Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Birthright, etc. settings, too.

I agree they would have been addressed. They would have either been banned outright, included, or included but modifiied. That's why I say that the best practice is probably to educate newcomers as to why certain things were modified or excluded when the setting was created, and then to provide setting relevant variants of things that would otherwise be excluded, and advice for how to include things originally intentionally excluded if the DM so chooses.

 

[Yaarel]

I feel [MENTION=82779]MechaPilot[/MENTION] spells out the solution.

A 5e update of a classic setting keeps out new races. But the update explains why these conflict with the themes and tropes of the setting. Even so, it suggests modifications that can help them integrate if the gamers (DM and players) want to include one or more of these new races.

At the same time, sometimes current options that did not yet exist when the classic setting was available, might cohere well or even improve it. Then the update can explain why it recommends that the updated setting adopt these innovations.