D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[Zardnaar]

Mods here are fairly chill and I have that compromising picture of Morrus with that half Orc mistress of his.

Darksun water was really not a major problem for us, it did change the way we played though. Almost always had multiple sources of water/food.

1. Usually had a water cleric in 2E and 3E.
2. Everyone had the water/food finding proficiency
3. Half giant had a barrel of water they bought in Tyr/Urik strapped to his back.

 

[neobolts]

I would love to have a single multi-setting book, i.e. "NAMEHERE's Guide to the Multiverse".

The basic format would be a 250-ish page hardcover.
The first 100 or so pages would be a Manual of the Planes rehash, with the spelljamming rules as well.
After that, the final 150 pages would be a 15 page gazetteer for each of 10 selected campaign setting used in the past (ex: Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eberron, Mystara, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Maztica). Each setting entry would have a map, world overview, entries for the unique races of the setting (warforged, kender, etc), and any other essential crunch elements to run that world (dragonmarks, defilers, etc).

This would serve the audience well in four ways.

• First, it would serve as a Manual of the Planes and allow for the "Stargate SG-1" type campaign where a planar party drops in or various worlds.
• Second, it would provide a great starting point for players to run a campaign in one of the these setting and draw on the wealth of older material republished on DMs Guild.
• Third, it would simply be a good read...a nostalgia fueled trip through the history of D&D campaign setting.
• Fourth, it would not fracture the player base and would tie in with the current "X's Guide to Y" line. WotC could even open the book by devoting a page or so to how to run a campaign of Sword Coast natives that plane hop (to better integrate with existing product and keep the brand solvent).

 

[Coroc]

But, that's the thing. If you kill a large creature, for example, food stops being an issue for quite a long time. Figure something big, say, about a ton. That's enough food for the party for weeks, presuming they spend the time curing it and whatnot. And it's not like big critters are all that rare. So, does it really matter that much if one PC doesn't need to eat? The rest of the party still does.

It's like having a flying PC. Sure, that PC can do stuff that other PC's can't. But, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter that the PC can fly if everyone else is walking. You still need to climb that cliff, make a boat to sail over that river, whatever.

Now, a PC that could make food and water for everyone? Sure, that's a problem. But, one that isn't terribly concerned with weapons, but, instead has unarmed attacks? Considering Dark Sun has Thri-Kreen which come equipped with natural attacks, I'm not seeing how a monk is that big of a deal.

Or, put it another way. If the challenges of your campaign are that easy to get around, perhaps that isn't as much of a challenge as you think.

Dear [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION],

I will try to show my view with a comparison (no not cars )
I do not DM. FR atm I did back in 2e and I enjoyed it. It had Drow, Underdark, MAgic dead and Wildmagic zones, Waterdeep detailed out a good city boxed set, undermountain etc.

I play in FR atm Out of the abyss and I enjoy it. But would I to be dming FR I would use my old 2e grey box stuff and convert it.

I am no way an absolute canon freak. But I loved the diversity of the settings DS RL Krynn FR back in 2e. Each had its own super special features yes even FR. These days they warm up old stories like they do with many films and try to fit them into FR. For some of the vanilla content it is no big problem e.g. ToEE and such pretty generic things.

But imagine this philosophy "One world - everything goes" would be applied to a redo of darksun in the form of putting it into the anauroch desert. Every race class paladins whatever can be played. Otoh you now have cannibalistic halflings running through Waterdeep the Lords of the city will surely be tolerant in the name of no restriction.

I think í do not have to be clearer in what I mean, a setting is in part defined in how restrictive it might be on certain issues may that be no orcs , no water for DS, magic of the moons for krynn, paladins are like a shining lighthouse to domain lords in RL etc. And it is what gave these settings an unique feel to dm or play within, it was not your usual tool box or assumptions it was different and it was and still is great.

Let us instead of accelerating WOTCs "Lets take the best of old setting and put it into the realms (Ironically CoS with Bavoria is located in the FR when it still was on the prime!)" think about creative ways to make DS possible with the absolutely great 5E ruleset.

Lets think about whether Templar should be WL or Cleric or if a new subclass for barb is a good approach to Gladiator class, or how to implement halfgiants and thrikreen those issues still give me headaches, but instead the discussion here is how to shoehorn drow and dragonborn to a setting where they would fit like we say in Germany "like a fist to the eye"

 

[hawkeyefan]

This might be kind of divergent, but the earlier talk of themes and denying options is the part of this discussion that just sticks out to me the most.

I've been planning to run a game this fall where the players are shipwrecked on a deserted island and must survive with limited supplies and zero access to other people for the vast majority of the short campaign (college game so we go by semester).

Obviously I need to tell my players what the campaign is going to be about, so they will know this information.

In the spirit of keeping the themes of survival should I tell them that I am banning Bards, Druids, Outlanders, Totem Barbarians, and Rangers? Should I encourage any rogues to not take expertise in survival? Because all of these would make it much easier for them to survive in the forest on the island for an extended period of time.

I mean, let's narrow this discussion down to a campaign specific discussion, because most settings only get used in one campaign and then people switch to another for a while.

If you were planning a classic "escaped prisoners/slaves" game, where starting with zero weapons and armor is the point will you deny monks and barbarians at the table? Do you ban clerics and paladins in games featuring major undead themes?

It seems to me, that your only telling people "sorry, you would shine in this game so I can't let you play that character." which seems kind of the worst reason to ban options for players.

Those are some good questions. I think you have to look at it from the vantage of what is to be gained or lost.

If you limit the classes so strictly, you gain what? An increase in survival challenges? But you lose about 5 of the core classes....so that's pretty severe.

So instead, see if you can work out something else that increases difficulty of survival challenges. You can always simply raise DCs, although that may backfire by govig one PC a shot at success and the rest pretty much an autofail.

Would there be some other way to make survival a compelling part of the game beyond Survival Slill Checks? I'd not worry so much about having PCs who are skilled as I would designing encounters and challenges that evoke that dangerous environment vibe you want.

So not so much a high DC skill check to see if they can find a clean water source...but instead finding the source in the hands of enemies, or having to defend it from enemies. Have one of the PCs get poisoned by some creature, and the Bard knows that there's a plant that can cure the poison, but it only grows on the craggly mountain near the center of the island.

I think it'd be better to approach the idea from that angle rather than to restrict class choices. This way, you actually can highlight the characters that are skilled in Survival and related lore, which means they're interacting and exploring their environment instead of simply being defeated by it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It is not about not letting ppl shine it is about trivializing a challenge.

I guess there is a little bit of player perception here as well. But, certain class/race/background options really are hard counters to certain styles of challenges, while others are minor counters.

Hard to come by weapons, Monk isn’t hurt nearly as much as other classes, though being stuck with 1d4 for their damage dice the first few levels may also be kind of hurtful. Of course, alternatively, how many games are run where the players spend more than a session or two with zero weapon options? Once everyone has daggers or better the monk is doing fine, and spellcaster cantrips are generally even better than monk unarmed fighting unless there is also a restriction on their ability to cast.


But, run a “forest survival game” and a player brings a wood elf Outlander Ranger to the table, they’ve got a character who is supposed to thrive in the environment you’ve presented. This is exactly what they are built to handle, so doesn’t it feel a little bit wrong to ban them for that exact reason?

Where is the line between “I cannot use the challenges I planned on” and “I don’t want the players to have characters built to handle the challenges I planned on”

But imagine this philosophy "One world - everything goes" would be applied to a redo of darksun in the form of putting it into the anauroch desert. Every race class paladins whatever can be played. Otoh you now have cannibalistic halflings running through Waterdeep the Lords of the city will surely be tolerant in the name of no restriction.

I think í do not have to be clearer in what I mean, a setting is in part defined in how restrictive it might be on certain issues may that be no orcs , no water for DS, magic of the moons for krynn, paladins are like a shining lighthouse to domain lords in RL etc. And it is what gave these settings an unique feel to dm or play within, it was not your usual tool box or assumptions it was different and it was and still is great.

Let us instead of accelerating WOTCs "Lets take the best of old setting and put it into the realms (Ironically CoS with Bavoria is located in the FR when it still was on the prime!)" think about creative ways to make DS possible with the absolutely great 5E ruleset.

Lets think about whether Templar should be WL or Cleric or if a new subclass for barb is a good approach to Gladiator class, or how to implement halfgiants and thrikreen those issues still give me headaches, but instead the discussion here is how to shoehorn drow and dragonborn to a setting where they would fit like we say in Germany "like a fist to the eye"

But that isn’t…. ugh, so many different discussions to follow.

The line I brought up and Hussar was responding to is the restriction of things like Monks from Darksun “because they overcome many of the traditional challenges”. Not that they don’t fit in the setting, but that they are actually too good in the setting to be allowed.


That isn’t to say I want everything in Darksun. When I was introduced to the setting (through my first 4e game… I think my only major 4e game as a player as well) one of the big things that was driven home by my DM is that Athas is a land without Gods, the gods are dead, and therefore there are no clerics within Athas. And a restriction like “no clerics” not only makes the setting fairly unique in my eyes, but it does not harm the basic functions of the party. Bards and Druids and Rangers can still act as healing and buffing sources, so losing clerics isn’t going to massively change the balance of the game and it makes sense in the world. You could also so there are no fighters in Athas, but while the game balance isn’t affected the lore of that statement is… non-existent. Why would there be no fighters? In fact, could you ever come up with a setting where “there are no fighters” make sense?

And then we get to the difference between hard banning and soft banning. Personally, I’d place a soft ban on Druids in Darksun. Sure, they make sense as there are sections of the world where nature still fights back, but they should be incredibly rare. I’d encourage players to pick something else if they wouldn’t mind, because the feel of a desolate wasteland is much different when you have a person capable of drawing on a massive well of natural power.

If I sat at a table and someone said “No warforged in my Darksun game” I’d be perfectly fine with it, it makes sense as a restriction to generally have no warforged because they require a lot of support in world for them to be a major “race”. But, if I had a player who desperately wanted to play a warforged… I can find a way to get a sentient golem to fit into the setting without it causing everything to fall apart or to require them to come from another plane of existence (I HATE that explanation for why a character is in the world)


I guess, to summarize a lot of thoughts, there is a difference between omitting an option and banning an option. I have never had a cleric played in any of my games, no player ever wants to play a cleric in my world, I’ve also never had a dwarven player in my game.

So, if the rules don’t explicitly ban an option, but instead leave that consideration to the DM, then I think I’d be cool with it. But, I also might appreciate for an official setting, if there was a section (perhaps towards the back) where they said “IF you really want to add this race or class to this setting, here is where it will cause the least amount of disruption” because that will help DMs who are new to the setting. Spell it out as optional, and then let people do what they want with it.

 

[Coroc]

I guess there is a little bit of player perception here as well. But, certain class/race/background options really are hard counters to certain styles of challenges, while others are minor counters.

Hard to come by weapons, Monk isn’t hurt nearly as much as other classes, though being stuck with 1d4 for their damage dice the first few levels may also be kind of hurtful. Of course, alternatively, how many games are run where the players spend more than a session or two with zero weapon options? Once everyone has daggers or better the monk is doing fine, and spellcaster cantrips are generally even better than monk unarmed fighting unless there is also a restriction on their ability to cast.


But, run a “forest survival game” and a player brings a wood elf Outlander Ranger to the table, they’ve got a character who is supposed to thrive in the environment you’ve presented. This is exactly what they are built to handle, so doesn’t it feel a little bit wrong to ban them for that exact reason?

Where is the line between “I cannot use the challenges I planned on” and “I don’t want the players to have characters built to handle the challenges I planned on”




But that isn’t…. ugh, so many different discussions to follow.

The line I brought up and Hussar was responding to is the restriction of things like Monks from Darksun “because they overcome many of the traditional challenges”. Not that they don’t fit in the setting, but that they are actually too good in the setting to be allowed.


That isn’t to say I want everything in Darksun. When I was introduced to the setting (through my first 4e game… I think my only major 4e game as a player as well) one of the big things that was driven home by my DM is that Athas is a land without Gods, the gods are dead, and therefore there are no clerics within Athas. And a restriction like “no clerics” not only makes the setting fairly unique in my eyes, but it does not harm the basic functions of the party. Bards and Druids and Rangers can still act as healing and buffing sources, so losing clerics isn’t going to massively change the balance of the game and it makes sense in the world. You could also so there are no fighters in Athas, but while the game balance isn’t affected the lore of that statement is… non-existent. Why would there be no fighters? In fact, could you ever come up with a setting where “there are no fighters” make sense?

And then we get to the difference between hard banning and soft banning. Personally, I’d place a soft ban on Druids in Darksun. Sure, they make sense as there are sections of the world where nature still fights back, but they should be incredibly rare. I’d encourage players to pick something else if they wouldn’t mind, because the feel of a desolate wasteland is much different when you have a person capable of drawing on a massive well of natural power.

If I sat at a table and someone said “No warforged in my Darksun game” I’d be perfectly fine with it, it makes sense as a restriction to generally have no warforged because they require a lot of support in world for them to be a major “race”. But, if I had a player who desperately wanted to play a warforged… I can find a way to get a sentient golem to fit into the setting without it causing everything to fall apart or to require them to come from another plane of existence (I HATE that explanation for why a character is in the world)


I guess, to summarize a lot of thoughts, there is a difference between omitting an option and banning an option. I have never had a cleric played in any of my games, no player ever wants to play a cleric in my world, I’ve also never had a dwarven player in my game.

So, if the rules don’t explicitly ban an option, but instead leave that consideration to the DM, then I think I’d be cool with it. But, I also might appreciate for an official setting, if there was a section (perhaps towards the back) where they said “IF you really want to add this race or class to this setting, here is where it will cause the least amount of disruption” because that will help DMs who are new to the setting. Spell it out as optional, and then let people do what they want with it.

I do it this way. I talk with my players beforehand. But e.g. I want to dm darksun and one of my players says "I want to play a halforc" (not likely) and I say to him (very likely that I would do it like that for DS 5e conversion): "hm very difficult to shoehorn since genocided, but here you got the mul, play him as chaotic as you like he is mechanically absolutely identic to a PHB halforc its just different fluff", would that be fair game? I mean knowing my players they all would agree to that I think, but do you got players who would say:" ah no I want to name it halforc and I am not interested in playing this campaign because there are no orcs" ? I guess the answer is no, but what do you say?

 

[GreenTengu]

While I get that there are always going to be fans of settings that existed before this point in time, I always have to be concerned (especially after 4th Edition and the "spell plague") whether revisiting previously crafted settings might inevitably led to the devaluation and destruction of those settings.

Would it not possibly be better to leave the old settings be and leave it to the fan community to update them to the newest edition of D&D and instead focus on creating absolutely new and unique settings of their own? Why should the limit on new setting creation have expired in 1984 and no one is allowed to evolve beyond that?

 

[KahlessNestor]

While I get that there are always going to be fans of settings that existed before this point in time, I always have to be concerned (especially after 4th Edition and the "spell plague") whether revisiting previously crafted settings might inevitably led to the devaluation and destruction of those settings.

Would it not possibly be better to leave the old settings be and leave it to the fan community to update them to the newest edition of D&D and instead focus on creating absolutely new and unique settings of their own? Why should the limit on new setting creation have expired in 1984 and no one is allowed to evolve beyond that?

Part of it is if they don’t do something with it then they lose trademark, and hence money and control. Plus the desire for officiality.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[hawkeyefan]

While I get that there are always going to be fans of settings that existed before this point in time, I always have to be concerned (especially after 4th Edition and the "spell plague") whether revisiting previously crafted settings might inevitably led to the devaluation and destruction of those settings.

Would it not possibly be better to leave the old settings be and leave it to the fan community to update them to the newest edition of D&D and instead focus on creating absolutely new and unique settings of their own? Why should the limit on new setting creation have expired in 1984 and no one is allowed to evolve beyond that?

While I agree with you on the second point, and would welcome new settings if that's the route WotC decided to go, I cannot see them abandoning their existing Intellectual Properties. I get what you're saying...my canpaign is using lots of material from prior settings (Greyhawk, Planescape, Dark Sun, as well as Realms stuff) and I'm capable of using the old material to make things work. But I have no idea that WotC will put the settings to use in some way that maintains their ownership.

 

[Zardnaar]

Isn't it something like 75 years for copyright?