D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[Gradine]

For whatever good world-building it provides, hacking away at character options from the PHB for official setting books is terrible business sense. You don't sell a customer base a product, and then sell a second product that renders half of the previous product irrelevant (while still requiring its use).

@Remathilis has the right of it, at least as far as published settings go. Replacing and re-flavoring should be the order the day. New sub-races and new sub-classes that reflect the nature and flavor of the setting. Also offer guidelines for re-flavoring character options to make them fit the setting. A Warlock might be a completely different reflection of what would otherwise be called a Druid, or a Templar dedicated to the service of a Sorcerer-King, or a Defiler who would see the world burn to rule over the ashes. A Paladin might be a reflection of a psionic warrior, drawing upon their own power to smite their foes.

The flipside of this is that there should also be some guidelines as to how the setting operates traditionally. For the classic flavor of this setting, the DM should restrict these races, these classes, these options. Something that empowers a DM to run the setting as true to its origins as possible. This should not be the default of any officially released setting, but should definitely be an explicit and well-detailed option for play that lets each group decide how their expression of the setting should be.

I get that in an ideal world these would be reversed (the default is the canon, no half-orcs in Krynn ftw), but as a business decision it's a no-brainer. The majority of gamers are not going to be happy with a product that makes them toss away half their PHB. I think, as long as whatever form the setting takes place in gives something a little more detailed than a mere token gesture to long-time fans of the setting, shows that there's some level of respect for what has come before beyond "Now there's Dragonborn and Tieflings in Eberron, enjoy."

 

[robus]

[MENTION=57112]Gradine[/MENTION], you're probably right, but that doesn't mean we have to like it

 

[Mouseferatu]

I would counter, though, that if you go that route, you will lose some of the audience who aren't interested in a thematically "watered down" version of their setting.

The trick is to walk that narrow pathway that displeases the fewest of each chunk of audience. Now you're probably (and, IMO, unfortunately) correct that if you must piss off one or the other, you'll probably lose fewer of the die-hard fans if you make the settings more generic than you will the casual fans if you make them too restrictive. But I still feel that there's a middle ground that includes some level of omission/restriction, even if not as much as some die-hards would prefer.

 

[Shasarak]

I think what they plan is to have the different settings more interconnected then before, like they have, already done with Ravenloft and FR, so you could start you adventure in FR, get pulled into Ravenloft by the Mists, that deposit you in Athas, where you take a Spelljammer to Krynn and when your done their usa planeshift spell to go to Sigil and from Sigil exit a portal to Oerth, and after some fun their, get the Wizard Mordkiedien to take you back to the Forgotten Realms, in Kara Tur, where you sail to Zakhara, land of Al Qadim, where you adventure till you set sail again to Faerun, where you started.

That sounds like it is going to take a huge Hardback. I would hate to have to pay the shipping on that sucker.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would counter, though, that if you go that route, you will lose some of the audience who aren't interested in a thematically "watered down" version of their setting.

The trick is to walk that narrow pathway that displeases the fewest of each chunk of audience. Now you're probably (and, IMO, unfortunately) correct that if you must piss off one or the other, you'll probably lose fewer of the die-hard fans if you make the settings more generic than you will the casual fans if you make them too restrictive. But I still feel that there's a middle ground that includes some level of omission/restriction, even if not as much as some die-hards would prefer.

The casuals may not care as they would probably not rememebr the originals or have played them. The casuals are also already catered to with FR.

 

[MechaPilot]

I see people attempting to draw a "homebrew" vs "official product" distinction, but the arguments for that distinction are non-persuasive to me.

Litterally every D&D product or resource is homebrew in that's it's produced by fans of D&D, many of them having decades of experience with the game (Note: I will continue to use homebrew to refer to things made by non-publishers, because that's how I see it's typical usage). That some of those fans happen to work for WotC changes nothing. Mearls et al have, generally, made a quality product in 5e, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out that, in some cases, homebrew material is of a higher quality and is less prone to abuse than official material. When a player wants to use a new option at my table, I don't care if the entire staff of WotC held it aloft on a mountaintop and blessed it like Simba from the Lion King, I'm going to review it before allowing it because WotC is just as fallible as the next person. To their credit, I usually have no problem with upwards of 90% of the options they present.

This is equally true of settings. Whether a setting comes from WotC or someone else, what matters is that it's interesting, fun to play in, and has its own character and feel. There's literally no point to making a setting that's "FR, plus X, Y, & Z." They might as well just make an FR sourcebook or an FR article with X, Y, & Z in it and save the wasted time of making up a setting around them.

I have two homebrew settings of my own (Tenesia, and Wildwood). One day, I'd love to see them published. But, if I were given the choice of publishing Tenesia with the PHB races or keeping the races it has and not publishing it at all (or only publishing it in a free or pay-what-you-want PDF) I'd choose the latter every day of the week. The altered races are a huge part of Tenesia's identity in that they feed into the themes of the setting. The same is true with Wildwood and the changes in that setting.

And yes, I know WotC is trying to make money on their settings and I'm not (though I'd love it if I could). However, art (and writing is an art) requires some element of creating something different and taking a risk that some people might not like it. If you don't create something different, then the whole thing becomes a gray morass where innovation and original thought is subverted in the name of doing what's safe. That's how you get art that obeys all the tired old tropes and doesn't surprise you or make you think.

 

[Hussar]

There's a second aspect to these settings that we've been alluding to, but, not really talking about - what constitutes the canon for that setting?

Earlier, there was talk about when was Athas cut off from the greater Multiverse. I'm not a DS fan, so, I can't answer that. But, considering that changes to the setting were pretty ongoing and pretty broad, what makes Dark Sun, Dark Sun will be quite different for different people. And that's in a setting that didn't have all that many supplements.

I've had the go around with Dragonlance a few times recently. Is Dragonlance basically the War of the Lance material or is it the full boat all the way through the Margaret Weiss Productions years. To me, that DL isn't even recognizable. They changed so much in the setting, that I completely lost interest.

So, if you're updating an older setting, where do you draw the line? Greyhawk Wars was pretty divisive, so, do we simply update the old boxed set and invalidate all the later canon? Well, that didn't work too well in 4e when they tried to do a soft reset with Forgotten Realms.

I really can't blame them for holding off on updating settings. It appears to be a very risky endeavor with not a whole lot of upside.

Like, for me, I only ever played Dark Sun in 4e. It seemed pretty Dark Sun to me. But, apparently, according to several in this thread, I was playing a poor substitute and not the "Real Man's" Darksun. I dunno. Seemed okay to me.

And that's the issue that's going to happen every time they try to update the setting. There is going to be this massive backlash from hard core fans that will be completely unwilling to compromise on anything.

 

[Hussar]

A later thought.

I guess the basic question to me is, how far do you go to accommodate existing fans?

There's a pretty large chunk of 5e gamers that have started with 5e. Their knowledge of these older settings, if they know at all, is likely pretty sketchy. They might know that Dark Sun is that desert setting with no gods and a honking big dragon. Beyond that, they probably don't know much else. So, do we follow old canon and satisfy older fans of the setting who know the difference between one supplement or another, or do you cater to newer fans who probably have never even heard of Windriders of the Jagged Cliffs (just to pick a random supplement)?

 

[Zardnaar]

There's a second aspect to these settings that we've been alluding to, but, not really talking about - what constitutes the canon for that setting?

Earlier, there was talk about when was Athas cut off from the greater Multiverse. I'm not a DS fan, so, I can't answer that. But, considering that changes to the setting were pretty ongoing and pretty broad, what makes Dark Sun, Dark Sun will be quite different for different people. And that's in a setting that didn't have all that many supplements.

I've had the go around with Dragonlance a few times recently. Is Dragonlance basically the War of the Lance material or is it the full boat all the way through the Margaret Weiss Productions years. To me, that DL isn't even recognizable. They changed so much in the setting, that I completely lost interest.

So, if you're updating an older setting, where do you draw the line? Greyhawk Wars was pretty divisive, so, do we simply update the old boxed set and invalidate all the later canon? Well, that didn't work too well in 4e when they tried to do a soft reset with Forgotten Realms.

I really can't blame them for holding off on updating settings. It appears to be a very risky endeavor with not a whole lot of upside.

Like, for me, I only ever played Dark Sun in 4e. It seemed pretty Dark Sun to me. But, apparently, according to several in this thread, I was playing a poor substitute and not the "Real Man's" Darksun. I dunno. Seemed okay to me.

And that's the issue that's going to happen every time they try to update the setting. There is going to be this massive backlash from hard core fans that will be completely unwilling to compromise on anything.

Its why I said they should update the originals as best as they can. TSR metaplot ruined a few of those worlds with Krynn being a prime example so I think they should focus on the War of the Lance era for that. I gave up on Dragonlance after Dragons of Summer Flame.

A lot of new players under the age of 30 or even 40 would never have got to experience the campaign settings before they got blown up. you can always include the metaplot yourself if you liked it.Every setting had metaplot world shaking events (Unhuman Wars, Greyhawk Wars, Grand Conjunction, Prism Pentad, Time ofTroubles etc).

 

[MechaPilot]

And that's the issue that's going to happen every time they try to update the setting. There is going to be this massive backlash from hard core fans that will be completely unwilling to compromise on anything.

I can't say I agree with that. If all they are trying to do is update a setting to the new edition, then they just need to deal with the crunchy bits that were altered as a result of rules that changed when the edition changed.