Mike Mearls tweet: Is the Known World of Mystara coming to 5e? (What's Cool About Mystara?)

[The Glen]

Well let's be honest, who doesn't the Glantrians dissect? It's their formal introduction of choice.

The one thing I learned converting Mystara to Fifth was dealing with a large number of disconnects in the modules. So many of the gazeteers included bits of history or mechanics that are never mentioned or explained in any other sourcebook. Ethengar for example mentions how important the spirit world is in Mystara, even having a class devoted to them. However spirits are never mentioned again in any other source. Northern Reaches gives us runes and Modrigswerg, again only mentioned there. It's hard enough to balance the options in each gazeteer, trying to put them into 5E required some serious tweaking.

There's a lot in Mystara's history that gives it flavor but doesn't work with all of 5E. There are no drow at all. You've got shadow elves, but they share no traits at all. They aren't more magical, they don't take sunlight penalties, they aren't normally evil or even dark skinned. The Mystara dwarves as discussed are extremely magic resistant at the cost of being unable to use arcane magic. This makes them unique, they aren't just Forgotten Realms dwarves shoehorned into every setting. I don't mind the lack of variety as long as it pushes the narrative. Rockborn dwarves are borderline xenophobic, too often blinded by greed, and tend to fill the arcane engineer role normally filled in other settings by gnomes. Elves Mystara has in droves. You've got not just the elves of alfheim and the shadow elves, but you've got Belcadiz in Glantri, Water elves of Minrothad, the Vyalia in Thyatis and several others that you can use existing rules for. As far as the half races, in most of the canon half races require pretty much divine intervention to create an actual new race. Take the N'djatwa, which were merged by two different immortals. The half elves of the Savage Coast were effected by the Immortal powered Red Curse, keeping with the theme. The fact the races aren't very genetically compatable makes them much more unique than the regular settings. Settings without specific species is the norm in D&D, Mystara should be no different.

 

[The Glen]

• Forest Elf (the term "forest elf" is used in at least one of the Gazetteers to refer to the "generic" elf of Mystara)
• Shadowelf
• Rockborn Dwarf
• Shire Hin
• Mongrel Lupin
• Alley Rakasta
• Tortle (I don't have Bruce Heard's tortle article in front of me; what's the generic tortle breed called?)

As far as the lupin/rakasta go, there are several subraces that were presented in Dragon Magazine, but they were so numerous as to be not good to convert to 5th. There's about 2 dozen lupin variants all based on real dog breeds. When I converted them I just went with small/medium/large for lupins and domestic/feral/greater for Rakasta. The Hin and Rockhome dwarves are the only sub races in Mystara at least presented in the game. The hin are largely concentrated in a single area, and the Rockhome dwarves were specially created to survive the Great Rain of Fire that seemingly killed off the other dwarves. There is only one type of Tortle in Mystara, unless you count the Snapper but that's just a meaner and evil version of it.

I added the sidhe and phanaton to the Mystara Player's Handbook, since the Sidhe in Tall Tales of the Wee Folk were a very iconic race and one of the best written. Phanaton came from Isle of Dread and were reprinted as a playable race in other books as well. Orcs of Thar gave you all the humanoid races as playable, but it was hammered home that they are not welcome in civilized lands and they don't want to be. Gnolls are pretty much shot on sight in Karameikos for example. The creature crucibles also added about 3 dozen playable monster races, to varying success. The sphinx for example was a bit of a joke since you were stuck at 2d8 hp for 3,000,000 xp.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Talking 5E for Mystara

Edit: I added the Diaboli to the OP as a suggested "core Mystaran" subrace. (BTW, I made them a Human subrace!)

As for converting BECMI to 5E...

Guachi said:

"Mystara was very additive and only rarely subtractive."

Remathilis said:

"The world is generic enough that I could see dragonborn, tieflings, half-orcs, warlocks, sorcerers, and such fitting in with little problem."

The Glen said:

"I actual prefer Mystara with restrictions based on its history."

Havard said:

"Many things from the BECMI rules are closely woven into the setting. Removing all of those features would leave you with the rather bland version of the setting that appeared in its 2E form."

These are all good points. And good examples all around.

First of all, let's be conscious that when converting a world to another rules system, there is a spectrum of approaches. Anyone who's converting Mystara to 5E (or any other rules set) has to choose exactly what spot on the spectrum feels right. Converting a setting is both an art and a science.

• One pole would model BECMI Mystara setting *exactly*, even to the extent of severely bending the 5E rules.
• The other pole would stick to the 5E rules system *exactly*, even to the extent of severely bending the Mystara setting.

Though the "best" conversion surely wouldn't stick totally to either of those poles, the exact middle isn't necessarily the best...sometimes the middle is just a compromised wishy-washy mediocrity. To make a conversion that really captures the essential gesture of Mystara, while fully utilizing the 5E mechanics (and 5E customer expectations), would take a deep "scientific" knowledge of the setting and both rules sets, plus an equal amount of artistic sensibility or inspiration.

If WotC (or we) had all the time and resources in the world, ideally, WotC/we could release various versions of 5E Mystara, each with a slightly different gradation, suited to each customer's favorite spot on the spectrum. We'd release one version of 5E Mystara that respected the letter of every bit of fluff which justified the BECMI rules (e.g. Dwarves cannot cast arcane magic), and where there were no Dragonborn or Sorcerers or Warlocks at all (e.g. in-story fluff says you can't cast spells in Mystara without a spellbook!)...and this pole would even make 5E Mystara have 36 character levels, since there are in-story implications of having 36 levels instead of 20, since, IIRC the Plane of Mazakeen (sp?) has 36 levels which correspond to the 36 character levels!

And we'd also release another version of 5E Mystara where everything in 5E has a place, and the fluff is completely rewritten. And we'd release various other versions 5E Mystaras in between, which catered to all tastes on the spectrum.

But WotC (and we) do not have all the time in the world. Whoever does a 5E conversion has to make artistic/scientific decisions about what feels right, taking into account who are their audience/customers.

The concept of rules edition-based Realities:

One thing that frees up some design space in my mind is the concept of "game universes" (a.k.a. Realities) which Bruce Heard described in his "Up, Away, and Beyond" article in DRAGON mag. He says that the BECMI D&D "game universe" is in a completely different Reality than the AD&D "game universe". They are two totally different Realities...two totally different Multiverses. A character can only cross from one Reality to another by invoking a Reality Shift, granted by a Greater God of the AD&D Reality or a high-level Immortal of the BECMI Reality.

Bruce wrote this before Mystara 2E came out. But to take his thought further, surely the Mystara we saw in 2E products was a depiction of the other Mystara which dwells in the "Second Edition Reality". In that Reality, all AD&D worlds are part of the Great Wheel.

Presumably, the two Realities are nearly identical, but do have "as minimal as feasible" (but still significant) in-story fluff differences which are necessitated by the two different "game universes" (rules systems). For example, we found out that a few of the Thief NPCs from PWA were really Bards in the 2E PWA. And a few of the Fighter NPCs were really Rangers or Paladins. (This can help inform us about the BECMI version too...since the "bardic" Thief probably does play an instrument and have the musical skill in the BECMI Reality, even if they don't have Bard class abilities or Bardic spells in that Reality. And the "ranger" Fighter probably has the tracking and hunting skills in the BECMI Reality, and the "paladin" Fighter (even if they're less than Name-Level) is probably a knight-like follower of a Lawful Immortal, even if they don't have the Ranger or Paladin class abilities in that Reality.)

Anyway, just to say, in accordance with Bruce Heard's article, the 5E D&D Multiverse, too, must be an entirely different Reality than the BECMI Multiverse. And so, in this Reality, not only will the "rules system" be different, there will be a certain amount of fluff (in-story) changes. Without publishing an entire 5E conversion myself (thank you Glen!), I can't say exactly where I'd draw the line, but I offer that the Realities concept does provide a "canonical" explanation of why the 5E Mystara may actually have in-story differences. It gives the converter a bit of "design space". For example, there must be some in-story fluff about how Sorcerers and Warlocks fit into 5E Mystara (and presumably always have, since 5E Mystara has "always existed" in that Reality). And as for Dwarven arcane magic, the converter could say that the story about Dwarves survival of Blackmoor happened somewhat differently, and resulted only in a cultural aversion to magic, not a physical resistance to magic. (Or not. I kinda like the idea of giving the 5E Rockborn Dwarf magic resistance, but I'm just giving that as an example.)

Isn't the concept of "rules system" Realities helpful?

 

[cbwjm]

One thing about Mystara is that it is actually very easy to fit in the newer races if you really want to. There have been a number of races that have arrived from different dimensions, elves came from the sylvan realm (I think of this as the Feywild, but I'm not 100% sure this is a different dimension or just somewhere else in the known world), Alphatians from their own dimension, diaboli from the nightmare dimension. Alphatian history has a battle between the followers of air and fire, so it makes sense to me that genasi could have been fairly common with the current empire having more than their fair share of air genasi. The Flaems in Glantri are the descendants of the followers of flame and could have a proportion of fire genasi.

If you want to have dragonborn in the world then a similar event could have happened. A rift opens and a 1000s of dragonborn flee into the world escaping an unknown event that decimated their world. They then set about establishing themselves in this new land.

Immortals have made races in the past, it might not be too surprising to find that Goliaths were crafted from the mountains they call home by an immortal who desires a stronger race of followers more suited to his temperament.

Tieflings could be the result of a wizard experimenting with infusing humans with the sphere of entropy. In this case the tiefling may be unique in the world.

Having said that, I do like the feel of restrictions, saying what races don't exist can make the world just as interesting as throwing in anything and everything and considering all of the races that are fairly unique to Mystara, it seems that there would be plenty of them to keep players occupied anyway.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The Mystara dwarves as discussed are extremely magic resistant at the cost of being unable to use arcane magic. This makes them unique, they aren't just Forgotten Realms dwarves shoehorned into every setting.

Greyhawk dwarves shoehorned into every setting is what you mean, right? Hill, Mountain, and Gray Dwarves predate the Forgotten Realms by quite a bit. And if you're meaning "dwarves who are more prone to use arcane magic than they were at the beginnings of D&D", that's a 3e change, when Greyhawk was again the closest thing to a default setting....

 

[Paul Farquhar]

elves came from the sylvan realm (I think of this as the Feywild, but I'm not 100% sure this is a different dimension or just somewhere else in the known world]

There was no Feywild as such in BECMI or 2nd edition. It came in round about 3.5.

 

[cbwjm]

There was no Feywild as such in BECMI or 2nd edition. It came in round about 3.5.

I didn't say it was, just that's how I think of it. I can't recall much about it, there may not have been much even written about it and if I wanted to fit it into Mystara, using the sylvan realm as the mystaran analogue would be the way I'd do it.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=6788732]cbwjm[/MENTION] #84 Your ideas to "shoehorn" different races into a classic Setting are great, also for DMs who want to do something like that with their official or homebrewed setting, but let me ask you and the rest of the Forum (although it had been asked before): Is this the biggest Problem we got in converting new Settings to 5e?

Maybe i do not see things like that because i get old and stubborn but for me the biggest Goal to achieve when converting classics like DS, ebberon, DL or Mystara to 5e is:

Do i get the same feel from the Setting like when i played it Long ago with a different Version of the rules and would even someone not familar with the Setting back then but starting to Play it with a 5e conversion get the same vibe?

That is the hardest Thing to achieve and imho this requires something which seems to be outlawed by at least some of the Forum These days:

Cut it out, leave it, do not allow it, restrict reduce: classes, spells, equipment allowed/ available, Combos, alignments etc etc.

E.G.:
Atm if i had to do a DS conversion to 5e halfgiants would not be included in the playable races because i have not found any means to make them fit both fluff and mechanics (yet). That makes the conversion loose some options but stay true to the Feeling and BA of 5e at the same time. Halfgiants would still exist as NPC or Mobs.

Otoh in my example: What i would not care the least about is: Can i somehow shoehorn tieflings as playable race into a DS conversion because simply they are
NOT NEEDED FOR THE FEEL of the Setting.

 

[Demetrios1453]

There was no Feywild as such in BECMI or 2nd edition. It came in round about 3.5.

There was a proto-Feywild in the Seelie Court, in that it was its own plane that wasn't quite connected to the other planes in the normal way. Of course, in 2e it was accessible from several Outer Planes (most notably the Beastlands, Arborea, and Ysgard) instead of the Material Plane, but otherwise is was fairly similar...

 

[Remathilis]

[MENTION=6788732]cbwjm[/MENTION] #84 Your ideas to "shoehorn" different races into a classic Setting are great, also for DMs who want to do something like that with their official or homebrewed setting, but let me ask you and the rest of the Forum (although it had been asked before): Is this the biggest Problem we got in converting new Settings to 5e?

Maybe i do not see things like that because i get old and stubborn but for me the biggest Goal to achieve when converting classics like DS, ebberon, DL or Mystara to 5e is:

Do i get the same feel from the Setting like when i played it Long ago with a different Version of the rules and would even someone not familar with the Setting back then but starting to Play it with a 5e conversion get the same vibe?

That is the hardest Thing to achieve and imho this requires something which seems to be outlawed by at least some of the Forum These days:

Cut it out, leave it, do not allow it, restrict reduce: classes, spells, equipment allowed/ available, Combos, alignments etc etc.

E.G.:
Atm if i had to do a DS conversion to 5e halfgiants would not be included in the playable races because i have not found any means to make them fit both fluff and mechanics (yet). That makes the conversion loose some options but stay true to the Feeling and BA of 5e at the same time. Halfgiants would still exist as NPC or Mobs.

Otoh in my example: What i would not care the least about is: Can i somehow shoehorn tieflings as playable race into a DS conversion because simply they are
NOT NEEDED FOR THE FEEL of the Setting.

In the end of the day, the question comes down to what do you want to be more faithful to: the original setting as initially designed or the current system it will be played on.

If setting purity is important, most settings would be stuck in 2e assumptions (or whatever setting it was originally made for). If system compatibility is important, then settings need to adapt to the current status quo as much as possible. Obviously, either extreme is unwanted, but how much do you err on the side of system vs setting canon?

Imho, I'm past setting purity over system. I want as much phb stuff in my settings as possible. I want a place for dragonborn on Krynn, tieflings in Athas, and warlocks in Eberron. Restrictions should only be used sparingly, only when the setting demands it's exclusion to function, and idealy offer new options to replace those taken away. A d&d setting should try to use as much if the core game as possible first, then add changes.