New WotC Campaign Setting

[Klaus]

Personally, I would prefer to see WOTC keep doingthe bigger adventures like Red Hand of Doom that is practically a setting in itself. To me, if an adventure can take you through 10 or so levels, it will be a campaign world in all but name, as whwn it is done, it is easy to say that it was fun and move on to another adventure.

QFT.

 

[Felix]

If they're going to ressurrect a setting, Planescape. Because the planes are there in every setting.

If not, then pick one from the Setting Search they did a few years ago, since they still have total rights to them. Choose one that lacks the High Levelness of the Forgotten Realms and the Magic-Tech of Eberron; I'm sure they were offered a good setting with something new as its catch. Use it.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If they're going to ressurrect a setting, Planescape. Because the planes are there in every setting.

No, they aren't. At least not those Planescape uses.

The Realms have their own cosmology now. Eberron has a different cosmology. Midnight has a Non-Cosmology (whatever planes there are beside the material, there are forever lost behind the veil). I'm sure many of those other settings don't use the Wheel, either.

 

[Felix]

No, they aren't.

If a setting uses Teleport, then there are going to be other planes. Different cosmology or whatever, there are different planes of existance. So it's not too hard to crowbar the standard cosmology off the setting and put Planescape in.

My point wasn't in that every setting uses the Great Wheel, but rather that every setting will have alternate planes of some kind. And that, they do.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If a setting uses Teleport, then there are going to be other planes. Different cosmology or whatever, there are different planes of existance. So it's not too hard to crowbar the standard cosmology off the setting and put Planescape in.

My point wasn't in that every setting uses the Great Wheel, but rather that every setting will have alternate planes of some kind. And that, they do.

Planescape isn't just something about some planes, though. It focusses on Sigil a lot, and much of the cosmology is essential for the setting.

If you just want a Planescape Campaign Setting, you need a fixed cosmology. If you just want information about adventuring in the planes, you don't need a full-blown campaign setting. You just need a "Manual of the Planes" or "Planar Handbook".

 

[GreatLemur]

Man, I am of several different minds on this question.

On one hand, my initial urge is to echo Asmor and say that if they're going to bother to resurrect a setting we've already seen before, then let it be Planescape, Dark Sun, Al'Qadim, or Spelljammer. Greyhawk by its very nature doesn't need to be a published setting, because it's basically just generic D&D. Even Ghendar admits that Greyhawk's strength is that it isn't strongly defined, allowing individual DMs to make it their own. (If anyone knows anything else good about Greyhawk, please fill me in. Because I am seriously drawing a blank, here.)

Following Ghendar's point, I really have to admit that I don't really like using other people's settings, anyway, and I'd rather just have more cruchy bits I can string my own fluff on. More Tomes of Magic, more Books of Nine Swords, more Unearthed Arcanas.

But at the same time, I do know that new campaign settings always bring along lots of awesome new ideas to play with. So in that light, yeah, I'd most like to see a bunch of one-off settings with no heavy support. And, for God's sake, let them be settings that don't have a place for every damn monster, race, spell, and magical item that's ever been published, unlike Eberron. I think a setting's flavor can be defined as much by what isn't there as by what is. Also, I kind of dig the idea of letting these one-offs be very artist-lead ventures. What if they let Brom or Tim Bradstreet or Mike Mignola or Wayne Douglas Barlowe or, hell, some teenaged prodigy from DeviantArt--anybody with a unique and consistent visual ethic--just go to town, working up whatever kind of world their own preoccupations lead them to, and then letting the regular developers flesh it out and stat it up afterwards?

And, please, no more settings with blatantly artificial character-class-based social structures, elemental magic systems, and law-vs.-chaos conflicts built into them. Seriously.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Man, I am of several different minds on this question.

On one hand, my initial urge is to echo Asmor and say that if they're going to bother to resurrect a setting we've already seen before, then let it be Planescape, Dark Sun, Al'Qadim, or Spelljammer. Greyhawk by its very nature doesn't need to be a published setting, because it's basically just generic D&D. Even Ghendar admits that Greyhawk's strength is that it isn't strongly defined, allowing individual DMs to make it their own. (If anyone knows anything else good about Greyhawk, please fill me in. Because I am seriously drawing a blank, here.)

For me the history, the nations, the gods, some of the NPC's, the background. I guess that is about it. It's got enough history and detail without FR style overload where you can't do anything without going against a crappy novel or one of the 9879 sourcebooks.

I'd just like for the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer to be in print.

 

[direpress]

the funny thing about planescape is that, really, we've still got it. 90% of it is edition non-specific fluff, and the remaining 10% is either scattered through the manual of the planes, planar handbook, etc. or can be put together easily enough.

i do not need to re-purchase $500 worth of material so that i have wotc approved 3.5e stats for fracking dabus. nobody wants to deal with the blighters anyway.

regards another campaign setting from wizards, forget it. eberron still sells, and has legs. third parties can really play now, too.

 

[Felix]

Planescape isn't just something about some planes, though. It focusses on Sigil a lot, and much of the cosmology is essential for the setting.

If you just want a Planescape Campaign Setting, you need a fixed cosmology. If you just want information about adventuring in the planes, you don't need a full-blown campaign setting. You just need a "Manual of the Planes" or "Planar Handbook".

Right, I know.

But most campaigns don't have a very detailed cosmology, since they concentrate more on the prime material. So it's easy to replace whatever vestigial cosmology the setting does have with the Planescape Great Wheel.

Forgotten Realms Prime Material Plane (and associated generic cosmology)

...becomes...

Forgotten Realms Prime Material Plane and Planescape Cosmology (now with Sigil!)

So that by the time your PCs grow up and find themselves prodding buttock all over the Prime, they realize that there is something bigger out there... and they're just little fish all over again.

Of course, essential to this setting would be a reason why all the bigwigs are hanging out on the planes instead of just going down and taking over the Prime. But that can be done.

 

[RichGreen]

the funny thing about planescape is that, really, we've still got it. 90% of it is edition non-specific fluff, and the remaining 10% is either scattered through the manual of the planes, planar handbook, etc. or can be put together easily enough.

i do not need to re-purchase $500 worth of material so that i have wotc approved 3.5e stats for fracking dabus. nobody wants to deal with the blighters anyway.

I've used quite a few bits and pieces of my Planescape stuff alongside the 3.x Manual of the Planes and Planar Handbook without any difficulty as you suggest.

I'd like to see a nicer, hardback Greyhawk book as I'm running a game set there, but other than that I'm fine for campaign settings.

Cheers



Richard