D&D 4E Tropes of the Nentir Vale

[Parmandur]

More of a quibble, but you can honestly make any setting a sandbox based on how you use the printed material. I've made Forgotten Realms a sandbox with Phandelver/Icespire Peak.

So the argument here that "Nentir Vale is a sandbox and Exandria is not" is a little silly because both easily can be, it's a style of play.

What @Aldarc really seems to be arguing in favor of Nentir Vale is that you can more easily fill create your own details to fill in the many available blank spaces of its lore. Which is indisputably true, but doesn't make it a better or worse sandbox than any other setting (which is really down to the DMs playstyle).

Well, precisely: that's how I've always experienced Greyhawk or the Forgot Realms, and how Perkins has utilized sections of the Sword Coast, Chult and Barovia to set up little sandboxes for each big Adventure product.

But that cosmogeny, explaining how the world came to be, weirdly lacking and phoned in for Greyhawk and the FR for all their other details. Nentir Vale has that covered very nicely with the Dawn War.

 

[Parmandur]

Precisely. It is mostly superficial similarity that stems from a rooting in using the 4e core books rather than the Nentir Vale setting itself.

It’s more theme park for setting tourists than a sandbox at this point.

Have you read the Tal'Dorei or Wildemount books, or seen Critical Role, I apologize but I don't recall offhand if that has come up before...? Both of the books are very excellently set-up as fill in the blanks sandboxes with very light Gazeeter material.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's both the strength and weakness of the Setting as a shadowy suggested Setting: Mearls and Mercer's campaigns are equally valid versions. I'm just saying, for publishing purposes, Exandria's spin on it being in print more or less sinks any future it has apart from Critical Role products.

Doesn’t follow. They aren’t the same setting, and vanishingly few people think of them as “basically the same”, or whatever.

 

[Parmandur]

Doesn’t follow. They aren’t the same setting, and vanishingly few people think of them as “basically the same”, or whatever.

Vanishingly few people think of the Nentir Vale. Mearls tried to change that, at least.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Doesn’t follow. They aren’t the same setting, and vanishingly few people think of them as “basically the same”, or whatever.

The cosmology/gods treatment of both settings are remarkably similar. The Prime Material Plane (nations, races, culture, geography) are completely different however.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Well, precisely: that's how I've always experienced Greyhawk or the Forgot Realms, and how Perkins has utilized sections of the Sword Coast, Chult and Barovia to set up little sandboxes for each big Adventure product.

But that cosmogeny, explaining how the world came to be, weirdly lacking and phoned in for Greyhawk and the FR for all their other details. Nentir Vale has that covered very nicely with the Dawn War.

I kind of prefer the FR/Greyhawk "how the world came to be" lore in that it largely seems the story is different depending on which race/nation you're talking to; many regions have completely different stories of how the world came to be, which I like because it's a lot like the real world's creation myths.

Still, Exandria does a good job of having that "creation myth" known to all but that everyone has a different takeaway from it, chiefly that the Empire views all monstrous races as evil while the Drow switched to worship the Luxon, etc.

 

[Parmandur]

I kind of prefer the FR/Greyhawk "how the world came to be" lore in that it largely seems the story is different depending on which race/nation you're talking to; many regions have completely different stories of how the world came to be, which I like because it's a lot like the real world's creation myths.

Still, Exandria does a good job of having that "creation myth" known to all but that everyone has a different takeaway from it, chiefly that the Empire views all monstrous races as evil while the Drow switched to worship the Luxon, etc.

It's just a little too weird in a world where the gods are walking around talking to people. Exandria, or Theros, just speak to me more on that mythological scale.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The cosmology/gods treatment of both settings are remarkably similar. The Prime Material Plane (nations, races, culture, geography) are completely different however.

Even the gods and cosmology is less similar than it was in campaign 1, and it was markedly different then.

But yeah, this has been tread before.

 

[Parmandur]

The cosmology/gods treatment of both settings are remarkably similar. The Prime Material Plane (nations, races, culture, geography) are completely different however.

Throw in the Conquest of Nerath map as a distant continent of the same world, nothing needs to be changed particularly.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's just a little too weird in a world where the gods are walking around talking to people. Exandria, or Theros, just speak to me more on that mythological scale.

I like thinking about it in the way that, "Actually the gods are mostly fibbing to attract more followers to their faith, and no one god really created the world, it was just here before," and that the true creation of the world is more mysterious (or terrible) if the mortals try to dig to find the truth.

It's got just a tiny bit of that mystery around deities that Eberron has while also having "walking talking gods." The idea that gods are just extremely powerful (and fallible) constructs is one I think FR and Greyhawk do pretty well.

FR in particular has the whole Overgod concept that adds an extra layer of mystery that kind of points to gods just being really powerful mortals (are you really a god if you can die?)