Two New Settings For D&D This Year

if it comes out this year i would agree with you. Possibly published by a third party company that has a good reputation (Green Ronin etc)

However if it’s coming next year I would stake all the money in my pockets that it will be a Curse of Strahd style book. Campaign with background and new monsters etc. Curse of Strahd was too successful not to repeat!

 

[GarrettKP]

Here is what I think will happen (based on rereading the article as well as some others arguments on here):

We get 3 products. 2 small Summer ones and 1 big Winter one.

The 2 Summer products will be Darksun and Ebberon PDFs, primers like the first chapter of Curse of Strahd but presented like the Elemental Evil Players Companion (as in a free PDF). It will include some races they have playtested before (Warforged, Shifter, and so on) as well as any rules that are needed to run the setting (Dragon Marks, General info on how Races from the PHB fit into the settings, and so on). Don't expect major rules drop like Psion, but they may release the new playtest versions of the Psion and Artificer to coincide with this. These will be only a primer and will hold people over until Artificer and Psion are finished in time for official hardcovers in these settings, likely next year.

The big Winter product is the heavily hinted at 4th Hardcover. It will hit in December and either be a Planescape Adventurer's Guide touching on Sigil and other planes, or it will be an entirely new publication and surprise us (my guess would be either Perkins or Crawfords homeworlds).

This will open up all those settings to the DMs Guild, and I chose these specifically because they are the highest asked for settings based on last years setting survey!

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] #239 "especially when it comes to Eberron's cosmology" Agreed and not. Eberron has different names for the planes and a bit different flavor. Eberron has also more Abstract gods. One of the factions in planescape afaik has the Motto "there are no gods"


" Greyhawk's idiosyncratic value is more about tone and focus rather than Content"

Again yes and no, It depends on the playstyle of the DM. It is more easy to display a rough more "neutral-aligned" Society whereas in FR this would be the good side, e.g. in many official greyhawk adventures dwarves are of neutral alignment rather than the mostly LN / LG / NG FR dwarves. Which, depending on the Players Actions, could as easy put them up as oponents - aka mobs to slay - than as allies. Whereas in FR they most sincerely would be potential allies "the good guys" of most good or neutral aligned Groups.

Kudos to your opinion that GH is DMs paradise - to the partial homebrew adding DM it really is. Because of the open Framework, things never feel shoehorned.

Personally i would never Combine Eberron as a DM with planescape. It does not add anything to any of the Settings.
Same goes for Athas, being unreachable (almost) adds to ist flavor, making it an easy trip would be like altering Portals in Sigil so that no Portal key is needed anymore!

 

[SkidAce]

Until you do, it is not FR.

And I wouldn't say "without much difficulty". Actual economic rules, yes.

But what about creating a domain overlay? That's a huge task. Don't say the individual DM can quickly whip something up just to delude yourself Birthright is a FR clone.

And what about monster rulers? You really can't just add that and pretend it doesn't massively mess up Realms history.

No, Birthright is not a FR clone, because you really can't do the things Birthright offered in FR.

WotC could take the ideas from Birthright and apply them to the Realms, of course. But until they do, there simply is zero merit to the idea.

Transporting the domain rules over to my homebrew world was such a huge (not difficult) task that I only did one section of the world.

A wilderness style DMZ between two major power that they could carve their own kingdoms out of.

Even that took a very long time.

 

[SkidAce]

The point is, Birthright is NOT a campaign setting. It's kingdom management minigame.

I feel its both. We played several campaigns in it as a regular world without the domain management.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Athas is definitely connected to Planescape, not only are some Athasian monsters reprinted in the PS Monstrous Compendiums like the Psurlons and Ruvkova, but there's a ghetto for Athasian Halflings in Sigil, the rumour that Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power, the fact that Orcus retrieved a Rhulisti life-shaped construct body of the Blue Age while he was Tenebrous and there's the fact that various Planewalkers themselves know of the existence of that world.

Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.

 

[kenmarable]

Your Planescape-slanted explanation kinda rubs me the wrong way, especially when it comes to Eberron's cosmology. We don't need some sort of grand unifying explanation as to why the cosmologies are different anymore than trying to explain Star Wars' concept of the Force into Star Trek. It strips a lot of the individual charm out of settings, again imposing Planescape norms on other settings.

I'm still failing to see where anything is being imposed. I tried to be pretty clear that it's my theory that I use in my campaigns. When someone plays Eberron, if they don't want Sigil or any of the Great Wheel to exist, they just snap their fingers Thanos-style and they are gone! Nothing imposed.

Take your adding the Force to Star Trek example. If someone published a book specifically about how to combine Star Wars and Star Trek, then I would expect an explanation of how Vulcan mind melds are really Jedi powers or some such. For some fans that could be really interesting. But for Star Trek fans that don't want them mixed, nothing has been imposed on them. Vulcans aren't suddenly ruined. They can just ignore that book and go on happily enjoying their Force-free Star Trek as long as they like.

If my explanation rubs you the wrong way, don't use it. *shrug* I'm not imposing anything at all. When I play Eberron, I very well might not use it either.

Prior to 3e, TSR never really considered alternatives. In 3e and 5e*, WotC has been very clear that you can do whatever you want, and some settings will be very different. 3e Manual of the Planes, FR, and Eberron were very clear in discussing entirely different cosmologies. But prior to those, the concept simply wasn't really there yet. Prior to 3e, they also didn't have sorcerers. To say that the 2e PHB imposed wizards rather than sorcerers onto players would be a really weird use of "imposing." Same thing with the Great Wheel prior to 3e. The lack of alternatives has nothing to do with Planescape and is simply because they focused their creative efforts elsewhere.

The existence of Planescape imposes nothing on Eberron or any other setting. Just ignore it. All current 5e books have tried to be open about alternatives. In the DMG, they even specifically call that chapter "Creating a Multiverse" for good reason. Unless Spock talks to Yoda in the next movie, some people geeking out about mashing up Star Wars and Star Trek or even the existence of any books detailing that, imposes nothing on either of those two properties. Even if a book was published bizarrely mashing up Star Trek and a rather mismatched property, it's easy to enjoy or ignore it on its own without it imposing anything on the rest of Star Trek.

So I guess I'm just confused on how Planescape having it's own explanations and ideas imposes anything on any other setting.


* I'm not familiar with 4e very much, so I can't speak to that. I certainly got the feeling that 4e did have much of the problem you worry about with imposing it's World Axis cosmology and history onto all D&D and trying to erase the alternative, but that could just be from my unfamiliarity rather than what 4e actually was.

 

[kenmarable]

Athas is definitely connected to Planescape, not only are some Athasian monsters reprinted in the PS Monstrous Compendiums like the Psurlons and Ruvkova, but there's a ghetto for Athasian Halflings in Sigil, the rumour that Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power, the fact that Orcus retrieved a Rhulisti life-shaped construct body of the Blue Age while he was Tenebrous and there's the fact that various Planewalkers themselves know of the existence of that world.

Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.

Yes and no.

If you are playing a Planescape campaign - absolutely they are connected. Very remotely and with difficulty, but still definitely connected. My first bit of fan fiction when I was young had the main villain be a Dark Sun sorcerer-king living in Sigil. In fact, I could see a Planescape adventure about trying to get to Athas and (even more challenging - back again) being very interesting.

However, if you are playing a Dark Sun campaign, when I asked my Magic 8-Ball if it is connected to Planescape, all it said was "Reply hazy, try again."

In Planescape products, they are very clear about the connection. In Dark Sun products, the connection is much less clear. There's certainly clear signs of past connections. There's mutated descendants of githyanki, for example. Also, there's hand waving in the direction of a possible but tenuous current connection in the way that writers say "Hey, here's a big set of adventure hooks if you want!" but nothing definitive.

Assuming one set of conflicting products is correct is the wrong way to approach it. It all depends on what you are looking for with your game. A Dark Sun game that has no current connections to Planescape would be as correct canonically as a Planescape campaign that accepted those rumors you mention as true. (Personally, even if I was going to have a Planescape/Dark Sun campaign, things like "Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power" would probably be treated as false by me. The general trend of "Your villain was secretly manipulated by MY villain! Ha!" in any sort of merging of properties strikes me as lame writing. Glad even in Planescape that's only a rumor.)

Edit to add: Just went back and double checked the reference about Jemorille and that makes more sense now. Haven't read Faces of Sigil in a while. It's an in-character statement made by someone who claims to single-handedly be behind most every major event in all the worlds including the Temple of Elemental Evil (creation and destruction) and the Tuigan Horde, as well as being personally responsible for the entire Blood War, and don't forget - completely controlling Sigil itself with the Lady of Pain as just a useful illusion. So, yeah, even canonically in Planescape that claim of influence in Athas is extreeeeemely dubious. Either Jemorille is the greatest antagonist in the history of the multiverse (which could be an interesting campaign) or he's full of [redacted for Eric's Grandma]. I'm pretty sure in Planescape canon, it's the second option.)

 

[Aldarc]

When someone plays Eberron, if they don't want Sigil or any of the Great Wheel to exist, they just snap their fingers Thanos-style and they are gone! Nothing imposed.

That's part of the problem. You are implicitly presuming here that they are there - you snap them gone and not snap them into existence - whereas I operate from the opposite perspective. That's what leaves me again thinking immediately "nope!" as my gut reaction. If you assume them as the default that must be erased from Eberron, then yes that is imposing Planescape on Eberron, at least from my perspective. It was also my gut reaction when I read Mordenkainen offering his commentary on Eberron: "nope!"

* I'm not familiar with 4e very much, so I can't speak to that. I certainly got the feeling that 4e did have much of the problem you worry about with imposing it's World Axis cosmology and history onto all D&D and trying to erase the alternative, but that could just be from my unfamiliarity rather than what 4e actually was.

Yes, and while I did like the World Axis, I hated the imposition of the World Axis onto other settings such as Dark Sun and Eberron.

Athas is definitely connected to Planescape, not only are some Athasian monsters reprinted in the PS Monstrous Compendiums like the Psurlons and Ruvkova, but there's a ghetto for Athasian Halflings in Sigil, the rumour that Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power, the fact that Orcus retrieved a Rhulisti life-shaped construct body of the Blue Age while he was Tenebrous and there's the fact that various Planewalkers themselves know of the existence of that world.

Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.

Yuck.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Planescape is quite different from Forgotten Realms, but because Forgotten Realms is the go to campaign setting for D&D, it does rip off a lot of things from every other D&D campaign setting as time goes on.

Mechanically there isn't much that makes Planescape different other than it's mechanics about the different planes, and faction or sect abilities which would probably be downplayed as those sort of things might break 5e's sense of game balance.

What matters in everything for Planescape is tone, Planescape is very much a post-modern setting in tone. It takes many ideas from the 19th century and eras from beyond the medieval age. A lot of the factions philosophies are parts of that as many of them certainly have ideas inspired by certain 19th century schools of thought, while others are outright based off of Taoism or Buddhism. Sigil is partially in the Industrial Age with the various factories that exist in the Lower Ward, though certain technology like firearms is as rare as it is in other D&D worlds.

The cant itself is inspired by Cockney Rhyming Slang which first came to be around London in the 19th century, with words like Berk which is short of Berkshire Hunt which rhymes with something that begins with the letter C. One could easily compare 19th century London to Sigil as it's the main influence on Sigil.

Monte Cook was one of the main minds behind Planescape and he continued to introduce more and more weird elements (including sci-fi ones) to Planescape while it was being published, as one could certainly spot similarities between Planescape and his current work in Numenera. In many ways while standard D&D is of the High Fantasy genre, Planescape is of the New Weird genre genre though the term for that genre came into being after Planescape was published.

 

[Coroc]

@ Kobold Avenger Psurlons are from the far realms, and lo and behold you got humans and elves on athas as on other worlds.

Does not make them automatically connected or even have a common ancestor neither by D&D logic nor by RL logic. That is an indicator, but no proof.

Still, what gains could be made by connecting Athas and PS?

So for Athas the thing is clear: Everyone and his mother (including maybe even Sorcerer Kings) would want to escape to Sigil or a nice plane connected to it.


For PS? Yea you see berks, you come to this desert place, it is like hell and some nightmarish mob attacks you (and in the distance you see some halflings barbecuing Drizzt over an open fire).

So does sound like Abyss layer number x already reachable pretty easy from Sigil doesn't it?

So what do you add? Right, nothing. Absolutely nothing.