D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Worlds of D&D

[DMZ2112]

Danger! Danger! Danger Will Robinson!​

Wrong robot, KM. For someone so concerned about the important differences between things, you sure aren't particularly discriminate.

Yes. But don't forget that they're also set apart by the fact that their dwarves are different. Their skies are different. Their cosmologies are different. Their magic is different. Let them be different. Empower me as a DM to make mine different. We don't need to all share the same One True Cosmology and we don't need to all share the same One True Mountain Dwarf.

I think that Wyatt's reference to Calimshan and Solamnia is apt. No one complains about everywhere having the same rules for humans, and no one would ever propose to play a Calishite Knight of Solamnia. Your fears are unfounded.

 

[steeldragons]

I'm aware that this reason is sometimes trotted out, but I don't find it compelling.

NEWSFLASH: YOU DON'T HAVE TO find it compelling to have it be the truth.

Sucks, I know...and agree. But the fact is...you don't have to.

Part of the D&D brand is that it is a game of creativity and imagination, where you and your friends can tell your own fantasy stories.

Nice attempt to use my own words against me...A+...fact is, me and my friends, you and your friends...NONE of us matter. Will. It. Make. Money? That's what matters.

One True X (cosmology, dwarf, goblin, whatever) is counter to that brand identity. It is not a game about creating your own stories and imagining your own worlds at that point, it's a game about playing with other peoples' toys in certain pre-defined ways.

Which, 'nuthr newsflash, D&D has ALWAYS been!! Your elf is what? A D&D elf. Your "wizard" is what? A D&D wizard. Don't like it? Change it. As much as I despise the modern jargon, "Nuff sed."

I'm not allowed to imagine and create my own hellish afterlife, there's the Nine Hells, and if I play D&D, that's my hellish afterlife!

This is just so much hyperbole and, practically, hyperventilating that I don't even know what to say about it. Yes, that is exactly what they're saying. The D&D police is coming to your house...no, not anyone's, ONLY YOUR house to tell you what is "real" in the "fantasy role-playing game of gumdrop elves." Lookout! Here's comes the black-lycraed, but somehow incredibly pale-skinned, D&D gestapo. They are there, in the shadows...They're coming...no, not for any perceived "us"..just for you. AHHHHHH!!!

So if you want to capitalize on the D&D brand, you don't want One True Way!

There is, literally, nothing here that is toting "one true way."...It's toting baseline...It's toting inclusiveness, which I had thought was your desire?...It's toting what WotC a.k.a. Hasbro WANTS [NOT Kamikaze Midget, HASBRO!!!]...based on what? Makin' mullah. Plain and simple.

I don't think One True Cosmology or One True Dwarf are the things that will give the game financial success. In fact, I think that because it works against the existing identity of the brand, it could actually hurt the bottom financial line (and the overall brand), if it's driven home too tightly.

And, interesting that you seem to know...what is the "existing identity of the brand"? And, since you know, how exactly, does it "works against" it?

I mean, conjecture about WotC's internal management policies in an exercise in reading tea leaves if ever there was one, so if they're getting pressure from higher-up that is distorting and harming the quality of the game, maybe there's not really much of an option for the designers. There's no real way for us out here to know, short of a leak. If there's a design reason (as Wyatt alluded to), maybe it's a good one?

You don't need a "leak." You don't need to read tea leaves [though I can if you like! ] You need common sense...and an acknowledgement of its [common senses'] existence. You need an acknowledgement that this is how businesses run...It's no secret. It's no magical formula. It's how things happen [businesses work]! You can accept it or cry "Why? Why?!" It matters not to me.

 

[Mercurius]

@steeldragons , maybe I'm naive but I'm not as cynical as you. Does WotC make decisions based on finances? Sure. But the good thing about a fringe hobby is that those decisions dove-tail nicely with "what the people want." This doesn't always (or even usually) mean the most artistically sophisticated approach, but it does mean that they want to please the fan-base.

@Kamikaze Midget , I don't see the problem. Or at least I only see it if I squint and then I kind of make "something" out. Your concern seems another variation on the old complaint of "They're telling me how to play my game!" But they're not. You are entirely free to construct and use your own cosmology, or to take a D&D cosmology and use that, tweak or interpret it as you see fit.

What I hear Wyatt saying is that he (or they) want to unite all D&D worlds in a cosmological sense, to say that Eberron and Abeir-Toril are in the same multiverse. I also see the whole dwarf thing being about looking at the archetypes, but also wanting to include a wide variety of variations at by mention within the core rules. But when it comes to specific worlds, who knows how they'll actually handle it.

But again, the rule I mention above always implies: Wizards of the Coast provides a toolbox, but what you build with it is entirely up to you.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Realities (=rules universes) and CD&D/AD&D crossovers

Interesting article.

Besides the cross-worlds methods Wyatt mentioned, there are three more:

Frank Mentzer's Book of Marvellous Magic had alternate world gates which connected the D&D Known World to the AD&D world and to other game worlds, such as Dawn Patrol and Gangbusters.
The Gazetteers of Mystara had suggestions on the conversion page in the back, for alternate world gates between Mystara and the AD&D worlds.
D&D Brand Manager Bruce Heard wrote a Dragon mag article about how the D&D Known World is a separate Reality (not a plane or crystal sphere) from the AD&D worlds. I've elaborated on this concept here: https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/d-d-realities
(Basically, each 'rules universe' is a separate Reality which can depict any of the D&D Worlds.)

And here's a page where I try to compile all the D&D Worlds, even ones just barely glimpsed, such as the Dream World of Symslvch from the Hebrew-language D&D modules:
https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/d-d-worlds

 

[Hussar]

I think a question you have to ask is just how granular do you need the differences to be? How, exactly do you mechanically differentiate one dwarf from another? How much do you need to distinguish one from another? A halfling, a kender and a cannibal Athasian halting are standing side by side. How different are they from each other physically? Do we need different stat bonuses for each? Different abilities? Or, can we simply use culture and flavour text to differentiate, and maybe a tweak here and there?

It's kind of like the old saw about differentiating female and male characters. The stats in D&D aren't granular enough to really do it. Not to the point where it actually makes sense anyway. So, why do we need to rewrite the stats for every kind of dwarf?

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's kind of like the old saw about differentiating female and male characters. The stats in D&D aren't granular enough to really do it. Not to the point where it actually makes sense anyway. So, why do we need to rewrite the stats for every kind of dwarf?

You are absolutely right. We don't.

 

[Mercurius]

I think a question you have to ask is just how granular do you need the differences to be? How, exactly do you mechanically differentiate one dwarf from another? How much do you need to distinguish one from another? A halfling, a kender and a cannibal Athasian halting are standing side by side. How different are they from each other physically? Do we need different stat bonuses for each? Different abilities? Or, can we simply use culture and flavour text to differentiate, and maybe a tweak here and there?

It's kind of like the old saw about differentiating female and male characters. The stats in D&D aren't granular enough to really do it. Not to the point where it actually makes sense anyway. So, why do we need to rewrite the stats for every kind of dwarf?

Good point. Not to mention that individual DMs can customize sub-races within their homebrews.

 

[the Jester]

Actually, this reminds me of an idea I'm playing with for my own world's cosmology - that there was originally one world, a kind of Platonic archetype that was, ah, "sundered" or lost or destroyed (no one knows, of course) and from that, the countless worlds were born.

Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC style! Perhaps you run Oerth-2, while Steeldragons runs Krynn-X and someone else runs Toril-3, where all pcs are eeevil!

 

[the Jester]

And here's a page where I try to compile all the D&D Worlds, even ones just barely glimpsed, such as the Dream World of Symslvch from the Hebrew-language D&D modules:
https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/d-d-worlds

I suggest you add all the alternate worlds accessible from Q1.

 

[Stoat]

I didn't like the big meta-setting that TSR used back in the 90's. It seemed forced, frex when various sourcebooks retconned spelljamming into the Forgotten Realms. And some elements were just downright out of place. Neither spelljamming nor Sigil, City of Doors fit with Dragonlance very well. The TSR meta-setting also tended to homogenize the various settings -- every place has a Crystal Sphere, every place is touched by the Blood War, every place is connected to Ravenloft somehow.

If there are going to be different settings, I want them to be different. Very. Different.