D&D (2024) What older setting do you want to see next?

[Parmandur]

Both true.

I wasn't specifically talking about the relative lack of content in SCAG itself (though it is lacking even in the areas it does cover) but rather the lack of coverage for anything outside the Sword Coast.

Also, I really think the argument that any deficiency in a full price official product can simply be rectified by buying more material from third parties is deeply flawed.

But it isn't necessarily a deficiency in question when the brief of the product as advertised is followed, it's more like saying "I want a different product." Well, different products, some even by Ed Greenwood himself, are readily available.

 

[Patrick Lewis1]

Definitely Mystara. If I had a second-place vote, it would be for Greyhawk.

EDIT: You know what? Here's my ranking of all options, in order of preference. Because I can.

Mystara (including Red Steel and Hollow World) >> Greyhawk > Other (Pelinor) > Birthright > Other (Lankhmar) > Ghostwalk, Dark Sun, Council of Worms, Nentir Vale, and all the rest that I've never played.

I agree with you on Mystara. I'm hoping to run a 5E version of Wrath of the Immortals one day. Honestly I prefer the morale framework of the setting to all others( No overt Good/Bad, just the politics of the Known world and the effeects of the Lawful, neutal and chaotic alignments).

Orcs of Thar is still the best RPG product of its era

 

[Patrick Lewis1]

I echo some of the other posters.
I love Mystara but I do not want WotC going anywhere near the setting please considering what they have done with some of the others they have touched. The fans of the setting do a great enough job with it as is. Also Mystara would be a landmine when it came to sensitivity content.

Honestly I think that Mystara may be the answer to the modern morale conundrum of RPGS.

It uses a idea core to Warhammer 40K success, that there are no good guys. That there are just the polilitics and philisophies of a weird bunch of historical analogies. Good races and Evil races was always a dumb RPG trope and are very much core to post Tolkien fantasy. The evil race/nation thing always bothered me about Forgotten Realms.

The two global super powers of the Mystaran setting Thyatis and Alphatia are both pretty awful exploitative empires. And even the Immortals manipulating the conflict at the heart of the Wrath of the immortals are not Good/Evil. I think that fantasy emergent from the setting can be explored in a sensative and fun way. Not by arguing for cultutural relativism but by asking players what theyre happy about exploring.

The Isle of Dread( A core mystaran experience) which has a free 5e version knocking around from the 5E D&D Next playtest, could be run incredibly insensitively with racist and colonial tropes. Or it could be played without the bigotry and instead with understanding and treated as a first cultural contact( psuedo europeans meeting psuedo south sea islanders).

 

[CleverNickName]

Orcs of Thar is still the best RPG product of its era

I agree with your post regarding Mystara, except for this last part. "The Orcs of Thar" was incredibly off-putting for me, and it's the only book that I won't include in my Gazetteer collection. (This product already has an ongoing, detailed discussion in another thread. I'll link it here, so as not to derail this thread. My views and opinions of that product can be found there.)

 

[eyeheartawk]

I agree with your post regarding Mystara, except for this last part. "The Orcs of Thar" was incredibly off-putting for me, and it's the only book that I won't include in my Gazetteer collection. (This product already has an ongoing, detailed discussion in another thread. I'll link it here, so as not to derail this thread. My views and opinions of that product can be found there.)

If Greyhawk is problematic with its pastiche cultures than Mystara would be even more so. And I say this as somebody who likes Mystara.

 

[Haplo781]

If Greyhawk is problematic with its pastiche cultures than Mystara would be even more so. And I say this as somebody who likes Mystara.

I think any return to Mystara would have to be Red Steel-based.

 

[eyeheartawk]

I think any return to Mystara would have to be Red Steel-based.

 

[Patrick Lewis1]

I agree with your post regarding Mystara, except for this last part. "The Orcs of Thar" was incredibly off-putting for me, and it's the only book that I won't include in my Gazetteer collection. (This product already has an ongoing, detailed discussion in another thread. I'll link it here, so as not to derail this thread. My views and opinions of that product can be found there.)

Fair enough matey. Each to their own and all due respects( I too have a fairly good BECMI collection).

I just liked the ability to play hobgoblins, the partial armour mechanic etc, plus I liked the whimsy.

I was actually probably a bigger fan of Top Balista. The games I run tend to go either a bit Pratchett or a bit horror by way of python.

That said I think we could use mystara itself

I think any return to Mystara would have to be Red Steel-based.

I too like Red Steel but that really is the colonial americas analogy, plus drug addicted xmen powers...still got the audio cd somewhere...

 

[Haplo781]

Fair enough matey. Each to their own and all due respects( I too have a fairly good BECMI collection).

I just liked the ability to play hobgoblins, the partial armour mechanic etc, plus I liked the whimsy.

I was actually probably a bigger fan of Top Balista. The games I run tend to go either a bit Pratchett or a bit horror by way of python.

That said I think we could use mystara itself

I too like Red Steel but that really is the colonial americas analogy, plus drug addicted xmen powers...still got the audio cd somewhere...

I don't expect it would be without changes.

Something in more of a Dark Souls/Elden Ring vibe might go over better.

 

[Digdude]

Honestly I think that Mystara may be the answer to the modern morale conundrum of RPGS.

It uses a idea core to Warhammer 40K success, that there are no good guys. That there are just the polilitics and philisophies of a weird bunch of historical analogies. Good races and Evil races was always a dumb RPG trope and are very much core to post Tolkien fantasy. The evil race/nation thing always bothered me about Forgotten Realms.

The two global super powers of the Mystaran setting Thyatis and Alphatia are both pretty awful exploitative empires. And even the Immortals manipulating the conflict at the heart of the Wrath of the immortals are not Good/Evil. I think that fantasy emergent from the setting can be explored in a sensative and fun way. Not by arguing for cultutural relativism but by asking players what theyre happy about exploring.

The Isle of Dread( A core mystaran experience) which has a free 5e version knocking around from the 5E D&D Next playtest, could be run incredibly insensitively with racist and colonial tropes. Or it could be played without the bigotry and instead with understanding and treated as a first cultural contact( psuedo europeans meeting psuedo south sea islanders).

Can you point me to the free version of IOD? I'd like to see how it differs from the Goodman games book.