Mephistopheles
First Post
To be honest I'd rather see new settings. I think it would have been so much more exciting to see a new setting designed for 4E as the first campaign sourcebook for the 4E era.
What other settings should get the FR treatment?
- Thread starter Mouseferatu
- Start date
dm4hire
Explorer
I agree, I'd rather see something completely new also. Eberron has less to change than older campaigns so 4e's impact on it won't be as bad as it was for FR.
As for my suggestion concerning rewinding the clock you could go far enough back that any impact the party does won't matter. My guess it took a long period of time for the Dragon Kings to totally demolish the world, not to mention there is also a lot of back history that was never covered. Regardless of how powerful the party gets they wouldn't be able to defeat every Dragon King and eventually after they pass on or ascend the Dragon Kings would continue. Another more devious thought occurs to me also; what if the PCs become the Dragon Kings?!
Shemeska
Adventurer
Very true. It would be much better to see them come up with a new setting designed from the start with the 4e rules and playstyle in mind rather than force-fitting an existing setting to try to do the same. The system and its rules should support a setting, rather than the setting having to be warped to conform to the new system and its associated tropes.
Sometimes it's best just to let something lie dead. Constantly trying to electrode something back to spasm enough to try and grab new fans isn't always a good idea.
I mean, look at the 80's.
I mean, look at the 80's.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
I have no complaints with jumping ahead with updated timelines and extrapolating what would happen with the nations involved. What I have a problem with is applying some big, heavy cataclysm or other world-shaking event to arbitrarily bring a setting in line with a new rules set.
EATherrian
First Post
I agree. It's the same thing with Hollywood, why rehash when you can create? Create the next FR or Greyhawk, quit playing with the ones that exist. And as for new stuff, new stuff is still explored for all of the settings, even the out of print, in fan communities like Canonfire.
Aus_Snow
First Post
My vote would be for an all-new setting, specifically designed for the new system and themes. Anything else is going to be, like the 4E Realms 'update' an uncomfortable fit for many people, and, IMO, still fail to be the ideal setting to highlight what makes 4E new and exciting.
You've made a shiny new dress and you want to show it off. You don't tart up Margarat Thatcher and send her down the runway, hoping that her supporters think she's Kiera Knightley.
If one of the older settings had to be converted, Dark Sun and Scarred Lands both already have a 'point of light' philosophy, but neither needs to be advanced a 100 years. Indeed, as already mentioned, both would be even more exciting if *pushed back* a hundred years... (Eberron set during the Last War, a couple decades back, could also make a neat option, as would a Greyhawk set in the middle of the Wars. Instead of re-arranging the world, work with what is already there.)
After three decades of avid comic-book-fanboy-ism, I've come to think of writers who utterly nuke a character, team or setting as weak in their craft. Because *inevitably* that character wasn't done. That writer was done, tapped out, creatively bored, with that character, but no matter how dramatic and final the death-scene, a few years down the road, someone with fresh ideas and a fresh perspective will come along and say, "I can't believe they thought there weren't any stories left in this character!" and ressurect the character through some dubious contrivance, and then, quite often, proceed to tell the most amazing stories with some character that had been abandoned by writers who thought he was 'written out' or 'finished.'
I feel the same applies to game settings. It's not that the Realms was creatively weak or tapped out or finished off, it was that the current crop of writers were bored with it. To the many fans of the setting who weren't done with it yet, who weren't bored with it yet, who were still writing netbooks full of information that hadn't been detailed anywhere before (proving that even amateurs could find stuff that hadn't already been done!), saying that 'Oh, this setting is finished' isn't proof that the setting was finished, only that the people saying so had run out of ideas or lost interest in the setting.
The *last* people I would want advancing the timeline of (or making other large-scale changes to) a setting would be those who didn't like it the way it was or who was 'bored with it.'
Bored children like to push card-houses over, and tend not to be terribly concerned with how long it took to build, or concerned that they won't be capable of making anything better than what they've casually toppled over.
You've made a shiny new dress and you want to show it off. You don't tart up Margarat Thatcher and send her down the runway, hoping that her supporters think she's Kiera Knightley.
If one of the older settings had to be converted, Dark Sun and Scarred Lands both already have a 'point of light' philosophy, but neither needs to be advanced a 100 years. Indeed, as already mentioned, both would be even more exciting if *pushed back* a hundred years... (Eberron set during the Last War, a couple decades back, could also make a neat option, as would a Greyhawk set in the middle of the Wars. Instead of re-arranging the world, work with what is already there.)
After three decades of avid comic-book-fanboy-ism, I've come to think of writers who utterly nuke a character, team or setting as weak in their craft. Because *inevitably* that character wasn't done. That writer was done, tapped out, creatively bored, with that character, but no matter how dramatic and final the death-scene, a few years down the road, someone with fresh ideas and a fresh perspective will come along and say, "I can't believe they thought there weren't any stories left in this character!" and ressurect the character through some dubious contrivance, and then, quite often, proceed to tell the most amazing stories with some character that had been abandoned by writers who thought he was 'written out' or 'finished.'
I feel the same applies to game settings. It's not that the Realms was creatively weak or tapped out or finished off, it was that the current crop of writers were bored with it. To the many fans of the setting who weren't done with it yet, who weren't bored with it yet, who were still writing netbooks full of information that hadn't been detailed anywhere before (proving that even amateurs could find stuff that hadn't already been done!), saying that 'Oh, this setting is finished' isn't proof that the setting was finished, only that the people saying so had run out of ideas or lost interest in the setting.
The *last* people I would want advancing the timeline of (or making other large-scale changes to) a setting would be those who didn't like it the way it was or who was 'bored with it.'
Bored children like to push card-houses over, and tend not to be terribly concerned with how long it took to build, or concerned that they won't be capable of making anything better than what they've casually toppled over.
dm4hire
Explorer
Definitely, if you're going to revivie an old campaign the best way to go is Era and more than just a small jump. FR should have been advanced several hundred years with no possiblity of anyone being around except maybe Elminster or other immortals. I've always thought that WotC should have done that with their living campaign for Star Wars advancing to a point that no one from the movie Era is alive then they could have done anything they wanted without having to cow toe to Lucas. Old Republic does that by being so far in the past that anything could happen and no one would know. There are many Eras mentioned in the FR time line that would work if they had done it. Era format keeps some of the feel but doesn't muck up anything of the previous popular Era. So either old setting with new Era theme or new setting.
And Eberron during the Last War would be pretty interesting indeed.
And Eberron during the Last War would be pretty interesting indeed.
dm4hire
Explorer
How about a setting where fantasy meets technology along the lines of Thundarr the Barbarian, but more fantasy than scifi? Though it could work as a d20 Future campaign. I'd like it more fantasy than Gamma World though. No laser swords or anything like that, but robot monsters would be an interesting change of pace. Even Eberron post apocalyptic.
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