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<blockquote data-quote="Consonant Dude" data-source="post: 6023877" data-attributes="member: 6688791">I'm torn on the choices.On one hand, Greyhawk and Planescape&nbsp; have historically been tied to the setting assumptions prevalent in the&nbsp; game. Unfortunately, it suffered in its execution. Its original&nbsp; inclusion in the game had more to do with archiving the adventures of&nbsp; game contributors than providing a game-ready setting for customers.&nbsp; It's full of &quot;winks&quot; and former PCs with lame names and back stories. As&nbsp; a setting it is fairly bland. As time went by, TSR and WotC's attempts&nbsp; to develop it were half-hearted. Making it a poor choice. It also&nbsp; suffers from being mostly beloved by nostalgics and a lot of those&nbsp; aren't likely to switch system to come back for a new iteration anyway. Forgotten&nbsp; Realms is an interesting case. Grey Box is a marvel of ready-to-play&nbsp; setting design. It got an open-ended nature that it mixed with a strong&nbsp; flavor. At that point in time in history however, TSR was just&nbsp; discovering how much money there was in novels and products related to&nbsp; their settings' IP (the Dragonlance experiment) and they seized the&nbsp; opportunity. Today, the Realms are an incredibly rich and detailed world&nbsp; with a lot of history behind it. This is unneeded baggage for a lot of&nbsp; people. Going back to Grey Box and starting from scratch would kind of&nbsp; defeat the purpose of using the Realms. You can't pretend all these&nbsp; novels and successful setting products never existed when they were (and&nbsp; still are) so popular. Other past settings come with their own&nbsp; baggage and without the advantages of these two. Settings like Dark Sun&nbsp; and Ravenloft have their fans but are regarded as too weird or exotic by&nbsp; the majority. Where does that leave us? To the creation of a&nbsp; new default setting. When 5th edition is released in 2013, it will mark&nbsp; more than a decade without having seen a new official DnD setting&nbsp; (Eberron, 2002). I've left minor settings and spinoffs such as Kara-Tur&nbsp; and Lankhmar but take a look:70s-80s - Greyhawk (difficult to pinpoint a starting point as an official setting)1984 - Dragonlance1987 - Mystara (Gazetteers)1987 - Forgotten Realms1989 - Spelljammer1990 - Ravenloft1991 - Dark Sun1992 - Al Quadim1994 - Planescape1995 - Birthright 2002 - EberronIn&nbsp; 2013, we will have seen only one new official setting in the last 18&nbsp; years when previously, we would easily see a major new one every couple&nbsp; of years.I don't know if the new edition needs a default&nbsp; setting. Maybe as another poster said, the lack of a default setting may&nbsp; leave WotC more freedom to produce settings. But I do think this&nbsp; franchise is in dire need of new settings sooner than later.And if they decide a default setting is needed, I'd rather they try something new without baggage.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Consonant Dude, post: 6023877, member: 6688791"] I'm torn on the choices. On one hand, Greyhawk and Planescape have historically been tied to the setting assumptions prevalent in the game. Unfortunately, it suffered in its execution. Its original inclusion in the game had more to do with archiving the adventures of game contributors than providing a game-ready setting for customers. It's full of "winks" and former PCs with lame names and back stories. As a setting it is fairly bland. As time went by, TSR and WotC's attempts to develop it were half-hearted. Making it a poor choice. It also suffers from being mostly beloved by nostalgics and a lot of those aren't likely to switch system to come back for a new iteration anyway. Forgotten Realms is an interesting case. Grey Box is a marvel of ready-to-play setting design. It got an open-ended nature that it mixed with a strong flavor. At that point in time in history however, TSR was just discovering how much money there was in novels and products related to their settings' IP (the Dragonlance experiment) and they seized the opportunity. Today, the Realms are an incredibly rich and detailed world with a lot of history behind it. This is unneeded baggage for a lot of people. Going back to Grey Box and starting from scratch would kind of defeat the purpose of using the Realms. You can't pretend all these novels and successful setting products never existed when they were (and still are) so popular. Other past settings come with their own baggage and without the advantages of these two. Settings like Dark Sun and Ravenloft have their fans but are regarded as too weird or exotic by the majority. Where does that leave us? To the creation of a new default setting. When 5th edition is released in 2013, it will mark more than a decade without having seen a new official DnD setting (Eberron, 2002). I've left minor settings and spinoffs such as Kara-Tur and Lankhmar but take a look: 70s-80s - Greyhawk (difficult to pinpoint a starting point as an official setting) 1984 - Dragonlance 1987 - Mystara (Gazetteers) 1987 - Forgotten Realms 1989 - Spelljammer 1990 - Ravenloft 1991 - Dark Sun 1992 - Al Quadim 1994 - Planescape 1995 - Birthright 2002 - Eberron In 2013, we will have seen only one new official setting in the last 18 years when previously, we would easily see a major new one every couple of years. I don't know if the new edition needs a default setting. Maybe as another poster said, the lack of a default setting may leave WotC more freedom to produce settings. But I do think this franchise is in dire need of new settings sooner than later. And if they decide a default setting is needed, I'd rather they try something new without baggage. [/QUOTE]

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