D&D 5E () What would you want for 5e Birthright?

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, but the "vanilla"-ness and generic historicity is, I think, why people did not adventure in Cerilia. It's 10% HarnWorld, which is way too much for most fantasy gamers.

The not feeling part of a great whole is precisely why Forgotten Realms succeeded.

The setting might be great to set up a domain layer but this forgets how a settings first and foremost purpose must be to get players adventuring there.

As written Birthright's setting was too focused on bloodline heroes vs awnsheg. There just was no point in "regular" adventuring, which doomed the setting.

My idea is to take what's neat about Birthright and leave the not-fantastic-enough bits behind.

I'm not saying you can't like Birthright for what it was. I am discussing how a future (successful) Birthright might look like.

My point is that to succeed, Birthright needs to focus on its strengths. I believe making Birthright a layer you can add on top of any campaign world is the way to go. Obviously (at least in the 2020s) Forgotten Realms will then be the official adaptation in the hypothetical campaign book, but there should be rules and guidelines to create your own domain map on top of your own continents.

You could even use it on top of good(?) old Cerilia...

 

[TheSword]

Yeah, but the "vanilla"-ness and generic historicity is, I think, why people did not adventure in Cerilia. It's 10% HarnWorld, which is way too much for most fantasy gamers.

The not feeling part of a great whole is precisely why Forgotten Realms succeeded.

The setting might be great to set up a domain layer but this forgets how a settings first and foremost purpose must be to get players adventuring there.

As written Birthright's setting was too focused on bloodline heroes vs awnsheg. There just was no point in "regular" adventuring, which doomed the setting.

My idea is to take what's neat about Birthright and leave the not-fantastic-enough bits behind.

I'm not saying you can't like Birthright for what it was. I am discussing how a future (successful) Birthright might look like.

My point is that to succeed, Birthright needs to focus on its strengths. I believe making Birthright a layer you can add on top of any campaign world is the way to go. Obviously (at least in the 2020s) Forgotten Realms will then be the official adaptation in the hypothetical campaign book, but there should be rules and guidelines to create your own domain map on top of your own continents.

You could even use it on top of good(?) old Cerilia...

For that to work though you need domains. Unfortunately there isn’t anywhere near as much inter realm conflict in FR. Countries are geared up as good guys… Waterdeep, the Dales, Cormyr etc and bad guys The Moonsea, Lydian, Sembia. They also tend to be squared off against each other pretty squarely with maybe a little nuance thrown in. Not much. Sure there is some grey here or there, but not a lot, and not much that leads to conflict or war. Hence the PC kingdom building part of the realms in 3e being confined to a little known, little used corner of the map.

To my mind, kingdom building realm rules need a location where that makes logical sense. Like Kingmaker needed the River Kingdoms.

 

[deganawida]

1) the setting was the weakest point of Birthright (imo)
2) the setting is arguably not even the point of Birthright, the domain layer (including heroes and awnshegn as their rulers) is

Oddly enough, though I initially purchased Birthright for the domain layer, I found it to be the weakest part of Birthright overall, and my discovered that I really wanted to adventure in Anuire, Brechtur, the Khinasi lands, and fight various awnsheglien.