What's Mystara's Hook?

[Klaus]

That's kind of the feeling I get too. Most of my Mystara materials are things like Red Steel, Hollow World, the Immortals boxed set, and so on.

Based on Chris Perkins' philosophy of incorporating some setting materials in the core, I have to wonder if "X setting may kill Y setting and take its stuff." For example, will we see Mystara races in other worlds? And so on and so forth.

I dearly hope Catfolk and Rakasta are merged into one race.

Aranea were core in 3.0.

Lupins would almost be civilized gnolls.

Phanatons (the flying racoon people)? Could fill a niche for a small gliding race.

Hmm... Time to bust out the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix to look for possibilites...

 

[Lancelot]

"Gonzo" is now my term-of-choice for describing Mystara. Thanks guys.

I'm a huge Mystara fan, to the point that I basically ignored 1e and 2e campaign settings (except for Planescape) and ran a BECMI campaign for more than a decade.

Having said that, even I have to admit there is no cohesive hook to the campaign setting. It is "everything and the kitchen sink". It's a homebrew world that has grown by patches and, unless you've already experienced a lot of it, I think it'd be quite bizarre for a new player. Previous posts should make that fairly apparent. Scottish liches and Spanish elves, a council of 1,000 36th level wizards, a hollow world, anthropomorphic everything (gators, lupins, tortles, rakasta, phanaton... it's a furry paradise), you name it.

Eberron and the Realms are not "anything goes" (...and for the record, that's a good thing in my book, because it gives those settings some level of consistency). If you cross the Thrane or Cormyr border, you would not expect to see French (and I mean FRENCH, not similar-to-French) wizards drawing power from a nuclear engine to assist their immortal master (a retired starship engineer) in his alliance against a dark-elven aztec-themed demon-god... and then you encounter some walking foxes with six-shooters.

I love Mystara, but I dearly hope WotC leaves it's glorious mess alone. Except for a 4e "Return to the Lost City". They can sell me that any day...

 

[Darrin Drader]

There are certain settings that WotC can repackage for any setting and I'll buy it. Spelljammer is one of them, but I'm not sure that Mystara is. I agree with the assessment above that it's like a homebrew that grew by patches. There's nothing wrong with it; in fact it's pretty cool overall, but aside from a few very cool elements (Thyatis anyone?), it's not anything that offers a hook big enough to interest me.

Bear in mind that I do appreciate hook-less settings, like DCC #35, but that's only because I'm free to take those as a foundation and then take a wrecking ball to them to suit my needs, without anyone getting upset about me doing so. It also doesn't run the risk of too many players knowing what's up with it. I feel like Mystara is good for the former but not the latter.

 

[Orius]

I think everyone's already said it.

Mystara started as a setting pieced together out of the B/X modules. Then it got fleshed out with BECMI, the Gazetteers, the Almanacs, the Princess Ark articles in Dragon, and so on. It kind of just went together randomly I guess. Then when you throw in stuff like the Savage Coast and Hollow World there's even more material.

I think it's not just that it's generic, but maybe it's too big. The Savage Coast and Hollow World could probably help make it interesting, but it seems like there's so much stuff that WotC really wouldn't be able to cover it properly in just a player's guide, a campaign guide, and a module. Seperating all three maybe isn't the best course, sine they should all be used together. Plus the wahoo factor could make it hard for some people to even take it seriously.

Then too, Mystara developed under a rule sete that went all the way to level 36, while AD&D and its settings generally didn't go too far above 10. So there may be differences in the power curves that could wreak increasing havok in upper levels. Maybe not so much in 4e though.

 

[vagabundo]

"Gonzo" is now my term-of-choice for describing Mystara. Thanks guys.

I prefer cooky.

Mystara's hook is a cooky, crazy collection of mad fantasy. Not one big hook but a lot of stuff almost straight from 60's era SciFi.

I'd almost call it a SciFi setting.

It is an odd-ball to me anyway, I've never DMed for it, even as a kid it didn't gel with what I wanted from a setting.

 

[Knightfall]

Based on Chris Perkins' philosophy of incorporating some setting materials in the core, I have to wonder if "X setting may kill Y setting and take its stuff." For example, will we see Mystara races in other worlds? And so on and so forth.

I've already added the Mystara races to my own homebrewed 3.5 campaign setting as well as a heavily modified version of Karameikos.

 

[Dausuul]

I regularly steal the name of the standard Mystaran starting town. "Threshold" is just an awesome name for a town where adventurers set out into the wilds.

 

[Scribble]

Mystara has always been my default "I can't decide what to do with my homebrew (insert x race/area of world/part of history/etc...) so I'll use this idea..." setting.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Wasn't there market research that learned that the vast majority of D&D campaigns were run in home brew campaigns? What better world to publish than a mishmash perfect for folks to yoink things from into their home campaign?

Why should an entire world have a single hook? IMO, it is far better to have a world with collections of regions and subregions, each with their own hook. And none of the hooks are of such pressing importance above the purpose of getting PCs out into dungeons to kill monsters and take their things.

Why Mystara didn't have a world-spanning hook, each region most definitely had their hook. Though, the interesting aspect that nearly every nation and people had an equivalent with somewhere in realworld history was unrivaled in TSR worlds. And the entire planet was mapped out from the beginning. Not really a hook, I guess, but something nifty that took other worlds years and years, if ever, to match.

Norworld? Where high level PCs relocated to build their domain.
Karameikos? Beginning your career in a culturally divided nation where a neighboring empire has colonized. Locals are resentful, restive, and rebellious.
Glantri? "Alpine" nation ruled by wizards, clerics are outlawed.
Darokin? Merchant-based realm beset by the Master of the Desert Nomads.
Northern Reaches? Vikings . . .
Minrothad? Sea campaigns . . .
Thyatis? Eternally doomed struggle against the dreaded wizard-ruled empire of Alphatia.
Ylaruam? Arabian nights long before Al-Qadim was dream.
Ethengar? Adventures among the Mongolian horde . . . long before FR thought of The Horde.
Sind? Adventure in the mythic Indian subcontinent.
Savage Coast? Find the cure to the Red Curse in a world evocative of Earth's Age of Exploration.
Hollow World? The Immortals' extinct people museum, ancient history without the time travel conundrums!
Shadow elves? Albino subterranean elves, and not necessarily evil either!

It's all in one world. So?

Having many hooks is kind of how the real world works.

 

[ssampier]

Red Steel was neat, for short periods of time. Normally I am not a fan of "furries" - cat-like race or dog-like race, but meh.

I haven't played anything else in Mystara.

I think the problem with most published worlds is they are complex. The published worlds don't have a single hook; it's a coat-rack of many different hooks.