D&D 4E Which old setting would you like to see revamped for 4E?

[kennew142]

I have heard that a 4th Ed OA will be released not long after 4th Ed hits.

I would love to see Kara-Tur!

Please no Rokugan. Please no Rokugan. Please no Rokugan.

 

[Steely Dan]

I would love to see Kara-Tur!

While I totally dig Kara-Tur, I would like the 4th Ed OA to be a little more generic, so you can create any Asian campaign you like (Korean, Chinese, Nepalese etc).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

While I know that Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms have the most supporters, I'd like to see "Dungeons & Dragons" Fourth Edition support (by third parties, if need be) for Mystara, Dragonlance, Al Qadim, and Kara Tur. This may indicate some nostalgia for OD&D and AD&D, but there has also been little support for many of these in a long time.

Not to be contrary, but I honestly really strongly hope that they don't waste on second of valuable time on Mystara. It has, in my eyes, no redeeming features whatsoever, being just a horrible, illogical, dated mish-mash of cultures and civilizations placed almost at random on a world. Every moment spent on it is a moment that could have been spent more constructively.

I'll shut up now. 4E Dragonlance would be nice. Not sure what Kara-Tur actually is, per se, despite having the original OA and FR and so on. I liked Rokugan, because it actually appeared to be a setting, rather than just "Feudal Japan, now with 4000% more monsters!".

 

[Steely Dan]

Not to be contrary, but I honestly really strongly hope that they don't waste on second of valuable time on Mystara. It has, in my eyes, no redeeming features whatsoever, being just a horrible, illogical, dated mish-mash of cultures and civilizations placed almost at random on a world.

That's exactly how many people feel about FR…

 

[FreeXenon]

I was torn, but in the end I selected Spelljammer

I would like to see Al Quadim which was all sorts of crazy coolness, especially with the Sha'irs. I also support divorcing it from the FR, but it is a nice place for it.
Then I really would like to see Darksun in all of its oppressive goodiness.
Lastly Planescape and Birthright.

I wish this was a muliti-select poll.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's exactly how many people feel about FR…

Perhaps, and perhaps with some justification, but I think if the FR is like, a 5 on the "dropping in random real-world cultures without justification/logic" scale, then, I would say that Mystara is about a 14. I mean, it's so glaring and mind-numbing it's whole "Here's a real-world culture, we've randomly jammed them in here, and maybe made them into anthropomorphic animals for no clear reason" that it really gave me, even at 14 or so, the distinct vibe that it had been put together by a 10-year old, and not a very bright one.

For my money, the FR has some, and I mean *some* depth of history (something absent from Mystara), some interesting gods (absent from Mystara, at least as I recall), and a real, coherent style to it, which has been more or less successfully maintained through three editions (remains to be seen with 4E, but I'd be surprised if they lost it), where Mystara is just... meh with a capital M. To me, at least. It's ultra-bland, ultra-dull, makes no sense, and has really nothing to make people go "Oh, that's cool!" about it.

I'm probably severely biased in this, and I must admit that it's been years since I saw anything of Mystara (quite intentionally, on my part), but the idea of professional writers spending time on it in this day and age, well, it does my head in, as they say.

 

[Dragonblade]

I'd strongly second this. I think both AQ is better without the burden of the FR and vice-versa. If done alone, rather than as part of the FR, it's something I'd definately want to pick up.

I actually prefer it as part of FR. I don't think I'd buy it as a standalone product. Likewise, if they redo OA it should be based on Kara-Tur and NOT Rokugan. I'd love to see a full color Atlas of FR book that has beautiful and detailed full color maps of all the continents including Kara-Tur, Zakhara, amd Maztica.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I actually prefer it as part of FR. Likewise, if they redo OA it should be based on Kara-Tur and NOT Rokugan. I'd love to see a full color Atlas of FR book that has beautiful and detailed full color maps of all the continents including Kara-Tur, Zakhara, amd Maztica.

I'd love to see Maztica quietly written out of FR history, myself.

 

[Dragonblade]

I'd love to see Maztica quietly written out of FR history, myself.

Really? I actually like the parallel to the discovery of the "New World" that it represents. Granted I would probably take a different approach storywise, but the idea is sound and maps are still good.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Really? I actually like the parallel to the discovery of the "New World" that it represents. Granted I would probably take a different approach storywise, but the idea is sound and maps are still good.

If it was a real "parallel", I'd be totally cool with it. To me, though, it doesn't seem like that at all, it seems like a very lame "FR version of the discovery of the New World", with near-identical players (i.e. really similar cultures, aesthetics, etc.), and just some magic involved in a very unexciting way.

I mean, when it's Central/South America right down to the macuitls (obsidian-flake-edged swordclubs, however you spell them) and jaguar warriors, and there's nothing really "fantasy" or "original" about it, it just's pretty much totally uninteresting to me, and actually detracts from the rest of the FR by dragging it down to a "Look lol we put in EXACT South/Central America analogue and didn't even think about filing off the serial numbers, let alone jazzing it up or making it interesting/original!".

YMWV.

PS - There was an awful lot of this kind of nonsense at the beginning of 2E, from Oriental Adventures, to the Genghis Khan-exact-analogue in the FR (except more of a failure) to the various Earth-culture-analogs of Anaslon in Krynn (which were at least obscure enough to escape detection by your average fourteen-year-old) to Zakhara. I'm not sure exactly what was going on. Admittedly Zakhara was the least "exact analogue" and by far the best-realized, for my money.