WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Maxperson]

Says who?

Common sense. I mean, what is an undead person? A vampire? A ghoul? A revenant? A lich? All of the above? If all of the above, those are all different "races", right?

 

[Scribe]

Common sense. I mean, what is an undead person? A vampire? A ghoul? A revenant? A lich? All of the above? If all of the above, those are all different "races", right?

Those are types of undead, sure.

I find it really odd, across a number of threads that there has been a shift in the last year or so where fantasy races have gone from tropes, to 'fully realized stand alone', to foils on the human condition, to most recently I've even seen a desire for fantasy races to be representing of real human culture. It feels like a regression has taken place somewhere.

A fantasy race is a fantasy race, and there is no reason an undead race, with various cultures, could not exist.

 

[Incenjucar]

Is this something fans of those settings would actually want?

(Spoiler: I dont.)

Planescape, Spelljammer, and Ravenloft all hinge on multi-world travel.

 

[Scribe]

Planescape, Spelljammer, and Ravenloft all hinge on multi-world travel.

Agreed, and there could be N worlds as part of that network.

Just keep some settings, distinct.

 

[Incenjucar]

Agreed, and there could be N worlds as part of that network.

Just keep some settings, distinct.

One of the main selling points of these travel settings is their connection to the other D&D settings. They give people a reason to buy into multiple vanilla settings. The concept of being able to answer to things like "what if Dragonbait had a kender problem" or "what if a draconian horde was adopted by the hags of Barovia" is built-in.

 

[Scribe]

One of the main selling points of these travel settings is their connection to the other D&D settings. They give people a reason to buy into multiple vanilla settings. The concept of being able to answer to things like "what if Dragonbait had a kender problem" or "what if a draconian horde was adopted by the hags of Barovia" is built-in.

I'm not a fan of a very obviously crafted setting, being potentially cracked open because 'well its all one setting/multiverse'. Personal issue I suppose.

 

[Maxperson]

A fantasy race is a fantasy race, and there is no reason an undead race, with various cultures, could not exist.

I agree. My point was that "undead people" aren't a race. The Fylathi, a race of undead humanoids that procreate by connecting together the bones of at least 3 other humanoid races and then infusing the skeleton with their necromantic essence, would be an example of an undead race.

I would also consider liches and vampires to be undead races.

 

[Maxperson]

Planescape, Spelljammer, and Ravenloft all hinge on multi-world travel.

Ravenloft does not. You can be born, adventure and die within the confines of Ravenloft without any multi-world travel happening. If the DM doesn't like the lore of lands being sucked into Ravenloft from elsewhere, he can alter it to just have the plane re-create those lands and include copies of the inhabitants. Then nobody has traveled from another world at all.

A central aspect of both Planescape and Spelljammer is travel to other planes/worlds, though, so those do hinge on it.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ravenloft does not. You can be born, adventure and die within the confines of Ravenloft without any multi-world travel happening. If the DM doesn't like the lore of lands being sucked into Ravenloft from elsewhere, he can alter it to just have the plane re-create those lands and include copies of the inhabitants. Then nobody has traveled from another world at all.

A central aspect of both Planescape and Spelljammer is travel to other planes/worlds, though, so those do hinge on it.

A core element of Ravenloft is that the mists reach into other worlds to pull in great evils and hapless adventurers, who can seek to escape. You can ignore that part, but it's pretty deep in there.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Agreed, and there could be N worlds as part of that network.

Just keep some settings, distinct.

Problem is, the more you keep distinct, the less Planescape/Spelljammer/etc. can draw upon to build up their atmosphere of giant multi-setting melting pots.

I like keeping Eberron distinctly separate from the Great Wheel, so I get where you're coming from, but of the officially supported 5e settings at present, Spelljammer and Ravenloft (and Planescape, next year) are essentially just different focused viewpoints on the same mega-setting, Eberron is explicitly sealed off (as would be Dark Sun, presumably), and Ravnica, Theros, and Strixhaven are imports from an entirely different cosmology altogether.

That leaves, essentially, just the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and possibly Wildemount (not sure how Exandria's cosmological set up works - I'm way behind on Critical Role) for Spelljammer/Planescape/Ravenloft to work with, at present.

Obviously, some Greyhawk stuff (Iggwilv, Mordenkainen, Bigby, etc.) will slip into official releases even if the setting isn't officially supported yet, but strip out Dragonlance and all of the N settings they supposedly have to work with at present are essentially just Toril and stuff they have to make up whole cloth because everything else is locked away.