WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[glass]

Which I didn't start. I don't think the dichotomy exists. I was just debunking @Micah Sweet's post while engaging in the assumptions of their post. If you want to be mad at someone for acting like that dichotomy exists, be mad at Micah.

Ironically, "the dichotomy exists/does not exist" is also a dichotomy that you are imposing. In a lot of cases, there will be no dichotomy, but playability was given as a reason for some changes in this very thread and in those cases preferences differ. @Micah Sweet did not say that the dichotomy exists in any and all possible cases, they just said that where it exists they prioritise consistency.

A faithful adaptation can be unplayable (in the "shouldn't be played" sense, not in the "bad rules" sense) if the original contains outdated or bigoted tropes.

I would consider avoiding harm to marginalised groups to be a whole separate (and much more important) category than playability.

If Nerath was its own world with the World Axis as its cosmology, that would be fine. But they used it for all the other 4e settings too, all of which predated the edition.

Nerath was its own world with the World Axis cosmology. Eberron, as has been noted, mostly retained its own cosmology (although it did sorts its previously-undifferentiated planes into a World-Axis-like shape, and added Baator for some random reason). I did not have the 4e Dark Sun books so I do not know how they treated the cosmology, but since Athas is cut off from the rest of the planes (assuming it still is) it doesn't matter that much what planes it is cut off from.

So unless there are some other 4e setting I am forgetting, it mostly just impacted the Forgotten Realms. And the the way that Toril has pinballed around between cosmologies in recent editions used to irritate me, but then I found a way to turn that irritant into a pearl.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Ironically, "the dichotomy exists/does not exist" is also a dichotomy that you are imposing. In a lot of cases, there will be no dichotomy, but playability was given as a reason for some changes in this very thread and in those cases preferences differ.

No, it wasn't. You're seriously misunderstanding the origin of this infuriating tangent.

It started with me saying "The World Axis is better designed for D&D than the Great Wheel because its planes were designed as adventuring locations". That is absolutely not putting "setting consistency/fidelity" in conflict with playability. However, @Micah Sweet responded to that by introducing those terms to the discussion and setting up the false dichotomy that they're in conflict.

If you're upset that someone said that they were in conflict, I'm not the person to take it out on. I didn't say that they were.

@Micah Sweet did not say that the dichotomy exists in any and all possible cases, they just said that where it exists they prioritise consistency.

Which is saying that the dichotomy exists. That he thinks that they come into conflict. Which is not at all what my original post said or was about.

 

[Lanefan]

Backstory isn't setting.

Disagree. Without backstory and history to explain how things got to where they are, a setting isn't much at all.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Disagree. Without backstory and history to explain how things got to where they are, a setting isn't much at all.

They're a part of the setting, sure. But the setting isn't the backstory. It's a combination of the backstory and a lot of other parts that are equally important.

 

[Lanefan]

But they do tend to be heavily toned down if not entirely excluded from more modern retellings and reimaginings.

Xena was the daughter of the human Deianeira and who, again?

(hint: probably Ares, could be Zeus, in either case D thought it was her husband...)

 

[Lanefan]

They're a part of the setting, sure. But the setting isn't the backstory. It's a combination of the backstory and a lot of other parts that are equally important.

I've learned, though, that a setting's history can serve as a nigh-endless mine of adventure hooks and ideas.

 

[glass]

No, it wasn't. You're seriously misunderstanding the origin of this infuriating tangent.

I am really not.

It started with me saying "The World Axis is better designed for D&D than the Great Wheel because its planes were designed as adventuring locations". That is absolutely not putting "setting consistency/fidelity" in conflict with playability.

Unless you are saying that "designed as adventuring locations" has nothing to do with playability (in which case, what benefit does it bring exactly?), then it absolutely is "putting setting consistency/fidelity in conflict with playability", which is why @Micah Sweet responded in the way they did.

Which is saying that the dichotomy exists. That he thinks that they come into conflict. Which is not at all what my original post said or was about.

Let's say for the sake of argument that your original post did not put them into conflict. Are you really trying to claim that they can never, in any conceivable circumstance, be in conflict?

 

[AnotherGuy]

I've learned, though, that a setting's history can serve as a nigh-endless mine of adventure hooks and ideas.

I love that one can pick a place and TIME in a setting's history to play.
Time travelling without actually time travelling.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Unless you are saying that "designed as adventuring locations" has nothing to do with playability (in which case, what benefit does it bring exactly?), then it absolutely is "putting setting consistency/fidelity in conflict with playability", which is why @Micah Sweet responded in the way they did.

How good it is at housing adventures is about playability, I agree. But "setting consistency" had nothing to do with my post. I did not mention it. I just said that something was better at supporting adventures, which is important to D&D. Nothing more.

Let's say for the sake of argument that your original post did not put them into conflict. Are you really trying to claim that they can never, in any conceivable circumstance, be in conflict?

I think that if they are, it's uncommon enough that it's negligible. And, as I said earlier, if they were in conflict, playability is objectively more important to a game than setting consistency is and needs to be prioritized over it. Playability is necessary to, you know, play the game. Setting consistency isn't.

 

[Lanefan]

I love that one can pick a place and TIME in a setting's history to play.
Time travelling without actually time travelling.

I wasn't even thinking of time-travelling, but that's also true.

I was thinking more of things like this, from the last several centuries of my own setting and not initially player-side (most of it is now), very condensed:

Spoiler: for brevity...

There are 5 Undead Lords. Each has in the pre-campaign past had interactions with at least one other.

Saith - mentor to Xangteng, Vaklari, and Kallios, Kallios once tried to destroy him and failed (got two adventures from that one)
Xangteng - mentored by Saith, fought Nakki once, pretended to lose, went into hiding (one adventure there)
Vaklari - mentored by Saith, enemy of Kallios, long-time ruler of enemy realm (one adventure there)
Kallios - mentored by Saith, mentor to many PCs (!), enemy of Vaklari and Nakki (he represents two adventures and countless PC interactions)
Nakki - upstart, tried to kill or curse Kallios numerous times and Xangteng once, has many "fake" versions of himself (several adventures from him, and more to come)

All are liches except Kallios, who is a vampire; and Nakki's fakes, which are much weaker unique undead suitable for low-level characters. Saith and Vaklari have both been destroyed by PCs during the campaign, the other three are still going and thus remain available to mine for adventure ideas. (two different groups of PCs think they've killed Nakki but in each case it was one of his fakes; a third group met the real one but left him be once they realized how outgunned they were)

Throw in several more bits of history like this and the adventure mine just never ends. And I've had two time-travel adventures as well, one intentionally mined from the setting's history and one by sheer random accident.