WotC Settings schedule - an alternate idea

[Appleseeth]

I think Dark Sun can be essentially seen as a "new" setting. There hasn't been any official material (other than that Dragon article) for about a dozen years, and many, if not most, current or new players don't even know it exists. If they were to put out a new Dark Sun guide, I'd snatch it up in a heartbeat, as even though I have my own campaign setting, Dark Sun is so different that it can't even be compared to any of the other settings.

 

[Mercurius]

Gothmog, you bring up a good point about Eberron being "designed...around 3e". Eberron didn't come out until 2004, although there was a lead-up to it starting in 2002 with the setting competition; thus it might be a good approach for Wizards to lead up to the "4e signature setting" in a few years like they did with Eberron.

I also remember in the early 90s there being a fair amount of hype around a mysterious setting called "Dark Sun." For awhile, a year or more even, all we knew was the logo...now of course with the internet things are different, and at the least there will be tons of speculation if Wizards does something like that again. But the point being, contrary to my earlier opinion, it might behoove Wizards to wait to come out with a signature setting for 4E--to see where the tone of the game and fan base goes, how 4E is developed through 3PPs, Dragon, etc.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I would have voted (were it a choice) "Only good settings." "Classic" or "New" isn't as important as good.

Importantly I also want "non-Core 4E settings." I've already got the implied setting and Core-ized FR. I want settings that feel different. Dark Sun, Planescape and Ravenloft were all good, but they didn't look at all like implied 4E. Adapting them to 4E, rather than adapting 4E to them, would be bad (IMO), since that basically boils own to "Same game, different map." Not worth the money.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I would have voted (were it a choice) "Only good settings." "Classic" or "New" isn't as important as good.

Importantly I also want "non-Core 4E settings." I've already got the implied setting and Core-ized FR. I want settings that feel different. Dark Sun, Planescape and Ravenloft were all good, but they didn't look at all like implied 4E. Adapting them to 4E, rather than adapting 4E to them, would be bad (IMO), since that basically boils own to "Same game, different map." Not worth the money.

Is this the fallacy of the excluded middle? I'd say that both the settings and the system would have to bend a little for any revisions. A 4E Ravenloft probably wouldn't work so well with dragonborn, for example . . . but if you dial back the xenophobia a bit, and/or dial down the obviously inhuman features of tieflings ('Ravenloft tieflings have no tails, shortened horns, and never develop more than a reddish tint to their skin), I think they could fit into the setting nicely.
Of course, I'm already having fun thinking of the interesting ways the 4E pantheon meshes with Ravenloft's cultures. In Barovia, for example, the mythos typically centers around Pelor (replacement for Andral and Lathander, seen by most people as benign but distant), the Raven Queen, and Bahamut the Shining Raven, brother of the Raven Queen, patron of paladins and fools, and defender of the lands of the sun against the encroachments of the dead.