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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 7655242" data-attributes="member: 2067">My impression is that they've been wrestling with this idea for at least two editions, but possibly since the invention of 3e.The settings of D&D add a lot to the game. They make it clear that the game contains a multitude of styles and worlds and experiences. But, they're also a bit of a risk, since people might get confused about the difference between FR and D&D, or people might see Ravenloft D&D and assume D&D is all about 1920's horror movies. Or someone gets in and only buys products related to Greyhawk or doesn't buy anything other than non-setting material. If dwarves are different things in different settings, the brand team can't say "This is a D&D dwarf!", which means that, say, using the D&D logo on a movie that gives us Dark Sun dwarves or something might be seen as inauthentic. One of the problems of working on D&D specifically is that it means many different things to many different people and because this is a strength of the game, any attempt to distil the "brand essence" down and apply it universally to D&D as a whole is destined to run into the rough (one might say that 4e fell prey to this perhaps more than any other flaw it may have had). Almost positive it was intentional, given how much they highlighted that she was "free from confinement" it in the ad materials. They apparently pay people to be FR scholars, from the interview, so it's not like they couldn't get it right if they wanted to.The reason why is a little more opaque, but I wonder if it was just as simple as saying "Why, in-universe, didn't she ever try this before? Um. Maybe she was imprisoned?"</blockquote>

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