4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
(I can't believe I'm asking this, but here goes...) Does this mean other settings will be receiving 4e support?
I hope so. I'd rather see a single Planescape setting book (if it's legitimately as good as the 2e books--none of this ham-handed "we're killing your setting!" garbage we got fed in 3e) than any number of Forgotten Realms books.
Oh, duh, almost forgot: Ravenloft.
Dragonlance (especially with the movie coming out)
Dark Sun (lots of fans)
Planescape (ditto)
Kara-Tur/Oriental Adventures/Rokugan?
I hope so. I'd rather see a single Planescape setting book (if it's legitimately as good as the 2e books--none of this ham-handed "we're killing your setting!" garbage we got fed in 3e) than any number of Forgotten Realms books.
Definitely. I'd want them written by people who deeply understand the settings, not just someone who looks at the surface elements.
I expect we'll see Greyhawk and Dragonlance. Probably Ravenloft and Planescape. But I really hope to see Al-Qadim. Of course, if they're doing one a year, it'll be some time if ever for that one.
And what about Dragonlance?
I mean, you pulled the 3rd party licenses, so I assume that's the plan. Because the other explanation is something along the lines of "Well I was bored and felt like being a real
to people who don't play Forgotten Realms or Eberron"I can't seriously believe Wizards will support many campaign settings as TSR once did because of the unavoidable fragmentation of the market. However, I would love to see support for a limited time frame. Wizards could elect a particular year to be, lets say, the year of Mystara -- or Greyhawk, Ravenloft, whatever -- and support this particular setting through a series of release during that year. As such, many settings could be covered during the life span of fourth edition, satisfying the fans without spreading the resources too much.
WotC have been supporting them since they bought out TSR. Just look at all the official fan sites. Planewalker for example. WotC could have stamped these out, but instead they made them official and allowed them to grow.
A lot of people like it, and i'm sure that with the right marketing more would like it even more!!
Planescape is also a good option.
In My Humble opinion, for people over 18+ the best settings were:
Dark Sun, Ravenloft and Planescape
Planescape, without the moral relativism.
For the love of God!
4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
I second that, and like your style, sir!
Birthright
Dark Sun
Dragonlance
Greyhawk
Mystara
Planescape
Ravenloft
Spelljammer
I can't seriously believe Wizards will support many campaign settings as TSR once did because of the unavoidable fragmentation of the market. However, I would love to see support for a limited time frame. Wizards could elect a particular year to be, lets say, the year of Mystara -- or Greyhawk, Ravenloft, whatever -- and support this particular setting through a series of release during that year. As such, many settings could be covered during the life span of fourth edition, satisfying the fans without spreading the resources too much.
That was the initial reason they stopped publishing material for everything except Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, wasn't it. Wonder why the change of heart.
It would be cool to have a couple other settings to choose from though, new or old. I'd like to see Ravenloft revived, although perhaps it's more accurate to say a gothic horror-type world rather than a hog-pog of land masses floating about a random plane of dread.
And whatever they do, I don't think it's necessary to overflow our bookshelves with individual books for every square mile of the world like they are with Forgotten Realms.
For the love of God!
4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
If the action is needed, do you wnat me to hold them down or bring my own badger?
Yes the 4e Planescape, but keep the feel of the old days (and bring back factions).
For the love of God!
4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
what he said +1
Bring back Planescape!!
Also, Spelljammer.
SPELLJAMMER
SPELLJAMMER
Seriously, the April Fool fake announcement was the only time my girlfriend show some interest in RPG!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
How about one new stat for the Lady of Pain per edition?
Right now we have her alignment; next, give us her init bonus... By 5th ed, we could have her movement speed, then 6th ed could reveal her ranks in decipher script...
Planescape
Dragon Lance
Dark Sun
Revitalized Greyhawk Support
I would love PS, but I'm not sure if it would be a wise marketing move, and it depends greatly on how cosmology is going to work in 4e. Also, most of the old Planescape crew have moved on, and finally one of the themes of PS "opening the planes to low level kiddies" needs serious revision for both the sake of internal consistency and playability.
Dark Sun, yes, lets. Please.
Also, Spelljammer.
This.
So basically have twoish top tier settings that get a crapload of books and then a dozen or so second tier settings with just a book or two each.
I think it would make more sense to have a crapload of setting but just put out a book or two for every setting except for the main two. I really think that if they decided to put out just one Darksun 4.0 book that it would sell a hell of a lot better than some random Realms book that focuses on just one small aspect of the realms.
So basically have twoish top tier settings that get a crapload of books and then a dozen or so second tier settings with just a book or two each.
Oooh, this!
(I can't believe I'm asking this, but here goes...) Does this mean other settings will be receiving 4e support?
Word is that Forgotten Realms the first year and one setting per year after that will be released (not necessarily supported past that).
BUT
If you're going to a setting, any setting, please put some real work into getting the feel right. Before you have anyone put pen to paper on Raveloft 4e, have them go read Mary Shelly, Lovecraft, Poe. You know what I'm talking about. Too often the 3e materials that came out all had the same vibe - Forgotten Realms in drag. If I wanted a Forgotten Realms mini-kingdom with a Vampire Duke, I could do that easy. New settings should feel, they should ooze, whatever it is that makes them them.
Same goes for Dark Sun, Planescape, Mystara, etc. They've each got their feel, and a reader should not even for a moment confuse them.
And if you're doing Dark Sun, for god's sake, get Brom. You cannot improve that. You simply can't.
Wotc does not keep up with this production only a few things come out each month. The old way had something for everyone. Maybe, not every month something did not come for everybody, but for a lot of people, something came out for somebody.
That way everyone is not buying stuff all the time, which is not the case at all for gamers, but can look forward to stuff to eventually come to print. I believe Wotc needs more worlds to commit to.
Non-Faerun Forgotten Realms settings: Kara-Tur, Zakhara/Al-Qadim, Maztica
Planescape
Spelljammer
Dark Sun would be cool, too.
I want Ptolus-sized books for each campaign setting. One for year with a lot of online support from D&D Insider.
And start with... Forgotten Realms, so my favorites, Planescape and Dark Sun, benefit from the lessons learned with the publishing of the FR book.
;)
Ravenloft!
Seriously--tastes vary so much. Ten Mystara books would be, let's face it, a lot of wasted money for WotC. You have to take only the players who like Mystara, and of them only the ones interested in that material, and then it actualy has to be a good book... that's a pretty small market. Now, one book with all the essential details, that's another story. It's possible to play Eberron with just the Campaign Setting book, and it has a lot of wonky rules compared to other settings. If they come put with a $45 Ravenloft Campaign Setting book in January, a $45 Dragonlance Campaign Setting book in June, etcetera for Planescape, Dark Sun, Mystara, Spelljammer, and all the other settings you folks have requested... they'll have a lot of gamers that are happy their pet settings are 4e compatible. And as a bonus, they can see which Campaign Settings are selling the best, and use that to decide what to develop in the future. Win/win situation.
1) Class treatment for old settings, to adapt older concepts to the new settings. This will be exceptionally important for Dragonlance, as a lot of their classes (Knights, Wizards of the order, Priests) changed the old base rules a lot, and will need new versions to fit the 30 level game.
2) Race adaptions. Planescape people will be estatic. With the approch WOTC will be taking, all the old races and much of the new ones will be easily adopted and back as main races to play, without the old LA. Wither this will make them worth playing is yet to be seen. This will also allow for adding in the racial ability plug, which will be a concern for the new core of classes.
3) Gleemax Support Forums: Once again, you'll be regulated out of site of the main forums, but community support will still carry on, like it normally does.
From my current understanding, that is what you can start to expect. I suspect we'll start knowing more in about a month.
Well, Ravenloft. Also, Ravenloft. Ravenloft would be good too, and did I mention Ravenloft.
Oh, duh, almost forgot: Ravenloft.
I agree with Tsuyoshikentsu. But they forgot to mention Ravenloft. Then there's Ravenloft, and lets not forget Ravenloft.
SpellJammer, must have my Spelljammer
Birthright
Al-Qadim
and More Greyhawk.
Follow that up based on sales of the campaign setting. If sales are low but demand online is high, electronic support. Otherwise, hardcopy support.
The older materials should recieved the retrend as quickly as possible once the fluff is updated in a campaign setting.
Bring them all back as campaign setting books (and I mean ALL of them, including Mystara/Hollow World), and line up there timelines.
Follow that up based on sales of the campaign setting. If sales are low but demand online is high, electronic support. Otherwise, hardcopy support.
The older materials should recieved the retrend as quickly as possible once the fluff is updated in a campaign setting.
I like these ideas. It is unfortunate that fragmentation helped kill TSR because I loved it all the different campaign settings. Even though I didn't use most of them, they were wonderful reads.
My votes:
Non-Faerun Forgotten Realms settings: Kara-Tur, Zakhara/Al-Qadim, Maztica
Planescape
Spelljammer
Dark Sun would be cool, too.
I agree 100% with you.
A 150 page book for the Forgotten Realms, with a good contents page, index, glossary of terms, and individual chapter heads for each chapter.
Every page of actual listed content, however, should be blank with the words "Little is known of of the Realms, as they have been forgotten."
Then produce a good book, with contents, index, glossary, CL tables, etc. for each setting: Dark Sun, Planescape, Mystara, and others.
Also, if a monster/race only exists in one setting (changeling, shifter, warforged, draconian, etc) then include them in the setting book.
Oh, and give the guys at Kenzer & Company a license for Kingdoms of Kalamar updates. I never really got to play it, but several aspects of it were used in various games I played in, and I think they did a good job on the setting.
Ooooooooooh, where can I get to that?!
I prefer the style of religions in Eberron. The 'superhumans' of religion in other settings doesn't quite appeal to me, prefer them in the background.
Licensing the campaign settings to groups that will treat them with the dignity they deserve is the right way to go.
I'd really like to see Greyhawk taken into consideration as a stand-alone, unique setting and not just the default dumping ground for whatever the game designers come up with. It's where so many classical elements of the D&D mythos lie, and it's time it was given some respect on it's own.
I think having Ravenloft and Dark Sun back would be awesome as well. Ravenloft had a truly great atmosphere to it and just reading the rulebooks gave you a great sense of the kind of suspense that'd go with it. Dark Sun needs to come back, because it was extremely unique and a great "gritty" setting for those who want to totally shed the trappings of typical fantasy.
I think it would make more sense to have a crapload of setting but just put out a book or two for every setting except for the main two. I really think that if they decided to put out just one Darksun 4.0 book that it would sell a hell of a lot better than some random Realms book that focuses on just one small aspect of the realms.
So basically have twoish top tier settings that get a crapload of books and then a dozen or so second tier settings with just a book or two each.
*Bump*
Add my favorite campaigns:
Dragonlance
Planescape
Birthright (optional realm actions, was a well developed campaign which suffer from unpopular and bizarre rules)
Darksun (immediately after the Psionics book is sold)
Raveloft
Also seriously consider Campaign supplements for:
Magic the Gathering (Too much source material to ignore)
Pokemon (Gateway game to introduce kids and kids at heart to RPGs)
If you can't or won't do the setting, license them to someone who will. That way you get the best of both worlds.
I'd also like to see Hollow World remade.
[EDIT] Spelljammer too!
I think it would make more sense to have a crapload of setting but just put out a book or two for every setting except for the main two. I really think that if they decided to put out just one Darksun 4.0 book that it would sell a hell of a lot better than some random Realms book that focuses on just one small aspect of the realms.
So basically have twoish top tier settings that get a crapload of books and then a dozen or so second tier settings with just a book or two each.
I like that idea.
And perhaps they should do a contest for a player-made campaign once every year or two, but just put out the main book for it.
And perhaps they could somehow let us player vote for what campaign they'll be releasing additional books for every year. That way we could get what we really want, but all of the smaller groups of supporters for different campaigns still have their campaign setting book (and possibly one or two additional ones).
I dunno, I just think that's be cool, though it'd also be very hard to execute.
That's the only thing that might make me buy books from this new edition.
I just won't simply purchase every single one of them again because of a change in edition.
It would also be very very nice if greyhawk and darksun show up again.
Dark sun
Planescape
Ravenloft
Red steel
Spelljammer
That would be my wish
2. Dragonlance
3. Dragonlance
4. Dark*Matter
Thank you. :p
I can't seriously believe Wizards will support many campaign settings as TSR once did because of the unavoidable fragmentation of the market. However, I would love to see support for a limited time frame. Wizards could elect a particular year to be, lets say, the year of Mystara -- or Greyhawk, Ravenloft, whatever -- and support this particular setting through a series of release during that year. As such, many settings could be covered during the life span of fourth edition, satisfying the fans without spreading the resources too much.
Yes. I'm in total agreement with this. Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, and the rest. There was so much ground left to cover with these settings. Fix the problematic sections of each... move the setting timelines ahead 1000 years or so... and re-release them. This allows WoTC to put out something other than "old-fluff in new wrapper" Expeditions.
As for Planescape... a lot of people screaming for official support on that one... I never really got much out of that setting to be honest. Birthright was another one I didn't enjoy much. But maybe, just maybe, if there was a re-release in a yearly manner that could be focused upon by gamers and that would allow gamers to learn a finite amount of material (not the 20-30 supplements/adventures each that cluttered up the brain during 2E) and play through the setting.
Re-release a setting book and 2-3 adventure arcs then turn to the next Old School seeting for a year. This way the setting is established and furnished with material to get players into it. Now comes the sweet part... don't stop supporting the worlds, just switch from print editions to selling PDFs of continued support materials. That way the lines can be officially supported but the expense of printing the stuff doesn't push the company under.
TSR got pulled down by their attempts at multiple world support in the 1990's due to the massive cost of large scale distribution and printing (at least that is the way it was explained to me). If you publish a handfull of physical books, people are likely to complete the short runs of printed material. If they like the settings, electronic support can be continued with a much smaller monetary output.
Okay, that's my take. Limited, scheduled physical re-release with farmed out professional free-lance digital support (hell, you could farm out physical support products and not incur the extra costs) as per the previous Dragonlance and Ravenloft systems. This way everyone gets a taste of the old school stuff and WoTC can still maintain sales viability.
There are quite a few settings I'd like to see updated, most importantly and in order - Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Dark Sun. Moreover, I'd like to see the updates in a manner of a Campaign Setting book (which goes over the setting; places, people and themes), Monsters of (setting), Magic of (setting), Races of (setting), Faiths of (setting) and a few modules (about 6 to 8, in an ongoin story). One setting per year, that's a good 11 pieces for each setting, about one each month. How does that sound?
Exactly. I'm guessing WoTC has to have something like this up their sleeve. I'm more excited by the hour with 4e. Finally a chance to explore again.
I think it would make more sense to have a crapload of setting but just put out a book or two for every setting except for the main two. I really think that if they decided to put out just one Darksun 4.0 book that it would sell a hell of a lot better than some random Realms book that focuses on just one small aspect of the realms.
So basically have twoish top tier settings that get a crapload of books and then a dozen or so second tier settings with just a book or two each.
I really, really hope this is the model they use.
Now, that is one of the most sensible posts I've seen since the website started working again. Popular demand will only accelerate a setting's release by so much: WotC also has to judge how appealing/intimidating the setting will be for new gamers.
I'd love to see Ravenloft revived early on (if it's done properly), but I'll admit that it -- like Spelljammer or Al-Qadim -- isn't a likely choice to be the first out of the gate, because WotC will want to establish a solid foundation of "classic" fantasy-world products before it tackles any of the "themed" settings. Likewise, Planescape and DarkSun may have to wait a little longer than they otherwise might, simply because they're oriented toward higher-level play than many of the other settings (i.e. it'll take the newbies a while to acclimate to that level of play), and the planar-travel and psionics rules are bound to be rather intimidating.
That being said, I'll still cast my vote for Ravenloft and Mystara.
It is one of the biggest RPGA campaigns, and I think it has the best coverage of 'generic' D&D.
This would also work well with Planescape being a central theme to all the worlds. Just step through the door .....
But no one here has mentioned ....
HOW ABOUT A NEW SETTING !!!!!
Have a competition to design a new setting again !!! Give one of the many thousands and thousands of us who have enjoyed D&D for so many years a chance to share a NEW world. Now that would be cool - look what Ebberon did for
3.5e!!!
But no one here has mentioned ....
HOW ABOUT A NEW SETTING !!!!!
Have a competition to design a new setting again !!! Give one of the many thousands and thousands of us who have enjoyed D&D for so many years a chance to share a NEW world. Now that would be cool - look what Ebberon did for
3.5e!!!
I said that...
But anyways, yeah. A new setting could do some good. Maybe something back to the roots of D&D, but not as large scale as Forgotten Realms.
Honestly, I really hate that campaign setting, just because you have to have read all of the books, or your buddy over there that you're DMing for will be like, "Nope, Drizzt killed the governor of that town and now it's a goblin den."
And you just get to stare at him and go, "Shaddup. DM says what's going on. Go sit in the corner."
Ahem, but yes, I'd love to see a setting that's generic enough to be normal midieval-type RPG, but with all the political interest of Eberron.
I'd want to see Dark Sun and Spelljammer.
What I'd like more is to see supportive cooperation with 3rd party publishers for some of the 3rd party settings. I.e. Scarred Lands, Oathbound, et cetera.
And, of course, we would need a Planes handbook. Ideally, such a book should set up the cosmology of the standard D&D multiverse. It, along with Sigil and a decent rework of Spelljammer, could all work as one to tie the D&D multiverse together.
I would like also to see The Great Wheel as a standard cosmology for all D&D worlds.
Also interesting would be to see no general setting in Core Books. I mean, core books should only describe how to use settings, or make a new one, it would boost the creativity of readers and force them to create their own, worlds, before jumping into settings, or developing their home-made settings.
Greyhawk Campaign Setting as a Hardcover book is my dream, which I want to come true. :D
Ravenloft would be nice to see...the others, well, not so intrested in.
Spelljammer - This was a buzz to play, though I don't know how well it would work with 4e. I bought everything I could when it was out, including the Cloakmaster Cycle.
Mystara - or for purists "The Known World", complete with Hollow World. I had many a good time here. There are complete world maps, and much room for growth and expansion.
Something New - Perhaps a gameworld where Psionics is the order of the day rather than magic. Something not Athas. Humans vie for supremacy in a world without the traditional core races, but rather with creatures like Githyanki, Githzerai, Illithids, Maenads, Thri-Kreen, Unbodied, Xeph and Yuan Ti. The world itself could reside in or on the fringe of the Astral, sometimes indistinguishable from the Mindscape, with such things as gravity being a local phenomenon. Or perhaps a more traditional setting, with the less benign beings being in the Astral Shadows (ala d20 Modern) with only the Psions, Psychic Warriors and their allies being there to stop their intrusion. OK, I just realized I described a D&D version of d20 Modern's Agents of Psi with a dose of Dark*Matter thrown in.
d20 Modern - if that's the case then, maybe bring Modern closer to its D&D roots. Look at how 3e Masque of the Red Death fell neatly between settings in d20 Past yet still remained D&D. Heck if you get rid of the d20 logo thing, you could call it D&D Modern, and make the rules system fit around a setting. I saw how d20 Modern died a lack of support death, it needs a setting to make it viable. Bringing it closer to D&D, with rules and features which are more readily interchangeable would make it more accessible and desireable to players. Like for instance "This agents of Psi group would make a perfect secret society in my Greyhawk game, and totally throw off the characters when they encounter it in the Barrier Peaks. Hey, for fun, lets toss some Psionic Frall at them who are secretly running the Six Fingered Hand from the Duchy of Geoff".
Yeah, I went on a tangent there. As you can see, I am still fond of Greyhawk as well, and yes I did run a Barrier Peaks based campaign at one time (using AD&D 2nd Ed Revised rules supplemented by the AD&D compatible XXVc RPG).
Other settings go without saying. Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft. My thoughts anyhow...
I can't seriously believe Wizards will support many campaign settings as TSR once did because of the unavoidable fragmentation of the market. However, I would love to see support for a limited time frame. Wizards could elect a particular year to be, lets say, the year of Mystara -- or Greyhawk, Ravenloft, whatever -- and support this particular setting through a series of release during that year.
I don't think they will provide continued support, I think they will release one campaign setting book a year, as a one off, kind of like Ghostwalk.
So if, god willing, they released an Al-Qadim campaign book; that would be it, no slew of accessories and modules, ala 2nd edition.
Forgotten realms: meaningless
Eberron: actually interesting
Planescape: beyond cool (ps-t, thank you)
Dark sun: definitely potential. the Dungeon/Dragon articles, while not particularly meaty, were interesting
Ravenloft: way too goth, really, but something for everyone.
Spelljammer: know nothing, want to know more
I guess I'm the only person who wants a remake of Hollow World, eh?
I think most of the calls for a revived Mystara are counting what's inside it as a part of the package. ;)
*BUT* I have absolutely loved what www.planewalker.com and athas.org have done with the settings.
So, the way I'd like the settings to be done is I'd like wizards to publish a "campaign setting" style book, then leave most of the supplemental material for fans to submit for publication via whatever replaces Dungeon/Dragon.
p.s. Don't even sodding think of giving Her Serenity stats.
I liked Planescape however over the course of 3.5 I've noticed pieces of Planescape appearing in books sort of making it part of the overall generic setting, and I am okay with this continuing to be the case.
I hated the Dark Sun setting, but loved many of it's elements, the psionics, defilers, gladiators, it was a setting I loved to strip the goodies out of.
OMG Planezcape!
Really, these need some love! They're the two best campaign settings, hands down. They're the only full campaign settings that don't just rip of Jimmy Ronnie Ray Tolkien. (They rip off completely different authors, like Frank Herbert).
Greyhawk, with the Paizo folks that made it cool.
Works for me. I will not be starting a new campaign in a new world, when 4e arrives. I'll be porting my GH games over to the new rules... assuming the rules can handle gaming in a 3D environment such as underwater.
Dragonlance, Mystara/Hollow World & Greyhawk would be my fave three of these. However, I'd certainly purchase all of them, including new ones & Eberron, to give it a shot. (I have yet to look into Eberron)
assuming the rules can handle gaming in a 3D environment such as underwater.
I love the consistency of your love of all things aquatic in D&D.
I too love anything relating to aquatic action, in real life and D&D, and would like for nothing better than to get in on an aquatic campaign with you (I've never done it as a DM or player).
Do you live in or around London (UK)?
Mystara
Greyhawk
Forgotten Realms
Kara-Tur
Lankhmar
Hollow World
Spelljammer
Dark Sun
Ravenloft
Al-Qadim
Birthright
Savage Coast
Sundered Empire
Dragonlance (all ages and all continents)
Eberron
Gamma World
Dark Matter
Masque of the Red Death
And I want to see fully integrated epic levels, fully integrated psionics, and high quality content overall.
Now I understand all the huge events in the timeline for the Forgotten Realms - edition change.
Again, I've ironically been harping for Wizards to do something similar to a "campaign setting every year" for years now. Though, my idea had it being every six months, in a softcover, black-and-white book, with the idea of just being to show different days that D&D can go, not necessarily to be good.
I'm not saying Wizard's stole the idea. It's a "great minds" situation, I'm sure.
Anyway. While I suppose a 4th Edition version of some if not all of the older campaign settings - Mystara, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer, and so on - is pretty much inevitable, I'd much rather see new things.
Let's see, I had a big list somewhere...I'll only post some of it.
- American campaign setting (Inca/Aztec/Maya, as well as North American and Carib. Maztica? I guess, but not necessary. This is at the top of my list, because, well...I didn't make that Aztec pantheon for nothing).
- Age of Exploration. Actually, you could mesh this with the American/African setting. A world just entering its age of exploration. Gunpowder. w00t.
- African campaign setting
- Arabian (Al-Qadim?)
- Rehash of Oriental Adventures (Kara-Tur or Rokugan, I'm not married to either).
- Great Cthulhu!
- Very low-magic setting, ephasizing "realistic" look at the Middle Ages. Though actually I wouldn't like this one, but it should still be done.
- Atlantean.
- Steampunk. Like, there's no magic whatsoever in the setting (so as to differentiate it from Eberron), but lots of Steampunk. Victorian-age jazz.
1) GREYHAWK
2) Well-researched Roman and Dark-Ages historical campaigns
3) GREYHAWK
4) Mystara/Known World
5) GREYHAWK
6) Dragonlance
7) GREYHAWK
8) If they can get the license from SJ Games, perhaps a Discworld setting
9) And last, but not least, lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle pâté, brandy and a fried egg on top and GREYHAWK
Greyhawk
:D
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Al-Qadim (in or outside the realms, I don't care)
Me too, I still to this day think it is the most elegant campaign setting.
The campaign book could have juicy Arabic themed talent trees – desert rider, hakima, holy slayer etc.
And my all time favourite – clockwork mage/mechanician.
Kara-Tur, Zakhara, Maztica should come back too - but within FR and with just one book covering each.
I think Greyhawk should have its own books and that it should not be core (which I hear it is not). I also believe that Greyhawk would be better published 3rd party as 2 high fantasy settings by WotC (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) are quite enough.
If I could have only one back it would be Ravenloft!
I want to see all the old TSR worlds get campaign setting sourcebooks with fold-out poster maps:
[SNIP]
Lankhmar
[SNIP]
I'd love to see Lankhmar too, but I think Mongoose Publishing now has the rights to it... and they've got a book for it using Runequest rules. If it was D&D, I'd have bought it.
Dark Sun (For the Psionics)
Kara-Tur (For the Hengyokai)
Yes.. I want to resurect my 2e Psionicist Dog Henyokai character.
If there is an overwhelming amount of support for a source book, which would likely be a surprise, then it could possibly cause a 2nd or 3rd source book expansion for that system to be released. Or if there isn't enough interest to justify another book, then WOTC can shift on to another old setting.
From what I've noticed, the largest following of vocal people have been fans of the following systems.
Dragonlance
Ravenloft
Dark Sun
Planescape
In all honesty, I don't care for all of these world systems myself. But a nice one shot book which WOTC could retail for $45 - $50 isn't a bad gamble. Especially if they anticipated lower interest and did a reduced print run. That way if the demand is high and they sell out of a given source book, the could always issue another printing.
Zelandor?
Zelandor?
Example of a homebrew campaign world my guess.
For the love of God!
4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
I second this motion.
For the love of God!
4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
Umm, in 3e planescape was oficial... it was included in the official rules and had it own books, of course no mention to the word planecape but the spirit was the same.
Planescape
Darksun
Greyhawk can burn in Darksun.
Greyhawk can travel through Planescape to get to Darksun to burn.
Blech. Middle Earth clones. Blech.
I want a DEATH GATE campaign setting.
OMG Darksunz!
OMG Planezcape!
Really, these need some love! They're the two best campaign settings, hands down. They're the only full campaign settings that don't just rip of Jimmy Ronnie Ray Tolkien. (They rip off completely different authors, like Frank Herbert).
Eberron doesn't count?
8) If they can get the license from SJ Games, perhaps a Discworld setting
Yes! I second to that, give me Discworld d20. :D
With official stats for Rincewind and Luggage. :D
Umm, in 3e planescape was oficial... it was included in the official rules and had it own books, of course no mention to the word planecape but the spirit was the same.
Well, no, the spirit WASN'T the same.
3e had information about the Outer Planes, Planar creatures, and some stuff about Sigil and the now-displaced Factions.
It had very little of the flavor, not much of the philosophy, none of the tone in which Planescape was presented, and lacked the original "spirit".
The "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" adventure is a perfect example. As a 3.5e adventure, it sets itself up as something typically hack-and-slash. The blurb on the back cover even says something like "Meet demons and kill them all!"
That's not how a Planescape campaign goes. Sure, the adventure itself is well-done, and a DM who's done Planescape before could very easily alter the tone to the way more cerebral roleplay that 2e's Planescape books encouraged, but the fact remains that the 3/3.5e material on the Planes hasn't done anything past illustrate them as challenges to be conquered/resources to be called upon.
I'd be ecstatic to see a 4e sourcebook for Planescape, written in the classic Planescape tone, cant and all, with roleplay advice for the old philosophers-with-clubs approach to Planar adventuring, taking old material as well as stuff compiled from contributions to Planewalker.com. It'd probably have to wait 'til 4e was out for a few years, sure, but I know I wouldn't be alone in appreciating such a book.
2.) Al-Qadim. Maybe the single most beautiful book TSR put out for 2nd edition. It just plain works, on so many levels. Any update would have to include the material from The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook, of course; the Ghul Lord is too tasty to leave in the past.
3.) Dark Sun. Light-years different from anything else TSR or WotC have ever done. It's so unique that it demands a place at the table. It also takes pride of place for being the one setting I've seen where the presence of psionics actually makes sense.
4.) Planescape. If you can bring back Tony D., I say go for it. :D
5.) Spelljammer. Sort of superfluous if you also have Planescape, so it may be a one-or-the-other deal, but Spelljammer is very charming. Pseudo-sailing ships and outer space weirdness are two great tastes that taste great together.
Whats more some OGL settings were better handled than others. Giving ravenloft to your biggest competator maybe not so bright, I wonder why you didn't let them renew.....
On the other hand, margariet weis's compnay has been doing a good job with DL. Let them do DL for 4e. I seriuosly doubt wizards will ever pick it up again, but they are doing a good job. That setting is one I keep returing my games two becasue for a lot of people its even more "classic" than FR and as a world its got more personality than many others that have been produced. Leave a setting were stories can be epic. Soverign press did a good job, let them keep doing DL!
Given how much I enjoy Eberron, I do think 4e is an opportunity for a brand-new campaign world.
I would appreciate a sober, non-high magic (=/= forgotten realms), non-steam punk (=/= eberron) and a non-all too alien campaign world, but something like Iron Kingdoms. More swords, less sorcery. More blood and suspense, less neon lights and fireworks. Perhaps something Arthurian or Celtic in spirit.
Besides the fantastic al-Qadim of course :D
Spelljammer always had the notion that it incorporated all the other material plane campaign settings as part of its universe. If it does return, perhaps it could return the way so many elements of Planescape returned in the Manual of the Planes and related products.
For both Planescape and Spelljammer, the art and writing will need to show the infinite scope of the settings. Mapping supposedly infinite planes of existence doesn't make much sense, and to be frank, the old settings-- though beautiful and magnificent --never really explored just what it means to be spatially infinite. Let's experiment and have a look at what lies beyond what we have already seen.
As much as the huge number of different settings is blamed for TSR's downfall (among other things), many of those settings were very well-illustrated, and the artists responsible for the illustration went a long way in making the setting visually cohesive. Wizards has a number of great artists, but many of them are hired to do work for topics which doesn't speak to their strengths. Get artists who like to do gory, blood-soaked battles and savage mutated creatures to work on settings like that. Get artists who do beautiful, ethereal creatures to portray the celestials. Have artists like Daarken do the fiends and ghosts, have people like Rebecca Guay portraying fey creatures and scenes of romance. By the gods, don't have people like R. Spencer illustrating things like gnomes when he's been doing mutants and werewolves for years.
Hell, one Campaign Setting for each and I'd be happy.
For example, the 3rd Edition Oriental Adventures featured Rokugan as it's "default setting."
By doing things this way, they can link the necessary game material to the setting, and test the waters to see if a full-scale launch (or a single book) would work.
This way, you could release the Psionics Handbook with Dark Sun as it's default setting, the Manual of Planes with Planescape as it's default setting, a Heroes of Horror-style book for Ravenloft, a mass combat/nation building book for Birthright, and so on.
Yes! I second to that, give me Discworld d20. :D
With official stats for Rincewind and Luggage. :D
Lord Havelock Vetinari (Assassin 20)
Key Skills: Diplomacy, Intimidate
Feats: DM Caveat (Assassin 20), Mind
, Skill focus (Diplomacy)DM Caveat allows him to start as a PrC without the prereqs, and advance a 10 level PrC to 20 pre-Epic.
Mind
allows him to use his ranks in diplomacy for basicly anything.That would make my day! I have a setting that I have been working on for nearly 7 years and I would love for WotC to look it over and perhaps add it to the role-playing shelves!
I am sure that there are many of you that share this sentiment. So shout it out! LET'S HAVE A HUNT FOR THE NEXT GREAT CAMPAIGN SETTING!
Take care, friends.
Lord Havelock Vetinari (Assassin 20)
Mr Teatime (Assassin 40). Feats: He kills everybody
He kills everybody allows him to kill even gods in one swift action. :P
I wolud like to know which World will be published after FR. It is already said, that they will publish new world every year. So what is next? Greyhawk? Eberron? Planescape?
Wizards please, bring back the Great Wheel, as a standard cosmology!
This way, you could release the Psionics Handbook with Dark Sun as it's default setting, the Manual of Planes with Planescape as it's default setting, a Heroes of Horror-style book for Ravenloft, a mass combat/nation building book for Birthright, and so on.
That's actually a very good idea.
Planescape personally I was never a huge fan because I believe the outer planes should rarely be accessed by pcs. If they are accessed they had better be high leveled. HoweverI find it essential because it gives gret detail of all planes and how they intereact wht multi verse. It also makes great source material. Plus it would also be a great way to get rid of that ridiculous closed cosmology rule. The Fr had the GReat Tree, and so on. I loved it when all the cosmologies were connected by the Great wheel. Each Cosmos could intereact with one another.
GreyHawk and Mystara would also be nice to have as something alternative from your more mainstream settings such as FR and Eberron. Something where you have your old classic dungeons and Dragons gaming style. Simple straight foward Rpging without too much input that it rigidly affects your campaign setting.
In that sort of format I'd personally like to see:
1. Ravenloft (Would contain horror rules which could imported into any campaign)
2. Birthright (Would contain mass combat rules)
3. Dark Sun (Would contain an alternate magic system and rules for operating in harsh enviroments.)
4. Planscape (Would contain rules for planar travel and the like.)
etc
In this way the setting books could also replace some of the generic supplements from 3.Xe by containing everything found within those supplements and more. Ravenloft would replace Heroes of Horror, Birthright would replace Heroes of Battle, and so on.
Plus it would also be a great way to get rid of that ridiculous closed cosmology rule.
Cosmologies are not closed. They are all accessible through the Plane of Shadow. Getting rid of setting-specific cosmology for a return to the generic, force-the-setting-to-fit-it Great Wheel would be a huge mistake.
In this way the setting books could also replace some of the generic supplements from 3.Xe by containing everything found within those supplements and more. Ravenloft would replace Heroes of Horror, Birthright would replace Heroes of Battle, and so on.
I think the inverse would be better (generic supplements with the campaigns being examples of implementation), since it would seem more friendly to non-campaign specific games and groups. While it would be easy to extract the game content from a Ravenloft book, there would be the initial perception from people that it's made for specific play, not for mining of mechanics. If the generic book + mini-campaign is successful, they could spawn a line that requires it (since you'd need those rules anyhow).
Personally with the release of 4e I believe Wizards should forgo wasting any time or effort on Campaign Settings. Never has any company been able to produce an all inclusive Setting, that garners enough appeal to warrent creating Campaign Setting specific supplements and adventures. Even the oft lauded FR does not appeal to everyone, and I for one never spend a dime on anything bearing it's stamp. But regardless of personal feelings, I'm sure most can see where Campaign specific materials just lack the universality that generic supplements/adventures give.
I purpose that Wizards spend that time and effort on creating generic material that every DM (and Player) can use regardless of their setting. And put forth some material to help DMs create and build their own settings that can be tailored to both themselves and their Players wants. For well over a decade I've stuck solely to my own world and have found that everyone gets the most fun out of those adventures then any they have played in FR, Ebberon, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, etc., etc.
While some Players will feel a loss at seeing FR and Ebberon lose offical support (Players can and will still create their own material for these settings), I really believe that all of us would gain if Wizards took this more open-ended creative approach.
Well I hope everyone understands that this is my opinion (so no hard feelings please), I know others can and will differ. But before anyone flys to the defense of their beloved setting(s), truley consider the benifits of Wizards focusing on giving us tools to expand our own creations as opposed to spending hours writing pseudo-histories and geographies that many (if not most) will never use.
With the announcment of 4th Edition Wizards now has the chance to correct an issue that has plagued D&D since the beginning....Campaign Settings.
Forgotten Realms outsells all other D&D-related game accessories aside from the core books themselves. You're expecting them to give up a huge source of revenue just to so they can give away years of developed, proprietary setting?
...You're expecting them to give up a huge source of revenue just to so they can give away years of developed, proprietary setting?
Yes...they can still make all the same cash with material that is actually usable by everyone, not just the FR niche.
Didn't you post that in another thread Sepsis?...
Actually that was me...I reposted the comment here just so my opinion would be heard. I'm still sad that they plan on wasting time and effort to create Settings when they could make the same (if not more) profit from universal material. I for one have always loved Ravenloft (or rather I should say the Horror mechanics the setting brought to the table), but I would find a 4e version of Heroes of Horror, Book of Vile Darkness, etc. far more usable than a 4e version of the setting. Give me the mechanics with examples of their use, and some optional goodies thrown in (items, spells, whatnot) and I'll get far more bang for my buck. In fact I'll spend those bucks on those products, while I won't waste any on pre-made settings (particularly not one filled with so much backstory it would take a week of lectures to introduce a new Player to).
While they may sell these rehashes to loyal FR fans I know many would rather see this game free from setting specific material.
Lord Havelock Vetinari (Assassin 20)
Key Skills: Diplomacy, Intimidate
Feats: DM Caveat (Assassin 20), Mind
DM Caveat allows him to start as a PrC without the prereqs, and advance a 10 level PrC to 20 pre-Epic.
Mind
Classic! ;) I love The Patrician!!!
*in a non romantic way of course, cough!*bit of art I did based on his wonderfulness...
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/vue1/numbnuts.jpg
Harry Turtledove did a great series of books called "The Legion of Videsseos": Roman legion ends up stranded in another world, with low magic, monoesthetic religion, 2 great nations been enemies for centuries (Constantinople versus Arabia, sort of), a third group of peoples like nomads, a 4th liek the Normans, a 5th like the Vikings.
Really very cool, could be a great setting
Videsseos = full of guile, political stuff, anicent culture, rich language/names etc.
-Romans, you have got to love Roman legions fo rbeing kick arse!
-The Arabian peoples were the villains in the story, but not by nature, them and Videsseos had been enemies for centuries, and a real evil SOB offered them his aid....bad idea.
-The Norman folk (Gamblers as they get called) are land hungry freebooters.
-The Viking folk are dour, deadly warriors.
etc.
- Spelljammer
- Dark Sun (maybe - I haven't played it)
- Dragonmech (sure, it's Goodman Games, not WotC, but it rocks. The difference is the love you can really see the makers putting into it).
- some new campaign setting that captures what 4e really is.
On a tangentially related note, I love D&D's Tolkinienian and western European folkloric routes, but why are they assumed to be somehow more "basic" to fantasy than the legends and fantasy systems of other cultures?
Will Greyhawk still be the base setting? I personally, certainly hope so. It is the perfect 'generic' world for it.
I watched a you tube posted by Gamer Zero where Chris Perkins mentions how GH fans will be happy.
Old news?
Sorry...
Yes, I said it!Randy Hancks
It's kinda funny to read of "other" settings beside FR and Eberron. Greyhawk was once the "core" setting, largely forgotten, and now what? Greyhawk an "other" setting? Wow. I feel really old. It's ok. It's good to see change and actually embrace it a little. I love Eberron and FR though a little love for good 'ol Greyhawk would be appreciated.
There have been a lot of good settings. Any advice I would give is to not over-saturate the releases with too many settings. If that happened like it did about 10-15 years ago, then you can't release a lot of Good Material for the settings. Stick with a couple. If FR and Eberron are most popular, stick with them with maybe a core book or something for tertiary material. Make Polls. Threads like this certainly help you (WOTC R&D) to figure out the best path.
Unfortunately we can't all be happy with the result. A lot of us like a lot of different settings. If it can work financially - the right licenses to 3rd Parties can make good settings for us without over-taxing the WOTC crew and putting out inferior products.
We all need to remember to that big companies also have to plan in advance and it's hard to change those plans, once executed. We as gamers and interested consumers have an obligation to give clear goals to the WOTC crew to make us products we want. Also remember each gaming group, DM or player isn't the only one around - we're all over the place and have different tastes and ideas on what we want. This thread is an awesome example of it. I like MANY of the settings mentioned in this thread already. And I'd like to see many of them updated to 4E. If I were in charge, I would stick with the most popular with continued support and work in others as resources become available.
I liked Planescape well enough, but eh.
Ravenloft should be reprinted as the original module without adding munchkin gypsies.
Dark Sun could be cool as a base class for the Psionics book.
Eberron - Words cannot describe how awesome this setting is.
Dark Sun - I haven't read much, but I likes what I sees.
Planescape - Not my cuppa tea, but I have friends who loved Torment. And I'm all for excuses to get my friends to play!
Rich's Setting or Phillip's Setting - Hey, guys, no need for a new contest! WotC still has rights to Rich Burlew's (of Order of the Stick fame) and Phillip Nathan Toomey's settings. If they need a new one, they'll drop one of these (And with Rich's skills, I'd be eager to see it.)
Greyhawk - It seems hackneyed, but, hey, it can be fun. Especially with some of the work people like Erik Mona have done!
Truth be told, I'd prefer it if Wizards Forgot the RealmsTM, but I understand how imporant an asset the setting is financially to them, so It'd have to stay one of the core two.
So... it would be nice, but don't get your hopes up. The logistics involved are really ugly. Just sayin'.
On a tangentially related note, I love D&D's Tolkinienian and western European folkloric routes, but why are they assumed to be somehow more "basic" to fantasy than the legends and fantasy systems of other cultures?
Maybe because they're more familiar? I dunno.
I would like to see Dark Sun because I never got to play in it and I have heard nothing but good things.
Does anyone know anything about how Iron Kingdoms is going to be effected.
3rd-party publisher. Totally up to them whether they want to convert or still put out the existing d20 material.
I don't know anything about what's going on a Privateer Press, but I would *expect* that if and when the OGL and SRD for 4e come out, they'll be converting, as with most high-profile 3rd-party d20 lines.
Truth be told, I'd prefer it if Wizards Forgot the RealmsTM
That said, I'm sure 4e will have a PS-y Manual of the Planes, and I still say a city book on Sigil would eat the cat's pajamas...
...and by that I mean "be awesome."
....man, my metaphors are funked up.
After FR.... It'd be nice if Greyhawk finally got some play. I prefer FR, but having played Living Greyhawk for years, it'd be nice if some Greyhawk books compiled the happenings of CY591-end of LG.
After that, I vote for some Dark Sun.
If GH wasn't so popular, I'd go for DS immediately as both a change of pace, and as a campaign that 4E's style seems most thematically appropriate for. With less of a reliance on magic items, this 4E or "Iron Heroes done good," fits a low magic campaign like Dark Sun very well.
Naturally, Dark Sun runs from levels 3 to 30, keeping its original rule that only the toughest survive, while also gaining a lot more room for growth. Possibly a 4E 1st level character might do ok, but the level 3 rule is nice.
The rest I'm ambivalent about, but that's ok, because I want to play Living Faerun, and FR is being converted first :D
Possible setting 'types' for D&D:
* High fantasy (Faerun, Greyhawk)
* Low fantasy / pseudohistorical (?)
* Post-apocalyptic (Dark Sun)
* Modern fantasy / steam punk (Eberron)
* Non-Western fantasy (al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, etc)
* Gothic / horror (Ravenloft)
* ?
In 2008 we'll see Faerun & Eberron, covering the high and the modern fantasy niche.
* Modern fantasy / steam punk (Eberron)
Eberron is NOT steam punk. Maybe you should actually read a book or play a game before you try to fit it into that category.
Eberron is NOT steam punk.
I've cracked a book and am looking to crack a novel or two and I'd say it certainly has a steampunk look and feel to it. It's just missing the steam. Call it Magi-Punk if it makes you feel better. Seems like an irrational aversion to me, though, as there's nothing inherently wrong with steampunk.
Eberron is NOT steam punk. Maybe you should actually read a book or play a game before you try to fit it into that category.
Well it's the general feel of the setting I had after I played some sessions. But perhaps it was the playstyle of the DM who hosted the sessions which is to 'blame'?
That's why I rather call it 'modern fantasy' than steam punk, because it feels like a modern culture but with fantasy elements.
Darksun (yes for the love of god darksun *******it)
Planescape
Ravenloft
Here's a question I don't think has been answered yet.
Will Greyhawk still be the base setting? I personally, certainly hope so. It is the perfect 'generic' world for it.
I thought Forgotten Realms and Eberron are basically the default settings now? From what I see Greyhawk doesn't get much love these days.
NO Core Setting per say. A generic anything goes pretty much world. Where you can mix our mythologies and Fantasy mythologies.
Forgotten Realms will be the First Setting put out on August 2008.
Another setting to follow each year after. I wouldn't be suprised to see Eberron in August of 2009 and then something else after. If they only plan on 1 per year, that will NOT be very many settings at all. Maybe 2 or 3 after FR if they keep going like they are and put out a new Edition after 6 years. They didn't really keep up with the others settings before.
NO Core Setting per say. A generic anything goes pretty much world. Where you can mix our mythologies and Fantasy mythologies.
Which is a good thing imo, it encourages home-brewing. And I didn't like the generic Greyhawk gods in the PH anyway.
Greyhawk always has a place in a true D & D heart. Maybe the other areas of Oreth, beyond the Sea of Dust and the Dry Steppes, that were never discribed before.
Forgotten Realms with less population (maybe after a mass war that tears the world assunder)
Eberron I didn't much care for. Living Golems "Warforged" as PCs go figure.
Get back to basics is a good idea.
Mystara (preferably the Kerameikos Kingdom area and Red Steel Area).
Long live Mystara / Known World !!
Actually, with all the fan development that has gone into Mystara over the years, it is likely an official adaptation of the setting would disappoint most.
Still ... a nice thought
Which is a good thing imo, it encourages home-brewing. And I didn't like the generic Greyhawk gods in the PH anyway.
Of course homebrews and house rules are not going to be supported by the DDI, unless you can add in code of your own. So even though I have no problem with a setting neutral core books, the functionality (and usefulness) of the DDI seems to be at odds with that feature of the new core books.
For the love of God!
4e Planescape! Make it happen! Make it official!!
BUT if you even so much as HINT you're going to stat the Lady of Pain, I'm coming down there with chicken wire, lemon juice, a chainsaw, and a damned rabid badger.
That is all!!!
what more to add than AND PLEASE DON'T TRY TO FIX IT!!
What I'd really like are homebrew books. Those environment books where really usefull in this regard. AD&D had a lot of them, but I don't really think they fit neatly into the marketing concept that is currently followed.
If it isn't it should be...Wizards could profit quite a bit from producing materials that allow/encourage "homebrew" settings.
I've cracked a book and am looking to crack a novel or two and I'd say it certainly has a steampunk look and feel to it. It's just missing the steam. Call it Magi-Punk if it makes you feel better. Seems like an irrational aversion to me, though, as there's nothing inherently wrong with steampunk.
Magi-punk! I love it. New genre emerges with its own category. Would have to agree with you 100%. Even if its Not Steam-punk, you could very easily make some areas all about the Steam-punk.
Here’s the place to talk about other campaign settings (besides Forgotten Realms and Eberron).
Just wondering why Greyhawk can't get its own thread and the respect it deserves?
Sorry to burst some bubbles, but we got an answer last night.
NO Core Setting per say. A generic anything goes pretty much world. Where you can mix our mythologies and Fantasy mythologies.
Forgotten Realms will be the First Setting put out on August 2008.
Another setting to follow each year after.
Source?
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=683
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=welcome/conventions/gencon07
This Highlight list on The Secrets of D&D Seminar from GenCon. The DMG part mentions No core setting. Hope this helps Transformer.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=908068
I'm happy that they will be releasing any "new" setting at all. I'd like it to be Al-Qadim, but mainly I'd like it not to be Ravenloft or Dragonlance, as they got covered in third edition so I think somebody else deserves a turn now.
Al-Qadim IS Forgotten Realms. It is just the Southern Conintent attached to Faerun. They just did not go into this region for some reason except for a few sentences here and there and the paragraph or two on it in the FRCS in the "Other Lands" section near the end. Al-Qadim is just the Setting Name for Zakhara (which is the Continents Name).
Transformer:
If the Aye, thanks. was directed at me, than no problem at all. It is getting a little hard to keep track of where everything is found out though. The above link to the Highlight of The D&D Secrets Seminar is NOT where I got the information though. I just can't seem to remember where it was though.
2) Dark Sun...I played in a quest once there...must play again.
3) Spelljammer...I've only read stuff in the late, lamented Dragon Magazine...but it piqued my interest.
I think its a given we will see Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk. Which is good...I LOVE Greyhawk!!!
FR will be the first campaign setting they support for 4e. They will get around to all of them, much of it will be available early on D&D Insider.
From an enworld representative at Gencon, from among xmen's links. Can anyone from Wizards or otherwise confirm or deny that Insider non-subscribers (Outsiders?) will not have access to 4th edition's campaign setting materials? Even if that's the case, it sounds like such materials will be pretty awful; settings like Dark Sun and Planescape need 400 page sourcebooks, not miscellaneous 3 page articles in online magazine compilations )=.
If the Aye, thanks. was directed at me, than no problem at all. It is getting a little hard to keep track of where everything is found out though.
It was indeed. And don't worry about it; I know what you mean. Finding all the information available about 4th edition is a 7 hour job of reading every Gencon blog on 5 different websites )=.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=welcome/conventions/gencon07
Dungeon and Dragon Magazine go online. Two part video interview.
I am a big fan of Eberron and would like to see it's continued support.
I have a general dislike of the Forgotten Realms (too many Epic Level NPCs and too much of the setting is change when a certain author writes another novel) It being the first released setting is slightly disappointing for me. I will at least look at it before deciding on not picking it up.
I would like to see Dark Sun and Psionics make the cut into 4e.
I would love to see a renewed focus on Planescape and Spelljammer -- but I echo my fellows here who have pointed out that such a move would have to be done very, very carefully. Some things could use fixing or removing (crystal spheres and the phlogiston, I'm looking at you), but most of it should be updated with an eye to expansion rather than redesign.
There's so much potential there that it would be a real shame to get bogged down reinventing the wheel. One of the great things about Planescape is how effortlessly it converted to 3e, because so little of it relied on game mechanics. The old Planescape source material is all available online as PDF downloads -- perfect for 4e's online focus. Don't rehash it -- build on it! I want to know what happens after the Faction War, and in the wake of Dead Gods!
Speaking of, please give Sigil the boxed set it deserves. The best map we have of Sigil -- the most (self-)important city in the multiverse -- is created from one 2x2" block of crooked buildings and streets copied, rotated, and pasted about a hundred times. That's not right, guv. It's our Waterdeep, it is.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=908402
Well, we now know that Greyhawk is dead as far as RPGA is concerned as it is now going to Living Forgotten Realms.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=908402
F that, I'm done after the last Core mod.
Dragonlance
Dark Sun
Oriental Adventures
Planescape
Please make these happen!
Eberron is NOT steam punk. Maybe you should actually read a book or play a game before you try to fit it into that category.
If I was going to categorize Eberron as something.. it would be post World war II Europe. Indiana Jones fighting Nazis!
Back on topic... SPELLJAMMER!
You know, I don't really need the full setting.. although I don't see anything wrong with Crystal Sphere's and Phlogiston.. heck, I even like binary gravity. I just want some flying ships with stats. Everything past that I can do myself.
Also for my list:
Dragonlance
Ravenloft
Planescape
They could use Birthright to put out rules for mass combat, navel combat and rulership of kingdoms/domains.
It's already difficult enough converting it from 3.0 to 3.5. I don't want to have to convert it from 3.0 to 4.0.
Oriental Adventures.
It's already difficult enough converting it from 3.0 to 3.5. I don't want to have to convert it from 3.0 to 4.0.
Seconded, except OA isn't really a Campaign Setting
Ravenloft &
Forgotten Realms (with added OA)
...imo...
I don't have much interest in the rest.
The Gazzetteers especially.. Ravenloft finally became a really fleshed out setting because of Arthaus. The Horror and Gothic feel finally came to the fore. And so did the idea of Ravenloft as its own setting and not a tack on to other settings..
How about this, give each setting 2 books each with 300+ pages. One book will be the big book of fluff covering all the juicy lore that each respective setting can handle, and the other will be full of crunch, featuring feats, PrCs(if they still exist), substitution levels, ect. Just a thought.
I like that idea. Limited runs on the majority of the campaign worlds (Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Al-Qadim, Planescape, Darksun, Birthright, Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Mystara, Spelljammer.) And then full support for the major campaign worlds (Forgotten realms, Eberron, Greyhawk).
And please, keep raptorans, goliaths and the rest of the newest races away from the core, too. They are unneeded.
My second would be Planescape. I loved the setting, the feel, and the art. I'd also like to see events post Faction War. That being said, I wouldn't mind 4e information about the factions pre-War. Also add my vote to a statless Lady of Pain. She's a plot device, leave Her as such.
My third vote would be Spelljammer. I read most of the old 2e campaign stuff, but I was never able to play.
Finally, Dark Sun. There was a lot of interesting flavor to the setting, and I liked it.
Eberron annoys the crap out of me because the whole magical technology thing feels like such a minor dash of spice in just another bland, western-European medieval world.
And feel free to actually include rules subsets that are world specific. Dragonmarks would have been so much cooler if they weren't just feat progressions.
I guess its unrealistic to expect that we'll see all of the old settings again unless there is a big enough perceived return, but we can hope.
Shane
Shane
Incidentally, I actually did this on my own, but it hasn't had a chance to get used much.. I used the Vanara as my monkeys, and Warforged as my robots.
I'd much rather buy a setting with all of this stuff already done for me. :D
Chris
That's why I like Planescape, as a linking factor between other campaign settings.
The realms are cool, but they're so overdone anymore it takes a lot of the mystery out for me. And makes it tough to play in if the players in the group know the lore better than the DM.
edit: PS - feel free to drop eberron :P it's just not as smooth feeling as other worlds. I understand it was necessary to create, for DDO and all that, but let it stay DDO.
2.Al-Quadim - Ravenloft.
3 Greyhawk.
4 A Diverse Other Planar Campainge Setting as told from the Prespective of the Prime Planes.
5 A Magic Free Setting.
6 A Fantasy Greco-Roman Setting
FR Grey box
World of Greyhawk boxed set
Dragonlance Adventures Hardback
Dark Sun original box
Lankhmar City of Adventure
Ravenloft Realm of Terror
and so on.
Most of these have one book of rules and one of flavor.
Nah...
I want Ptolus-sized books for each campaign setting. One for year with a lot of online support from D&D Insider.
Agree completely. It's already been proven with Ptolus, Shackled City and Worlds Largest Mess that players are willing to fork out the dough on big books. If you preview them on DnDI and generate a good buzz you can definitely sell them.
Dragonlance because it has my favorite story and races.
Planescape because I had always had fun with it.
Ravenloft because it taught people and overplay both evil and good alignments the meaning of fighting for your lives.
1) Greyhawk
2) Al-Qadim (I don't like Forgotten Realms, but it's far enough away that I don't have to deal with the rest of the Realms)
3)Eberron
4)Ravenloft
5)Dark Sun
1) Planescape
2) Ravenloft
3) Forgotten Realms (ONLY and I repeat ONLY if Al-Qadim & Kara-Tun support it shown, if they can be released seperate from the rest of the Realms even better)
4) Dark Sun
5) Dragonlance
- Mystara
- Blackmoor
- Voyage of the Princess Ark
- Hollow World
- Red Steel/Savage Coast
- Thunder Rift
- Karawenn: The setting of the First Quest novels. According to TSR Product Manager Bruce Heard, likely located in Norwold, Mystara.
- Ghyr: The BECMI setting of the AD&D Action Figures and Coloring Books, detailed in XL1, Quest for the Heartstone. Likely located in both Oerth and Mystara.
- Zanopus Castle: The setting of the D&D Comic Ads, which may be viewed here and here. Apparently the same place as the sample dungeon from the early blue-colored OD&D Basic Sets. Likely located in both Oerth and Mystara since it's from the same era as the Keep on the Borderlands and the Caverns of Quasqueton, both of which are in both worlds.
- Pelinore: The BECMI setting of UK TSR's IMAGINE magazine.
- Symslvch: The setting for the Hebrew BECMI D&D modules. The source of one of the most...interesting...monsters of D&D: the Goldshitr, which leaves a trail of droppings that appear to be gold coins, but which later change into their true form...
- The world of the D&D Gamebooks (Endless Quest, Super Endless Quest, HeartQuest, and Fantasy Forest)
- The Realm of the D&D Cartoon Show
And yes, I know there's some overlap there. ;)
Travis
2. Forgotten Realms' Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, etc. Now that FR has become sorta like a "new standard," these missing parts needs to be addressed. This is a definite second (although close to Greyhawk) in importance.
3. Although I never played them, I think DragonLance, Ravenloft, and Planescape should all be brought back due to their continued high popularity. All three a not too distant third.
4. Everything else.
5. Something new.
Yes. I'm in total agreement with this. Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, and the rest. There was so much ground left to cover with these settings. Fix the problematic sections of each... move the setting timelines ahead 1000 years or so... and re-release them. This allows WoTC to put out something other than "old-fluff in new wrapper" Expeditions.
Please, don't advance time lines. It does a disservice to both new and old players alike. It takes the setting away from the themes and features that originally drew players to it. It changes things for simply for the necessity of things having changed, not because it further develops it. It sweeps the campaigns of older players under the rug and says that the events of their games ultimately did not matter. It leaves new players feeling like they've inherited a "used" setting, that's been changed over and over based on someone else's stories and forces them to track down old, out of print source books to find out how the setting came to be the way it is. Even today, ask the people on the Dark Sun boards how they feel about the Revised 2nd Edition Dark Sun setting, which advanced things only 10 years. I don't know how all the FR fans have put up with it, especially since it's official that FR is advancing 10 years to 4th.
There is nothing really wrong with taking old fluff and putting it in a new wrapper when so much of it has been gone for so long. The new generation of D&Ders need an opportunity to get their hands on it. It's like the way they re-release old movies on DVD with extra bonus features. It's also a good opportunity to go back and look at what supplemental splatbooks added to the setting was well received enough to go into the new core setting books, and what was poorly received enough to drop out of canon entirely.
I would like also to see The Great Wheel as a standard cosmology for all D&D worlds.Cosmologies are not closed. They are all accessible through the Plane of Shadow. Getting rid of setting-specific cosmology for a return to the generic, force-the-setting-to-fit-it Great Wheel would be a huge mistake.
Mourn's got the right idea here. While both Planescape and Spelljammer benefit from being linked to other cosmologies, most other settings just end up feeling dilluted if they have to be forced to fit other cosmologies rules. Eberron and Dark Sun both have different versions of the planes, that fit the settings far better than the Great Wheel, and changing that for the sake of people who aren't even playing those settings is wrong.
As neat as Ravenloft could be, it should be treated the same as Greyhawk - handed off to a trusted 3rd party, most likely Paizo.
So...
1) Forgotten Realms (as much as I dislike it, it's a very fleshed-out and well-supported world - my dislike is personal and has nothing to do with the feel of the world itself)
2) Dragonlance
3) Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Eberron, Planescape
Eberron, while interesting, is almost to a point where it can spin off into it's own game brand. Bending the rules of that world to that of traditional D&D can at times be more frustrating than it's worth.
I would like to see Oriental Adventures and more support for it this time around, instead of one fire and forget book.
1) Planescape
2) Dark Sun
3) Ravenloft
And that's all I care about...
For new campaign settings, anything that's original and unique. Even one of the other finalists from the campaign setting contest.
To me, i think that if there is a 'core cosmology' it should be like planscape, except without planes like ysgard etc, that is planes based of real life mythology, i always found this cheesy. So make a fictional, but anagolous comsmology and run with that.
I hear the Greyhawk gods won't be default etc.
I hear they don't want the default D&D campaign setting to be a sprawling mass of magical kingdoms and empires etc, it sounds like they want a dark land, where monsters and heroes are rare.
Will it be purposely vague?
I find it cheesy and antiquated, it would be like thor showing up in a fantasy novel, it just feels cheesy.
How about one new stat for the Lady of Pain per edition?
Right now we have her alignment; next, give us her init bonus... By 5th ed, we could have her movement speed, then 6th ed could reveal her ranks in decipher script...
All you ever need to know about the Lady of Pain...
Divine Rank:
My guess is they are going to shift Greyhawk into a more generic setting with the old mythos' from Dieities and Demigods. Just a guess....
Which mythos in particular?
All you ever need to know about the Lady of Pain...
Divine Rank:
Really? I always gave her the following stats:
:D :embarrass :P ;) 
- Aspects of Rulership: brings in systems for running large organisations such as were done for Birthright - world neutral rules for running churches, merchant houses, princedoms, thieves guilds, bandit forces, armies and so on. Systems of government and law with rules structures/suggestions for using them in D&D games. Actions that 'organisations' can take with rules for conflict between them. Maybe the 'affiliation' stuff fits here, too.
- Aspects of the Soul/Aspects of Power(?): Eberron's Dragonmarks, Birthright's bloodlines, planar taints and blessings, draconic and other heritages - the structures and systems for adding 'marked' or 'destined' characters to your games. Planescapes faction powers may fit here, also - power by virtue of belief in a philosophy - and Action Points type systems as used in Eberron, all with rules that can be slotted into the GM's worlds.
- Aspects of War: rules for mass combat and beyond; how to run a game set in a war zone and about a war, be it a struggle between petty princes or the Blood War.
- Aspects of Mystery: where does magic come from? Not a definitive "answer" but possibilities and their implications; bring in sources of power in the land and Birthright's ley lines, etc. The theme is connections to sources of power - both magical and divine. Rules for magical sites and temples in several variants - divine powers that can only be 'recharged' at temples, spells that rely on connection to magical sites, spells that can trace the connections from a magical effect to its power source and maybe its caster...
- Aspects of Horror: I'm no expert on Ravenloft, but IIRC it had some nice rules for building tension and making monsters really 'horror-ble'. How to make horror and fear a theme in your game - rules additions and ideas to build a horror setting of one's own.
- Aspects of Travel: all aspects of travel, from ox carts to transitive planes, spelljammers to lightning rail, naval rules to air battles between flying fortresses (no, not the airplanes...). Descriptions of the phlogiston, other forms of 'space', transitive planes, colour pools, gates, portals, elemental vortices, etc., etc.
- Aspects of the Environment: environment rules - deserts, jungles, underwater, planar settings, icefields, dungeons, cities, everywhere! Spells, feats, rules - everything needed to make a game with the environment as a theme. Terrain types and effects. Terrain hazards.
- Aspects of Craft: buying, selling, special materials, alchemy, ways that magic items can work, guidelines for running games with different levels of magic item prevalence, ways that magic fits (or fails to fit) into the fabric of daily life. Birthright's magicians, Eberron's Artificers and Mechanicians. How markets work and mercantyling rules. 'Masterworks' beyond weapons and armour.
- Aspects of Intrigue: spying and games of influence. Expand the 'attitude table/diplomacy' rules for games where not all the critical conflicts are physical combat. scrying and divination - and how to oppose them.
- Aspects of the Planes: planar traits writ large - beyond the basic stuff in the DMG but like the effects on magic in the original Planescape books. How to build really mind-blowing sites and terrain for the planes. How to run games set where the gods live.
Maybe one of these a year? Instead of presenting worlds ready-made (although you could do that as well, with more 'fluff' content and plenty of NPC data and sites mapped out) let the GM mix and match 'specialist' rules for her own campaign world.
*Planescape
*Spelljammer
*Dark Sun
*Mystara (Known World and Red Steel specifically)
*Ravenloft
*Greyhawk
*Al-Qadim
*Some form of OA
When I found out about the (relatively) impending release of 4E, my guts clenched, and my first thought was "The Cash Cow will be milked no more - damn them to hell, I'm going to get Elder Evils as my last book and stick with 3.5".
Seeing this thread is the only thing that has made me think anything otherwise - should there be a new version of Ravenloft, I would have no option but to slap those WotC extraction tools back on to my $$$ udders ...
Birthright, this was King Arthur mixed with D&D. It was also such a nice change from the other worlds.
Planescape, for obvious reasons.
Eberron annoys the crap out of me because the whole magical technology thing feels like such a minor dash of spice in just another bland, western-European medieval world.
Dunno about you, but don't tend to associate the following things with a BW-EMW.
elemental powered airships
armies of golems
armies of undead
the draconic prophecy
machiavellian gnomes
imprisoned rakshasa rajas
psionic creatures from the Realm of Dreams
nomadic halfling dinosaur riders
the deathless
a continent dotted with the ruins of a lost civilisation of giants
a city of flying towers
Carolingian middle ages
High Middle Ages
[*]A new Ebberoncampaign setting.
[*]Secrets of Argonessen: Like the other Secrets books for Ebberon. Hopefully there will still be things to say about Argonessen after Dragons of Ebberon, but it has barbarians and dinosaurs anyway. And I want better maps than Sarlona and Xen’drik had. More like the one in the campaign setting.
Note: Again, I may add to this post as I think of new ideas.
-Senka
<---- just found a mint ivory triangle boxed set at local store. Really made my day!
Just sounding off my eternal love for Dark Sun!
<---- just found a mint ivory triangle boxed set at local store. Really made my day!
man you are lucky, I was just packing up all my darksun stuff and noticed yet again how showdy my Ivory Triangle box set is. However I did happen to get a DS 1st edition mint condition box set with a mint condition slave tribes book in it for $5 last year at my FLGS:D
Back on topic: The only thing I plan to by from forth edition at this point is any new Darksun material. I have no intrest in anything else at all. Just to make myself clear all I want is new DARKSUN PRODUCTS WITH LOTS OF FLUFF &very few rules:D
Make sure to make the default cosmology radically different from it so people can tell the difference.
Birthright might also be a good idea if they built the castle building and economic scale for the game from the ground up so that it makes sense how 1rst and 30th level characters can exist in the same world. The team should go back to the roots of the the Basic D&D world that became Mystara. That campaign world made sense on how to incorporate low, medium & high level PC's.I was so excited when I found them.
1) Dark Sun. I really enjoyed the way Paizo included elements of the Expanded Psionics Handbook in their version.
2) Spelljammer. Again, I liked the Paizo "otherworldy swashbuckling" feel.
3) Ghostwalk. Yes, I liked Ghostwalk. ;)
My favorite campaign setting by far is Dragonlance. I sincerely hope that WotC will renew the license with MWP for the creation of new DL materials under 4.0.
I would be most interested in them expanding on Taladas – the Time of Dragons had some of the most innovative ideas I've seen for a campaign setting (Mongol elves, suicide commando gnomes, Greco-Roman minotaurs, feral illithids etc).
Also, I would like to see another Worldbuilding contest, as it was done with Eberron. I'd like to know if something like that is actually thought of.
1. Ebberon - It's pretty much a sure thing, but I feel it just needs to be put here because it's so just damn awesome. The only thing I don't like about it is the relatively low levels (that, and psionics).
2. Spelljammer. - The concept of flying around in magical starships is just so cool. The physics warping is not so cool (seriously, 'crystal spheres', 'phlogiston', gravity staying in effect after leaving a well, WTF?), but these are so easily overcome... on the other hand, WoTC clearly demonstrated they don't understand the concept of starships with Star Wars Saga Edition (1600 HP Star Destroyer, I'm looking at you), but the Spelljammers should be weaker, being mostly wooden after all.
3. Planescape - Mostly because there seems to be a lot of support for it, and personally, I've had great fun OOC trying to think of ways to blow up Sigil (most of which involve detonating a starship's fusion reactor (no cookie for reference, because it's just so damn obvious)).
4. Forgotten Realms - There's no chance it's not going to happen. I'm not a fan of the way the deities are set up, or the shoehorning of the medieval society, but at least it's got NPCs that can do something besides whine and hire other people with money that they logically shouldn't have.
And last, but definently not least... probably first, actually.
5. A Campaign Setting that Actually Makes Sense. - By this I mean a campaign setting that's built from the ground up in a logical fasion... not by taking a medieval society composed of level one commoners and then adding dragons. The PCs would probably work for someone else, but certainly wouldn't be part of some mysterious 'adventurer' caste (that term is used because it's a convenient catch-all, not because anyone should ever actually use it in universe. They should be heroes by virtue of doing heroic things, not because they happen to be PCs (which is a metagame reason, after all). The ridiculous rule peculiarities which make crafting, or pretty much anything besides adventuring impractical would be removed... the 'Sage' said they're there because 'this is dungeons & dragons, not Merchants & Craftsmen', but I think most players play D&D to fight, and if they wanted to play XXXXXXXX Tycoon, they would have. In this campaign setting, the AVERAGE level would be around 6-8, even for commoners, and low-level PCs would actually be below the bell curve (logically, a PC should start at higher levels to avoid what amounts to rat killing, but it wouldn't be that hard to make what might be, to others, 'minor' tasks interesting - and NPCs probably wouldn't be megaoptimized.) If the PCs want to change the world, they'd need to put some work into it, because you can't just walk up and kill the emperor of X - they should feel like they're part of a larger (and often bigger and meaner) world, and it doesn't revolve around them...
[/Rant]...
Sorry, I just felt the need to rage against everything (I think) wrong with D&D.
And too the guy who said that he didn't like powerful NPCs, because their power should be in wealth... you realize how ridiculous an argument that is when any sap can just walk into a dungeon, and, with a little luck, walk out wealthier than the Medicis?
also Oriental adventuresOn Topic. I would like to see DragonLance get some 4E love.
So you release Psionics and tell people that if they like what they see, they'll enjoy DarkSun 4.0.
Let's see....
Mass Combat - Birthright
Psionics - Darksun
Dragons - Dragonlance
Planes - Planescape
Magic Items - Spelljammer/Eberron? (I sometimes think of Eberron as Spelljammer 3.5)
Undead - Ravenloft
No idea what might tie in with Mystara, though.
Most of fans of the settings that got no love in 3rd edition would be satisfied if even one official update came out for their favorite setting (for the record, mine is Dark Sun.) "Supporting" a setting doesn't necessarily mean publishing a new splatbook for it every month the way they do now with Eberron and FR.
Exactly. I'd be happy if we just got a core setting handbook for these campaigns, and maybe a few PDF modules or whatnot.
C'mon WotC; throw this gaming geezer a bone already! :D
No idea what might tie in with Mystara, though.
Major Mystaran themes:
Epic quests
Character ascension
Low magic (as in less magic gear)
And whatever they do, I don't think it's necessary to overflow our bookshelves with individual books for every square mile of the world like they are with Forgotten Realms.
I'm still waiting for the 180 page hardcover for the FR, Elminster's Backyard. Complete for stats on the robes he hangs on his clothesline, how many d8s worth of berry bushes he has, etc. FR is ridiculously overbuilt.
Planescape>Just buy the Beyond Countless Doorways book that Malhavoc Press released. Has nearly all of the old Planescape crew and offers a lot of options.
Especially if you still have your old PS books, just blend the 2 together.
I enjoyed the Polyhedron Spelljammer revamp.
I'm still waiting for the 180 page hardcover for the FR, Elminster's Backyard. Complete for stats on the robes he hangs on his clothesline, how many d8s worth of berry bushes he has, etc.
This would be hilarious if it weren't so plausible :D
Yeah, I'm not looking forward to the 4E re-release of every single 3rd edition FR splatbook crowding my game store's shelves again. Every nook, cranny, and thorp of that setting is so utterly full of crap from CR 1 to 60 that there probably already is plenty of material on Elminster's Backyard.
Wizards, please, for the love of all the 800,000 gods in FR, give that setting a rest. Nobody will miss it. In fact, if anybody would miss it, please correct me!
I'd like to see something new.
Believe me, I am no Eberron fan -- even the name is overstated -- but everything can't be for everybody. Planescape and Spelljammer were great, but maybe they should be expanded with moderation as transitive settings, and effort should be put into new worlds and new concepts, to which we can travel through wildspace and through the planes.
Change for the sake of change is unwelcome, but stagnation is equally worthless.
Greyhawk is classic, though, and seems like it's still the best choice if there must be a "default setting". If they want to change it up, FR is the next most logical choice.
Dragonlance seems very popular, but did the 3.5 DL book sell very well?
Keep in mind that Birthright is a low magic setting, and most players find that dull. It might work better in 4E, though, because all of those glorious noble warriors would have more interesting abilities.
I liked Al Qadim, but I don't know how well it would go over now.
Eberron is probably my favorite of the established settings, but when I'm running I always make my own, and most of the games I've played in are like that too.
I'd like to see the factions return, but not the slang. The slang must remain firmly locked in the original TSR products from whence it came.
Dark Sun? Yay for psionics, but it's too bleak a setting for my personal tastes. I'd pass. Ditto Ravenloft.
The rest of them mentioned on this thread (with the exception of the obviously unprintable due to Intellectual Property belonging to AEG Rokugan), I've scarcely heard of.
Why do people keep mentioning FR settings in this forum. Maztica, Al-Qadim (Zakhara) and Kara-Tur is all part of Forgotten Realms. They are not separate settings. They should be kept as expansions for that product. I love them and hope they do expand them, but this isn't the place for calling for them. Call for them in the 4E Forgotten Realms Thread.
Al-Qadim is separate from the Forgotten Realms setting.
Yes, I know that Zakhara the continent is on Toril the world. But the campaign settings (which is something else) are different.
First, most Al-Qadim campaigns have nothing to do with the Realms other than vague references to savage northern gods. Back in 2e, I never needed the Forgotten Realms campaign setting boxed set when I ran Al-Qadim campaigns. The majority of people who play in the Realms stick to Faerun (which is really the FR setting, not all of Toril). Al-Qadim has a totally different feel than the Realms, and uses different rules. (On these points, the same might also be said about Kara-Tur and Maztica.)
Second, Al-Qadim appeared under its own label. No Al-Qadim product had the Forgotten Realms logo on it.
To insist that they're part of the Forgotten Realms is like insisting that the the Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk are all part of the Spelljammer or Planescape campaigns, just because they're encompased by these settings. Each has its own label, and its own flavor, and so is a separate campaign setting.
If WotC decides to publish AQ under the FR label after all, it wouldn't bother me. But given that we've asked for it in 3.x and haven't gotten it despite all the FR books, I think this is the forum in which to be asking for 4e material.
What campaign settings will 4th Edition D&D support?
A: A new version of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting will be released in August 2008.
Many other campaign settings will receive some level of support in the future, but we’re still working on our plans for those.
keyword = many :D !!!!!!
Al-Qadim IS part of Forgotten Realms whether people like it or not. Better get used to the idea.
While it did state in the AL-Qadim:Arabian Adventures book that the "official" location of Zakhara is southeast of Faerun, but I believe they said you can run it stand alone or drop it in any world you like.
I am also in favor of the earlier post regarding something new. Sure there are great new setting put out by other publishers for use with D&D, but I want to see WotC do something new.
Wizards can rebuild Planescape. They have the technology. I see it as a potential mature setting for epic (level 21-30) characters; something to buffet them into humility after they've spent enough time riding roughshod over their original setting.
I'd like to see the factions return, but not the slang. The slang must remain firmly locked in the original TSR products from whence it came.
Wow, that's an attitude you don't see every day.I think making Planescape epic-only would be a mistake -- the entire point of the setting was opening the wonder of the planes to low-level adventurers. The concept was built around portals, not combat with balors.
Let a berk be a berk!
If WotC put out a book on Mystara I'd likely still buy it though, old habits I guess, but the fans have really raised the bar. Our main fear is that we don't want our setting 're-invented'.
Al-Qadim IS part of Forgotten Realms whether people like it or not. Better get used to the idea. It has been since it's inception. Many maps also show it as the Southern Continent attached to Faerun.
You're clearly responding to my post, but did you even read it? Maybe I shouldn't offer any reasons, and just say, "No it isn't!"
Maybe Ravenloft 'cause my friends love it...
1. Birthright. Low-level world with feel of old heroic fantasy (even putting strategic level aside).
2. Star Wars... well, this is not strictly D&D, but...
3. Toril as a whole and Al Quadim in particular - lot of detailed territories and lot of gray areas.
4. Ravenloft (if only there were more inventive authors...
) For even when we play GURPS, one persistent joke is about 5-point delusion "We're NOT in the Ravenloft!". Some domains there are great concepts, and it is not only about gothic horror.
I think making Planescape epic-only would be a mistake -- the entire point of the setting was opening the wonder of the planes to low-level adventurers. The concept was built around portals, not combat with balors.
I didn't mean that it should be epic-only, just that it would be an ideal place for epic-level characters to go. I'd be very much in favour of 'opening the wonder of the planes to low-level adventurers', especially if they get tantalising glimpses of places they can't go to yet, but will one day. However, if you have an epic party, the planes can provide the epic-est challenges around.
Remember Eberron? There were runner-ups, and I believe Rich Burlew had 2nd place.....
As for old settings; Dark sun's return would be a huge boost to psionic lovers. Hey! Bruce Cordell! Go grab Noonan or someone (he never sleeps anyway from the sounds of it) and give us some psionic flavors! Eberron isn't enough. :D
and here's hoping for planescape too...
Remember Eberron? There were runner-ups, and I believe Rich Burlew had 2nd place.....
Yeah, and given that he's not allowed to talk about the details of this setting, I wouldn't be surprised if they do something with it.
Yeah, and given that he's not allowed to talk about the details of this setting, I wouldn't be surprised if they do something with it.
My thoughts exactly.
I didn't mean that it should be epic-only, just that it would be an ideal place for epic-level characters to go. I'd be very much in favour of 'opening the wonder of the planes to low-level adventurers', especially if they get tantalising glimpses of places they can't go to yet, but will one day. However, if you have an epic party, the planes can provide the epic-est challenges around.
Agreed.
If WotC put out a book on Mystara I'd likely still buy it though, old habits I guess, but the fans have really raised the bar. Our main fear is that we don't want our setting 're-invented'.
Indeed, that 're-invention' would likely disappoint. Unless, of course, they hired the team over at our community to write it....
I know, wishful thinking....
If d20 Modern got updated to be more in synch with 4e, I'd love to see a "campaign setting" book for a G.I. Joe roleplaying game. :P
I am surprised that Wizards isn't trying to cash in on the medieval political intrigue genre with a campaign setting. It has become overly popular since GRRM wrote A Game of Thrones.
Eberron has a LOT of this sort of thing.
I think making Planescape epic-only would be a mistake -- the entire point of the setting was opening the wonder of the planes to low-level adventurers. The concept was built around portals, not combat with balors.
I always thought that was one of the flaws in the setting. There wasn't any compelling reason why a party wouldn't immediately wander through the wrong portal (or around the wrong corner) and get eaten by balors or something equally bad for them, which given the way a lot of planar beings stack up, was everything but manes, lemures and the like.
So, here's a question for folks. a fellow named remathilis posted this (and melkorii referenced it over in the class thread)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v334/remathilis/vlcsnap-203072.png
anyone have any idea what the Zelandor campaign is? Someone's homebrew, or something more... significant?
Its also interesting to note that Ravenloft is on the list as well.
Though its worth noting that this doesn't mean that either will be a definite 4E setting.
I'd love to see a 4E version of Birthright.
I am surprised that Wizards isn't trying to cash in on the medieval political intrigue genre with a campaign setting. It has become overly popular since GRRM wrote A Game of Thrones.
Eberron has intrigue.
IIRC, Birthright was mostly about politics and ruling a kingdom.
Eberron has intrigue.
So does every other Campaign Setting, but the idea is to have it as part of the center of the campaign. Eberron isn't really medieval either.
IIRC, Birthright was mostly about politics and ruling a kingdom.
Yeah Birthright was excellent, but there were some things I didn't particularly care for. The halflings for one and the fact of only elves being Wizards. There weren't any Bards either I don't think. The entire bloodline thing was also entirely unbalanced and would need some adjustment.
I always thought that was one of the flaws in the setting. There wasn't any compelling reason why a party wouldn't immediately wander through the wrong portal (or around the wrong corner) and get eaten by balors or something equally bad for them, which given the way a lot of planar beings stack up, was everything but manes, lemures and the like.
Well... let me put it this way:I always thought that was one of the flaws in the setting. There wasn't any compelling reason why a party wouldn't immediately wander into the wrong cave (or around the wrong corner) and get eaten by dragons or something equally bad for them, which given the way a lot of Faerunian beings stack up, was everything but orcs, goblins and the like.
Seems to me, that'd be a great way for some old favorites to be revisited without diluting the talent pool Wizards has working for them, tying up too much in the way of resources, or fracturing the market place.
*Bump*
Add my favorite campaigns:
Dragonlance
Planescape
Birthright (optional realm actions, was a well developed campaign which suffer from unpopular and bizarre rules)
Darksun (immediately after the Psionics book is sold)
Raveloft
Also seriously consider Campaign supplements for:
Magic the Gathering (Too much source material to ignore)
Pokemon (Gateway game to introduce kids and kids at heart to RPGs)
If you can't or won't do the setting, license them to someone who will. That way you get the best of both worlds.
(Emphasis mine)
I found an interesting "Summoner" class online a while back, and did a lot of work on it to try to bang it into shape for 3.5. This is a big reason I would like information on how WotC balances classes to be released, preferably before the DMG comes out.
I was even working on converting the old "Red/Blue/Yellow" guide into an adventure module so that I could run a game for some kids. Unfortunately it took too long, and the kids lost interest.
I would like to see the character class work though, after all, if you can have figurines of wondrous power, why not monster prisons, or extra-dimensional gateways that can capture monsters. The Beast Heart Adept seemed like a step in that direction.
If WotC somehow made a campaign setting with the monsters, spells, etc of Magic I might have a use for all my old cards again.
The best setting ever written.
Planescape
And it would make the lore easily portable to future and past editions....
They could be written in such a way that they're timeless. ^^ Kind of like how they advertise 3.5 Ravenloft as being portable to any campaign AND capable of sustaining its own campaign.I haven't really experimented with the different campaigns yet since I'm still getting used to the game, but Ravenloft, Oriental Expedition, Al-Qadim, and Dark Sun sound intriguing.... Though admittedly, I only just heard of Al-Qadim and Dark Sun in this thread. Eberron sounds spiffy too.
1. At the original release, Al-Qadim was very successful. It was the only campaign setting that actually was intended to have a finite shelf life (2 years) but due to fan demand, the setting was actually extended for a 3rd.
2. It hasn't been seen/used/updated in over a decade. Ravenloft and Dragonlance have been in print recently and focusing on Al-Qadim would give WOTC an entirely fresh setting.
3. Arabian fantasy has a lot of possibilities. Sure, nowadays, Asian-theme mythology/fantasy has become the default choice AFTER people get bored with medieval/Tolkein mythology but there was a time when Arabian fantasy was the place you went to after you got bored with Greyhawk/Birthright/Forgotten Realms.
My vote is thus for Al-Qadim.
So, my first vote is not for a setting per se but rather that whatever settings are chosen, that planar play and encounters with deities be accepted as part of the game and addressed in a meaningful and useful fashion from the beginning. I know that the designers want me to start over with 4e. But, I have players I've been playing with since '87, and some of us have characters we've used since then, and I can tell you without hesitation that many of us will simply continue our existing story lines, converting to 4e as best we can, and moving on. So, I would like the full experience, from the thatched roof cottages to the City of Brass, all available to me from the beginning.
Secondly, I would love there to be another "create a setting" contest like the one that brought us Eberron (in which I've only played during the D&D Opens at GenCon--I've never played it at home, and don't own any of the books). One reason I'd like this is because maybe, just maybe, a setting would be chosen that I'd really like to try (Eberron didn't do it for me).
Dave
Also, I have to admit I never played anything in the Planescape setting other than the computer game (which I started playing a again recently) Planescape: Torment. Incidentally, this is still what I consider to be the best computer RPG ever created - and has yet to have anything come close IMHO.
The setting is interesting, but I just don't think that it could be pulled off easily in this day and age. If it did come out, I'd give it a look, but sometimes it is best to just remember the good times, rather than try to re-live them.
A new setting may be what's needed more than a revamp.
You could say that most D&D settings are like this in a sense, but what I have in mind would amplify the danger of the 'unknown' considerably.
and
DARK SUN
whats not to like with feral psychic halflings.
So, my first vote is not for a setting per se but rather that whatever settings are chosen, that planar play and encounters with deities be accepted as part of the game and addressed in a meaningful and useful fashion from the beginning.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating. Vrecknj... Vreckdnj...
Vreck is right. Planescape does not need a re-release. Producing that significant a quantity of material at that level of quality is just not possible for Wizards today, and I would rather that the old material not be cheapened by an attempted conversion. 90% of the D&D2 Planescape material is just flavor, and flavor works in any edition. What Planescape needs is some new material that has yet to be released. For instance, there is no Planescape book for the plane of shadow, as there is for the ethereal and astral planes.And I say again -- Sigil desperately needs the boxed set it never got. I would settle for a hardback, but a detailed street-level map is a must no matter what the format of the rest of the supplement. Also a must -- fact-checking with the original source material. The 13 pages or so that Sigil has in Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is riddled with errors.
If we're going to have a new setting for 4e, I'd like one which takes the "points of light in the darkness" ethos and runs with it. One where the 'civilized' races have to fight hard to maintain their islands of tranquility in a dangerous environment. One where everyone knows that there are unknown terrors just waiting to devour or corrupt anyone who sets foot outside their 'safe' village, or the beaten track.
You could say that most D&D settings are like this in a sense, but what I have in mind would amplify the danger of the 'unknown' considerably.
I think that a setting like this has really been missing from D&D since the demise of Dark Sun -- you are right in that most settings seem to assume the survival of the PCs, which takes some of the thrill out of the game.For me, I think I'd be happy if any campaign setting gets the following.
1. A campaign book a la the 3.0 FRCS
2. An accessory detailing the major city of the campaign world (Huzzuz for Al-Qadim, Sigil for planescape, Free City of Greyhawk etc) with plot hooks for the DM
3. Combined accessory/adventure for the major bad guys of the setting (something that details the Scarlet Brotherhood/Red Wizards/Yak-men/Neogi) with plot hooks of course.
4. EXTRA If say point 2 or 3 don't exist (Spelljammer doesn't have a major city while planescape doesn't have 1 main bad guy), I would like a sourcebook/adventure that details the area with the largest concentration of aventuring/wilderness/dungeons.
Produce those 3 and I'll be happy and I think such a limited support would do great in sales as psychologically, I'm willing to bet that more people would be willing to try a setting if they know there are only 3 books for it and thus don't feel the need/lack of having everything.
I'm not interested in stacks of supplements for each setting, but give us one good, FAT, core setting book for each of the major players:
Greyhawk
Forgotten Realms
Dragonlance
Dark Sun
Planescape
Ravenloft
Spelljammer
... settings like Al-Qadim and Kara-Tur, on Toril, should get their own books but maybe on a smaller scale.
They could base module and supplement support based on sales and player demand. I dunno, I'm no businessman.
Overall, I'd really like to see a new Dark Sun core book. Even though I mostly have played in FR, DS seemed so far away from conventional fantasy.
Bring it back, or else...
The hardship that my player's went through in the darksun setting has never been equalled by any other setting, and they loved it !
I know!;)
No other campaign world ever had me so worried about how much water and food I had, how much longer my bone or obsidian weapon could hold out before shattering, or whether or not the dust on the horizon was a slaver caravan, pack of Thri-kreen, hungry halflings...
Ahhhh... I still remember the day my PC escaped from the slave pens and slit his tormentors throat on the way out.
I think a lot of it too, for me, was just the visual tone set by Brom's art.
I'd love to see both old and brand spanking new settings get a one-off treatment. One book without tons of supplemental bloat. Keep the additional rules, or rule changes, light (let your PHB, DMG, and MM lines do the heavy lifting on rules) and give us a detailed look at the setting. Include the content from all of the "standard" supplements like deities, races, and classes.
Make it it's own line of products. Hardbound books with as high a page count as you can afford while still being profitable. I'd be more apt to collect a setting a year from a line like that, knowing that supplements will be nonexisten or very rare. I currently, typically, only grab the main book for a setting anyway.
You could also give us a lot of planar content spread in a number of books, with a book about Sigil and the factions, and a huge adventure dealing with their comeback.
DarkSun and Rich Burlew world would be great to. After the Planes!
Im all in for the "many settings aproach"
I want to see a Greyhawk campaign setting book that is developed by Erik Mona and the rest of the Paizo crew that did the Age of Worms adventure path. That and that the rest of D&D icons (Tiamat, beholders, mind flyers, drow, the great wheel, etc) are properly brought along to the 4th edition. Newer things are fine for its own settings, but things like warforged must still be assumed to exist only in Eberron. Eberron is nice for being different and having a different theme than other D&D worlds. It would loose its personality if everything Eberron is ported to the other settings.
And please, keep raptorans, goliaths and the rest of the newest races away from the core, too. They are unneeded.
This is GOSPEL, Listen to the preacher here. Unique=not core, core=the heart of the game, the archetypes that make it Dungeons & Dragons
I would love to see a 320 page Setting Book for each of the extant Settings relegated to none existence under 3e. Some mechanics, but mainly setting detail.
Birthright
Dark Sun
Dragonlance
Greyhawk
Mystara
Planescape
Ravenloft
Spelljammer
Agreed! I'd love to see a series of high quality campaign books, even unsupported, to update classic settings.
Mystara would be particularly fun to see in print for 4e.
If we're going to have a new setting for 4e, I'd like one which takes the "points of light in the darkness" ethos and runs with it. One where the 'civilized' races have to fight hard to maintain their islands of tranquility in a dangerous environment. One where everyone knows that there are unknown terrors just waiting to devour or corrupt anyone who sets foot outside their 'safe' village, or the beaten track.
You could say that most D&D settings are like this in a sense, but what I have in mind would amplify the danger of the 'unknown' considerably.
Agreed. I've actually done this in a rather bizarre way in my current campaign. Recipe for freaked-out PCs and a really dangerous world:
1) Take 7-12 game worlds (include places like FR, GH, Eberron, then have a few "generics with a theme")
2) Break them into bite-sized chunks.
3) Have said chunks floating in a vast airy waste as a result of some sort of catastrophe, the causes of which are unknown to the players.
4) Start campaign within two weeks of the catastrophe.
'Course, would be easier in 4th Ed with LOTS of campaign-world sourcebooks to pull from.
Since he's been only making about one a week for the last month, and he's taking 2 weeks off, there's either something going on and he's taking time off for personal reasons, OR he's writing new material for WOTC. Whatcha think the chances are that he's writing his setting?
To the guy that wants new settings:
Remember Eberron? There were runner-ups, and I believe Rich Burlew had 2nd place.....
I can't agree with that enough. Many people have asked for a new setting search, but I think it would be a great shame if WotC did that instead of letting the other two finalists' settings see print (even if just one setting book apiece). Once those are out, then I think we can talk about another setting search. Until then, such talk is too premature IMHO.
Here is to hoping that Zelandor is finalist #2...
Planescape as the default setting, please
This actually makes a fair bit of sense.
The plains are infinite. You could run an entire campaign on the Beastlands without the PCs ever knowing (at least at low to medium levels).
The plains allow any DM to build their own world and still stay within a published campaign. It justifies adding anything from other published works (except maybe Athas) and re-introduces the old 'magic kingdom' feel, rather than the harder alt-medieval Greyhawk style.
If they don't have them, I'll stick with the core books.
Unfortunately, this is probably not a broad enough appeal to bring in the big $$$ but something non-traditional and not so yawnish.
Darksun was great because it was non-standard, Planescape was cool because you put $$ into developing the world.
So, something dark would be nice (most players as you know are not young kids) to appeal to the older crowd.
If not, at least go with Planescape.
I can't agree with that enough. Many people have asked for a new setting search, but I think it would be a great shame if WotC did that instead of letting the other two finalists' settings see print (even if just one setting book apiece). Once those are out, then I think we can talk about another setting search. Until then, such talk is too premature IMHO.
Here is to hoping that Zelandor is finalist #2...
Perhaps you are right. We should have a setting search for a new sci-fi setting for d20 modern 2.0 :P
Hmm.... seems really coincidental that rich burlew's OOTS online comic has been real sparse lately; and now with the latest one up he isn't going to post a new one until 09/17/2007. That's a couple of weeks.
Since he's been only making about one a week for the last month, and he's taking 2 weeks off, there's either something going on and he's taking time off for personal reasons, OR he's writing new material for WOTC. Whatcha think the chances are that he's writing his setting?
He has a debilitating medical condition: http://www.giantitp.com/index.html#yOSODsgTNhjraLs4GSe
Its sad to see bad things happen to good people.
With the popularity of Civilization, Total War, and other strategic empire games, Wizards should mind that its title Birthright still remains theirs. Birthright offers magnificent opportunities for characters that are adventuring royalty, a concept that might suit players of D&D well. This concept would also work in the game itself, but Birthright could manage to stand forth on its merits as a setting.
Also, there is attention on the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Red Death was a fantastic setting and Forgotten Realms could also stand to have a Forgotten Realms Modern version (with updated D&D classes rather than the sparse offering that exists in D20 Modern).
Dragonlance is more popular than Wizards usually capitalizes on. The so called "cult of personality" of Weiss and Hickman should not be feared.
Mystara is a wonderful setting and should be re-explored. Hollow Earth was a fantastic campaign and many young D&D players have fond memories of what we older players consider the latter day "basic D&D". To avoid legal issues, it might be a good idea to obtain an agreement with Arneson or to leave out mention of Blackmoor entirely.
While Planescape has its supposed adherants, I do not notice many people actually playing in a Planescape setting. I think this setting should be carefully approached, perhaps first through a licensed computer game product to see if it is still largely salable. A tactical game set in Planescape using a version of the newer Chainmail rules might be very interesting.
Spelljammer rocks the house, so to speak. This game would be even more interesting with a slight WWI Flying Ace/Pirate of the Seas feel and a focus on characters as spelljammer captains who can gain fame and fortune. If mixed with Planescape in later editions or additional books, players could rise their way from being a simple marine or captain to being a formidable admiral that deals with leaders of entire planets and rulers of planes of existence! (Imagine a paladin who protects a spelljamming temple that runs between the plane of their deity and wherever needful parishioners might be!) I'd like to see faction books similar to BOTH Crimson Skies, Starfleet Battles, and Warhammer 40k.
Also, since you have mature rated game books and probably will publish mature rated game books, why not have a mature rated game setting? This would reduce the chance that the young who are naturally inquisitive would try to access these books and instead provide a good setting for mature players of D&D that deals with mature issues and deeper situations.
I again express my hope that the recent slew of celebrity interest in D&D is plumbed and exploited with wise ruthlessness. Such popular authors such as Gaiman and Hambley might be sought to work in tandem with Wizards on campaign settings. Celebrity D&D Matches (for charity purposes) could be recorded on video and summarized.
D&D is a very marketable game, very flexible and forever fascinating. I think it will retain its simplicity yet grow through editions, enrich the creative genre it founded, and yet retain its individuality and identity.
He has a debilitating medical condition: http://www.giantitp.com/index.html#yOSODsgTNhjraLs4GSe
Its sad to see bad things happen to good people.
Extremely.... I was hoping, as I pretty much agree with whatever the guy says and thoroughly enjoy his comics, dungeonscape, and attitude about gaming in particular.
Well at least we know that HE'S not working on it. Also, I think everyone should give him a bit of encouragement and wish him well on his site.
Another question to consider is what do you call (Limited) support?
For me, I think I'd be happy if any campaign setting gets the following.
1. A campaign book a la the 3.0 FRCS
2. An accessory detailing the major city of the campaign world (Huzzuz for Al-Qadim, Sigil for planescape, Free City of Greyhawk etc) with plot hooks for the DM
3. Combined accessory/adventure for the major bad guys of the setting (something that details the Scarlet Brotherhood/Red Wizards/Yak-men/Neogi) with plot hooks of course.
4. EXTRA If say point 2 or 3 don't exist (Spelljammer doesn't have a major city while planescape doesn't have 1 main bad guy), I would like a sourcebook/adventure that details the area with the largest concentration of aventuring/wilderness/dungeons.
Produce those 3 and I'll be happy and I think such a limited support would do great in sales as psychologically, I'm willing to bet that more people would be willing to try a setting if they know there are only 3 books for it and thus don't feel the need/lack of having everything.
Spelljammer had the Rock of Bral.
Psymnotica
Give us something NEW. NEW and less obviously macho.
Hear me out--I play in a mixed-sex group (2 boys, 3 girls) of mostly newbies (1 year or less of play experience), in our late twenties. From our perspective, their is little difference between the current supported settings. Honestly, I couldn't tell you the difference between GreyHawk and The Forgotten Realms. To us their both places where guys hang out in drab outfits fighting drab looking bad guys.
We want something crazy, colorful, full of mystery and exploration that feels NOVEL and bizarre. Spelljammer has that feeling but perhaps even more so the covers of old AD&D adventures; colorful wizards blasting mushroom men with a magic missile. We want something creative and psychedelic! WOTC, please let your freak flag fly! We'll go there with you, promise!
We want something crazy, colorful, full of mystery and exploration that feels NOVEL and bizarre.
Have you tried Eberron?
Again it just feels like FR but with a little Anime influence. I know they say it's pulpy-but I'm not feeling it. I think Ptolus (the setting we use now) is allot like it but better.
I want to play in whatever campaign setting Devendra Banhart, and the Flaming Lips play in. I want less Middle Earth and more "A Wrinkle in Time". I don't want "tiny points of light in the darkness", I want more sparkles on the diamond!
Sorry, it just doesn't do it for me.
Again it just feels like FR but with a little Anime influence. I know they say it's pulpy-but I'm not feeling it. I think Ptolus (the setting we use now) is allot like it but better.
I want to play in whatever campaign setting Devendra Banhart, and the Flaming Lips play in. I want less Middle Earth and more "A Wrinkle in Time". I don't want "tiny points of light in the darkness", I want more sparkles on the diamond!
You want planescape :D
What was the tag again for PS? "Fantasy taken to the Edge".
I remember the ad campaign for PS in Dragon and there was this wicked poster of Sigil with the Lady of Pain's face hanging above.
Right then and there, I had to know more about Sigil.
You want planescape :D
Yep, where else can you be haggling for a Spelljamming ship on Krynn one day, and haggling for a decent catamite for Zeus in the City of Brass the next!
I'm not clamouring for a GCS, mind you, the only campaign setting I really want is Eberron, but I think a GCS would be nice for others.
I'm not clamouring for a GCS, mind you, the only campaign setting I really want is Eberron, but I think a GCS would be nice for others.
All we know so far is that Forgotten Realms will be released in 2008, and Eberron in 2009, with a new campaign setting to follow every year after – probably to tie in with the yearly PHB/MM/DMG.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070829a&authentic=true
Originally I hoped it reflected an intention to say that "campaigns should include illuminated portions where the game reality is solidified but allow the parts still in shadow or darkness to be player-defined at times not only GM-defined" in a sharing of authority. There are plenty of examples of systems that distribute GM authority in a controlled fashion.
Instead it seems to indicate a certain "meta-setting" assumption. Though the game is not tied to an official setting, any setting for it should abide by these concepts in order to support the kind of play the system is designed to support.
One one hand, there is a good deal of support for the theory that "setting" and "system" cannot be divorced without damage to the ability of system to reflect setting and approaching that from the point of view of "core setting components" that tie into system assumptions makes sense and leaves room to create individualized settings.
Instead of towns scattered across a wilderness, for example, island communities scattered across an area with many dangerous waters and uncertain islands.
Certain conceits (there were folks here before who built and dug and enchanted and left all sorts of things behind) work well with the D&D system. Monte Cook did this very well in his Arcana Evolved setting (why are corridors nice and roomy for fighting even though that's expensive ~ because the dominant 'great civilization' that built most of the ruins etc. were giants that's why).
However the "points of light" concept limits the kind of worlds that can be imagined and the kinds of roleplay scenarios to be set up. In essence, the story must be told in a "Dark Age" or in the period coming out of one, or late in the period falling into one. Or one can imagine a "colonial setting" where the region is devoid of civilization because it fell and the scattered settlements are current and past, successful and failed, outposts from the past couple of hundred years of attempts to colonize. There are sophisticated civilizations, but far away. That explains plate mail + dark age. Xendrik of Eberron for example. The Dying Earth's world setting is also a representation of this kind of approach.
That kind of setting and period has many rich possibilities, and there's a good deal to be said for putting campaigns in "transition periods" generally in terms of creating social fluidity and room for "heroes to matter".
Still, it's a very specific take that supports a very particular style of play and "kind of setting" and story.
It supports a "every town down the road can have its own issues and outlooks and the DM doesn't have to connect them etc." approach to "potted adventures", where "being a wanted man" isn't an issue as long as you keep moving and player characters can "stay one step ahead of the consequences of their actions" rather than "the game is all about the consequences of your actions".
For example, in one adventure long ago a wizard in a group I was DMing fireballed a town's militia as the response to a "misunderstanding" (the PC's were breaking into a villain's house and an alarm was raised). Apart from any alignment issues, that resulted in information eventually making its way back to the capital and a warrant being issued for this mage that gradually made its way to all the major towns and cities of the region.
If the party had been "evil" and wiped out this isolated mining town, still in a few months the King's Inspector would have been by (mostly to check on taxes), discovered the massacre if no one else had reported it, and set some wheels in motion to find out "who or what was responsible".
Social context is one of the key components of bringing some sense of realism to a game. However under "points of light" that player would come to the table assuming "there are no effective governments and no social consequences that a couple of days ride can't outdistance".
So, given that there's going to be "points of light" as the default campaign world, does this mean that there's the possibility of an actual Greyhawk campaign setting book? Because while it may have been core, I know nothing about Greyhawk outside of it's deities.
I'm not clamouring for a GCS, mind you, the only campaign setting I really want is Eberron, but I think a GCS would be nice for others.
I'll clamor for Greyhawk!
I have always liked it and with very few exceptions run all of my campaigns and Convention games there. Ah, the religious civil war I started in the Pale! :D That generated some tense adventures.;)
-B
I think they should stick to what they have done, and keep Greyhawk in the core books as a default, since the only presence it maintains are the deities.
I'm not interested in stacks of supplements for each setting, but give us one good, FAT, core setting book for each of the major players:
Greyhawk
Forgotten Realms
Dragonlance
Dark Sun
Planescape
Ravenloft
Spelljammer
... settings like Al-Qadim and Kara-Tur, on Toril, should get their own books but maybe on a smaller scale.
They could base module and supplement support based on sales and player demand. I dunno, I'm no businessman.
Overall, I'd really like to see a new Dark Sun core book. Even though I mostly have played in FR, DS seemed so far away from conventional fantasy.
I agree with all of those, except maybe Spelljammer. Never really got a liking for that one. Still, if there's enough interest for it, go ahead with that one too.
I have mixed thoughts about the "points of light" concept
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070829a&authentic=true
My first thought when I read it was, "What does this mean for the established settings?" Because honestly, this isn't the view that I have of any of them. Is this a window into a new setting? Or, as you mentioned, is this supposed to be applied across the board?
In Eberron, for instance, the "points of light" concept might apply to Xendrik, but not to Khorvaire. Maybe to a limited extent, but anyplace that has trains - er, lightning rail - connecting cities can't be viewed as isolated points of light. They're simply not all that isolated. There may be a certain level of lawlessness, but still....
I'm concerned about languages. If the village 10 miles away has no contact with your village because of the extreme dangers of travel, it's likely that the languages will be completely different.
Why, they might all speak a languange with too many consonants across the river, like... Welsh or Gaelic or something! Never happen in the real world, right?
All we know so far is that Forgotten Realms will be released in 2008, and Eberron in 2009, with a new campaign setting to follow every year after – probably to tie in with the yearly PHB/MM/DMG.
How do we know this? If you had a link you could point us to, that would be great.
We know the first part, that there will be an FRCS and an ECS the following year.
I'll take that as confirmation, which is nice. But what I'm asking is: how do we know? I'm assuming somebody read it somewhere, and I was curious about where. (I like to be able to cite to sources.)
Why, they might all speak a languange with too many consonants across the river, like... Welsh or Gaelic or something! Never happen in the real world, right?
Exactly. In the real world, though, there's at least some chance that people will have crossed the river, and some interpreters will be available. In a setting where no one who's gone out of line of sight of the church tower has ever come back to tell the tale, you may as well have landed on Mars.
Seriously, everyone's paranoid about stepping out of their village, what fun. Interconnectivity is practically non existent, what fun.
It feels to much like an RPG video game where the town is filled with normal people but you step outside, walk two steps, the screen goes funny and you're fighting a green dragon.
How do villages even survive at all in this world?
With everyone being paranoid about travel, and danger lurking around every corner, it feels like a more colorful version of Ravenloft, it's got the same feeling of "everything sucks and life is terrible" feeling that I get from Ravenloft.
Exactly. In the real world, though, there's at least some chance that people will have crossed the river, and some interpreters will be available.
They would probably be known as "adventurers".
Also, a farm is a lot of work. You have to be there every morning to get the cows outside and back every evening to get tham back inside and there is a lot to do inbetween. Where would you go anyway? Children might go and walk for an hour for adventure, when work is low and weather goodl, but they are expected to be back for dinner.
When you do leave the villiage, than probably to go to market. You pack a cart with your stuff and travel for two to six hours to town. There you sell it, maybe stay for the night, and it's back to the farm the next day. Sometimes there are parties in summer where people visit neighboring vilages, but all in all, that's it.
Naturally, the guards of the lokal keep will only see, that there are no monster roaming around the villages and lurking at the streets, but even they won't check for creatures more than half a hours walk away from the vilages. If you are an adventurer, you could leave the roads and see where it leeds to, but most likely you'll soon come to places where no one has been in decades or maybe ever before.
Maybe a bit strange a thought, when you're from Netherlands, Germany, France or a big metropolitan area, but I'm sure most people in countries like Norway, Canada, Australia or inland US exactly know how huge and empty the wilderness behind the city-limits are even today.
There's almost always been big cities, and trade. While isolation occurs, in real life there are lots of exceptions. Points of light makes everything sound so completely isolated.
In fact in most cases there's usually a bigger city, usually were the ruler is, with things getting more and more isolated the further they get from the focal point.
Isolation occurred because there was only so much land a king could truly control efficiently and he cared most about what was nearby as long as he could still collect taxes from the far reaches of his territory.
If EVERYTHING is so damn isolated, it gets rid of any type of consistency, nothings interconnected and every town is practically a different game, the world has no soul or personality, it's a dot on a video game style map that doesn't even have room for an overall plot.
Also my worry is not so much that this is their generic setting, but that they said they are going to assume this type of setting for D&D games to take place in.
Trade within a kingdom should not be that uncommon, and in fact the closer you are to the focal point the safer it should be, and a good place for starting adventurers. If you want to travel further distances at lower levels you should hook up with a caravan for mutual protection. If you want to travel away from civilization then you'd best be adventurers. If traveling in small groups between kingdom boarders you'd best be adventurers.
Again, it shows right thinking.
Could you please explain this?
Points of light bothers me, I have never run a campaign that even remotely resembles that and it has the flavor of a wet rag.
Completely agree. Especially since it doesn't sound like the setting expects much in the way of big trade cities where you can have completely urban adventures.
Could you please explain this?
the Points of Light idea is good because let you start play w/out worring too much on consistency, history, setting, furthermore is good to explore the world while you adventure
and it dosen't exclude that there are places or even kingdom more full of light or place with more problem (and what about sea trade?) so it can easily adapted with almost any kind of setting
for people that prefer different and more involved settings there are still FR and Eberron
[snip]
You explained your point well. I'd still have my objection, though, that it sounds a bit depressing. But that's just me.
It keeps reminding me of what I've heard about the world of Beowulf. Can anyone comment on that?
Could you please explain this?
Completely agree. Especially since it doesn't sound like the setting expects much in the way of big trade cities where you can have completely urban adventures.
The core books never did. They expect clearing dungeons where a group of bubears lives virtually next door to a beholder and a young green dragon. They just sit there all day and wait for a group of adventurer to come by and slay them and take their treasure.
Just actually reading the article might be helptfull:
Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders. A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands.
There's nothing saying every town with more than 2000 people will be removed from Faerûn, quite the opposite.
The core books never did. They expect clearing dungeons where a group of bubears lives virtually next door to a beholder and a young green dragon. They just sit there all day and wait for a group of adventurer to come by and slay them and take their treasure.
Yeah and in most games I've ever played in, people want or try to make it so much more than that.
It's a Rule-Book, not a How-to-run-your-Game-Book or How-to-design-your-Setting-Book.
Yes, and they do, and when they make the generic setting a huge wilderness with some villages a few cities and roads between them, people can still make so much more of it.
It's a Rule-Book, not a How-to-run-your-Game-Book or How-to-design-your-Setting-Book.
Like I said, my problem is that they said the game was being built with these basic assumptions in mind, which means it doesn't bode well for support for more social campaigns with far reaching plots.
It's a Rule-Book, not a How-to-run-your-Game-Book or How-to-design-your-Setting-Book.
If they mean what they are saying, then they will omit Sendings and other spells that permit easy communication and transportation by high level characters as that extends the "illumination" from the points.
A cleric in the capital with Sending can check on the status of a different outlying village daily. A wizard on phantom steed can ride a circuit through them all. Clairvoyance, being unlimited by range, can be used to read the public notice board in a town square 1000 miles away. Clairaudience can tune into the regular speech by the King or High Priest like a "fireside radio chat" (the listener repeating what they hear for the gathered folks).
Eberron's "magic is technology, accept it changes things" take is realistic.
If they are serious about what they are saying, the rules will have to support the "shortness of the illumination" that great power permits by revising transportation, communication and divination magics extensively. An Eberron setting would require its own rules variations.
Thus, System Matters.
You can imagine many sorts of settings under a particular system, but not all sorts.
And with 10 in 1.000.000 people being able to check on all the small villages, would they really do so every day? Of course not, they have work to do themself.
So if something befalls a remote village, it may take a month or two until people will notice that no farmer from there has come to market for some time and maybe even longer until someone really worries. You could hire a Wizard to check it, but what do you tell him? "A small village three days travel to the west near a river and a lake"? The only thing one can do is to find some people who will ride down the road and look.
Eberron's "magic is technology, accept it changes things" take is realistic.
Be careful when you call a fantasy setting "realistic." Personally, I find Eberron's take on this to be ridiculous. I don't see how the economics of the use of widely available "magic as technology" adds up to anything realistic.
Anyway, what I'd really like to see is full blown campaign setting book for Greyhawk that incorporates Living Greyhawk canon. Its about time that we put the legal wranglings of 20+ years ago aside. Lets give the setting that D&D was designed in its due.
Just actually reading the article might be helptfull:
There's nothing saying every town with more than 2000 people will be removed from Faerûn, quite the opposite.
My bad. No need to rant at me.
Ravenloft would be an excellent choice for resurrection, but I don't know if you can top what White Wolf did by turning that place into it's own self-contained setting.
As much as I truly want to see Ravenloft as a brand new setting for 4th, Masque of the Red Death would be even better!
Planescape was also a great setting, but maybe hold off on that one... at first, until the core books are all out... then put it out.
Lord of the Rings, now that would be the sh-t. We all love it and it is surely considered a classic... plus the game company that has it right now... not doing so good with it. Besides, what self respecting race of beings truly refer to themselves as Halflings! Isn't that what humans called them throughout the entire LotR series? Those little guys deserve to be called Hobbits. Isn't that word considered to be public domain yet anyhow.
Magic the Gathering, while completely original all by itself as a setting would with every reason to keep it right where it already is, it would truly make a great D&D setting! One book could cover the classic settings: Arabian Nights, Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, etc.
You could pull a White Wolf and alter/revise your old/new settings, familiar but different. It worked for them... could work for you.
Just hearing about 4th coming out just ****** me off, especially when I take into consideration that I just bought some new 3.5 materials. I truly hope those systems are easily compatible... if not, I'm done with D&D.
That's my two cents... hope it wasn't wasted.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14
On LotR in D&D...
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=14
I love the idea of LotR in D&D, but I think that the Tolkien Estate would want a pretty penny for that to officially happen.
I was wondering the other day what would happen if Hasbro ever got the rights to Tolkien, or vice versa. My guess (and its really a shot in the dark guess) is that all campaign settings other than Middle Earth would become part of "Other Campaign Settings."
I was wondering the other day what would happen if Hasbro ever got the rights to Tolkien, or vice versa.
Parker Brothers (a division of Hasbro) released a LotR version of Risk, so it's doable.
I'd love to see Planescape, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Birthright, and Spelljammer get proper upgrades.
Planescape: They could use this to both finally give Planescape fans updated setting info and use it to update the Planes to 4E like MotP did for 3E, thus making it useful for those who want to play Planes based campaigns or only visit.
Birthright: I'd like to see some simple to understand and quick to setup and use army combat rules in D&D and Birthright would be a fine setting to "plug" into it to give it some flavor.
Dark Sun: Like Ravenloft above, Dark Sun fits in well with "Points of Light", and like Planescape/Birthright it could be used to double as the 4E Psionics book as well.
Ravenloft: This campaign setting has a large and devoted fanbase and seems like it would fit well with the PoL theme of the Core Rules.
Spelljammer: Not a greatly loved setting (but it still has a small fanbase to this day) but I'd love to see it officially brought back, even if it was a softback like the "Splat books" I'd buy it (as long as it stays true to the feel and flavor of the 2E version). Heck, what beats throwing a ship full of Beholders at your party as a DM? ;)
Could you please explain this?
My primary concern for D&D has always been that adventurers be recognized as an extremely small subset of demihumanity, who appear to be out of their minds to your everyday farmer or blacksmith. It was one of my biggest complaints with D&D3 that they were not. Adventuring seemed commonplace in D&D3 materials.
In another post in another thread, I talk about adventurer demographics -- I'm just the kind of DM who thinks that adventurers should be 1% of the population, and that 20th-level adventurers should be 1% of that population (if not less). I don't even know how I'm going to deal with 30th-level adventurers running around (a further 1%? One in a million?). Adventuring should be deadly dangerous -- I don't think that characters should die left and right, but I do think that not dying left and right should make them feel lucky.
The how of accomplishing this is not nearly as important to me as the accomplishment itself. The "points of light" idea appeals to me, but I can definitely see how it would be unattractive to a lot of players and DMs.
Completely agree. Especially since it doesn't sound like the setting expects much in the way of big trade cities where you can have completely urban adventures.
I would not worry about this. I would be VERY surprised if Wizards applied this concept to Forgotten Realms and Eberron in anything but the most nominal fashion, and it has already been established that D&D4's "core" setting is only going to be a set of generic suggestions.
the Points of Light idea is good because let you start play w/out worring too much on consistency, history, setting...
Couldn't disagree more, really, except for the exploration bit. Consistency, history, and setting are vitally important to a world no matter how much of it your players ever see, in my opinion. Even if it is all background in your head, it is crucial to the construction of a believable setting.