CAMPAIGN CLASSICS - This special issue returns D&D gamers to their roots. We're presenting an article from nearly every D&D campaign ever produced, from Al-Qadim to Taladas. Each article takes some part of these campaigns settings and presents it updated for D&D 3.5. This issue also features a history of the D&D campaign settings by Stan!
Dragonlance by Jamie Chambers - This article gives you information on playing a draconian character, as well as some feat options for your favorite draconian.
Greyhawk by Erik Mona - Resident Greyhawk guru Erik Mona gives us dozens of regional feats for the Greyhawk setting, usable whether you play in Oerth or not.
Al-Qadim by Dean Poisso - The sha'ir class returns to D&D! Harness the power of magic through your gen with this new 20-level class.
Ravenloft by David Noonan - You fought Strahd in 1st Edition and 2nd Edition, now battle the most legendary vampire in D&D in revised 3rd Edition. Plus, revisit Castle Ravenloft with a brand-new map of Strahd's lair.
Kara-Tur by James Wyatt - This article provides ancestor feats and martial arts styles for the regions of Kara-Tur.
Red Steel by Frank Brunner - Witness the return of cinnabar and red steel, the affected, and tortles.
Plus, Blackmoor, Dark Sun, Planescape, Hollow World, and more!
I wonder if Flip and the gang will be able to incorporate it into DS3.5E?
In my honest opinion if the folk at Dragon haven't contacted Flip, Neeva, Nytcrawler and the gang about using there stuff then they are doing a disservice to the whole D&D community!
Think: The staff at Dragon use Burnt World of Athas material as a base and with the time that they would save with having already established that much material they could create and build even more!
Truth be told I am a stickler for quality and, aside from a few changes, the DS3.5 document will be my bible when I start my Dark Sun game. The Burnt World material is easily as balanced and well thought out as the stuff in Dragon, sometimes more so. Like I said the people who purchase the Campaign Classics issue of Dragon that doesn't utilize DS3.5 are the ones loosing out.
Originally posted by Thysl
In my honest opinion if the folk at Dragon haven't contacted Flip, Neeva, Nytcrawler and the gang about using there stuff then they are doing a disservice to the whole D&D community!
Dragon may not be aware of their existence.
When Polyhedron put out the Spelljammer mini-game, they didn't contact Beyond the Moons (official Spelljammer site). One of the reasons they cited was that they were not aware of the existence of an official site.
This was prior to Paizo taking over Dragon and Dungeon/Polyhedron, IIRC.
As for why this was the case, who knows? I imagine it was a matter of internal communication.
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
Actually, we have known about this article for a while and been in contact with the author.
Good to hear.
Any info on what's in the article?
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
Actually, we have known about this article for a while and been in contact with the author. The issue has been that Paizo won't use already published material. So, in essence anything that has appeared on the athas.org website (and Athas Online for that sake), couldn't be used in the article. So, most likely, the article will have a different take on some of the classic Dark Sun elements than the DS3.5 Core Rules document has.
So what will appear in the Dragon 315 shall be considered official material, right??
Originally posted by Jihun-Nish
So what will appear in the Dragon 315 shall be considered official material, right??
Anything that appears in Dragon or Dungeon is, always has been, and as far as we know always will be official material. The fact that Paizo is the publisher for them now doesn't change that; it never did. Heck, they put the phrase "100% official D&D material" on the covers of the magazines just to lay that debate to rest.
So what will appear in the Dragon 315 shall be considered official material, right??
For purposes of incorporating the aforementioned classic Dark Sun elements in a generic campaign setting, yes, then it's official. As for the WotC sanctioned official DS3.5 conversion, the article is basically an optional approach.
Seriously, Flip, Gab, jon and athas.org team, have you read this post?? It's rather damn important. Give us some insight if you are communicating with them.
Down, familiar. Down. Good familiar.
I spend the weekend at my gf's place and this place goes haywire over something already discussed and accounted for a while back.
Basically, the entire intent of this issue of Dragon was to present articles making notable features of various campaign settings available in 3e, for incorporation in any setting.
If it's not clear from the article, that implementation of the taint aspect is ... well, you wouldn't get to keep playing a defiler for very long in Dark Sun. It's meant for consumption and use in other campaign settings.
Do I wish it had been more compatable with our rules? Yes. Am I surprised that they're not? No. Do I think it's the end of the world? No.
Am I going to write a quick letter to the editor plugging athas.org? Yep.
note Somebody made a comment in the other thread that implied that our system does not account for Sorcerers. That's not actually true. While we explicitly don't include sorcerers in the official setting (and not all of us agree that they shouldn't be), they are implicitly accounted for, because the defiling and preserving rules are specifically an aspect of Arcane magic, not of wizards. If you allow sorcerers, they're subject to the same defling and preserving rules as wizards are.
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
Seeing, I for some reason can't post to the new thread on this, I'll post here.
I was wondering why I got about two dozen emails from WotC's Boards saying that you replied on that thread of mine, and then never saw one at all.
I wonder if it had something to do with whatever was preventing me from deleting my own posts...
Regards,
Eric Anondson
"You know the best part? This issue is only a prelude to our next spectacular Dragon and Dungeon crossover event. In May 2004, we're going to release the Dark Sun campaign setting, revised for D&D 3.5! Happily it will see print about the time the revised 3.5 Psionics Handbook hits the shelves, enabling you to explore Athas fully armed for its many perils."
Gosh I thought that the "official" DS 3.5 material was already posted by the Athas.org team after nearly 4 years of work and input by the many fans. This blatent disregard for this effort, and unless I'm mistaken the previous agreement with WotC that the official fan site (Athas.org) could publish the "Official" 3.0/3.5 conversion material.
Have you Athas.org folks been in touch with WotC and/or Piazo concerning this? What a slap in the face to the dedicated fans of the setting.
In May 2004, we're going to release the Dark Sun campaign setting, revised for D&D 3.5!
So far, I've not seen WOTC or Piazo give even respectable treament to any of the dead world settings (Spelljammer, Planescape, etc). While I don't doubt that Noonan can pull of a great set of articles, I only doubt that they will be geared in the best direction due in part to the publisher's stance to keep things as 'setting friendly' as one can get. Setting specific it seems, is an outdated 2E term. Its all about setting generalization, i.e. 'How to Incorporate this tidbit of fluff into your own game' kind of articles.
In short: Bleh.
But then again, I'm a jaded twit so what do I know.
Have you Athas.org folks been in touch with WotC and/or Piazo concerning this?
Yes. See above.
I encourage everyone to read the Dragon magazine, form their own opinions and then to send Paizo an e-mail (or snail mail if you prefer) so that they (Paizo) can get real feedback from the fans and players out there.
Here is what I sent (for anyone's info):
Concerning Dragon #315
First off I’d like to thank you for touching on the various campaign settings of the past that have been relegated to the “forgotten” bin.
But since no good act goes unpunished here are my complaints:
Why did you include Ghostwalk in a magazine dedicated to “Campaign Classics”? It is a new setting that wasn’t around before 3rd edition. Also the inclusion of an article on Forgotten Realms seems kind of out of place since it has been updated very thoroughly to 3rd ed. The inclusion of these 2 articles seems to run counter to the point made that others weren’t included or the articles were truncated due to space considerations.
The note in the Wyrm’s Turn really got my ire up.
"You know the best part? This issue is only a prelude to our next spectacular Dragon and Dungeon crossover event. In May 2004, we're going to release the Dark Sun campaign setting, revised for D&D 3.5! Happily it will see print about the time the revised 3.5 Psionics Handbook hits the shelves, enabling you to explore Athas fully armed for its many perils."
Gosh I thought that the "official" DS 3.5 material was already published on by the Athas.org team after nearly 4 years of work and input by the many fans. This blatant disregard for this effort, and unless I'm mistaken the previous agreement with WotC that the official fan site (Athas.org) could publish the "Official" 3.0/3.5 conversion material.
What a slap in the face to the dedicated fans of the setting.
Also Birthright.net, the “Official” fan site for Birthright has been working on an “Official” 3/3.5 conversion for over 2 years now. The playtest version was posted last February (and mentioned on Enworld.) This spawned the posting of the Birthright maps in the maps section of the Wizard’s D&D site.
While I have great respect for Ed Stark’s work in the past, there are several problems with the blood abilities article. For one there were 44 different blood abilities in the Book of Regency, this article reduced them down to 6. This doesn’t make for a very good translation of the originally published characters and creatures from the setting.
The Book of Regency also talked about the draw of evil and chaos for scions with Azrai blood so the statement that a scion of Azrai is no more or less predisposed to evil than a half-orc is rather misleading.
Editorially there is a great deal of confusion over blood points and bloodline score – the terms seem to be used interchangeably with no clear definition for what a blood point is.
None of the articles listed are posted as OGL so the opportunity to incorporate them into the “Official” conversions is non-existent. Bottom line is keep up the work, but pay respect and attention to the ”Official” fan sites, they are “Official” for a reason and listed as such on the Wizards boards so don’t overuse the “100% Official Dungeons & Dragons” statement.
Duane Eggert
Originally posted by Mach2.5
But then again, I'm a jaded twit so what do I know.
That makes two of us, trying to keep my patience though and see what they make of it. I just can't see a whole campaign setting being in one Dragon issue and not sucking.
I've read the current article, and the defiling rules are good, but DS would have a butt load more of T'lizes running around if these were made the actual official rules for defiling, heh.
Reading the rest of the issue now, hopefully the rest will make up for this sorry little tidbit.
Funny that this article is using rules that athas.org considered "broken" at one time though. ;)
Or at least part of the rules they considered broken at the time.
I was very lucky with Dragonlance that the Whitestone Council gets to work with Sovereign Press. I also know this end of the spectrum, as I've seen how the Spelljammer fan community took the Polyhedron mini-game.
Don't let this dishearten you. What matters here is your love of the setting, and wanting to see it alive again. If Paizo does articles on Dark Sun, it will generate interest, and is bound to draw more people to Athas.org. I've seen the same thing happen with Spelljammer.
Also, look at it this way. You not only have the talents of Athas.org working on Dark Sun, you now have an alternate resource. So one can pick and choose which system one likes best.
Don't be disheartened by business practices. Be glad that Athas is alive, and having a resurgence of late. That is what is truly important here.
And we now have confirmation that there is indeed no hardcover book being released, just a conversion in Dragon. There were some misconceptions among some of the fans.
Be great if you guys could somehow get in on it.
Originally posted by Dragonhelm
Don't let this dishearten you. What matters here is your love of the setting, and wanting to see it alive again. If Paizo does articles on Dark Sun, it will generate interest, and is bound to draw more people to Athas.org. I've seen the same thing happen with Spelljammer.
Except that nothing in the article mentions Athas.org and I'm sure the same will be true of the 3.5 conversion.
I know it's not too hard to find us, but still, alot of people out there don't dig, or don't like to dig, and it would be damn cool if they just mentioned the website in the article as a place to get more source material for the setting.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Except that nothing in the article mentions Athas.org and I'm sure the same will be true of the 3.5 conversion.
I know it's not too hard to find us, but still, alot of people out there don't dig, or don't like to dig, and it would be damn cool if they just mentioned the website in the article as a place to get more source material for the setting.
Beyond the Moons got a mention in the following issue of Polyhedron in the editorial. If you guys ask early enough, maybe they'll make a quick mention.
Originally posted by Dragonhelm
Also, look at it this way. You not only have the talents of Athas.org working on Dark Sun, you now have an alternate resource. So one can pick and choose which system one likes best.
Don't be disheartened by business practices. Be glad that Athas is alive, and having a resurgence of late. That is what is truly important here.
When Wizard get something out or something affiliated to WotC, it become official. IMO, the work done by athas.org will become secondary. IT will become the altenate rule, not the new and "official" paizo work.
YES, it's excellent to see a dead world revived, but it's like all war. If everything is put aside, the good and the bad, the war will eventually come back since all the past errors will return.
GEEZ, how many numbers crunshing, playtest and such as been done by them and by the DS fans??? They SHOULD consider them FIRST, then write an article or core rule.
So, yes it's fun, but no it's not that important to get darksun back if it's to put away all the fantastic job that as been done.
Many errors will be made by them if they dont look upon athas.org, errors that as already been made and corrected.
Thanks.
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
You can always send an e-mail to [email]dragon@paizo.com[/email] stating your concerns.
But be nice. We don't need to unleash frothing hoards at them. The article isn't out yet and, umm ... something about catching things with sugar or vinegar. Whatever that means.
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150085
Jon, have you got an address at WotC we can write to about this?
Originally posted by flip
But be nice. We don't need to unleash frothing hoards at them. The article isn't out yet and, umm ... something about catching things with sugar or vinegar. Whatever that means.
Flies with honey...
Follow the thread in the post you replied to, or see page one in the same thread.
Already got it. I also caught that the DS 3.5 will be in Dragon, not a hardcover (my mistake).
You said you were in touch with the editors. But I guess they're not going to use your material? They're going to do it from scratch?
I'm
that they would slight you guys like this. I'm with you on the honey/vinegar line, but really want to see your work get a little more official recognition. What do the guys at Athas.org think we should do?
(If real life was like my Dark Sun campaign, this would be so much more straight forward...)
Originally posted by Kelsen
New options just that... take the best from both and make a draft.
Problem there being that you can't yourself publish anything from that article. Dragon stuff is not OGL.
However, I've spoken with the Editor In Chief of Dragon. I'm a lot less concerned about things than I had been. Can't really discuss details.