Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Throdin 10-08-07, 11:11 PM	Whats the difference between campaigns and campaign settings? Oh and whens 4th edition coming out and will I be able to still use my old books?
SovietCanuck 10-08-07, 11:19 PM	A campaign is a series of inter-connected adventures usually played with the same DM and PCs, whereas a campaign setting is the world where the campaign takes place. Think of a campaign as Frodo's journey from Lord of the Rings, and a campaign setting as Middle-Earth, and that'll give you a fairly solid footing. 4th edition, I do believe, is coming out next spring, summer, starting with PHB in May, MM in June, and DMG in July. Preview booklets are coming out in December and January. The first campaign setting, which they are calling 'Forgotten Realms', for some strange odd reason, will be out in August. As for 3/3.5 books in 4th, right now it's not certain how much will be translated across, but from what I can tell, it's no. Only Eberron is not undergoing fundamental changes to it's fluff, so if you're an Eberron fan most of your current fluff is still valid, even though the rules aren't. If your a Forgotten Realm fan, you're essentially SOL. And there's been nothing said about any of the other settings (except for Planescape fans, who were essentially told to suck it up, they'll enjoy the new cosmology better), so I honestly don't know if any of the existing fluff will still be valid. I'm extremely anti-4th ed, so take the above with a grain of salt...
1337Ninja 10-09-07, 12:30 AM	You definitely won't be able to use old books in 4.0. There are too many fundamental rules changes going on. They might keep the core idea, but they're butchering magic and changing the level system, so not a chance.
Taeldrin Laesrash 10-09-07, 01:16 AM	You might want to keep your old books just in case 4e disappoints.
Naderion 10-09-07, 07:36 AM	Old books will be completely usable, as long as you don't play 4th Ed. :D They are different games, I think the Name-Tag is only on the new game for PR reasons.
dr strangemonkey 10-09-07, 09:28 AM	There is some overlap between campaigns and campaign settings. Shackled City is a campaign set in a very discrete piece of campaign setting. Ptolus would be the opposite example of a campaign setting with enough adventure sets in it to be played as a campaign should you so wish. In terms of what will be usable after 4E: Spells and feats will probably be easilly translatable. Monsters in 3E products can be substituted with 4E equivalents. Ditto for characters. The campaigns will thus probably be translatable or convertable with some effort as was true of older campaigns into 3E. The encounter structure in 4E might make this more complicated or it might actually simplify the overly granulated encountered structure of 3E to the point that the conversion becomes an exercise in simplification. We just don't know yet. Campaign setting fluff will still be good, with the possible exception of FR which is getting a metaplot bump of potentially earthshaking proportions. But, you could still use it if you wanted to do either a time travelling FR campaign or one set entirely in the 'past.' Either of which sound pretty exciting to me.
Naderion 10-09-07, 09:37 AM	I have to say, the 3rd Ed. Forgotten Realms fluff maybe actually better than the new 4th Ed. Books. I don't heard any othe reactions about the changes but "oh please, not again!" If I would still play FR, I would discard even the FRCS and play in the world as it is in the 2nd Ed. publications. Further complications with the word campaign result by many people using "campaign" as the word to describe a setting. Which might have been convention some 25 years ago, but is misleading in todays terminology.
Throdin 10-09-07, 05:52 PM	Thanks guys!