| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
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| #1Slit518Jul 07, 2015 16:54:27 | Would you like to see 5th edition introduce a new world? And if so, would you want it to be an official Wizards of the Coast world, or a fan made world? Vote in the poll below!
Vote: http://www.poll-maker.com/poll357070xF10D436E-14
Results: http://www.poll-maker.com/results357070x3B1700FF-14 |
| #2BRJNJul 08, 2015 13:59:23 | Not yet. But when WotC is ready, I hope their "basic world assumptions" are arrived at via a player-input (not 'fans') mechanism.
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| #3MarandahirJul 08, 2015 14:19:44 | I voted when you put this up the other day. |
| #4HebitsuikazaJul 08, 2015 15:04:02 | There is a problem that makes this a more difficult question than you realize.
A lot of D&D settings were pretty much identical from the start. Sure, different NPCs, maybe the races go by slightly different names and are slightly different colored and the names of the cities and continents and such, the names and what little stories there were of the gods and the exact nitty-gritty details of the history were a bit different. But, for the most part? They all had roughly the same inhabitants with roughly the same personalities and attitudes, they all had the same norms of behavior, the same climate, the clothings and tools and generally were primarily fixated upon cave-delving for adventue.
GreyHawk, Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Lankhmar, Blackmoor, Birthright.... there may be differences, but you can pretty much create your character without knowing which of those worlds you are in and you won't really run particularly far afoul. (Again, the name of your god is about the only time it ever really mattered.)
Then there were some ones a bit different... Kara-tur, Al-Qadim, Maztica, Hollow World, Savage Coast.. in these ones, you may or may not get unique races or classes (or at least kits), but at this point the culture, tools, clothing and climate would be considerably different than the previously mentioned ones. Thing is that with these, they were often approached as the idea that the PC would be playing an outsider who ended up in this strange land with different customs and norms than they were used to. So while with these you had the option of creating something unique to the setting, you also could just default to standard.
And then there were the more extreme ones... Planescape, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Dragonlance... these ones DEFINITELY had their own unique races and/or classes and while Planescape and Ravenloft (and Spelljammer to a lesser extent) may have encouraged you to create characters by the plain core rules, Dark Sun and Dragonlance were definitely self-contained and notably different than the core rulebook.
Now, in the 1980s people read more-- there was no interenet and video games were still in their very beginning. TV wasn't nearly as well produced as it is now either and certainly wasn't geared towards the demographic drawn to fantasy stuff. This means there was little to no competition for attention-- having tons of isolated brand lines made sense. You could create supplements that were only applicable to a single campaign setting and it would still turn enough of a profit to have made it worth doing.
But, that ended up not working out so well.
When WotC took over, they began to take big strides towards erasing the dividing lines between settings as much as possible. Races were turned into simple reskins of one another and all worlds had the same races and the same monsters and the same everything as much as possible. The ones that were already not particularly well distinguihed beyond deep lore became even more impossible to tell apart as their unique features were ripped out. The ones that were touched that had been unique were made considerably less so.
This was all done for sensible reasons-- it no longer made any sense to put out splatbooks that would be applicable to only a single campaign setting. Instead, of targeting small demographics within the small demographic, it was far better to create a book and know that 95% of what you write in it is going to be true and applicable regardless of the setting the character is in. If something appeared in a splatbook or a monster manual, the ruling was that it appeared in all worlds precisely as presented by default (though DM fiat can always override).
The crowning jewel of 3rd/3.5 edition was their new campaign setting-- Ebberron. A setting that certainly had plenty of its own unique ideas, but at the end of the day a major feature of the setting to move books was "everything that has ever appeared in D&D exists in this world". By getting people to play this setting, suddenly even those few splatbooks that did apply to only one setting were applicable here-- even the campaign guides for other settings were inherently compatible encouraging everyone to buy absolutely everything-- which is precisely what a book seller wants. Uniqueness of setting be damned! It is the DM's responsibility to sort out the nonsense.
With 4E, they introduced a new world-- but only because of alterior motives. The design team came up with the brilliant idea of revamping the player races all together and the easiest way to do that at first was to introduce a new setting. Now High Elves were no longer called "High Elves" (which, honestly, does make sense-- who ever heard of a race of people calling themselves a modified version of another race of peope intentionally?), Tieflings were not common and normalized so that no one would bat an eye twice upon seeing one, there were suddenly these new so-called Dragon-people... with no tails and no wings ultimately just looking like freaky lizardfolk whose tails had been lopped off and they were based on absolutely nothing that had ever been a major feature of any D&D setting previously, but they figured Dragonpeople were the hot new thing so decided to make it a new core race.... that is to say nothing for all the completely and totally new races that appeared in subsequent books and were all introduced as something super-common that everyone was already totally aware of and completely accepting of.
So since they decided to revamp the residents of D&D and write new stories and roles for them all, they started off making their own new world which... never particularly got much detail. It just stole gods from Forgotten Realms and the general shape of the world, the nations, the important NPCs, the history... bits and pieces here or there, but hardly enough to really call it a completely conceptualized setting. It was just whatever it needed to be to move books.
And then they took the big and risky leap of just utterly rewriting existing settings so that all these brand new ideas-- Dragonborn, Shifters, Warforged-- would take over and become common and known parts of all settings. The new classes were now things that existed in all worlds precisely how they were described in the core books. It was important that "core" be the dominate thing and dictate how everything works and campaign settings be a secondary thought that could modify them, but only slightly-- and only things that came out before they did, of course.
So.... could a new setting be good?... Well, looking at the thread in this section about what people would like to see in a campaign world, it seems to me there are recurring themes-- more Asian-based setting, Pirate Aged technology and concepts, preconceptions of how the different races are being challenged with major alterations in their general behaviors.....
Thing is that it isn't what WotC would put out or accept.
If they make a setting for themselves, it'll simply be designed to move other books as much as possible. It'll be a hodge-podged hotpot of everything else published and likely any unique ideas or features that do appear in it will be exported to all other campaign settings as soon as possible. It is certain to be a bland, unoriginal and only sketchily written setting.
If WotC holds a fan contest and allows people to create their own setting... it'll just be Ebberon 2.0. They will choose the one that is ultimately designed to move the most books and any unique ideas it has will be gobbled up by other settings, likely moving all D&D settings more towards child-friendly MMORPG-esque styles. (I.E. Lycanthrope is a magical metaphor for rabies having many of the same symptoms and results except in far exaggerated form... oh, wait. Sorry. Shifters exist!! So, anyway... Werewolves are rally fluffy and cuddly defenders of the Earth blessed by animal spirits to defend it and it is only a really rare one that ever goes bad.)
Basically, any officially-backed setting, whether created by WotC designers themselves or selected from fan creations is ultimately going to be terrible and cartoony and make all other settings more terrible and cartoony simply by its existence. Only a setting put out by a 3rd party who doesn't have the kind of stake WotC does in selling all their books to all customers could possibly put out a unique, encapsulated and self-contained setting that has its own unique flavor and twist on things. |
| #5ankiyavonJul 08, 2015 15:22:15 |
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| #6HebitsuikazaJul 08, 2015 15:29:46 |
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| #7ankiyavonJul 08, 2015 15:43:43 |
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| #8edwin_suJul 08, 2015 15:56:14 |
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| #9UchawiJul 08, 2015 16:22:42 | If the new world included a remake of classes, with a heavy emphasis on making martial characters more flexible with their choices, it definitely would be interesting to take a look at; even if WOTC was not the main developer. |
| #10AaronOfBarbariaJul 09, 2015 1:32:14 | That poll doesn't cover all of the possible answers well enough to gather useful information.
There is no option for me to select: I am not opposed to a new world being created, and could potentially even enjoy such a world - but I have more worlds that I am already satisfied with than I can actually use (specifically I can use one at a time, and I have three that I love to use), so I am not feeling a desire for a new world to be created.
It's like asking me what I want to eat for dinner while I already have a plate of food ready in front of me, a fully stocked pantry, and leftovers in the refrigerator - I'm more likely to just stare blankly and wait for more context than actually blurt out some kind of food not already right in front of me. |
| (Reply to #4)DizzyWood |
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