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Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 12:42 PM
Speculation resulting from this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070822a) question and answer: 4e's "core world" will be the Forgotten Realms.

Discuss.

Matthew
2007-08-22, 12:46 PM
Yeah, they are dumping Greyhawk as the default World. It's sad, but if people aren't interested, then there isn't much to be done. On the other hand, the format of the new Website suggests that they may be supporting a number of settings outside FR and Eb.

As I understand it, there will be no actual Default D&D World now.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 12:51 PM
The term "4dventure" and their schoolgirl crush on all things 4 at the moment says to me there will be four settings. Money says Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance, and a newcomer.

Dragonlance is a maybe, could possibly also be replaced by something else (Ravenloft, Planescape, Greyhawk, Athas...).

Matthew
2007-08-22, 12:55 PM
Interesting, yeah, 4 Campaign Worlds. Dragonlance is a 'shoe in'(sp?) if the films are successful, otherwise not so much.

Planescape and Dark Sun are different enought to be attractive. Spelljammer is too goofy for this generation (though I love it for one offs and such). Birthright and Greyhawk are too similar to FR; Al-Qadim, Maztica and Kara-Tur are Forgotten Realms, so no trouble there. Ravenloft has too much competition, I think, but it's possible.

ALOR
2007-08-22, 12:56 PM
Dragonlance is a maybe, could possibly also be replaced by something else (Ravenloft, Planescape, Greyhawk, Athas...).

I thought another gaming company had the rights to dragonlance right now?

if thier going to add another setting i'd like to see one of the campaign world contest people get a shot. Perhaps our very own Giant's work could finally come to the forefront

Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 12:57 PM
I thought another gaming company had the rights to dragonlance right now?

Wizards revoked those rights shortly before reclaiming Dungeon and Dragon.

Matthew
2007-08-22, 12:58 PM
Margaret Weis has the license for another month or two, I think.

ALOR
2007-08-22, 01:02 PM
Wizards revoked those rights shortly before reclaiming Dungeon and Dragon.

oh, well then it seems ,following Wizards MO, that yes dragonlance will be one of the new settings.

Krellen
2007-08-22, 01:03 PM
I've seen no evidence Greyhawk is not the "default setting". In fact, the release of the FR book in August indicates to me that it is most definitely not the default setting - if it were default, its information would be released within the PH, MM and DMGs being released the three months prior.

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a "Greyhawk Campaign Setting" book released for 3e, due to it being the default.

kamikasei
2007-08-22, 01:03 PM
I disagree. They currently support FR and Eberron, but the former has already been through an edition change while the latter was specifically designed for consistency within 3.5. It may well be that FR is simply easier to convert and that it'll take longer to get a properly-adapted Eberron update out. I don't take this as a sign they're favouring one over the other.

Matthew
2007-08-22, 01:05 PM
I've seen no evidence Greyhawk is not the "default setting". In fact, the release of the FR book in August indicates to me that it is most definitely not the default setting - if it were default, its information would be released within the PH, MM and DMGs being released the three months prior.

To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a "Greyhawk Campaign Setting" book released for 3e, due to it being the default.
Sure there has, the Greyhawk Gazetter. Anyway, though, Wizards have directly stated that Greyhawk will no longer be the Default Campaign World. I think it was Andy Collins who said it. He also said D&D would have a generic setting.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 01:08 PM
I've seen no evidence Greyhawk is not the "default setting". In fact, the release of the FR book in August indicates to me that it is most definitely not the default setting - if it were default, its information would be released within the PH, MM and DMGs being released the three months prior.

Take a look at release dates. PHB in May, MM in June, DMG and FRCS in August.

Also: idea. Remember how there's been a statement saying, "seven books in extended core"? Well, what if it's PHB, DMG, MM, and four campaign settings?


Margaret Weis has the license for another month or two, I think.

...which is extraordinary timing on WotC's part, no?

Matthew
2007-08-22, 01:10 PM
That would be cool, but I heard it's Martial, Magic, FR and Psionics.

Hah, hah, yes 'good timing'. I just feel bad for any D20 Companies producing Campaign Settings at the moment.

Krellen
2007-08-22, 01:25 PM
Anyway, though, Wizards have directly stated that Greyhawk will no longer be the Default Campaign World. I think it was Andy Collins who said it. He also said D&D would have a generic setting.
Awesome. Got a reference? 'Cause until you do, I still have seen no evidence of it.


Take a look at release dates. PHB in May, MM in June, DMG and FRCS in August.
Isn't the DMG coming out in July? Seems silly to skip a month.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-22, 01:33 PM
Greyhawk always seemed to me like the "Core Setting" because it's so loose and undeveloped that it has flexibility.

Faerun would be reasonable, because it's 'developed' but also an extremely typical "high fantasy" setting, so players could get into it fairly easily.

I'm just worried about it; because if it keeps the Elminster Problem of too many and too frequently high level NPCs, it might alienate players from low levels.

Matthew
2007-08-22, 01:34 PM
Awesome. Got a reference? 'Cause until you do, I still have seen no evidence of it.

I think he says it on the GamerZer0 video on Youtube. Worth a watch if you haven't already.

ALOR
2007-08-22, 01:46 PM
I'm just worried about it; because if it keeps the Elminster Problem of too many and too frequently high level NPCs, it might alienate players from low levels.

well if in 4e the progression goes to 30 levels then having lots of high level NPC's would make sense. But i can see your point on alienating low level play.

Tiki Snakes
2007-08-22, 02:00 PM
"Not fair, there are people in the world who AREN'T US who have, like, done stuff. People who we can't bully and murder out-of-hand by level 5! My immersion is the ruined!"

Um, not seeing the problem with there being high level/legendary NPC's active or alive in a setting, here, really.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 02:01 PM
Isn't the DMG coming out in July? Seems silly to skip a month.

Brainfart. I meant DMG in July.

Thinker
2007-08-22, 02:05 PM
"Not fair, there are people in the world who AREN'T US who have, like, done stuff. People who we can't bully and murder out-of-hand by level 5! My immersion is the ruined!"

Um, not seeing the problem with there being high level/legendary NPC's active or alive in a setting, here, really.

I don't think the problem is so much that there are legendary NPCs so much as how many of them there are. I'm not against Faerun, but I can see how it could get overwhelming.

Telonius
2007-08-22, 02:11 PM
Meh. I've never actually seen any setting material for Greyhawk anyway. I started gaming about 6 years ago, and I've always been under the assumption that, basically, all "Greyhawk" means is that your setting world doesn't have an actual name. It's this generic world where magic works the way it's described in the PHB and DMG, and has no real fluff to back it up. I've never seen a novel with "Greyhawk" in the title, never seen a "Faiths of Greyhawk" or any similar book by Wizards, and really have no idea where the setting is supposed to come from. I've been gaming perfectly happily for 6 years without it. So no, no emotional attachment to it from this quarter.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 02:13 PM
Meh. I've never actually seen any setting material for Greyhawk anyway. I started gaming about 6 years ago, and I've always been under the assumption that, basically, all "Greyhawk" means is that your setting world doesn't have an actual name. It's this generic world where magic works the way it's described in the PHB and DMG, and has no real fluff to back it up. I've never seen a novel with "Greyhawk" in the title, never seen a "Faiths of Greyhawk" or any similar book by Wizards, and really have no idea where the setting is supposed to come from. I've been gaming perfectly happily for 6 years without it. So no, no emotional attachment to it from this quarter.

IIRC, Deities and Demigods has Greyhawk deities in it. Beyond that, yeah, nothing but the Gazetteer.

Serenity
2007-08-22, 02:21 PM
All I know is that I've never been able to find any information on Greyhawk aside from the pantheon in the Player's Handbook, whereas there's a shiny Player's Guide to Faerun, Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are FR games...

Person_Man
2007-08-22, 02:21 PM
I will miss Greyhawk.

But I'm a bit confused. It's freakin Hasbro. They have the capacity to publish as much as they want - assuming they hire enough people to do the work. Or they can just publish independent submissions that they like, without having to pay to keep writers on staff. As long as they agree on a core set of rules, and none of the writers go off the reservation and create world specific rules, there's no reason they can't support ALL of the old worlds, plus additional new worlds. So there's really no reason to apocalypse anything.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-22, 02:23 PM
I will miss Greyhawk.

But I'm a bit confused. It's freakin Hasbro. They have the capacity to publish as much as they want - assuming they hire enough people to do the work. Or they can just publish independent submissions that they like, without having to pay to keep writers on staff. As long as they agree on a core set of rules, and none of the writers go off the reservation and create world specific rules, there's no reason they can't support ALL of the old worlds, plus additional new worlds. So there's really no reason to apocalypse anything.

Except maybe general apathy of the populous. No one's going to buy Greyhawk products if no one knows--or cares--what Greyhawk is.

Matthew
2007-08-22, 02:25 PM
All I know is that I've never been able to find any information on Greyhawk aside from the pantheon in the Player's Handbook, whereas there's a shiny Player's Guide to Faerun, Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are FR games...

2e Greyhawk (http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/gh/gh.htm)

http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/3e/gaz.jpg

http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/3e/living.jpg

Pretty much anything you find in the Rulebooks that relates to fluff relates to Greyhawk. Same for much of Dungeon Magazine.

jamroar
2007-08-22, 02:44 PM
Speculation resulting from this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070822a) question and answer: 4e's "core world" will be the Forgotten Realms.

Discuss.

Wizards have said that they want to use real world mythologies like Thor as reference examples in core. My guess is they are going for a generic core world.

hamlet
2007-08-22, 03:16 PM
Meh. I've never actually seen any setting material for Greyhawk anyway. I started gaming about 6 years ago, and I've always been under the assumption that, basically, all "Greyhawk" means is that your setting world doesn't have an actual name. It's this generic world where magic works the way it's described in the PHB and DMG, and has no real fluff to back it up. I've never seen a novel with "Greyhawk" in the title, never seen a "Faiths of Greyhawk" or any similar book by Wizards, and really have no idea where the setting is supposed to come from. I've been gaming perfectly happily for 6 years without it. So no, no emotional attachment to it from this quarter.

Yer killin me. Wonder if my grey hair is showing . . .

http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProducts.asp_Q_ProductLineID_E_8_A_Manufacture rID_E_1_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_

Greyhawk, for a long while, was THE boxed setting. It still is, for many, the best canned world out there. Very popular with many because it had a very nice big framework with a lot of the details scrubbed out. Made it very easy to plunk down a campaign within the architecture and still give the players and DM room to create and grow.

It also was loose enough that you could play any style of game. High magic, low magic, grim and gritty, wild and wacky, whatever put your flag up.

Was home to the very first D&D campaigns and the origin of such notable figures as Vecna, Khass, Drawmij, Tenser, Bigby, Mordenkainen(sp?), etc.

FireSpark
2007-08-22, 04:03 PM
Okay, I may be going off the dep end with this statement, but I'm pretty sure I read it in article in show trade rag about Wizards marketing and developing strategies.


One of the biggest reasons that Wizards wants to shift the focus from the Greyhawk setting, is that it represents the last tangible (if at best, frail) connection to Gary Gygax and the pre-TSR era. You see, Forgotten realms didn't come about until the Tactical Studies Rules company had been well established. In fact, the reason that Forgotten Realms is seemingly remembered so much more often and more clearly, is that it was built not by a scant handful of people, but by a full scale team of designers and developers. When WotC bought the TSR company and all its intellectual property, there was but one snag: the Greyhawk setting wasn't TSR's property, it was Gary Gygax's. Gygax of course packaged Greyhawk into the deal, but he still gets his perks, if from nothing else but association alone. 3e and 3.5 D&D was built upon the framework, ideas, and concepts that Gygax and TSR established with 2e AD&D. 4th edition will represent a complete seperation from this past. This newest incarnation will be built wholly from what Wizards has learned and realized on their own. This will be their best chance to break away from the Gygax legacy, and establish themselves as the D&D people.

For this reason, I think that the shift in focus will not be onto Forgotten Realms, but rather onto the Eberron setting (one that they birthed themselves), or yet another brave new world.

[/spiel]

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-22, 07:25 PM
Breaking free of Gygax? Why would they want to do that?
Especially considering anyone who would connect Greyhawk to TSR obviously knows Gygax invented D&D and will never get rid of the connection.


"Not fair, there are people in the world who AREN'T US who have, like, done stuff. People who we can't bully and murder out-of-hand by level 5! My immersion is the ruined!"

Um, not seeing the problem with there being high level/legendary NPC's active or alive in a setting, here, really.

No, my problem is a system where level 15 is treated as the logical mid-point to any reasonably-established career, and level 25 is exceptional; rather than earth-shattering epic. I also have issue with the idea, which is prevalent in FR, that a character who is significant in society must also be high level. You should be able to be a level 3 Aristocrat and still lead an entire empire.

Eberron has high level NPCs (Vol, Kaius, the Daelkyr), but they're rare and highly significant.
It doesn't make sense to have a world where high level characters are extremely common, but lower level players are still heroes.

I'm already wary of epic in core, but that wariness is tempered by not knowing how epic will work in 4e;

Frankly they should use Eberron, because Eberron is amazing. But it is developed enough to belong in it's own significant book.

greenknight
2007-08-22, 08:43 PM
No, my problem is a system where level 15 is treated as the logical mid-point to any reasonably-established career, and level 25 is exceptional; rather than earth-shattering epic. I also have issue with the idea, which is prevalent in FR, that a character who is significant in society must also be high level. You should be able to be a level 3 Aristocrat and still lead an entire empire.

That's probably the best argument I've seen for going with FR as the default setting for 4e, given that they're working on 30 level PCs and making the "sweet spot" of character levels a bit higher. I'm not sure they'll do it, but FR is their most successful campaign setting, so it makes a lot of sense.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-22, 08:51 PM
That's probably the best argument I've seen for going with FR as the default setting for 4e, given that they're working on 30 level PCs and making the "sweet spot" of character levels a bit higher. I'm not sure they'll do it, but FR is their most successful campaign setting, so it makes a lot of sense.

No, it wasn't an argument for FR, it was an argument against it. FR has too many high level NPCs, the average person should be levels 1-6, with higher level characters being exceptional; FR is all about powergaming, with it's endless over-involved gods, super-high level NPCs, and million Elven sub-races; Also, nobody said that they were moving the sweet spot, that's pure speculation.

FR is only successful because up until recently, it had no competition.

Since then, Eberron's blown it out of the water in terms of quality, originality, creativity, and appeal. FR has just become another High Fantasy workhorse.

Drider
2007-08-22, 09:18 PM
:smallfrown: greyhawk is more "friendly" for begining group than faerun, or eberron. When most groups begin, they make the generic team of dungeon "raiders" that don't pay attention to the world(which would bad for eberron) and fight various things that have no reason being near each other outside of their cr.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-22, 09:26 PM
:smallfrown: greyhawk is more "friendly" for begining group than faerun, or eberron. When most groups begin, they make the generic team of dungeon "raiders" that don't pay attention to the world(which would bad for eberron) and fight various things that have no reason being near each other outside of their cr.

Eberron wouldn't be a good core setting, it deserves it's own material. Greyhawk worked because it was simple and open. Eberron is tight and focused, and is hard to redesign without changing too much. FR is just...bloated.

horseboy
2007-08-22, 09:55 PM
No, it wasn't an argument for FR, it was an argument against it. FR has too many high level NPCs, the average person should be levels 1-6, with higher level characters being exceptional; FR is all about powergaming, with it's endless over-involved gods, super-high level NPCs, and million Elven sub-races; Also, nobody said that they were moving the sweet spot, that's pure speculation.

FR is only successful because up until recently, it had no competition.

Since then, Eberron's blown it out of the water in terms of quality, originality, creativity, and appeal. FR has just become another High Fantasy workhorse.
Eberron is just Barsave 2.0

Fhaolan
2007-08-22, 10:02 PM
Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms have always switched off between themselves as the 'official' base campaign for D&D. It's not surprising that they're doing it again. Wait until 5th edition, when it will be Greyhawk again.

The advantage to Forgotten Realms is that there was that massive expansion it went through in 2nd edition, absorbing Oriental Adventures, adding Mazteca, Arabian Adventures, Horde, Underdark, and so on. And since the novel lines really took off at that point, it just emphasized the sheer amount of material being published for it. The editors/writers of Greyhawk's various editions seemed a bit more conservative, and never really published the insane number of suppliments that 2nd ed Forgotten Realms managed to amass.

That's a lot of material that WotC can convert to 4th edition and resell to everyone. They can probably spend five or so years just mining the fluff.

Morty
2007-08-23, 06:18 AM
Eberron shouldn't be core setting because it sucks. The three things that Eberron does good are blured alignments, hidden gods and Dhakaani(sp?) Empire.
FR shouldn't be core setting either, even though it's good. Core rules should be based on some bland, generic "setting" in order not to limit GMs' invention.

kpenguin
2007-08-23, 06:54 AM
I don't believe there actually be an official setting. Maybe some generic gods or whatever to get you started, but other than that, you're on your own to find a setting that suits you or make one yourself.

If there is an official setting, though, I would like it to be Greyhawk. It's bland enough to give freedom to the DM to shape. FR is too colorful and Eberron is too controversial.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-23, 01:45 PM
Eberron shouldn't be core setting because it sucks. The three things that Eberron does good are blured alignments, hidden gods and Dhakaani(sp?) Empire.
FR shouldn't be core setting either, even though it's good. Core rules should be based on some bland, generic "setting" in order not to limit GMs' invention.FR is bland and generic. It's the spitting image of an unimaginative Middle Earth clone.

Eberron is amazing, it is the most unique system released in years and years.

It has an excellent grasp of how to balance ploot hooks with developed aspects, a brilliant historical sensibility (The Last War has a brilliant way of mirroring the ideas behind World War I)

It has interesting and unique NPCs, a well-structured nation set up, menacing villains and an excellent support staff.

Xen'Drik, Sarlona, and Argonessen create an excellent way to expand the scope of the campaign.

The Warforged and Lord of Blades are a brilliant inherent conflict.

The races are well-structured, and the dragonmarked houses create an excellent world-spanning conflict without being arbitrary.

There are not a thousand elven subraces; there are not "ancient scaled ones releasing ancient magic to return the world to ancient times"; there is not a completely unrealistic imbalance between advanced cities and medieval hovels.


Eberron is amazing-period.

Morty
2007-08-23, 01:54 PM
Eberron annoys me, because there's good design there, destroyed by this whole "magic as technology" crap. If the creator decided to design something that makes sense, without trying to turn fantasy into modern world using magic, it'd be great setting.
Magic in Eberron can barely be called magic anymore, and I hate it. Everything's got too modern feel, something that's completely out of place in fantasy world. Plus there are some ideas that are just plain stupid, like halfling riding of dinosaurs(what the hell?), warforged(bleh) and magic trains(what were they smoking?).
And I like the epic feel of FR, it's like high magic should look like.

Elderac
2007-08-23, 02:04 PM
I have been able to glean a couple of things from the various Wizards on-line material.

1) A new Forgotten Realms setting book is coming out sometime after the release of 4e.

2) That the -Last- RPGA Living Greyhawk event will be next summer at GENCON.

3) The new RPGA setting will be Forgotten Realms. I forget if this will be called Living Realms or what.

To me, that is pretty strong evidence that Greyhawk will be largely forgotten (no pun intended) by 4e. I expect that there will be the occassional Dragon article or Dungeon adventure set in Greyhawk, as they sometimes do visit old settings, but it does not seem like they will be publishing anything like the Gazette.

I suppose we will find out when we crack open the 4e Players Handbook and see what they have to offer for the deities. If they are the ones we have seen in 3e, then they may still be hope for Greyhawk.

Personally, it does not matter. I use my own setting which gives me greater control over what happens in the game world.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 02:26 PM
I have been able to glean a couple of things from the various Wizards on-line material.

1) A new Forgotten Realms setting book is coming out sometime after the release of 4e.

2) That the -Last- RPGA Living Greyhawk event will be next summer at GENCON.

3) The new RPGA setting will be Forgotten Realms. I forget if this will be called Living Realms or what.

To me, that is pretty strong evidence that Greyhawk will be largely forgotten (no pun intended) by 4e. I expect that there will be the occassional Dragon article or Dungeon adventure set in Greyhawk, as they sometimes do visit old settings, but it does not seem like they will be publishing anything like the Gazette.

I suppose we will find out when we crack open the 4e Players Handbook and see what they have to offer for the deities. If they are the ones we have seen in 3e, then they may still be hope for Greyhawk.

Personally, it does not matter. I use my own setting which gives me greater control over what happens in the game world.

Living Faerun, actually.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-23, 03:32 PM
Eberron annoys me, because there's good design there, destroyed by this whole "magic as technology" crap. If the creator decided to design something that makes sense, without trying to turn fantasy into modern world using magic, it'd be great setting.
Magic in Eberron can barely be called magic anymore, and I hate it. Everything's got too modern feel, something that's completely out of place in fantasy world. Plus there are some ideas that are just plain stupid, like halfling riding of dinosaurs(what the hell?), warforged(bleh) and magic trains(what were they smoking?).
And I like the epic feel of FR, it's like high magic should look like.

In FR, magic trains would be easily possible but everyone still travels around in small carraiges just to protect the "high fantasy" Tolkkein filching.
It doesn't make any sense to have epic magic pervade the setting, and yet have it still appear high and unapproachable.

Having magic available but not serving as technology would be like having a world where technology is available but not serving as technology.

Morty
2007-08-23, 03:36 PM
In FR, magic trains would be easily possible but everyone still travels around in small carraiges just to protect the "high fantasy" Tolkkein filching.
It doesn't make any sense to have epic magic pervade the setting, and yet have it still appear high and unapproachable.

Epic magic used to provide easy means of transportation would be ridiculous. It is supposed to be unapproachable and treated with respect. Remember what happened last time someone tried to abuse magic on Faerun? Besides, in case of magic, I don't care if it "makes sense" or not. It's magic. It's supposed to be all but logical.


Having magic available but not serving as technology would be like having a world where technology is available but not serving as technology.

Magic is not technology, even in D&D. Besides, would you call all low-magic worlds like Old World from Warhammer "not making sense"?
I repeat: magic in Eberron can barely be called "magic" anymore, because it's low, common, reliable and used everywhere to things like street lights or trains. D&D magic kind of implies that, but not to the extent we see in Eberron. Besides, in new edition they'll hopefully make magic less common and reliable. Not that I expect this, but I hope so. And they've already promised to tone down magic items, the worst thing in D&D.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 03:42 PM
Magic is not technology, even in D&D.

Arthur C. Clarke's three laws:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

And Larry Niven's corollary for 3 is "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

D&D's magic is sufficiently advanced (particularly in the case of Faerun and Eberron) to be indistinguishable from technology.

Morty
2007-08-23, 03:45 PM
D&D's magic is sufficiently advanced (particularly in the case of Faerun and Eberron) to be indistinguishable from technology.

I'm aware of that, and I consider it the single biggest disadvantage of 3.x D&D -in fact I dislike Eberron also because it's based on D&D's biggest flaw. But while D&D magic is too scientifical, it still doesn't have to look like in Eberron, where the only difference between magic and technology is that magic tells the laws of physics to shut up and sit down instead of using them. And the thing about "any sufficently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" is rubbish. Why? Define "advanced". Magic can be all powerful but still not be able to work like technology.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 03:48 PM
I'm aware of that, and I consider it the single biggest disadvantage of 3.x D&D -in fact I dislike Eberron also because it's based on D&D's biggest flaw. But while D&D magic is too scientifical, it still doesn't have to look like in Eberron, where the only difference between magic and technology is that magic tells the laws of physics to shut up and sit down instead of using them.

D&D is a high-magic game: if it weren't, there wouldn't be a 60+ page chapter in the PHB dedicated to just spells, with a 10+ page precursor chapter detailing how magic works.

magic is a fundamental aspect of the D&D genre-verse (if you'll excuse my word creation), and without it, you're playing a different game--like, say, Iron Kingdoms.

Alyorbase
2007-08-23, 03:48 PM
Not to change the subject...

I don't know what WotC actually owns or whatnot, but I was wondering if Rokugan could possibly be the 4th setting or does it have nothing to do with WotC. It would be kinda cool to have FR, Eb, Dragonlance, and Rokugan/Oriental Adventures. Just my 2 cents.

Morty
2007-08-23, 03:49 PM
D&D is a high-magic game: if it weren't, there wouldn't be a 60+ page chapter in the PHB dedicated to just spells, with a 10+ page precursor chapter detailing how magic works.

magic is a fundamental aspect of the D&D genre-verse (if you'll excuse my word creation), and without it, you're playing a different game--like, say, Iron Kingdoms.

I never claimed otherwise. But high-magic game doesn't have to mean magic used as technology to provide basic things like transportation or street lights. "High magic" can have at least few different meanings.
Concerning FR, I liked the introducion to Magic of Faerun by Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun -or some other Faerunian archmage- about people who treat magic simply like a tool.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 03:51 PM
I never claimed otherwise. But high-magic game doesn't have to mean magic used as technology to provide basic things like transportation or street lights.

And what else are they going to use it for, really? Not every person who picks up a spellbook and becomes a wizard (or an adept!) goes out to slay dragons. Not every spell in existence is printed in the published material: those are just the ones that adventurers would find relevant.

Morty
2007-08-23, 03:54 PM
And what else are they going to use it for, really? Not every person who picks up a spellbook and becomes a wizard (or an adept!) goes out to slay dragons. Not every spell in existence is printed in the published material: those are just the ones that adventurers would find relevant.

They would surely going to use magic to do things otherwise impossible; that's what magic is all about after all. But Eberron is quite frankly stretching it. In fact, I find the amount of magic items in D&D disgusting no matter what the setting.
I like how magic is presented in Discworld; as something similiar to atomic energy- powerful, useful and maybe even necessary, but not to be taken lightly.

leperkhaun
2007-08-23, 03:55 PM
my personal opinion is this. I dont really care what the default setting is as long as they (and other companies) publish other settings.

But then again currently the only setting i play thats not home-grown is eb.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 03:55 PM
They would surely going to use magic to do things otherwise impossible; that's what magic is all about after all. But Eberron is quite frankly stretching it. In fact, I find the amount of magic items in D&D disgusting no matter what the setting.

You realize that people said the same things about the advent of cell phones, the personal computer, cars...

Morty
2007-08-23, 03:57 PM
You realize that people said the same things about the advent of cell phones, the personal computer, cars...

:smallconfused: How are those relevant? Things you mentioned are products of technology, not magic. And they're real, not part of fictional setting. And magic providing those things won't be magic anymore.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 04:03 PM
:smallconfused: How are those relevant? Things you mentioned are products of technology, not magic. And they're real, not part of fictional setting.

Did you miss what I said above? The implication from Clarke's and Niven's Laws is that magic and technology are freely interchangeable.

Morty
2007-08-23, 04:05 PM
Did you miss what I said above? The implication from Clarke's and Niven's Laws is that magic and technology are freely interchangeable.

I didn't miss what you've said above. It's just that I don't agree with it at all.

Nonanonymous
2007-08-23, 04:07 PM
I've never seen a novel with "Greyhawk" in the title

Back in the day, a fellow named Gary Gygax wrote the Greyhawk Adventures and Gord the Rogue novels. They were released in the AD&D era though, so I'm not so surprised you have no idea what they are. More recently there's been seven novels released between 1999 and 2002, and a few short stories released through Dragon magazine, as well as some comic books, though I don't know much about them.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 04:08 PM
I didn't miss what you've said above. It's just that I don't agree with it at all.

Then tell me this: if our world today had access to D&D magic, do you doubt that it would become remarkably prevalent--about as prevalent as "high technology" is today?

kamikasei
2007-08-23, 04:08 PM
Epic magic used to provide easy means of transportation would be ridiculous.

Sure. But lightning trains and everburning street lights don't require epic magic.

Matthew
2007-08-23, 04:14 PM
Then tell me this: if our world today had access to D&D magic, do you doubt that it would become remarkably prevalent--about as prevalent as "high technology" is today?

Depends on how you look at it. From the perspective of the mechanics only, there's not much to stop it. However, it's worth noting that magic is not prevalent in many D&D settings, which suggests that the mechanics themselves may be doing a poor job of supporting the description.

Morty
2007-08-23, 04:15 PM
Then tell me this: if our world today had access to D&D magic, do you doubt that it would become remarkably prevalent--about as prevalent as "high technology" is today?

I do. Because magic is not technology. Things like magic trains work in Eberron, but DM can easily say "it doesn't work" in other setting and devise a ton of fluff reasons to justify it. So wheter it will be as prevalent as technology or not, would depend on interpretation of D&D magic we use.


Sure. But lightning trains and everburning street lights don't require epic magic.

All magic is epic in some way or another.
And BTW, such discussions remind me why I prefer low-magic settings so much and why I'm designing one. Shame that D&D does a poor job representing them.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 04:26 PM
Magic may not be technology, but it is still a tool. Tools propagate, more quickly if they are more useful. Magic is incredibly useful, and should propagate inordinately quickly.

Morty
2007-08-23, 04:28 PM
Magic may not be technology, but it is still a tool. Tools propagate, more quickly if they are more useful. Magic is incredibly useful, and should propagate inordinately quickly.

But therein lies the difference. Technology is something that can be developed and improved in a logical way. Magic can be like that, but doesn't have to, even in D&D.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 04:35 PM
But therein lies the difference. Technology is something that can be developed and improved in a logical way. Magic can be like that, but doesn't have to, even in D&D.

The magic of D&D demonstratively develops over time, and in a variety of ways (depending on setting). In D&D, it is like that, unless you're homebrewing something.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-08-23, 04:36 PM
I'm aware of that, and I consider it the single biggest disadvantage of 3.x D&D -in fact I dislike Eberron also because it's based on D&D's biggest flaw.Oh, memories. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/09/05)
And the thing about "any sufficently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" is rubbish.Look at your computer. You know that there are chips, processors, boards, and whatnot inside. Do you have any idea how any of those work? Do you know how to write an OS or a web browser? Not likely. For most people, a computer remains a magical box that you can use when you plug the right wires into the right sockets.

Clearly you can handle the input and output, but the actual workings of the system are a complete mystery. Is it governed by physics or is it governed by sheer wizardry? As people, we know it's run by physics in our case, but ours is not a world in which people animate mops to do their household chores for them. Most of the time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooba), at least.

The fact of the matter is that tech is what we have in our world, so when we see a goofy device, we assume some scientist with too much time on his hands did it. In D&D, magic is what they have to work with -- typically because its use has supplanted the development of technology -- so they will assume their default -- that some wizard with too much time on his hands made it.

Krellen
2007-08-23, 04:38 PM
Look at your computer. You know that there are chips, processors, boards, and whatnot inside. Do you have any idea how any of those work? Do you know how to write an OS or a web browser?
Oooh, I do! Does that mean I'm a wizard? :smallbiggrin:

(Insert obligatory remark about wizard hat and robe.)

Thinker
2007-08-23, 04:40 PM
But therein lies the difference. Technology is something that can be developed and improved in a logical way. Magic can be like that, but doesn't have to, even in D&D.

Look at all of the utility spells in D&D. Many of them can be applied to objects. Many of them can make golems, which amount to infinite cheap labor. Magic and technology go hand-in-hand. I don't know why any civilization that had direct and easy access to such magic wouldn't try to apply it to their everyday lives. A magically run cleaning service based entirely around using Prestidigitation is not unreasonable. Neither would be making horseless carriages for people to ride around in. Once there, why not develop flying horseless carriages?

The problem with high magic, particularly D&D high magic, is that it defeats the culture it is meant to represent. With spells such as remove poison and remove disease sickness becomes less prevalent. With prestidigitation things become cleaner. There are lots of low-level uses of magic that just improve the quality of life. The problem with magic is that it must be implemented in such a way as to maintain the level of society you wish it to pervade, while at the same time not making it unnecessary or even unhelpful to use.

Many ways that this could be done that I have thought of would be to:

* limit evocation so it cannot be turned into wands.
* further increase usefulness of buff spells.
* remove spells that allow long-range communication.
* remove low-level spells that provide non-combat utility.
* increase spell-level of all teleportation spells.


Really you may be better off just not using the D&D core spell system to reflect a low-magic setting. Instead you could consider True20's casting system or changing to Incarnum or Pact Magic. When magic becomes less reliable or impossible for lay-persons to use it makes it more rare. As it stands now it can substitute very easily for technology.

Morty
2007-08-23, 04:42 PM
The magic of D&D demonstratively develops over time, and in a variety of ways (depending on setting). In D&D, it is like that, unless you're homebrewing something.

Not homebrewing but world designing.


Oh, memories.

What is that supposed to mean? Disliking D&D's high-magic isn't disliking D&D because it's D&D.


Look at your computer. You know that there are chips, processors, boards, and whatnot inside. Do you have any idea how any of those work? Do you know how to write an OS or a web browser? Not likely. For most people, a computer remains a magical box that you can use when you plug the right wires into the right sockets.

But I would know how this works if I put an effort into learning this. The way I see it, even wizards don't know exactly how does the magic works. They just cast the spells and stuff happens. No mechanics prevents me from interpreting it that way.


Really you may be better off just not using the D&D core spell system to reflect a low-magic setting. Instead you could consider True20's casting system or changing to Incarnum or Pact Magic. When magic becomes less reliable or impossible for lay-persons to use it makes it more rare. As it stands now it can substitute very easily for technology.

*sigh* I don't have any problems with high magic when playing D&D, because it's supposed to be high magic. It's magic used like technology I have problems with.


A magically run cleaning service based entirely around using Prestidigitation is not unreasonable.

It can work, but it doesn't have to. If I consider it ridiculous, and I do, nothing prevents me from saying "it doesn't work".

Merlin the Tuna
2007-08-23, 04:43 PM
Oooh, I do! Does that mean I'm a wizard? :smallbiggrin:He's a witch! Burn him!

But perhaps this is a more succinct way of saying the same thing; prove to me that this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2AeFJDRa3c) is the result of technology, rather than magic.

Edit:
What is that supposed to mean? Disliking D&D's high-magic isn't disliking D&D because it's D&D.No, but disliking a D&D setting because it uses D&D's ideas is pretty counterproductive.

Matthew
2007-08-23, 04:45 PM
That whole any "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is totally bogus. It only applies relative to the practioners of tha art, not as an absolute. If you understand technology, you know it's not magic at all. If you understand magic (given that it exists) it's still magic.

D&D has gone: Traditional Fantasy World -> Mechanical representaion -> failure to represent the original setting -> New Setting. The thing is, Greyhawk is still the same as it ever was (more or less), which suggests that the mechanics of D&D have some limiting factor in that setting of which we are not aware.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 04:46 PM
But I would know how this works if I put an effort into learning this. The way I see it, even wizards don't know exactly how does the magic works. They just cast the spells and stuff happens. No mechanics prevents me from interpreting it that way.

...and wizards are the people who put effort into learning it. Sorcerors are the ones who don't necessarily know how it works. This is why Wizards are Int-based and require a book.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 04:48 PM
That whole any "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is totally bogus. It only applies relative to the practioners of tha art, not as an absolute. If you understand technology, you know it's not magic at all. If you understand magic (given that it exists) it's still magic.

Granted, but most people in the D&D-verse don't know much of anything about either magic or technology, unless they're either a spellcaster or some sort of technician.

Thinker
2007-08-23, 04:50 PM
That whole any "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is totally bogus. It only applies relative to the practioners of tha art, not as an absolute. If you understand technology, you know it's not magic at all. If you understand magic (given that it exists) it's still magic.

It is the observer, rather than the inventor, who usually describes what is happening. If something is described as "A streak of fire flashed in front of me and struck the beast dead. The place where it struck was still smoldering and stank of cooked meat." was that a scorching ray or a laser beam? If the observer has only seen magic, he will call it a scorching ray; if he has only seen technology he will call it a laser beam.

Morty
2007-08-23, 04:51 PM
...and wizards are the people who put effort into learning it. Sorcerors are the ones who don't necessarily know how it works. This is why Wizards are Int-based and require a book.

Wizards put effort into learning spells to bend the laws of physics, blah blah blah, to create effects that would be otherwise impossible. That doesn't mean they understand completely how magic works, because sometimes, depending on setting, there is not much to understand. Of course, you can say that they perfectly understand how the magic works. But mind you, I prefer to keep at least some mystycism to magic, and there's not much of it in D&D magic as-is. That's what drives me off Eberron- magic without any mystery, common, reliable and mundane. It no longer bends the laws of physics, it just does stuff. Even if it doesn't make sense if it's not that way- I don't care.


No, but disliking a D&D setting because it uses D&D's ideas is pretty counterproductive.

I like D&D. It's the type of high magic it uses annoys me. Apart from Vancian casting system I'm very fond of, magic in D&D is like magic in my opinion Should Not Work.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-08-23, 04:52 PM
If the observer has only seen magic, he will call it a scorching ray; if he has only seen technology he will call it a laser beam.And if the observer is Montezuma, he will assume that the guy that sparkles is Quetzalcoatl, even if he may well be Hernan Cortes.

Matthew
2007-08-23, 04:55 PM
It is the observer, rather than the inventor, who usually describes what is happening. If something is described as "A streak of fire flashed in front of me and struck the beast dead. The place where it struck was still smoldering and stank of cooked meat." was that a scorching ray or a laser beam? If the observer has only seen magic, he will call it a scorching ray; if he has only seen technology he will call it a laser beam.

Perhaps, but there is still an actual difference between the two. Magic and Advanced Technology are not interchangable, which appears to be what people take away from that quote - their effects are simply easily confused and that only assuming that Advanced Technology really can emulate everything that Magic supposedly could (which I doubt).

Flawless
2007-08-23, 04:57 PM
I very much like the fact that in Faerun magic =! technology. It's simply a matter of flavour. You don't have to explain this with logic. It's not like FR tries to be a simulation of a fantasy world where magic is easily accessible. If that were the case, the realms would indeed be much more like eberron. But it's somewhat different. Faerun is a setting where ordinary people live without magic whereas powerful individuals have tons of magic easily at their disposal. Magic is used for blasting things and epic deeds but not in every-day life. Is that realistic? Would such a world really have develloped out of a pseudo-medival setting with tons of magic? Certainly not! Does this matter? No! I want to play in such a setting whether or not it's plausible.

Matthew
2007-08-23, 04:59 PM
Heh, the problem lies in Faerun's past where magic did = technology (almost). The Age of Nethril was like Eberron on Acid.

AslanCross
2007-08-23, 04:59 PM
Not to change the subject...

I don't know what WotC actually owns or whatnot, but I was wondering if Rokugan could possibly be the 4th setting or does it have nothing to do with WotC. It would be kinda cool to have FR, Eb, Dragonlance, and Rokugan/Oriental Adventures. Just my 2 cents.

WotC sold Legend of the Five Rings. It's currently owned by AEG. I do like having an alternative Asian fantasy setting, but I guess it will always just be an alternative.

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:00 PM
And if I recall correctly, maigc of Netheril required Mythals, which were epic magic.
And Flawless- you sumed it up quite well.

kamikasei
2007-08-23, 05:03 PM
It can work, but it doesn't have to. If I consider it ridiculous, and I do, nothing prevents me from saying "it doesn't work".

Why doesn't it work? The rules for prestidigitation are there. By the rules for NPC spellcasting a wizard can charge many times a day's wages for a trained hireling just to cast it once. Even a level one wizard can cast it many times a day. So what stops him from doing so?

You may find it ridiculous but it's a logical consequence of how the spell works. Either you change how the spell works so it no longer has a ridiculous implication, you introduce some element that undoes the implication (all wizards take vows against "frivolous" use of their knowledge?), or you wave your hands and say "no, just because". That last is not particularly satisfying or immersive world-building.

edit: Based on your replies while I was writing this it sounds like you don't value logical consistency in a game world at all, at least with respect to magic and its role, so this line of argument is a no-starter. I'll just say that it is important to me, and hence I find Eberron more satisfying than Forgotten Realms. I can understand your tastes are different, but I think it's a little unreasonable to call Eberron terrible and a disaster just for taking note of implications you'd prefer to ignore that are already present in the game.

Spiryt
2007-08-23, 05:04 PM
I also don't like Eberron beacuse of this predictable, bounded "techno - magic".

And I cannot see where's the problem guys. If somebody likes such magic, he plays Eberron.

If you don't like, fortunately there are other settings.

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:05 PM
Why doesn't it work? The rules for prestidigitation are there. By the rules for NPC spellcasting a wizard can charge many times a day's wages for a trained hireling just to cast it once. Even a level one wizard can cast it many times a day. So what stops him from doing so?

You may find it ridiculous but it's a logical consequence of how the spell works. Either you change how the spell works so it no longer has a ridiculous implication, you introduce some element that undoes the implication (all wizards take vows against "frivolous" use of their knowledge?), or you wave your hands and say "no, just because". That last is not particularly satisfying or immersive world-building.

It doesn't work because wizard doesn't know how to make an item that'd cast Predistigation at will without being used by a magic-user. Or I can devise some fluff reason that'd prevent wizards from using their magic to such mundane purposes. The simplest being: too much magic in one place can create anomalies.

Krellen
2007-08-23, 05:06 PM
But perhaps this is a more succinct way of saying the same thing; prove to me that this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2AeFJDRa3c) is the result of technology, rather than magic.
Well, I suppose I could explain all the means of mechanical articulation and energy projection theoretically possible to cause the Martian "technology" to work as it does, but without being able to open them up to show you that, in fact, it is through technology and physical laws that they operate, it's impossible to prove, I think.

Matthew
2007-08-23, 05:15 PM
And if I recall correctly, maigc of Netheril required Mythals, which were epic magic.

Maybe; I have heard a few different versions.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-08-23, 05:19 PM
We've strayed from the point. Let's wrap this thread up.

Link. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)

Things that aren't changing:
-This is still a tabletop RPG (although that tabletop could be online)
-It is still a game with cooperative storytelling.
-Still Medieval fantasy, and they were pushing this. Greyhawk is out as the default setting; they don't want kingdoms and empires spanning the globe. Instead they want points of light in the darkness; there's little travel between these points of light, and those that do stick to the roads. Adventurers are the guys who go off the roads.

There will be some sample gods in the PHB, and building blocks for making your own. Figures like Asmodeus, Tiamat and Orcus will all still factor into the game. There are still some Greyhawkisms, like Vecna, Modenkainen and Bigby. They want to give the DM more flexability.Seems to be just a random forumgoer, so it's unconfirmed, but he mentions it as GenCon hoohah at least.

ENWorld has a big list o' 4e stuff on its front page, and this was among the linked.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-23, 05:26 PM
It doesn't work because wizard doesn't know how to make an item that'd cast Predistigation at will without being used by a magic-user. Or I can devise some fluff reason that'd prevent wizards from using their magic to such mundane purposes. The simplest being: too much magic in one place can create anomalies.

Like an entire nation being obliterated on the day of mourning? Or another ending up in the cold grip of a wicked-lich?

Nuclear energy creates anomalies, in times of war people take the risk.


Saying that magic is mysterious is different than it being illogical.
The D&D basic system allows mages to consistently use spells, like Light, Mending, or even Magic Missle, that have no huge consequence and are highly useful; unless you're using an entirely different magic system, having these be absent in general life only to protect a sense of "mysteriousness" is just ridiculous.

FR doesn't use magic any differently, only illogically. Any decently levelled party can find mages capable of teleporting them in any decently sized town, but they aren't willing to make large scale travel by enchanted rails available, even though it would make them insanely wealthy and benefit society greatly? (And "misuse of magic" is hardly an issue, considering all that most high level mages do is experiment with magic)


If there is any knowledge, or understanding, of something, as there is with magic, there will be practical uses of it.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 05:28 PM
FR doesn't use magic any differently, only illogically. Any decently levelled party can find mages capable of teleporting them in any decently sized town, but they aren't willing to make large scale travel by enchanted rails available, even though it would make them insanely wealthy and benefit society greatly? (And "misuse of magic" is hardly an issue, considering all that most high level mages do is experiment with magic)

Or, hell, make a series of permanent teleportation circles. That works too.

Serenity
2007-08-23, 05:29 PM
Some magic in Eberron is mundane and reliable. There are very few wizards, sorcerors, or even artificiers of particularly high level even in Sharn, and more adepts and magewrights than even the low-level PC-class magic users. Most of the spells used as convenient technology are fairly low-level cantrips (Continual Flame, etc.). The major pieces like the airships and lightning rail are often produced with the aid of eldritch machines and mysterious schema from Xen'drik that let numerous low-level magicians pool their power to create a much greater, but highly specific effect. No one fully understands how these artifacts work, nor can they reverse engineer them to apply them to different effects. A high level wizard tossing around horrid wiltings and crafting grand illusion is still a force to be reckoned with and anything but mundane.

And divine magic is arguably more mysterious in Eberron than in, say, Forgotten Realms. In FR, if an enemy gets in a lucky potshot to fell a party member, than after the battle, you drag him back to Temple X, Y, or Z, pay the fee, and have him raised. In Eberron, temples don't offer healing; that's the territory of a Dragonmark house, and they can't raise dead. And there aren't that many high-level clerics around. The most powerful is about 15th level, and basically bound to a certain place. In FR, everyone knows the gods exist, without any need for faith. Their avatars (and in the case of the Time of Troubles, they themselves) walk the earth, they speak directly to their followers, they frequently intervene directly, and the True Path is clear because any cleric who steps off it loses his powers. In Ebberon, the Gods are distant, if they truly exist at all, and the most monstrous of human beings could be Clerics of the Silver Flame.

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:30 PM
FR doesn't use magic any differently, only illogically. Any decently levelled party can find mages capable of teleporting them in any decently sized town, but they aren't willing to make large scale travel by enchanted rails available, even though it would make them insanely wealthy and benefit society greatly? (And "misuse of magic" is hardly an issue, considering all that most high level mages do is experiment with magic)

Because it'd look ridiculos? Really, sometimes it's not the matter of logic or realism but style. In my opinion, magic as we see it in Eberron, is just ridiculous and absurd and it embraces the worst aspects of D&D magic system, i.e ability to use it to mundane, everyday purposes. I don't care if it's logical or not. What I hope is that in 4ed they wil put some god-damn rules that'll prevent that. The ridiculity that is Eberron is possible because D&D magic has no limitations for magic except CL of spellcasters.

Matthew
2007-08-23, 05:33 PM
Heh. Mechanics come last. The Setting comes first. If D&D Magic can do things that break the setting, the mechanics are wrong.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 05:37 PM
Because it'd look ridiculos? Really, sometimes it's not the matter of logic or realism but style. In my opinion, magic as we see it in Eberron, is just ridiculous and absurd and it embraces the worst aspects of D&D magic system, i.e ability to use it to mundane, everyday purposes. I don't care if it's logical or not. What I hope is that in 4ed they wil put some god-damn rules that'll prevent that. The ridiculity that is Eberron is possible because D&D magic has no limitations for magic except CL of spellcasters.

...you want WotC to put in illogical rules that support an illogical paradigm?

Fhaolan
2007-08-23, 05:38 PM
WotC sold Legend of the Five Rings. It's currently owned by AEG. I do like having an alternative Asian fantasy setting, but I guess it will always just be an alternative.

True, but Oriental Adventures and Legend of the Five Rings were orginally two completely separate settings (and systems) that WotC merged in 3rd edition. Before the merger Oriental Adventures was a subset of Forgotten Realms (2nd edition). Before that, it was a stand-alone setting (1st edition).

It's very likely that if they do put out an Oriental Adventures suppliment it will be part of the Forgotten Realms again and the book will be part of a 'regional' series that will include re-written forms of Arabian Adventures, Mazteca, Horde, plus a few more. Not core books, but supplimental books.

Also it might be a good idea to keep in mind that WotC tends to not sell it's properties. It throws around licencing rights, but if it actually sold LotFR, I would be very surprised. The same way it licenced Dragon, Dungeon, Ravenloft, etc. It's already reclaimed the Dragon and Dungeon licences, so it wouldn't surprise me to find out that reclaiming the Ravenloft and LotFR licences is in the works. I'm not saying they will, but there's always the possiblity. When they do that, the rules change. :smallsmile:

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 05:40 PM
True, but Oriental Adventures and Legend of the Five Rings were orginally two completely separate settings (and systems) that WotC merged in 3rd edition. Before the merger Oriental Adventures was a subset of Forgotten Realms (2nd edition). Before that, it was a stand-alone setting (1st edition).

It's very likely that if they do put out an Oriental Adventures suppliment it will be part of the Forgotten Realms again and the book will be part of a 'regional' series that will include re-written forms of Arabian Adventures, Mazteca, Horde, plus a few more. Not core books, but supplimental books.

Also it might be a good idea to keep in mind that WotC tends to not sell it's properties. It throws around licencing rights, but if it actually sold LotFR, I would be very surprised. The same way it licenced Dragon, Dungeon, Ravenloft, etc. It's already reclaimed the Dragon and Dungeon licences, so it wouldn't surprise me to find out that reclaiming the Ravenloft and LotFR licences is in the works. I'm not saying they will, but there's always the possiblity. When they do that, the rules change. :smallsmile:

They have reclaimed Ravenloft--which is how they were able to put out the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft module.

Happened about a week before Dragonlance's return to WotC was announced.

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:40 PM
...you want WotC to put in rules that support an illogical paradigm?

Why illogical? Lack of non-eberronian uses of magic may be illlogical in 3.5 because there are no rules that prevent that, and since it's highly useful, there's no reason not to use magic in that way. What I hope is that WoTC puts in rules of magic restraining mundane uses of it.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 05:42 PM
Why illogical? Lack of non-eberronian uses of magic may be illlogical in 3.5 because there are no rules that prevent that, and since it's highly useful, there's no reason not to use magic in that way. What I hope is that WoTC puts in rules restraining mundane uses of magic.

But not using magic in a mundane way, unless there are severe physical drawbacks for doing so--such as XP loss or death--is illogical. It's like going fishing, but leaving the rod and reel in the car and just using your hands.

EDIT: And if WotC does that with magic, people are going to be pissed.

Fhaolan
2007-08-23, 05:43 PM
They have reclaimed Ravenloft--which is how they were able to put out the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft module.

Happened about a week before Dragonlance's return to WotC was announced.

Hrmmmm. *checks emotional response* Ha! My prediction was right, I wasn't surprised... :smallbiggrin:

Out of date, yes, but not surprised. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Re fishing with your hands. - I've done that. Not successfully, mind you, but I tried. I wanted to see if I could. I need more instruction on how to do it, or more patience. :smallsmile:

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:46 PM
But not using magic in a mundane way, unless there are severe physical drawbacks for doing so--such as XP loss or death--is illogical. It's like going fishing, but leaving the rod and reel in the car and just using your hands.

EDIT: And if WotC does that with magic, people are going to be pissed.

Well, what I'm talking about includes some drawbacks of using magic on a massive scale. Of course, it's perfectly possible to add such to the world design, but it'd be nice to see some rules for that. In my homebrewed setting and system, I intent to just make magic too difficult and dangerous to use it for mundane purposes.
And I don't know why people would be pissed. Is it so wrong to have some features of magic that make in actual magic? Do so many people actually like magic as seen is Eberron, is it logical or not?

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 05:48 PM
Well, what I'm talking about includes some drawbacks of using magic on a massive scale. Of course, it's perfectly possible to add such to the world design, but it'd be nice to see some rules for that.
And I don't know why people would be pissed. Is it so wrong to have some features of magic that make in actual magic?

Thing to remember is that D&D is at the core a game, and games are supposed to be fun. How much fun would it be if every time you decided to use some of your class's primary features, you started to suck a little more or risked death? Eventually, you'd be way behind the rest of your party, or very very dead and probably without hope of resurrection.

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:50 PM
Thing to remember is that D&D is at the core a game, and games are supposed to be fun. How much fun would it be if every time you decided to use some of your class's primary features, you started to suck a little more or risked death? Eventually, you'd be way behind the rest of your party, or very very dead and probably without hope of resurrection.

I never said anything about penalties for using magic individually and when needed. Just for using magic on massive scale and for everyday purposes.

Serenity
2007-08-23, 05:52 PM
Because it'd look ridiculos? Really, sometimes it's not the matter of logic or realism but style. In my opinion, magic as we see it in Eberron, is just ridiculous and absurd and it embraces the worst aspects of D&D magic system, i.e ability to use it to mundane, everyday purposes. I don't care if it's logical or not. What I hope is that in 4ed they wil put some god-damn rules that'll prevent that. The ridiculity that is Eberron is possible because D&D magic has no limitations for magic except CL of spellcasters.

Yes, God forbid that anyone who has different tastes in you should be allowed to work with their preferred style. I and many others happen to like the look and feel of Eberron. You don't. That's great; you don't have to play it. I can respect that you've got different tastes than me. Is it so hard to extend me the same courtesy? Now, variant rules that you could implement to make magic more dangerous and less reliable, that would be great. But to ask all 4e players to conform to your idea of how magic should work goes a little far.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 05:53 PM
I never said anything about penalties for using magic individually and when needed. Just for using magic on massive scale and for everyday purposes.

Then where do you start defining "massive scale"? When I cast prestidigitation for the third time in a day?

Morty
2007-08-23, 05:58 PM
Yes, God forbid that anyone who has different tastes in you should be allowed to work with their preferred style. I and many others happen to like the look and feel of Eberron. You don't. That's great; you don't have to play it. I can respect that you've got different tastes than me. Is it so hard to extend me the same courtesy? Now, variant rules that you could implement to make magic more dangerous and less reliable, that would be great. But to ask all 4e players to conform to your idea of how magic should work goes a little far.

Not to "conform" my idea of magic, but to make it possible without accusations of being illogical. As for right now, Eberronian version of magic is prevalent and supported by rules.


Then where do you start defining "massive scale"? When I cast prestidigitation for the third time in a day?

Where great number of commoners use magic every day. Where magic items are so common that wealthier than said commoner has got at least one.

Serenity
2007-08-23, 05:58 PM
Do so many people actually like magic as seen is Eberron, is it logical or not?

Short answer? Yes. The very fact that you're having the argument proves it. Lots of people like Eberron magic. Lots of people don't. Again, variant rules for the sorts of effect you'd like would be great. In their absence, however, it's easy enough to just not play Eberron and homebrew some rules on it, especially if it really is only supposed to be a problem for massive overuse of magic. To rewrite the core to solely suit your group's tastes and destroy a campaign setting, however, is not just bad business but destroy's a lot of people's fun.

Serenity
2007-08-23, 06:02 PM
Not to "conform" my idea of magic, but to make it possible without accusations of being illogical. As for right now, Eberronian version of magic is prevalent and supported by rules.

Key word there: possible. As in variant rules that let you provide the effects you want, without requiring that everyone play it your way in the absence of house rules.

Morty
2007-08-23, 06:05 PM
Key word there: possible. As in variant rules that let you provide the effects you want, without requiring that everyone play it your way in the absence of house rules.

I don't require anyone to play it "my way". But I think I have a right to hope that there will be some rules, variant or not, that'll prevent my view of magic being called "illogical" in terms of D&D. And by "my view" I don't mean gritty, Warhammer-like feel, as that's impossible in D&D.


The very fact that you're having the argument proves it.

While I realise many people like Eberronian style of magic, this and previous argument was about logic, not if someone likes it or not.

Serenity
2007-08-23, 06:11 PM
And that's fair; I won't take you to task for what you like to play. But what you said in your original post was that you wanted Wizards to make 'ridiculousness' like Eberron 'impossible', which is a needlessly abrasive way of phrasing it that suggests that anyone who likes Eberron or disagrees with your view of magic is playing D&D wrong.

kamikasei
2007-08-23, 06:31 PM
M0rt, I owe you an apology. When I mentioned above that you had called Eberron "terrible" and "a disaster", it seems I was actually confusing you with someone else in a different thread. I still thoroughly disagree with your description of Eberron as "crap" and its ideas as "just plain stupid", but I don't intend to put words in your mouth.

puppyavenger
2007-08-23, 06:32 PM
Where great number of commoners use magic every day. Where magic items are so common that wealthier than said commoner has got at least one.
you relise that that would also apply to all high level adventerers, or would having lots of high level effects not create the same anomilies?

Damionte
2007-08-23, 06:43 PM
It won't be Dragonlance. They lost the liscenseing rights to Dragonlance earlier this year.

There is a better chance of picking up the rights for Kalamar from the Sword And Sorcery liscene.

I'd like to see a return of some of the older ones. Like Birthright.

Oh for any who remember I've always been confused about this. Is Dark Sun a part of the FR multiverse? I could have sworn I heard that somewhere long ago.

Greyhawk won't go away though. Before 3rd edition there was no "official" D&D world and I for one thought it actually served all of the campaign worlds better for the base game to NOT have it's own world.

This way you can publish seperate Greyhawk stuff for the peopel who are playign in RPGA living greyhawke. You can have your material for FR, and Ebeeron or whatever other settings you want to publish without any one taking precedence.

FR has a big foothold because Greenwood was such a beast when it came to pumping out the original source material. If writers for the other campagin settings were putting as much work into thier material as he had been with forgotten realms then we'd mave more than just a couple of big campaign settings to work with.

Krellen
2007-08-23, 06:45 PM
Athas is part of the Spelljammer multiverse - but so is every other setting. I mean absolutely every other setting. Spelljammer connected them all - which was part of the joy of it, I think.

I've never heard that Athas was officially connected to Abeir-Toril, though. Perhaps you're confusing it with Al-Qadim, which is the deserty, Arabesque setting for FR?

Jack Mann
2007-08-23, 06:48 PM
No, Wizards never had the license for Dragonlance. They didn't need it because they own Dragonlance. It is their product. They granted it to other companies. What happened is that they chose not to renew the license with Margaret Weis, which was to expire at the end of this year. Last I heard, they're extended it another month, so Margaret Weis will actually lose the license at the end of January 2008. However, Wizards was never in danger of losing access to the setting.

Damionte
2007-08-23, 06:48 PM
Athas is part of the Spelljammer multiverse - but so is every other setting. I mean absolutely every other setting. Spelljammer connected them all - which was part of the joy of it, I think.

I've never heard that Athas was officially connected to Abeir-Toril, though. Perhaps you're confusing it with Al-Qadim, which is the deserty, Arabesque setting for FR?

Ahhhhh yes that what I'm mixing up thank you.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-23, 06:48 PM
It won't be Dragonlance. They lost the liscenseing rights to Dragonlance earlier this year.

There is a better chance of picking up the rights for Kalamar from the Sword And Sorcery liscene.

I'd like to see a return of some of the older ones. Like Birthright.

Oh for any who remember I've always been confused about this. Is Dark Sun a part of the FR multiverse? I could have sworn I heard that somewhere long ago.

Um, no, Mrs. Weiss, the current owner of Dragonlance, is returning the rights to Dragonlance to WotC on January 1st.

Dark Sun is not part of FR.

Damionte
2007-08-23, 06:49 PM
No, Wizards never had the license for Dragonlance. They didn't need it because they own Dragonlance. It is their product. They granted it to other companies. What happened is that they chose not to renew the license with Margaret Weis, which was to expire at the end of this year. Last I heard, they're extended it another month, so Margaret Weis will actually lose the license at the end of January 2008. However, Wizards was never in danger of losing access to the setting.

Oh good, that's a relief. Well not nessesarily for me, I was never a fan of it as a campaign setting. I liked the novels but I didn't liek playing in that world.

Amphimir Míriel
2007-08-23, 07:29 PM
I would actually like to have the Core Rules return to the 2nd edition days where there was no Core Setting.

Instead, they could use a smattering of ancient religions in the "deities" chapter to replace the Greyhawk deities... For example, use deities from the Norse, Greek, Aztec, Persian etc. pantheons

--

Ah, and in relation to the Eberron/Faerun magic flame war above... Cut it out already! There will be more than one setting in 4th Edition, and I can assure you both FR and Eberron will be supported!

Flawless
2007-08-23, 07:47 PM
How much fun would it be if every time you decided to use some of your class's primary features, you started to suck a little more or risked death? Eventually, you'd be way behind the rest of your party, or very very dead and probably without hope of resurrection.

You don't have to do it like that. You could just say, like, if there are too many spells in one place, like thousands of continual flames for lamps in a city, then it becomes dangerous. Some strange things might happen, or a portal to the abyss might appear or whatever the DM might fancy. It's not so much a restriction on PC or even NPC spellcasters as more of a controlling device for eberron like use of magic on a massive scale. It's more of a plot-device for the DM so that he can rationalize why there are no magic lamps in every street, why there are not hundreds of thousands items for teleportation. Too many of them in one place (like a city, where many people would have such devices) are simply dangerous.

Serenity
2007-08-23, 07:51 PM
Well, if it's as simple as that, then there's really no need for a 'rule' on it, and it should probably be left to the DMs to declare as part of their campaign.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-23, 07:56 PM
Because it'd look ridiculos? Really, sometimes it's not the matter of logic or realism but style. In my opinion, magic as we see it in Eberron, is just ridiculous and absurd and it embraces the worst aspects of D&D magic system, i.e ability to use it to mundane, everyday purposes. I don't care if it's logical or not. What I hope is that in 4ed they wil put some god-damn rules that'll prevent that. The ridiculity that is Eberron is possible because D&D magic has no limitations for magic except CL of spellcasters.

How? How, if players can take class levels in magic-using classes and use magic without challenge or restriction, will they be expected to have magic be something unbelievable?

It turns the disbelief into silly-putty; it'll be like Dragonball Z, where theres' Super-Saiyan Super X mode, and it is the most amazing power, but nobody's ever been able to achieve it, and it's completely impossible: and then the next episode every character has access to it.

To make it believable, you'd have to have an entire different system, where Magic is a difficult, very high level specialty.

Either way, the flaw (if there is one) is not Eberron, which just uses the system it has in a logical way; at best you could challenge the system as a whole.


Some Dms create cities in their campaigns that function just like medieval historical towns. They are populated by poeple who aren't accustomed to (or who don't believe in) magic, who don't know anything about magical or mythical monsters, and who have never seen a magic item.
This sort of work is a mistake. It will cause your players serious strain in their belief in the reality of your world for them to see that they wield spells and magic items, and the lands and dungeons surrounding the city are filled with magic and monsters, but yet in the middle of the city everything looks and acts like Europe during the Middle Ages.
The presence of magic in your game world forces you to deviate from a truly historical setting. When you create anything for your world, the idea that magic could possibly alter it should be in the back of your mind. Would the king simply surround his castle with a wall when levitate and fly spells are common? How do the guards of the treasure make sure that someone doesn't just teleport in or slip through the walls while ethereal?
...
Magic shouldn't be something that common people are unaware of. Spellcasters may be fairly rare in the big picture, but they're common enough that when Uncle Rufus falls off the back of the wagon, they could take him to the temple to have priests heal the wound.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-23, 08:05 PM
You don't have to do it like that. You could just say, like, if there are too many spells in one place, like thousands of continual flames for lamps in a city, then it becomes dangerous. Some strange things might happen, or a portal to the abyss might appear or whatever the DM might fancy. It's not so much a restriction on PC or even NPC spellcasters as more of a controlling device for eberron like use of magic on a massive scale. It's more of a plot-device for the DM so that he can rationalize why there are no magic lamps in every street, why there are not hundreds of thousands items for teleportation. Too many of them in one place (like a city, where many people would have such devices) are simply dangerous.Ironically, Eberron has devices like that. The Day of Mourning, the consequences of Eldritch Machines, the Rise of Vol in Karrnath following the war;

People used Magic regardless to because of a continental arms race during the last war; how does that not make sense?

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-23, 08:24 PM
Okay, let's clear a couple things up. Magic isn't slung around to create trains and so forth in the Realms for a very simple reason. Magic isn't just a tool. Mystra is magic, and she doesn't like being cavalierly used by every random sap that comes along wanting to make his life easier. Could you? Sure, but it'd come around to bite you, as Khelben the Blackstaff pointed out to the Thayan mage he was addressing in the introduction to Magic of Faerun. It bit the ancient elven high mages, it bit the Netherese in a quite a spectacular fashion, it bit Halaster the Blackcloak and most of his apprentices, one might note that Thay's regular attempts to conquer the world with magic don't go so well, and so forth. Anyone even passingly familiar with Realmslore could go on for an hour about it. So wise magi do use their magic conservatively and seek to understand it rather than use it to build friggin' trains.

There are, of course, other reasons, mainly the oft-overlooked fact that Faerun's Weave is unstable. There are gigantic wild magic and dead magic zones scattered throughout the continent, a fact that I find a lot of Realms DMs overlook, but they're there in the official setting.

(By the by, Faerun does have a world-spanning portal system of sorts, but the crossroads and backroads tend to be dangerous for mortals, seeing how the fey control them.)

The ancient empire of Netheril was, as someone pointed out above, Eberron on steroids. Magic was as commonplace as household appliances are out here in the real world; this was made possible by the mythallars each city housed, which, among other things, made the production of quasi-magic items possible without XP costs to the casters, although such items would only function within a mythallar's area of effect. This let the Netherese create flying cities as well as mass-produce quasi-magic items for the cities' use.

This, of course, caused the empire's downfall when the hubris of the archmage Karsus led him to try to steal the divine essence of the goddess of magic, Mystryl. Everything quite literally crashed and burned as the Weave nearly tore itself apart. And people wonder why Faerunian civilizations don't try to do that again. :smallconfused:

Flawless
2007-08-23, 08:29 PM
Ironically, Eberron has devices like that. The Day of Mourning, the consequences of Eldritch Machines, the Rise of Vol in Karrnath following the war;

People used Magic regardless to because of a continental arms race during the last war; how does that not make sense?

I didn't say that Eberron doesn't make sense. I was just refering to fax's argument that the realms don't make sense and that creating rules to justify the absence of every-day magic is stupid.

It's just that I like the FR as they are. I don't have anything against Eberron, mind you. It was just all those people saying how the realms are stupid and illogical made me write this response.

Flawless
2007-08-23, 08:31 PM
Well, if it's as simple as that, then there's really no need for a 'rule' on it, and it should probably be left to the DMs to declare as part of their campaign.

I didn't mean it to be a universal rule included in the core books, but I meant it as a rule or better yet, an explanation for why there are no magical street lights in a certain setting.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-23, 08:49 PM
Okay, let's clear a couple things up. Magic isn't slung around to create trains and so forth in the Realms for a very simple reason. Magic isn't just a tool. Mystra is magic, and she doesn't like being cavalierly used by every random sap that comes along wanting to make his life easier. Could you? Sure, but it'd come around to bite you, as Khelben the Blackstaff pointed out to the Thayan mage he was addressing in the introduction to Magic of Faerun. It bit the ancient elven high mages, it bit the Netherese in a quite a spectacular fashion, it bit Halaster the Blackcloak and most of his apprentices, one might note that Thay's regular attempts to conquer the world with magic don't go so well, and so forth. Anyone even passingly familiar with Realmslore could go on for an hour about it. So wise magi do use their magic conservatively and seek to understand it rather than use it to build friggin' trains.

There are, of course, other reasons, mainly the oft-overlooked fact that Faerun's Weave is unstable. There are gigantic wild magic and dead magic zones scattered throughout the continent, a fact that I find a lot of Realms DMs overlook, but they're there in the official setting.

(By the by, Faerun does have a world-spanning portal system of sorts, but the crossroads and backroads tend to be dangerous for mortals, seeing how the fey control them.)

The ancient empire of Netheril was, as someone pointed out above, Eberron on steroids. Magic was as commonplace as household appliances are out here in the real world; this was made possible by the mythallars each city housed, which, among other things, made the production of quasi-magic items possible without XP costs to the casters, although such items would only function within a mythallar's area of effect. This let the Netherese create flying cities as well as mass-produce quasi-magic items for the cities' use.

This, of course, caused the empire's downfall when the hubris of the archmage Karsus led him to try to steal the divine essence of the goddess of magic, Mystryl. Everything quite literally crashed and burned as the Weave nearly tore itself apart. And people wonder why Faerunian civilizations don't try to do that again. :smallconfused:
Friggin trains? They were one of the biggest inventions in history and they revolutionized society. They're not some small comfort.

Industrial waste, CFCs, nuclear weapons: All very dangerous but that doesn't mean they aren't used.

Faerunian magic may not be widespread, but it's hardly inaccessible; it's just the reserved part and parcel of anyone with a decent smattering of class levels who wants to teleport, cast a spell, or pay a cleric to true ressurect someone.
Magic is bandied around constantly by individual magicians, but the moment someone tries to incorporate it into a society an overbearing goddess steps in and starts wielding the big stick;
All you have then is (literally) a deus ex machina approach toward keeping a pseudo-medieval society despite overwhelming reasoning why it wouldn't be so.

Flawless
2007-08-23, 09:00 PM
All you have then is (literally) a deus ex machina approach toward keeping a pseudo-medieval society despite overwhelming reasoning why it wouldn't be so.

Yeah, what more could I need? An RPG setting does not have to simulate what would happen to a pseudo-medieval world if you were to add magic. Maybe you just want it to be a pseudo-medival world with magic for spellcasters, some magical items, a few portals and that's it.

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-23, 09:04 PM
Friggin trains? They were one of the biggest inventions in history and they revolutionized society. They're not some small comfort.

Industrial waste, CFCs, nuclear weapons: All very dangerous but that doesn't mean they aren't used.

Faerunian magic may not be widespread, but it's hardly inaccessible; it's just the reserved part and parcel of anyone with a decent smattering of class levels who wants to teleport, cast a spell, or pay a cleric to true ressurect someone.
Magic is bandied around constantly by individual magicians, but the moment someone tries to incorporate it into a society an overbearing goddess steps in and starts wielding the big stick;
All you have then is (literally) a deus ex machina approach toward keeping a pseudo-medieval society despite overwhelming reasoning why it wouldn't be so.
I listed multiple reasons; the fact that magic has a woman's mind and conscience behind it is just one of them. Wild magic is a very practical reason not to use widespread magical effects; Eberron-style magical trains would blow up before too long if they passed through a wild magic zone, and wild magic zones and other areas of malfunctioning magic can be found in plenty pretty much everywhere there isn't a city... and some places where there is one. Waterdeep's Castle Ward has a minor planar breach to the Fugue Plane, resulting in impeded magic (as the planar trait) over a large area of the ward, just to name one example. Faerun, as a whole setting, has widespread but unreliable magic, which is exactly the idea M0rt has been talking about. Basing a civilization's infrastructure around magic in that setting is a bad idea.

Starsinger
2007-08-23, 09:14 PM
.

About the drivel that's been spewing out of your mouth on this topic, I just have to say, your view is completely inane and grounded in what you want magic to be, not what D&D magic is. In D&D there's no real drawback to creating a dozen ever burning torches and placing them through out town. What you're asking is the equivalent of Edison saying, "I don't want to make a lightbulb! Then people will use them as a source of illumination, when technology should be mysterious!"

Cybren
2007-08-23, 09:17 PM
If you want to create a logical society based on the introduction of a structured system of magic to an authentic medieval civilization with good accuracy to history and reasonable levels of economic development you shouldn't be playing dungeons and dragons.

If you want to play a pulp adventure play eberron, if you want to play a high fantasy adventure play forgotten realms. If you don't want to buy a campaign book play grayhawk.

Flawless
2007-08-23, 09:23 PM
,your view is [...] grounded in what you want magic to be, not what D&D magic is.

Exactly. I'm not saying that generic D&D ought to be like that. I'm not even saying that it has to be in the realms like that. I was just offering a possible explanation as to why magic used for every-day purposes is not practiced in a certain setting.
Actually my opinion on this, that you don't need an in-game explanation for people not using magic on a massive scale. You can just say so and it will be. And logic has nothing to do with it. A setting does not have to be logical. It's nice if it is, but it's not a must-have.

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-23, 09:26 PM
About the drivel that's been spewing out of your mouth on this topic, I just have to say, your view is completely inane and grounded in what you want magic to be, not what D&D magic is. In D&D there's no real drawback to creating a dozen ever burning torches and placing them through out town. What you're asking is the equivalent of Edison saying, "I don't want to make a lightbulb! Then people will use them as a source of illumination, when technology should be mysterious!"
Drivel? What part of civilizations fall when you do this crap in Faerun is hard to understand? I have no issue with using continual flame to light street lanterns (other than the fact that it isn't cheap to cast in mass amounts), but mimicking high technology in a world where magic can screw up or plain old disappear is asking for disaster. It'd be equivalent to building train rails out of glass; sooner rather than later, it would break.

Krellen
2007-08-23, 09:36 PM
Drivel? What part of civilizations fall when you do this crap in Faerun is hard to understand?
You know, Nethril actually failed because someone tried to peep on Mystara, and she said, "No magic for you, one year!" And since they all lived in floating castles, they sort of died.

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-23, 09:46 PM
You know, Nethril actually failed because someone tried to peep on Mystara, and she said, "No magic for you, one year!" And since they all lived in floating castles, they sort of died.
It was a bit more complicated than that; Karsus killed Mystryl, or more precisely screwed up the Weave enough in his attempt to seize it that she had to sacrifice herself to keep it from being irreparably scattered. And since then, the Weave has been too unstable for a reliable infrastructure based on it to arise again. The Time of Troubles only made that worse. The Weave isn't some reliable physical constant like the ones we base modern physics upon; it is constantly in flux and all too often goes rogue in ways that the laws of thermodynamics can never do.

In Eberron, that's different. Magic there is reliable enough that they can predict it sufficiently to base large-scale infrastructure on it, and that's fine. But that's not possible (anymore; remember that Netherese civilization was techno-magical in a way that puts Eberron to shame, even to the point of being spacefaring) in the Realms due to the nature of its magic.

Krellen
2007-08-23, 09:51 PM
My theory's more fun... :smallfrown:

horseboy
2007-08-23, 10:03 PM
Athas is part of the Spelljammer multiverse - but so is every other setting. I mean absolutely every other setting. Spelljammer connected them all - which was part of the joy of it, I think.

I've never heard that Athas was officially connected to Abeir-Toril, though. Perhaps you're confusing it with Al-Qadim, which is the deserty, Arabesque setting for FR?
Slight correction. Athas is NOT a part of the Spelljammer multiverse. In fact in the side bar it says that it's not even accessible for "some reason". There was a fanfic written about one that went there, but it's not cannon.

Dark Sun (Athas) is it's own setting.

Jack Mann
2007-08-23, 10:42 PM
Yes and no. Athas exists in the Spelljammer setting. It is there, just as Abeir-Toril, Krynn, and Oerth are there. It's just that it can't be accessed. So while, for all practical purposes, it might as well not be there, it was part of the framework. Indeed, I believe the boxed set even made it explicit that it was part of the crystal spheres multiverse, though closed off.

Stephen_E
2007-08-23, 10:59 PM
Much as I prefer Ebberon to FR there is very good social reasons for magic not to be used in FR the way it is in Ebberon.

FR is a medieval society. Ebberon is a late Renaissance/early industrial society.

The difference between these is so much actual knowledge and abilities, but how it is promulated through society.
Sure, Wizards could techinically set up cleaning services ectre for the common people and earn good money, but socially it would be unacceptable.
To do so would shake the social fabric and would be opposed.
In RL history there has been more than one society that theorectically made the step to Renaissance-Industrial. Only one did it. This would suggest that it isn't an automatic step.

In FR one society did make that step but crashed for other reasons (as our current society could also crash for a number of reasons).

So while I disagree with much of M0rts views, I also disagree with the complaint that FR is illogical. It seems to me that this claim is based on the idea that because our society made the leap with technology from medieval society to industrial society it must be an automatic process.

Stephen

Fhaolan
2007-08-23, 11:51 PM
Slight correction. Athas is NOT a part of the Spelljammer multiverse. In fact in the side bar it says that it's not even accessible for "some reason". There was a fanfic written about one that went there, but it's not cannon.

Dark Sun (Athas) is it's own setting.

There's some fluff in one of the SpellJammer supplements saying that Athas' crystal sphere has been locked so as to be impenetrable. However, it is technically still there.

Also, Ravenloft had a domain that was snatched from Athas, though I can't remember the details. It may have been snatched before the crystal sphere was locked.

Back when Dark Sun was first published there was some speculation that it was Forgotten Realms far, far in the future. Some of the original Dark Sun maps lined up with some of the Forgotten Realms maps suprisingly well. That was disproven in later Dark Sun suppliments, but the rumor managed to hang on for quite some time.

Fhaolan
2007-08-24, 12:13 AM
This way you can publish seperate Greyhawk stuff for the peopel who are playign in RPGA living greyhawke.

Only problem with this is that RPGA is shutting down Living Greyhawk next year after 4th edition is published. They made an official announcement. They will be shutting down Living Kalmar as well.

They're going to start up Living Forgotten Realms under 4th edition rules once LG and LK are done.

This is not really that surprising. Those who were there for the Living City upgrade disaster know how bad that conversion went. RPGA is not going to make those same mistakes again. (They'll make all new mistakes! Nothing ever goes perfectly, but making the *same* mistakes over and over again is just bloody-mindedness. :smallsmile: )

horseboy
2007-08-24, 12:19 AM
There's some fluff in one of the SpellJammer supplements saying that Athas' crystal sphere has been locked so as to be impenetrable. However, it is technically still there.
Yes, it's not accessible. As opposed to nonexistent. :smalltongue:

Kioran
2007-08-24, 02:29 AM
Saying that magic is mysterious is different than it being illogical.
The D&D basic system allows mages to consistently use spells, like Light, Mending, or even Magic Missle, that have no huge consequence and are highly useful; unless you're using an entirely different magic system, having these be absent in general life only to protect a sense of "mysteriousness" is just ridiculous.

If there is any knowledge, or understanding, of something, as there is with magic, there will be practical uses of it.

That is correct. Magic would, in any normal world, displace mundane work if it is more efficient. Now if we make magic users exceedingly rare (one in a thousand or so, with 3 out of 5 being low-powered adepts), it should at least take care of the prestidigitation laundry or the Tenser´s floating disk porter service. Of course these are a available, but always in competition with mundane workers. It stands to reason you can earn money with it, but who´s gonna pay 5 GP for your Cantrip if they can hire 25 washwomen or Porters for one day with the same amount of money? So unless you have Eschew Materials(because burning through components like you´re on crack will cause supply problems, sooner or later) and are willing to offer your services dirt cheap(compared to the DMG listing of spell prices), you´re not making much money with low-lvl magic. Magic healing is vey interesting, and quite possibly the most useful of them all. It´s most certainly in demand. But normal commoners couldn´t pay for it. That´s why it´s in churches and temples - pay your tithe, and your god might help you through his mortal servants (mostly adepts or very low-lvl clerics) when you are in need. The Arcane spellcasters, meanwhile, probably won´t cast many spells for low pay, instead preferring research and study so then can make some real money later on - for magic items. THey´re bound to come from somewhere

The other thing is teleportation - teleportation would displace normal travel, at least for the wealthy, and there´s little explanation why it wouldn´t, even if there´s only two Wizards/Sorcerers in an entire kingdom who could cast it. They´d still sell their spell-slots or permanent teleportation circles to the highest bidder, and since it costs them jack, they could only take 100 GP per teleport (not 675 like in the DMG) and still make a killing. That´s why teleport involves a material component in my campaign, and why teleportation circles have limited reach. I´m aware this is houseruling, but it´s necessesary for the consistency of my world.

In Eberron, where magic is very common and even magically untalented people frequently manifest SLAs, competition has lowered the prices to a level where some people can afford it (mark the Eberron Dragonmarked services list - they are cheaper than DMG spells), and so magic has encroached on many, many fields. That Mr. Baker (whose sometimes fundamentally correct decisions in world-building are nice, if they weren´t offset by a slew fundamentally stupid ones like Halflings on Dinosaurs who even get better weapons than most others or cinematic campaigns as a standard) provided even more options for this makes the situation much worse, but still.
Any society with sufficent magically talented people will use them for mundane tasks. High magic means it will be used a lot. And any world in which you increase the number of casters will infinitesimaly approach the state of Eberron in that affairs.

So I´d ignore consistency or play low-magic, because I know a fair share of people who wouldn´t want to play Eberron or a similiar setting.

Matthew
2007-08-24, 02:37 AM
I think Dark Sun was accessible for a while, it was about the time that Krynn became inaccessible that Dark Sun did. That said, there's nothing to stop you riding your Spelljammer around within Dark Sun's Crystal Sphere (are their moons around Athas?). It was just some reactionary crap to Spelljammer's total goofyness that got people's backs up. I like an interconnected D&D Multiverse, it's fun...

I should point out that the Default 3e D&D Setting, Greyhawk, does not function like Eberron, so presumably there is some unseen limitation there on how magic works in relation to D&D mechanics. I think it is fair to say that D&D mechanics are always an imperfect representation of the 'reality' of any given setting (drowning rules, anyone?), there's no reason that the mechanics behind D&D magic shouldn't be an imperfect representation of the reality of magic within a given D&D Setting.

Morty
2007-08-24, 05:26 AM
About the drivel that's been spewing out of your mouth on this topic, I just have to say, your view is completely inane and grounded in what you want magic to be, not what D&D magic is. In D&D there's no real drawback to creating a dozen ever burning torches and placing them through out town. What you're asking is the equivalent of Edison saying, "I don't want to make a lightbulb! Then people will use them as a source of illumination, when technology should be mysterious!"

Drivel? I admit that I've been too abrasive and I on contrary with how D&D magic works, but calling it "dirvel" isn't quite fair, you know. I know that there's no real drawback on using magic in D&D. But there can be and, in my opinion, should be. Because magic used as technology stops being magic. And as others pointed out, there are such drawbacks in other settings, and they aren't illogical. Renegade Paladin summed it up well.
Yes, I haven't made much sense in this thread at times, especially when I asked for completely revaming magic, so I apologize. But you're stretching it.
And I'm still amazed about halfling riding on dinosaurs. Why not horses?

AslanCross
2007-08-24, 05:56 AM
It's very likely that if they do put out an Oriental Adventures suppliment it will be part of the Forgotten Realms again...


Ah true, Kara-Tur. That hasn't been touched for a while, I would like to see an update.

Starsinger
2007-08-24, 06:32 AM
Drivel? I admit that I've been too abrasive and I on contrary with how D&D magic works, but calling it "dirvel" isn't quite fair, you know. I know that there's no real drawback on using magic in D&D. But there can be and, in my opinion, should be. Because magic used as technology stops being magic. And as others pointed out, there are such drawbacks in other settings, and they aren't illogical. Renegade Paladin summed it up well.
Yes, I haven't made much sense in this thread at times, especially when I asked for completely revaming magic, so I apologize. But you're stretching it.
And I'm still amazed about halfling riding on dinosaurs. Why not horses?

I may have been a bit heavier handed than was necessary, and for that I apologize. However do explain to me what you mean exactly by "used as technology". Are you just upset about ever burning street lights and magitech trains? Or is it general widespread use of magic in every day situations? If it's the former I can somewhat sympathize.

But if your issue is with people using magic with utilitarian purpose in every day life, then your problem is an issue with logic. Eberron takes D&D's magic rules and applies the logic that, "If people can do this, then they would do it all the time." to a wizard's spells. Forgotten Realms fails at being logical, especially since every person you meet has a 50% chance of being an epic level wizard.

Morty
2007-08-24, 06:39 AM
I may have been a bit heavier handed than was necessary, and for that I apologize. However do explain to me what you mean exactly by "used as technology". Are you just upset about ever burning street lights and magitech trains? Or is it general widespread use of magic in every day situations? If it's the former I can somewhat sympathize.

The former. General widespread of magic in everyday life I don't have much problems with, otherwise I wouldn't be playing D&D. But using it to produce street laterns... that's too much. Other example: I don't have much problems wit high level mages providing teleportation for nobles and politicians, aside from teleportation being badly written in D&D overall. Creating lighting rails almost everyone can use without assist of magician I can't digest. Wizard using Predistigation to make things easier, I have no problems with, he can do this only limited times per day. Everyone using items casting Predistigation stretches it.


But if your issue is with people using magic with utilitarian purpose in every day life, then your problem is an issue with logic. Eberron takes D&D's magic rules and applies the logic that, "If people can do this, then they would do it all the time." to a wizard's spells. Forgotten Realms fails at being logical, especially since every person you meet has a 50% chance of being an epic level wizard.

If I tried to take Eberron and bend it so that people don't use magic on such a scale, it'd be a logical problem. However, it's easy to create setting-specific barriers to such use of magic if someone doesn't like it. Renegade Paladin provided examples of how is it done in Faerun. I can come up with at least three examples of how would I do it if I was designing D&D setting.

Alyorbase
2007-08-24, 08:52 AM
Ah true, Kara-Tur. That hasn't been touched for a while, I would like to see an update.

It would definitely make sense to put out an update on Kara-Tur (or any kind of Oriental Adventures setting). The only reason I mentioned Rokugan is because it's the only Oriental Adventures setting I ever played around with. Plus I was a former player of the L5R card game as well, and love a lot of the storyline.

Serenity
2007-08-24, 09:17 AM
I can understand how the tribal halflings aren't to everyone's taste (I'm slightly biased towards them, because of one of the greatest paladins I ever played with was from the Talenta Plains), but 'cinematic campaign as standard' hardly strikes me as a 'fundamentally stupid' design choice. Eberron was designed to be magitech pulp adventure; Forgotten Realms was deisgned to be epic fantasy; Ravenloft was designed to be Gothic horror; all have different styles of play as their standard . If you don't care for a particular style, there's other settings, or you could make your own homebrew world.

gadren
2007-08-24, 11:14 AM
Also, nobody said that they were moving the sweet spot, that's pure speculation.

Actually, its not speculation. It was one of the major points of the 4E presentation at Gen Con. The bald guy presenter (what was his name? I think he's important in some way...) said that in 3.5, people kind of seem to think the the "sweet spot" lies between 7 and 15. I believe his exact words were, "...but in 4th edition, we're going to make the sweet spot go from 1... to 30."

It was like the only thing of substance in that presentation, actually. Most of it stressed D&D Insider too much, imo.
Plus, the guy was a terrible presenter... but I don't think anyone expected a D&D sourcebook writer to be a great public speaker.

DeathQuaker
2007-08-24, 11:40 AM
From what I've read -- of the quote provided by the OP and other press releases -- FR is going to be the first campaign setting published by WOTC. BUT that does not make it the "Core" setting for D&D 4.

As far as I can remember, the first Campaign setting rulebook published for 3rd Ed was, in fact, the Forgotten Realms main book -- and that didn't make that setting any more "core" than Eberron, etc. They published it first because it was the most fan-demanded. It quite possibly still is, though obviously Eberron, once it was introduced, developed a loyal following too.

If you review the core books of 3rd Ed, the references to setting are minimal. It uses the Greyhawk gods, yes. There are a few maps of things and the like that are probably of the Greyhawk world. But you won't actually find the word "Greyhawk" anywhere in the core rulebooks. They were pretty noncommital to the setting as it was.

My sense is that they're just moving further along the very same lines, having the core books not refer to any setting (or perhaps have blurbs that refer to multiple settings, the way the later 3rd Ed Monster Manuals refer to "ThusandsuchCreature in Eberron" and "in Faerun").

Anyone who wants to be upset about D&D abandoning Greyhawk needs to be upset with how it was barely supported in the current edition, let alone the next one.

And the very bickering on this thread about Faerun vs. Eberron is a factor that leads me to believe that choosing Faerun or any given setting as core would be unwise and likely an unchosen path.

Matthew
2007-08-24, 12:01 PM
Actually, that's because they renamed Greyhawk D&D. If you can get access to the Greyhawk Gazetter (which was the first supplement published, I believe), you can read what their intentions were for Greyhawk at the time of release. The idea was to not detail Greyhawk at all (beyond some general facts laid outin the Gazetteer) so that DMs could 'make it their own'. It was assumed that anything and everything without a setting was Greyhawk. That's why so many Paizo Adventure Paths were set (nominally) in Greyhawk.

Take a look at this image to see what I mean:

http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/3e/gaz.jpg

Starbuck_II
2007-08-24, 01:04 PM
Okay, let's clear a couple things up. Magic isn't slung around to create trains and so forth in the Realms for a very simple reason. Magic isn't just a tool. Mystra is magic, and she doesn't like being cavalierly used by every random sap that comes along wanting to make his life easier. Could you? Sure, but it'd come around to bite you, as Khelben the Blackstaff pointed out to the Thayan mage he was addressing in the introduction to Magic of Faerun. It bit the ancient elven high mages, it bit the Netherese in a quite a spectacular fashion, it bit Halaster the Blackcloak and most of his apprentices, one might note that Thay's regular attempts to conquer the world with magic don't go so well, and so forth. Anyone even passingly familiar with Realmslore could go on for an hour about it. So wise magi do use their magic conservatively and seek to understand it rather than use it to build friggin' trains.

Corruption and greed killed the Netherese not common place magic.


This, of course, caused the empire's downfall when the hubris of the archmage Karsus led him to try to steal the divine essence of the goddess of magic, Mystryl. Everything quite literally crashed and burned as the Weave nearly tore itself apart. And people wonder why Faerunian civilizations don't try to do that again. :smallconfused:


Nothing you said has a thing to do with Ebberon as gods aren't seen so no one can kill them.

Mystryl was weak enough after beggining with Shar (there conflict). So no wonder that Karsus kicked her butt. Shar was the only one will full power.

Telonius
2007-08-24, 02:04 PM
Unidentified god: Giant robots? Magic rollerblades? Magic trains?! You have got to be kidding me. This time those mortals have gone too far. [Smite!]

And thus began the Day of Mourning.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-24, 02:17 PM
Unidentified god: Giant robots? Magic rollerblades? Magic trains?! You have got to be kidding me. This time those mortals have gone too far. [Smite!]

And thus began the Day of Mourning.

Gods don't really do anything in Eberron, it's one of the settings great strength.
It's pretty obvious what caused the day of mourning: A bard pushed a rune.

Starbuck_II
2007-08-24, 02:50 PM
Unidentified god: Giant robots? Magic rollerblades? Magic trains?! You have got to be kidding me. This time those mortals have gone too far. [Smite!]

And thus began the Day of Mourning.

Magic Rollerblades are grayhawk actually. It was a magic item they made as an WotC article. I can't remember the name.

Shisumo
2007-08-24, 06:52 PM
Magic Rollerblades are grayhawk actually. It was a magic item they made as an WotC article. I can't remember the name.

Nope. Eberron. Cyran gliding boots (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20061120a), to be precise.

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-24, 07:21 PM
Corruption and greed killed the Netherese not common place magic.


Nothing you said has a thing to do with Ebberon as gods aren't seen so no one can kill them.

Mystryl was weak enough after beggining with Shar (there conflict). So no wonder that Karsus kicked her butt. Shar was the only one will full power.
No, it doesn't have anything to do with Eberron. It wasn't supposed to have anything to do with Eberron. If you'd read the post and the context of the previous page again, you'd see that I was responding to the claims that the Realms are illogical because they're not like Eberron, not criticizing Eberron.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-08-24, 07:22 PM
No, it doesn't have anything to do with Eberron. It wasn't supposed to have anything to do with Eberron. If you'd read the post and the context of the previous page again, you'd see that I was responding to the claims that the Realms are illogical because they're not like Eberron, not criticizing Eberron.

Not illogical, but dependant on deus ex machina and plot devices.
That's a flaw, albiet not a huge one for a fantasy game of this type.

Starbuck_II
2007-08-24, 07:24 PM
No, it doesn't have anything to do with Eberron. It wasn't supposed to have anything to do with Eberron. If you'd read the post and the context of the previous page again, you'd see that I was responding to the claims that the Realms are illogical because they're not like Eberron, not criticizing Eberron.

Well, than um, good for you.
Still, greed killed them. Attacking a God is pretty risky what was he thinking?!

Renegade Paladin
2007-08-24, 07:25 PM
Greed brought down the Weave. The fact that they were all ten miles up in flying cities is what did the actual killing. :smalltongue:

Wender
2007-08-24, 08:38 PM
I'm going to age myself, but all this talk about how Greyhawk is just a shell and essentially unknown depresses me. One of my fondest memories from my formative years as a gamer was seeing the huge Greyhawk map unfolded and laid out for the first time, back when 1st Edition was new. It even found a place for the ur-campaign world, Blackmoor.

Ah well.

I can understand why it's been downplayed. The time and power scales that Greyhawk was built on are absurdly low now. You do not have to be hundreds of years old to have achieved 16th level as a mage, and the fact that you have does not make you one of the great powers of the world. This is not a complaint about what happened since the glory days when real players roamed Greyhawk, BTW. Shortly after it came out it became clear that D&D in play was more like the high fantasy described by FR than the gritty pulp fantasy of Greyhawk, and as a result there were many campaigns where the Great, Powerful figures had been trounced and replaced with 19-year-old PCs. There's a reason Elminster is the way he is, and there's a reason why FR is the most popular setting. So as fond as I am of Greyhawk, I can't really make a business case for its continued existence. There aren't enough people who want to spend 10 years of real time getting to name (9-11) level, and name level just isn't cool enough. That's not a complaint, it's simply true in the general case.

As for the role of magic, I think it should be materially different between worlds. I prefer logical reasons why magic is as limited or as pervasive as it is. FR's fluff about magic being unreliable is fine; they've done a pretty good job of building it into the game world. DragonLance 5th Edition built the restrictions rather elegantly into the magic system, but that didn't really go anywhere. I'm afraid that low-magic campaigns are going to be homebrew for the indefinite future, and the proof of that is the continuing secondary status of Greyhawk. GH isn't really "low magic" and it's never been, but it's generally been the least pervasively magical of the D&D worlds. If it can't make it, a truly low-magic campaign won't either.

Eberron, at least, bases its massive magic-powered infrastructure on the existence of dragonmarks and dragonshards, which makes it all specific to that campaign world. They didn't get there by stretching the standard PHB spell list, so I don't see that campaign's existence as a problem for people who don't like very high magic or steampunk campaigns. (And I've surprised myself by coming to like the feel of the campaign world. My only complaint is that the author needs to have The Elements of Style drilled into his head. The writing in the core rulebook is terrible.)

Thrawn183
2007-08-24, 08:50 PM
Geez, I didn't realize Greyhawk was even a real setting. I thought it was just kind of the catch all for if you weren't using a published setting or a homebrew. Some kind of generic place where all the stuff in the core rule books existed.

Then again, I am never wrong, so that must be the case.

Krellen
2007-08-24, 08:54 PM
You know, I've been playing for 20 years, knew Greyhawk was a real setting, and still thought it was pretty generic and forgettable. Of course, I played in homebrew worlds since the very beginning, so that probably has a lot to do with it.

Zak3056
2007-08-25, 06:40 PM
Back when Dark Sun was first published there was some speculation that it was Forgotten Realms far, far in the future.

When I first got a look at Dark Sun, my immediate thought was that it was a Krynn several thousand years after Raistlin killed all of the gods.

Sadly, that turned out not to be the case, but it was neat thought.

Matthew
2007-08-26, 01:43 PM
You know, thinking about it, there used to be a Living Forgotten Realms Campaign, I think it was Ravens Bluff. I don't think it's going to make a lot of difference that they will no longer support Greyhawk (except, perhaps, with regards to my understanding of Paladins in the Default Game). I probably won't notice the difference. Hopefully, at some point in the future they might actually write some more material for Greyhawk if it's not just going to be their generic setting.

Fhaolan
2007-08-26, 02:42 PM
Yeah, it was also called 'Living City', 'Living City of Raven's Bluff', or 'Raven's Bluff: Living City'. It died a long time ago for many reasons that just sort of overwhelmed it, including the RPGA re-org that happened when WotC bought TSR, the conversion to 3rd edition, and just general insider politics as usual.

EDIT: I forgot to include the whole OrganizedPlay Inc. fiasco. It confuses a lot of people because OrganizedPlay Inc. is not the Organized Play division of WotC, but two different entities. OrganizedPlay is the company that runs Pokemon and other games at conventions, and they bought the licence from WotC to run LC games at conventions as well. When players showed up at what they thought was RPGA games, and OrganizedPlay required them to pay fees to play regardless of RPGA membership status... there was a general rebellion. Eventually OrganizedPlay gave up and dropped the license, which was the final straw that killed LC.

Matthew
2007-08-26, 07:23 PM
Ah, that must be what that guy was going on about (I forget his name, but he took the Living City License with him when he left Wizards).


Wow a sudden surge of Greyhawk love from Wizards: Steal this Hook - Under Siege (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4hook/20070824a)