[4e] It's not Dragonlance

[Charity]

Some of you may be aware that there has been a bit of a buzz around what the next campaign setting is going to be for 4e.

The front runner (Dragonlance) has been pretty much ruled out by Cam Banks from Margaret Weis Productions here

This leaves the floor wide open... and makes me pretty happy, I was not all that fond of Dragonlance.

[Fax Celestis]

/me still kinda hopes for Dark Sun.

[Asbestos]

This only makes me more sure that its going to be Dark Sun.

[Blackfang108]

Some of you may be aware that there has been a bit of a buzz around what the next campaign setting is going to be for 4e.

The front runner (Dragonlance) has been pretty much ruled out by Cam Banks from Margaret Weis Productions here

This leaves the floor wide open... and makes me pretty happy, I was not all that fond of Dragonlance.

Thank sweet Entropy. Dragonlance got a 3.5 update. Let's have something that didn't have the 3.x treatment. Or Ghostwalk.

[Charity]

/me still kinda hopes for Dark Sun.

I'm ambivalent all in all. I've heard a lot of the Dark Sun aficionados are worried WotC will kill the the Dark atmos of the original... I, personaly would love to see what WotC come up with... but I fear I'd hate all the rage it stirred up.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm ambivalent all in all. I've heard a lot of the Dark Sun aficionados are worried WotC will kill the the Dark atmos of the original... I would love to see what WotC come up with... but I fear I'd hate all the rage it stirred up.

Hence the 'kinda'. Really, I think WotC would be best served with a new setting. It worked well for Eberron and 3.5.

[RTGoodman]

I've looked into it quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, and I still think it's going to be Dark Sun. Whether it gets a FR-style big change or an Eberron-style simple update, I'm not sure about, but I think it WILL be the setting for next year. Googling "Dark Sun 2010" turns up a lot of discussion with a lot of (admittedly circumstantial) evidence that it's the most likely setting.

Hence the 'kinda'. Really, I think WotC would be best served with a new setting. It worked well for Eberron and 3.5.

I'd like to see a new setting, too (maybe The Giant's?), but I think they've pretty much confirmed 2010 will be a "familiar" setting. So yeah, it could be a setting from thing else that hasn't been an official D&D setting (M:tG's Dominaria, etc.), but I think it'll be another update.

[FoE]

*Does backflips*

Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Good option: Ravenloft. 4.x could use a setting that isn't heroic fantasy. Likely, no, but it would be good for the system IMHO.

Likely option: Spelljammer. Different from the current settings, high-powered, and run by complete awesome, it fits perfectly with the current 4.x design.

[hamishspence]

Just as long as we still get Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons.

And I'm told a few draconians were going to be in that book- what's likely to happen now?

[Blackfang108]

Just as long as we still get Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons.

And I'm told a few draconians were going to be in that book- what's likely to happen now?

They're still going to be there.

[Jack_Banzai]

Likely option: Spelljammer. Different from the current settings, high-powered, and run by complete awesome, it fits perfectly with the current 4.x design.

Oh god, that would be wonderful. I do love me some Spelljammer. Made my own homebrew Spelljammer rules for 3.0. What a campaign. It's bad enough running into mind flayers in a dungeon setting but when you're being pursued by the Illithid Secret Service across the cosmos... yeah. Yum.

[jmbrown]

Among the evidence that it's Dark Sun;

*The Prism Pentad series was reprinted after being out of print for 10+ years.

*Dark Sun is the only setting (AFAIK) that hasn't had material updated for 4E. Spelljammers and Sigil are mentioned in Manual of the Planes, Strahd von Whatever is statted in Open Grave, monsters once exclusive to Mystara and Al-Qadim were updated, and ogre mages were properly named to oni mage from Oriental Adventures.

*Player's Handbook 3 will detail psionics which were a big part of Dark Sun.

4E is a perfect system for Dark Sun more so than 3.5 because there's fewer powers that ruin the flow of gameplay. Dark Sun is about survival in a harsh wasteland with unpredictable, power magics/psionics being flung around. 4E's points-of-light style of play emulates Dark Sun's setting and skill challenges are a better mechanic for getting from point A to point B in the wastes than simply rolling a bunch of fortitude saves and survival checks.

Hopefully they modify the skill challenges so that the consequences are more dire than "You lose a healing surge." In Dark Sun, dying from dehydration was just as common as being killed by a monster.

[AstralFire]

I would love Dark Sun or Spelljammer.

[Zeful]

So Dark Sun is pretty much the medieval version of Fallout? 'Cause that's kinda the vibe I'm getting jimbrown.

[RTGoodman]

*The Prism Pentad series was reprinted after being out of print for 10+ years.

And as someone who has read the first three in the past couple of weeks, let me tell you - they didn't put too much effort into it. Every one of the books, and especially the third, is RIDDLED with typos, misspellings, and whatnot, all of which were glaringly obvious and should have been caught by an editor. For Christ's sake, at some point they were talking about a siege or something, and a sentence started out talking about "the battering rain," which confused the HELL out of me (especially in DS) for a minute before I realized it was supposed to be "the battering RAM."

The third book was so poorly edited that you probably couldn't go a chapter or two without something like that.

*Dark Sun is the only setting (AFAIK) that hasn't had material updated for 4E.

There was an "Ecology of Dark Sun" article back right after 4E debuted, but it was only about 4 pages and just had some plants and whatnot.

*Player's Handbook 3 will detail psionics which were a big part of Dark Sun.

And some part of the ECG mentioned Thri-Kreen as a race, too.

[Fax Celestis]

And some part of the ECG mentioned Thri-Kreen as a race, too.

IIRC, Thri-Kreen aren't Athasian--they're Faerunian.

[RTGoodman]

Really? I've NEVER seen anything about them in anything Faerun-related. (Admittedly, I'm no FR expert and most of my knowledge of the setting is the 3E CS and a handful of novels.) To me they've always been one of two iconic DS races, along with Muls.

[AstralFire]

Thri-Kreen are core. They ended up becoming a major part of Athas and that led to them showing up a bit more in FR.

[jmbrown]

So Dark Sun is pretty much the medieval version of Fallout? 'Cause that's kinda the vibe I'm getting jimbrown.

To an extent, yes. The world has been ravaged by dark magics, the sun is burning out, pretty much everyone has at least a mundane psionic power, slavery is common, the world is out to get you, there is no water, there is no metal, halflings are cannibals, and contacting or shifting planes is difficult due to a force called "the gray" which traps all dead souls regardless of religion. Additionally the gray keeps gods from accessing Athas (the world of Dark Sun) so priests draw power from elements and druids are far more common than traditional clerics.

Wizards is really pushing the whole primordial and elemental planes of chaos thing so I can imagine those fitting nicely with Dark Sun.

edit: The plane of shadow is also pretty similar to Dark Sun's concept of "the black."

[hamishspence]

Thri-Kreen are core. They ended up becoming a major part of Athas and that led to them showing up a bit more in FR.

And they're been printed twice in 3.0 and once in 3.5: MM2, Savage Species, Shining South (Faerun book).

[DSCrankshaw]

I've never played Dark Sun, so someone will have to tell me, but my understanding was that Dark Sun had no divine classes. That could be problematic, as I think one of WotC's goals is for their campaign settings to have a place for all their D&D material.

[Altima]

I hope it's not Planescape. With the great big planar realignment they did for 4e, I think it'd just be a mess and butcher the setting even more.

Either one of the unloved settings, like Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Birthright, or another all-new setting would be nice. Though I don't know what else they can do. FR is/was high fantasy, Eberron is magitek fantasy, and so on. Dark Sun sounds nifty, but it leads me to believe that it may be too 'complex' for WotC's new "dumb it down" policy.

On a side note, isn't the Dragonlance setting owned by Weis and company, meaning they could, theoretically, put out a setting whenever they wished?

[Chunklets]

Mystara ftw!

Actually, seeing Isle of Dread &c updated for 4e might be kind of cool, now that I come to think about it...

[RTGoodman]

Either one of the unloved settings, like Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Birthright, or another all-new setting would be nice. Though I don't know what else they can do. FR is/was high fantasy, Eberron is magitek fantasy, and so on. Dark Sun sounds nifty, but it leads me to believe that it may be too 'complex' for WotC's new "dumb it down" policy.

Well, Birthright is most likely out - one of the designers said somewhere that there's an "A" in the setting name. I don't think it'll be Spelljammer, either; as someone who's never played it or even looked at it really, it just seems like it's too weird for them to make it the third big setting for the edition.

Right now, with the "news" that DL is out, I see the two big contenders being Dark Sun and Greyhawk. The problem I see with Greyhawk is that, like you say, we've already got generic high fantasy in the form of FR, so it's kind of a rehash of the same thing to people that don't already know the settings. ("Ooh, look - Eberron has magic trains and robots! Dark Sun has psionics and deserts and weird races! Forgotten Realms has all these epic heroes and hordes of gods running around! Greyhawk has... no, wait, it's the same kind of thing as FR.")

On a side note, isn't the Dragonlance setting owned by Weis and company, meaning they could, theoretically, put out a setting whenever they wished?

They didn't own it, as far as I know, they just had the license/permission/whatever from WotC to publish DL stuff in 3.x. WotC revoked the license and took it back sometime last year or the year before, I think, so it's back in WotC's hands now.

[Fax Celestis]

They didn't own it, as far as I know, they just had the license/permission/whatever from WotC to publish DL stuff in 3.x. WotC revoked the license and took it back sometime last year or the year before, I think, so it's back in WotC's hands now.

They did the same thing with Ravensloft, too, actually.

[Matthew]

It probably will be Greyhawk, but here is hoping it is Dark Sun or Spelljammer.

[AstralFire]

Ugh. I'm really hoping it's not Greyhawk. The more I learn about that setting, the less I like it.

[Fax Celestis]

Ugh. I'm really hoping it's not Greyhawk. The more I learn about that setting, the less I like it.

Greyhawk: it's D&D for "generic".

[Starscream]

I'd personally love to see either Ravenloft or Spelljammer.