Giantitps favourite dnd setting

[Palanan]

The OP seems to have stepped out, so here’s my best effort at a running tally. This is approximate, since some people are giving two or three answers, in which case I usually tally the first as their “official” vote.

I’m impressed that Eberron has so many votes—I didn’t realize it was that popular. And ditto for Spelljammer, although I know it’s been around much longer.

Eberron - 8
homebrew - 8
Spelljammer - 5
Planescape - 4
Mystara - 3
Forgotten Realms - 3
Dragonlance - 2
Greyhawk - 2
Dark Sun - 1
Golarion - 1
Nentir Vale - 1

[Alexvrahr]

Dunno that I'd put any one homebrew world at the top, but as a collective there's a homebrew for any game concept I want to run. I'm not above stealing other's work there.

While there are single worlds which try to encompass everything (Eberron, Golarion, Mystara, maybe FR) the dividing lines tend to be jarring and they often don't do whatever-you're-after well.

[Luccan]

Dunno that I'd put any one homebrew world at the top, but as a collective there's a homebrew for any game concept I want to run. I'm not above stealing other's work there.

While there are single worlds which try to encompass everything (Eberron, Golarion, Mystara, maybe FR) the dividing lines tend to be jarring and they often don't do whatever-you're-after well.

I think Eberron accomplishes this better than FR (and I assume the others), mainly because Eberron doesn't pretend to be generic high fantasy. It's a pulp action, post-war, magitech setting. That just happens to allow for a lot of game types. The Houses' control over much of the magical services and the generally low power of most individual NPCs is the main reason it isn't a Tippyverse and allows for more classic adventures in remote areas, where backup is still days to weeks away and no one has bothered to focus their resources yet, while letting the major cities serve as good hubs for mystery and intrigue or heist games.

[Lord Torath]

Or you can go with settings that canonically don't connect with Planescape and Spelljammer, like Eberron (my vote)

Huh? How does that work? World in a bottle or something?

Sort of. The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook suggests Athas (Dark Sun's world name) exists in a crystal sphere that has no phlogiston rivers flowing to it, or is so far away from the next closest sphere that no one can reach it in a meaningful amount of time. There's also supposed to be a dangerous cloud or something surrounding access to the planet from the Astral plane, although one of the official adventures features a gate (Gate? What gate?) allowing access to the Astral, and the original box set says fiends can be summoned by those brave/foolish enough to deal with them.

I'm also surprised at how much love Spelljammer is getting. In a similar poll at Dragonsfoot, Spelljammer fared much worse.

[Anonymouswizard]

Dark Sun is technically part of the Great Wheel (and Spelljammer setting) but is mostly cut off due to possibly natural barriers. Even Athas's Ethereal Plane doesn't work as normal, although it is connected to the Inner Planes which fuel the setting's divine magic.

Eberron has always just had it's own completely separate cosmology that's straight up incompatible with the Greet Wheel, featuring thirteen planes of waxing and waning influence. Suggestions for connecting it to the Great Wheel tend to involve it and it's cosmology sitting somewhere in the Deep Ethereal with a natural barrier possibly related to the planetary rings, and while this is official in 5e I believe it wasn't in previous editions. Even moreso than Athas Eberron is a special snowflake, with suggestions of connections to other settings mainly there to make importing adventures easier.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Lord Torath
I'm also surprised at how much love Spelljammer is getting. In a similar poll at Dragonsfoot, Spelljammer fared much worse.

I’m not familiar with that forum, but since they describe themselves as “the home of TSR-era D&D,” they’re likely skewed towards older editions with a more classic feel. That probably explains why Greyhawk has the most votes by a wide margin in their poll, with Forgotten Realms a distant second.

[Zombimode]

Suggestions for connecting it to the Great Wheel tend to involve it and it's cosmology sitting somewhere in the Deep Ethereal with a natural barrier possibly related to the planetary rings, and while this is official in 5e I believe it wasn't in previous editions.

It isn't, and for good reason. The setting's themes would get diluted and the only people wanting to connect Eberron to the Greate Wheel are those who have no interest in Eberrons particularities in the first place. Why catering to people with the least investment in the setting?

[Anonymouswizard]

It isn't, and for good reason. The setting's themes would get diluted and the only people wanting to connect Eberron to the Greate Wheel are those who have no interest in Eberrons particularities in the first place. Why catering to people with the least investment in the setting?

Oh, certainly, Eberron shouldn't be connected at all. It's telling that the section of the 5e book that connects it to the Great Wheel goes out of it's way to throw barriers in place to the point where you might as well just not connect the settings. But I think WotC wants to cater to the casual crowd and overworked GMs who'd rather run published adventures than make their own, and they're not going to be making more published Eberron adventures than the one in the book.

The rest of the book is good, it's hard for Eberron not to be, to the point where I'm sad this will probably be the only Eberron book this edition. But the section annoys me as much as it does you, and I didn't even mention how it implies that the Eberron races are copies of races from other settings (I mean, the dwarves are very much the same, but the rest of them have great twists).

[D&D_Fan]

My vote going to be for Spelljammer I think. I changed it.
This is because basically all of the other settings exist/can exist in it.

Also, I think one of the first games I DMed started out in Space. I had to retcon a character being incinerated.

[Anonymouswizard]

My vote going to be for Spelljammer I think. I changed it.
This is because basically all of the other settings exist/can exist in it.

Except, as noted, Eberron.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

It's a shame the old Gleemax forums are gone; there were several great threads about how Shardspace fit into Spelljammer.

[D&D_Fan]

If the DM says Eberron is in Spelljammer the it is. Maybe the Ring of Siberys acts as a crystal sphere? That is just what I would do.

[Millstone85]

Maybe the Ring of Siberys acts as a crystal sphere? That is just what I would do.

There are at least two problems with that:

• How does a ring act as a sphere?
• The moons are outside the ring.

I would just put Eberron, the ring and the moons inside a crystal sphere.

[Tvtyrant]

There are at least two problems with that:

• How does a ring act as a sphere?
• The moons are outside the ring.

I would just put Eberron, the ring and the moons inside a crystal sphere.

Spelljammer has lots of room for this, they have tree-spheres and dragon-spheres, etc. I would probably make it so Siberys is the broken remnants of a sphere that collided with Eberron's sphere, which is what gives it the mystical effects. It also makes it insanely dangerous to travel around which is why Jammers are rare.

[Zombimode]

While you can come up with convoluted explanations how to shoe-horn Eberron into the Spelljammer verse, I still don't see why you would want that. Again, connecting Eberron to the Spelljammer/Great Wheel metasetting serves only to dilute and weakening many of the salient themes of Eberron like the questions on divinity or the afterlife.

[Telok]

Spelljammer has lots of room for this, they have tree-spheres and dragon-spheres, etc. I would probably make it so Siberys is the broken remnants of a sphere that collided with Eberron's sphere, which is what gives it the mystical effects. It also makes it insanely dangerous to travel around which is why Jammers are rare.

Given that the interior and exterior sizes, shapes, or pretty much anything, of a crystal sphere don't need to match it could be almost anything. Most spheres, from the inside, had a crystal sphere as a limit on their volume. But I don't recall that being an iron clad rule. It could be perfectly possible to have an infinite volume interior with the inner side of the crystal sphere being a small round thing in the middle of a planet. All a spelljammer would see when they opened a portal would be a rock wall. The only spelljammer visitors you could get then are things able to travel through solid rock.

[D&D_Fan]

The real question: Can you fit all of MTG into Spelljammer space?

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Probably

Spoiler: Justification

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The Forgotten Realms is in Spelljammer space.

Spoiler: Justification 2

Show

Acquisitions Incorporated sourcebook is canon I think, since Acq Inc is canon in 5e forgotten realms.

Spoiler: Proof

Show

In there, there is a trinket table.
In it you can have a postcard from Ravnica.

Spoiler: Conclusion

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MTG in Spelljammer confirmed.

Spoiler: This means:

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All other MTG PLanes exist as well.

Spoiler: Think about this:

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Both games are owned by WotC. Honestly they work together fine enough as a sort of greater setting, and could probably coexist.

Spoiler

Show

Spoiler: If this is false:

Show

Then there may still be ways to travel between multiverses.

This is just speculation.

[Imbalance]

What, like it's hard to suppose that any setting's cosmology is little more than the best working theory of the brightest minds within that setting and is just one major discovery away from being blown out of the water? If I want to imagine that all of these worlds are actually plane(t)s in the same solar system that haven't noticed one another in proximity yet, but by magical means their denizens can travel between them, then I guess that's my homebrew. I don't get why such a possibility has to be problematic.

[Anonymouswizard]

In D&D terms MtG Planeswalkers just hop from one material plane to another.


Any, can you connect Eberron to whatever D&D oversetting you want? Eh, kind of (you basically have to handwave Eberron as being in a superspecial place just to justify it's cosmology, and you can connect it to Spelljammer but why?). It wasn't designed to fit in either setting, and while you can cut bits off the square peg to fit it in the round hole it won't fit as well as a round peg.

[Luccan]

Eh I'm bothered more by the other ways 5e attempted to officially tie together all official and homebrew material than it being technically possible to get to Eberron by spelljammer (especially since it's quite difficult). I don't see much purpose in visiting Eberron specifically by spelljammer, though. You're playing the equivalent of a Star Trek episode where they visit a planet remarkably similar to 20th century Earth. Great for a session or two, generally less interesting than the parts that deal with jamming spells.

[Eldan]

I could absolutely see someone in Eberron developing their equivalent of Spelljammers, though (a considerably more higher powered elemental airship, probably) and then trying something like trying to mine shards directly from Siberys.

[Millstone85]

It could be perfectly possible to have an infinite volume interior with the inner side of the crystal sphere being a small round thing in the middle of a planet.

Interesting, because while the crystal sphere would contain that space, so would the planet core contain the entirety of phlogiston space. A bit like that episode of Futurama with the boxes.

But in practice, and to reference another sci-fi cartoon, isn't that just a planar portal with extra steps?

[Democratus]

Homebrew for sure.

Great thing about homebrew is that you can steal any of the good stuff from all the other settings.

[D&D_Fan]

I could absolutely see someone in Eberron developing their equivalent of Spelljammers, though (a considerably more higher powered elemental airship, probably) and then trying something like trying to mine shards directly from Siberys.

This might be what you are talking about.
http://keith-baker.com/dm-stars/

[Millstone85]

This might be what you are talking about.
http://keith-baker.com/dm-stars/

Straight from the Creator's mouth, and oh so very interesting.

I had got it into my head that one of the moons of Eberron, perhaps Eyre (Fernia) or Barrakas (Irian), had to double as this world's sun. But no, the sun is separate, and here Keith Baker suggests several options:

• Eberron orbits the sun, making the latter the true center of this material plane or crystal sphere.
• The sun orbits Eberron, like a more distant moon.
• The sun, like the stars, is a fixed point on the firmament, though Eberron rotates on itself.

You know what, I am casting my vote on Spelljammer. It is just too funny to think about what is going on in the sky of a fantasy world.

[Sam113097]

I’ll actually cast another vote for the Nentir Vale - to me, it’s a better basic “fantasy setting” than Forgotten Realms, and its got a special place in my heart as the first setting I read/played in.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Sam113097
I’ll actually cast another vote for the Nentir Vale - to me, it’s a better basic “fantasy setting” than Forgotten Realms....

This is interesting, since I'm familiar with Forgotten Realms but not with Nentir Vale. What about the latter sets it apart for you?

[Tanarii]

This is interesting, since I'm familiar with Forgotten Realms but not with Nentir Vale. What about the latter sets it apart for you?

Personally I enjoy the "points of light" concept in any setting. It harks back to my first experiences with D&D Basic/Expert, before I really started using the Known World / Mystara, which feels more like highly occupied/explored with danger on the (extensive) fringes. Forgotten realms has that feel too. Most of the danger is on the fringes of civilization, or at least it encapsulates large pockets of civilization.

Other non-D&D settings that do that well are:
- Torchbearer
- Dungeon World
- Forbidden Lands

[Vortling]

Definitely Eberron for me. I really enjoy the theming and getting away from the medieval fantasy archetypes.

[Sam113097]

This is interesting, since I'm familiar with Forgotten Realms but not with Nentir Vale. What about the latter sets it apart for you?

I’m not an expert on either setting by any means, but my impression of the Nentir Vale’s “Points of Light” setting was that it was really conducive to classic, dungeon-delving adventuring parties. When I was starting out as a new DM, Forgotten Realms’ vast scope, extensive lore, and cast of established characters were pretty intimidating. I felt like it was hard to justify a small band of adventurers taking care of a major problem when Elminster, the Harpers, or some other powerful group could step in. It’s a feeling that I get in several settings. “Points of Light,” on the other hand, is only a small frontier region with isolated towns recovering from a major societal collapse. I got the impression that it really would be a place where a bunch of low-level adventures could be needed and make a difference. As a new D&D player, it felt more inviting (especially with the simpler cosmology).

Personally I enjoy the "points of light" concept in any setting. It harks back to my first experiences with D&D Basic/Expert, before I really started using the Known World / Mystara, which feels more like highly occupied/explored with danger on the (extensive) fringes. Forgotten realms has that feel too. Most of the danger is on the fringes of civilization, or at least it encapsulates large pockets of civilization.

I agree! I feel that Nentir Vale is a dangerous, ruin-filled wilderness with marginal pockets of civilization, while Forgotten Realms seems to be a collection of civilizations with dangerous wildernesses on the margins.