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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 6:20AM
#61
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Date Joined:
Apr 28, 2009
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Dark Sun
I think D&D lacks a dark and ironic multicultural setting where errors are unforgiving.
Dark Sun is nice, but under the sun and half naked. DS lacks long periods of depressing cold and rainy weather.
I would make it sort of the opposite of Dark Sun.
The gods of civilzation have "won." Cities are unchallenged by the uncivilized... and are part of a single divine police state that invades every aspect of a city dweller's life. Temples are everywhere... and you WILL worship at one, and it will tell you exactly how to live your life.
And it would be chilly and rainy almost all the time.
To the original topic:
I like Forgotten Realms, except for all the blasted NPCs and meddling gods.
I would love to see Ravenloft get the full setting treatment in Next.
Also, Points of Light cosmology was my favorite, wouldn't mind it as a separate setting.
An opposite to Dark Sun could be that druids have gone too far, and necromancers are the praised guardians of what is left of civilizations.
I dunno, isn't Dark Sun sort of already about how nature is now people's enemy, and pseudo-necromancers are the center of civilization?
Wait...
I think your subtlety is lost on me.
I would also like to add the outlawing of arcane magic, and the replacement of forests with farms, to my original police-state-theocratic-rainy-cities.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 6:31AM
#62
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It seems the Realms is going to be the default setting.
What makes you say that?
From the playtest materials it appears the goal is to use examples from many settings and mythologies, with the default creature flavor being a melange of traditional mythology, Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.
At any rate, the campaign setting that Next is making me most want to dust off is Planescape.
No but I do recall WOTC saying that the Forgotten Realms with be their first Campaing Setting.
But cretainly not the default, as far as I know, they intended to keep the core books very much Setting Neutral.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 6:38AM
#63
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Seeing allot of references to Dragonlance, I'll have to give it a shot one day.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 7:28AM
#64
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2004
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Dark Sun
I think D&D lacks a dark and ironic multicultural setting where errors are unforgiving.
Dark Sun is nice, but under the sun and half naked. DS lacks long periods of depressing cold and rainy weather.
I would make it sort of the opposite of Dark Sun.
The gods of civilzation have "won." Cities are unchallenged by the uncivilized... and are part of a single divine police state that invades every aspect of a city dweller's life. Temples are everywhere... and you WILL worship at one, and it will tell you exactly how to live your life.
And it would be chilly and rainy almost all the time.
To the original topic:
I like Forgotten Realms, except for all the blasted NPCs and meddling gods.
I would love to see Ravenloft get the full setting treatment in Next.
Also, Points of Light cosmology was my favorite, wouldn't mind it as a separate setting.
An opposite to Dark Sun could be that druids have gone too far, and necromancers are the praised guardians of what is left of civilizations.
I dunno, isn't Dark Sun sort of already about how nature is now people's enemy, and pseudo-necromancers are the center of civilization?
Wait...
I think your subtlety is lost on me.
I would also like to add the outlawing of arcane magic, and the replacement of forests with farms, to my original police-state-theocratic-rainy-cities.
You have reversed climates and geographic repartitions, expanded the dictatorial aspect of city states to the whole world, and reversed the gods presence. I have just targetted other aspects, as overpresence (overdose ?) of gods is already covered in many settings, and Dark Sun is already very hardcore dictatorship within city-states.
I have reversed the roles on global ecology, excess is always harmful, excess of "life" included. I would focus on animals, long dead fanatical druids having doped the evolution speed of beasts to adapt fast and be a neverending danger for any non nomad civilized area.
To breed livestock or agriculture would be most of the time too dangerous and requiring too much place to secure. Hunters and gatherers would be important people.
Druids would be hunted (reverse from DS) and necromancers (as an entropic factor, reverse of DS defilers) would be a precious ressource. I reversed the social places, as necromancers would be welcomed and at the center of what is left of civilizations, while druids would be feared and respected everywhere else.
Gods would be a problem for the surviving civilizations, as internal conflicts are no more tolerated by hardened people. Constructive religious people efforts would be sabotaged by classic evil gods and the perverted gods of nature that reflect the new state of the natural world.
The throne of any pantheon would be occupied by the merciful and constructive god(ess) of death and entropy.
And so on.
In many ways, Eberron could be the closer of what is the reverse of Dark Sun. My "reversed Dark Sun" and yours are more selective 
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - thecasualoblivion
"Vancian isn't broken, you just have to set your game to the wizard's clock!" - Oxybe
"In many ways, making a new edition of D&D is alot like trying to sell a car to the Amish." - Dwarfslayer
"Encounters are the heart of the AD&D game" - PHB AD&D 2nd edition.
"you shouldn't even bother trying to become like me." - Gary Gygax (Elfcrusher confirmed)
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'"
- Gary Gygax
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 8:23AM
#65
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Date Joined:
Nov 30, 2010
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I would make it sort of the opposite of Dark Sun.
The gods of civilzation have "won." Cities are unchallenged by the uncivilized... and are part of a single divine police state that invades every aspect of a city dweller's life. Temples are everywhere... and you WILL worship at one, and it will tell you exactly how to live your life.
And it would be chilly and rainy almost all the time.
I don't know if you mean this, but i think you are refered to some sort of Dystopian settings...wish is actually something i would want, thought that kind of settings is very grey morality and won't work on D&D unless they get rid of the damn alignment concept for it.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 8:33AM
#66
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Date Joined:
Apr 28, 2009
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I would make it sort of the opposite of Dark Sun.
The gods of civilzation have "won." Cities are unchallenged by the uncivilized... and are part of a single divine police state that invades every aspect of a city dweller's life. Temples are everywhere... and you WILL worship at one, and it will tell you exactly how to live your life.
And it would be chilly and rainy almost all the time.
I don't know if you mean this, but i think you are refered to some sort of Dystopian settings...wish is actually something i would want, thought that kind of settings is very grey morality and won't work on D&D unless they get rid of the damn alignment concept for it.
Though this is definitely a dystopia, I actually don't see the morality as especially grey-- it's just that the surviving gods and nations are essentially all LE (in alignment terms, with some few being NE or LN). I would only want to play in this world if the party were affiliated with a group of rebels/outlaws. I would find working within the establishment far too depressing, I think.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 9:52AM
#67
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Date Joined:
Nov 28, 2009
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I'd say Eberron and Dark Sun both offer the most distinction from a more classic fantasy setting ( FR, Grayhawk, DL )
In the interest of pleasing as many players as possible , those should be the next two settings since FR will be the fist supported setting.
That being said, I love Dragonlance the most by far. I grew up on the books so it has a special place my my heart for sure. If FR wasn't already established as coming out then I'd say Dragonlance first.
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 10:36AM
#68
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Date Joined:
Oct 10, 2005
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if it was up to me and anything other then homebrew...
1. Greyhawk would be my first choice, anything else would be a distant secondary.
2. Dragonlance
3. ravanloft or Planescape
...anything but Eberon, I don't know exactly why but that setting just grinds on my nerves
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 10:48AM
#69
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Date Joined:
Nov 12, 2012
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The best setting is homebrew/my own world. That said, Forgotten realms was the first setting I played in. Only other setting I've played is Dragonlance. I can't say I have ever experienced Greyhawk. I would say that Forgotten Realms would be the best first setting(at least for me)
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7 months ago ::
Nov 22, 2012 - 12:52PM
#70
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Dark Sun (favorite by far)
Spelljammer/Planescape (never got to play it, but looks like a blast)
Eberron (Not everything but symbionts, daelkyr, quori, dragon-marks, houses, warforged, artificers, dinosaur mounts, etc.)
I'd like some kind of nautical setting... but mostly so I can adapt it to Blue Age Athas.
Some others that are nice: Kara-Tur, Matzica, Al-Qadim, etc. Though, instead of necessarily doing these (which are generally very orientalistic or, in the case of Matzica, from a similar colonialist perspective), I'd prefer to see a sort of Societal/Cultural Adaptation Guide, which would give over-views of historical cultures/societies and suggestions on how to adapt DnD to them (including those of Western Europe, which, IMO, shouldn't be treated as the normative setting anymore).
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