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I spent a lot of 3rd Edition playing Living Greyhawk before it ending at the onset of 4th Edition to make way for Living Forgotten Realms. With 4e winding down I wonder what will replace LFR. In an ENWorld discussion on potential replacements one idea was suggested that really resonated: a brand new world. A new setting exclusively for the living campaign.

A New World? Why?!

At first, making another new campaign setting for D&D seems like adding an extra nipple to a male cat: it’s not getting use out of multitudes already in its possession. At last count we have twelve and six half Campaign settings (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Mystara, Spelljammer, Planescape, Blackmoor, Dark Sun, Birthright, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Eberron, and the Nentir Vale plus the quasi-settings of Al Qadim,

Let’s talk DDI for a moment. And by “a moment” I mean about three pages of dense text, because writers in the fantasy genre (even bloggers) do not know the meaning of the word “brevity”. I believe it is a type of cheese.

5e is coming out, likely in twenty-odd months. And WotC is unlikely to end the cash cow that is DDI, nor is it likely to end the digital magazines. But, with a new edition comes the possibility of refocusing the magazines, a clean break from what came before and renewed sense of purpose.

So, with that in mind, what should they do?

More Adventure Paths

Paizo has really established themselves as “the adventure path people”. It’s time to challenge them and give them the run for money that WotC is capable of. There are some

Flashback time. The year is 2006. D&D is in its third and a half edition. Bird flu was the panic de jour. Taylor Hicks swept American Idol and went onto a lasting and influential career. And I, your friendly blogger, began playing Living Greyhawk.

For those not in "the know", as the kids say, Living Grayhawk (or LG) was a RPGA organized play campaign. You played a character in adventure modules that were produced by geographic region, gaining experience and treasure normally. Similar to Living Forgotten Realms it had a much more rigid bureaucracy that tried to both emulated a home campaign an add verisimilitude to the fictional world. You paid an "upkeep" which included food, board, and a set amount of ammunition. You tracked experience and gold down to the single digits and had to purchase

When they designed 3e and 4e they based the experience chart of both editions around a set number of encounters required before levelling: thirteen for 3e and ten for 4e. The idea is that after 10 same-level challenges you would level-up.

Interestingly, one of the more common house rules I've seen in 4e is dropping experience all together, as it serves little purpose other than telling the PCs when to level, which they already know: after ten fights.

Levelling-Up

Experience made more sense in earlier editions, when the math was a little fuzzier, and you weren't expected to have the same probability of hitting monsters of your level. It was easier to have game tables with mixed  levels of PCs. This was much more common in earlier editions when different classes advanced at different rates,