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Mike Mearls said this at a product symposium at D&D Experience: "The stories and worlds of past editions of D&D are just as important to our development and ideas for D&D Next as the rules and other information is. I don't have any more information to share at this time, but we're definitely exploring and excited about what we have planned. " Perhaps we will get some Mystara love after all.
Mike Mearls said this at a product symposium at D&D Experience: "The stories and worlds of past editions of D&D are just as important to our development and ideas for D&D Next as the rules and other information is. I don't have any more information to share at this time, but we're definitely exploring and excited about what we have planned. " Perhaps we will get some Mystara love after all.
I'd love to see Mystara be revived, but somehow I get the feeling we're more likely to see Greyhawk or Dragonlance get this sort of treatment. I'm not sure about the Realms - they're getting pretty heavy emphasis in this year's product lineup between the Menzoberranzan campaign setting and the Ed Greenwood compendium. There could be a danger of the setting being over-associated with a previous edition.
On the other hand, Mystara hasn't had much love since Wrath of the Immortals and the Almanac products of the 1990s. That, to me, shows a lot of potential for breathing life back into the setting - they have a lot of established material to work with, but also a lot of design space for advancing the timeline and modernizing the setting to fit today's gamer sensibilities.
It'd be nice to see, though - I'm still hoarding my 2E boxed sets for Karameikos and Glantri for a rainy day game, plus my Princess Ark collection! *kicks self for selling Wrath of the Immortals all those years ago*
Just as long as they don't try and shove Greyhawk as the number one campaign world yet again.
Totally agree. I know old school gamers are fond of Greyhawk, what with it being Gary's own campaign world, but I could care less about it myself.
I feel similarly about the Realms, too, frankly. Both settings seem to just be too deeply detailed with far too much canon and nuance for me to ever feel comfortable doing my own thing in them.
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Mike Mearls said this at a product symposium at D&D Experience: "The stories and worlds of past editions of D&D are just as important to our development and ideas for D&D Next as the rules and other information is. I don't have any more information to share at this time, but we're definitely exploring and excited about what we have planned. " Perhaps we will get some Mystara love after all.
I'd love to see Mystara be revived, but somehow I get the feeling we're more likely to see Greyhawk or Dragonlance get this sort of treatment. I'm not sure about the Realms - they're getting pretty heavy emphasis in this year's product lineup between the Menzoberranzan campaign setting and the Ed Greenwood compendium. There could be a danger of the setting being over-associated with a previous edition.
On the other hand, Mystara hasn't had much love since Wrath of the Immortals and the Almanac products of the 1990s. That, to me, shows a lot of potential for breathing life back into the setting - they have a lot of established material to work with, but also a lot of design space for advancing the timeline and modernizing the setting to fit today's gamer sensibilities.
So kind of like they did with Dark Sun in 4E. If they do go that route, I would like to see them advance the setting roughly 14 years, which is what I did with my own campaign. It is a short enough time span that King Stephan is still ruling Karaminkos but that his daughter has taken over much of the day to day business of governing and his grand children are just beginning their careers as young adventurers. Since Karaminkos is where I generally run my campaigns, I had not thought about how the rest of the world would change.
I would prefer to see Greyhawk be the default setting, simply because we have not seen anything produced about it in so long, but seeing as how the new edition will be modular, I could see them having no default setting and just have modules for each setting.
The withdrawal of PDFs for sale is the main thing that has limited the appeal of Mystara. If those PDFs became available again, it would be possible to put together some conversion notes (or make use of the ones that have already been created) and assemble a set of old BECMI modules to form suitable adventure paths set in that world in the 1000 AC era.
As things stand now, the only legal/ethical choice available for players who did not get those PDFs when they were available is to use the Mystaran Almanacs as "recent history" and then create your own adventures set ca. 1020 AC.
the beauty of cannon is that it is like any other rule, it can be ignored. my 4e greyhawk campain is set as of what was published in 1983.
I would love to see the Known World return, but I don't think it has enough support to do so.
I think reviving another setting like Mystara would be awesome. The Realms has done very well for D&D for more than a couple of decades now. I think it's time to give it a rest. The realms is a good setting, but it's kind of like one of those TV shows that have been on for two seasons too many.
Personally, I'd like to see the revival of Planescape. It's dynamic, different, and oddly a little more modern fantasy that still has a strong vein of the standard D&D tropes. It would also be easier to integrate new ideas due to the nature of that game universe; definitely better than how Dragonborn were introduced in the Realms.
I only have vague memories of Mystara...generally, along the lines of not being overly excited about it. Personally, rather than rehash an older campaign setting, I'd rather see one made for DnD Next that is entirely separate from previous editions, yet comprised of elements from all of them...a unified campaign setting for a unified system. Previous campaigns could be re-released in a non-system specific form and let GMs do what they want with them. Of course, this is just me, and by no means in reference to anyone else, particularly given my recent trend of gaming dissatisifaction both with my group and the state of the hobby. I'm sure if previous campaign setting is re-released for DnD Next, it will be both wonderful and despised, just as they were with the 2E to 3E update and 3E to 4E update. Call me cynical, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Quite frankly, at most, I will purchase the three core books and leave it at that. I have enough material from previous editions with the campaigns settings that I enjoyed, along with over a dozen notebooks and binders of my own homebrew, an updated campaign setting is unnecessary.
I feel similarly about the Realms, too, frankly. Both settings seem to just be too deeply detailed with far too much canon and nuance for me to ever feel comfortable doing my own thing in them.I actually like the Realms (even though the games I have played in were in some undeveloped corner), but that was because the deities were much more attractive than those from Greyhawk. Torm, Tyr, and Ilmatar actually felt like lawful good deities (as opposed to the little fiction I read set in Greyhawk, where Lawful Stupid or the Inquisition seemed to rule the day), and in the Red Knight, there was a war goddess that worked in a way different than most of the others I had seen. The pre-4th faiths (aside from Mystra) of the FR actually still remain the biggest selling point for me.
I can't find the link right off hand, but I believe they have already decided to stick to Forgotten Realms as their core setting. Also, another promising tidbit, is the fact that they are apparently following in the footsteps of 4th Edition L5R in that they are going to make which Forgotten Realms timeline you play in up to the player. Whether this implies that they will be publishing content for multiple time periods or just giving a brief "jump on in" point of origin remains to be seen, but I'm pleased to hear they aren't going to insist on 4E FR as cannon. It was painful to see them bleed a lot of very awesome deities out of the game ( like my three go-to guys: Azuth, Helm, and Velsharoon) in what I can only assume was an effort to shrink it down to appease entry-level fans.
My money is on Greyhawk and Planescape seeing some measure of resurgence as well. I'm hoping Planescape comes back in a big way, anyways. While it may not have always been what I was in the mood for, Planescape was a very unique experience in D&D. It really deserves more than a "Manual of the Planes" type of treatment, 'cause there's a lot of really cool stuff out there. Dragonlance is another one that wouldn't surprise me, though I would expect them to test the waters with FR and Greyhawk before branching out too far, lest they repeat the mistakes of the past like TSR.
From EN World:
The Forgotten Realms will be supported from the start, and a video game art studio from China has been hired to fully detail the Realms. We asked if going forward support would be continued for the current time after the Spellplague and the Neverwinter Campaign. A WotC spokesperson answered, "The Forgotten Realms has a rich history and we will support all of it. It is for the gamers to decide which time they would enjoy playing in." That would allow Wizards to take advantage of a massive back catalog of products.
I only have vague memories of Mystara...generally, along the lines of not being overly excited about it.
Although I had used Mystara, I hadn't been overly excited about it either... until I read _Night's_Dark_Terror_!