When is a campaign setting no longer relevant?

[Dire Bare]

The penny dropped for me on what keeps AD&D 1E and Greyhawk in particular a bit different from generic fantasy setting #19902 (e.g. Mystara, Thunder Rift, Dragonlance, Birthright etc).

It's playing up the sense of the eldritch.

For me, it's not so much a sense of the "eldritch" as a sense of mystery. When I was a young DM collecting the D&D Gazetteers (Mystara), each one provided a wealth of detail yet left tons of mystery about the world. My favorite bit was the hints of the existence of the Hollow World in the Thyatis/Alphatia boxed set. This didn't last, of course, as the setting became more and more detailed.

Even when Eberron was first introduced, I didn't get that sense of mystery. The setting seemed very "firm" and detailed from the get-go.

The reimagined core setting of 4e gets back to this somewhat, but since it is based on classic D&D each bit of revelation is more of "how things have been reimagined" rather than a revelation of a new bit of lore.

I'm looking forward to whatever the next brand-new setting from WotC will be, and I hope that the two-book, 1 adventure, and occasional support articles in Dragon/Dungeon will bring back the sense of mystery for me!

 

[Dire Bare]

Why? What on (our) Earth has transpired to make them any less worlds of fantastic adventure?

Might it not simply be that they engaged you when they were new to you, and your ennui is due to their having become too familiar to you? Why should they be any less delightful to someone else discovering them anew? Is there something peculiar about you, a quality you think "folks new to the game" today must lack even though you possessed it when you were new to the game?

I don't have ennui about Dragonlance or Mystara . . . I love these settings! My homebrew is basically Mystara with the map rearranged and bits added in from other settings. I don't think there is anything wrong with these older settings, but I seriously doubt they would hold appeal to the younger D&D audience of today without some serious reworking.

The four classic "generic" settings (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Mystara) were initially designed in the 70s and 80s and don't reflect the evolution of fantasy literature and gaming over the past 20-30 years (at least in their original incarnations).

As others have pointed out upthread, as long as there are fans playing in these settings, they aren't truly irrelevant . . . but I don't think they would work as "modern" fantasy settings without serious revamping as the Realms went through.

 

[ExploderWizard]

As others have pointed out upthread, as long as there are fans playing in these settings, they aren't truly irrelevant . . . but I don't think they would work as "modern" fantasy settings without serious revamping as the Realms went through.

I really hope that any "modern" fantasy settings get created from scratch rather than taking an existing setting and completely rearranging it.

FR and Greyhawk remain as they were in thier box sets for the most part when I use them. I enjoy seeing new settings developed that incorporate different concepts but I prefer established settings be left alone.

 

[Storminator]

As others have pointed out upthread, as long as there are fans playing in these settings, they aren't truly irrelevant . . . but I don't think they would work as "modern" fantasy settings without serious revamping as the Realms went through.

The Realms pretty clearly underwent its major rewrite because of the rules changes, not because it doesn't appeal to modern sensibilities.

Don't you think a lot of the anger about the 4e Realms is exactly because it was still relevant to a lot of people?

PS

 

[Bumbles]

Well, as I recall my Trek lore. The history of Trek was that there was a World War III fought as a nuclear war in the 2050's between the United States and its allies and a bloc of Asian nations called the Eastern Coalition.

While this part is true, there's a little thing called the Eugenics Wars that was said to have occurred in the mid-90s. This was referenced in the original series episode Space Seed which had some of the survivors in cryo-sleep.

And while Zefram Cochrane appeared in the original series episode Metamorphosis he would have been only in his 30s during the events of First Contact. Which makes his appearance in that movie...questionable in terms of the actor chosen. And whether or not the WW3 referenced in the movie will remain plausible...well, that's still up in the air.

The whole Warp Drive thing? Now that could go on for a while, or be invalidated next week. Who knows?

A better example of the problem might be some other work though, like 2001, 1984, or even those Disney cartoons involving the future. I don't think Pan-Am is going to be back. Not that that makes the story necessarily any less valid, but it can create a sense of dissonance.

 

[Ginnel]

That's where pudding comes from?

Plenty of Gold Dragons there then the exemplars of pudding

*rimshot*

 

[Dire Bare]

The Realms pretty clearly underwent its major rewrite because of the rules changes, not because it doesn't appeal to modern sensibilities.

Don't you think a lot of the anger about the 4e Realms is exactly because it was still relevant to a lot of people?

PS

As I actually stated in my post, and even in the part you quoted, the classic settings are certainly relevant to existing fans. However, I would disagree that the Spellplague "makeover" of the Realms was ONLY for mechanics reasons. IMO, WotC reinvigorated the setting BOTH to account for the new mechanics and to "breathe life" into a setting that had become unwieldly and stagnant.

If WotC had introduced a 4e Realms with very minimal changes, the existing fans would have most certainly purchased the books. But how many folks new to D&D and/or the Realms would have? While I have seen plenty of posts from longtime fans decrying the "destruction" of their beloved setting, I have also seen plenty of posts stating, "Wow, I'm actually interested in checking this setting out now!"

I'm not trying to diss the Realms or any other setting, I have enjoyed playing D&D and reading the novels from every "era" of the setting. I just don't think reproducing some of the older settings without shaking things up a bit would be a good move on WotC's part.

Settings that I do think could be introduced with minimal changes and work well include Dark Sun and . . . well, Dark Sun.

 

[Ariosto]

Heh, yeah -- what a joke it would be if some losers tried to make a buck off that pathetically irrelevant Middle-Earth. I mean, the hobbits aren't even vicious cannibals!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Ariosto wrote:
Heh, yeah -- what a joke it would be if some losers tried to make a buck off that pathetically irrelevant Middle-Earth. I mean, the hobbits aren't even vicious cannibals!

I always got the impression that Frodo and co. ate a lot of hobbit meat.

On the topic: I suppose a way to decide if a setting is dated is to see if it can draw new fans. Old fans will keep using it and it may or may not move with the times for those individuals. But if young people today* look at, say Greyhawk, and say: "WTF? God that's dull/silly/plain odd," then it would be fair to call it dated. Obviously I'd then have to tell them off for being young and not knowing anything, but that's normal.


*I love that phrase and am using it at even the slightest provocation: "You're 6 months younger than me? Hummph. Young person!"

 

[Novem5er]

For me, a setting is no longer relevant when another setting takes the same idea and does it better.

What "better" means would be hotly debated, but as a strong majority takes place and people en mass stop playing a setting... then it's no longer relevant.

"Better" to me would mean higher production values, better writing (more interesting, more drama, more color), and continuous support by the producing company.

Grayhawk vs. Forgotten Realms.

I have very little experience w/ Grayhawk, which makes me more qualified to talk about it's irreleventness than an old fan Grayhawk, to me, means standard European-based fantasy. I think of castles, knights, evil wizards, demons... and mainly bands of adventurers galloping horseback over green hills spotted with old forest. I don't know anything about the politics, cultures, nations, history. For me, it's unimportant when compared to the "now" of a campaign. Please, keep in mind that my impression of Grayhawk could be completely wrong, but it is the vision impressed upon me by 18 years of gaming.

Now, with Forgotten Realms, I get almost the exact same impression. The big difference is that I've read several books set in the Realms (old and recent publications), played in several FR campaigns, and have seen countless FR sourcebooks sitting on bookstore shelves and friend's tabletops.

Both Grayhawk and FR have the same general impression for me: European-based high fantasy. However, FR has the advantages of A) player support - i.e. active campaings, and B) company support - i.e. RP books and novels. For me, the 3e and 4e FR books have a much higher production value than the old GH books, simply because of updated art and print quality.

Could I be convinced to run or play a Grayhawk game? Absolutely! However, for me to buy any campaing books, I'd have to be convinced that it is either significantly different or better than the FR books I already own.