Dark Sun relaunched 4th Ed

[A_dark]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20090814#

Could we hope for a Birthright relaunch at some point? In all honesty reading the article, I think that we won't. My reasons are that Birthright unfortunately is rather close to Eberron in feel, in the sense that there are some political games and the dragonmarks are too similar to the bloodlines. It would seem redundant. Oh well

[Vicente]

Well, the announcement of DS for 4e is pretty important for the system: it will allow the designers to show 4e is flexible enough to portrait a setting as bizarre as DS. Also, it's interesting they are not approaching the setting like they did with FR (they are going back in the setting story instead of adding a world shattering event).

About BR: I don't think BR problem is that is similar to Eberron (are you sure about that? AFAIK Eberron is pretty high on magic), is that BR wasn't a very sucessful setting at all. If you see the polls about what settings people want next, BR always scores pretty low in general compared to other settings that could be done: Dragonlance, Planescape, Ravenloft,...

In my oppinion, I think it will be more possible that they add BR elements in a future DMG, maybe in DMG 3 as it will be centered in epic level play.

[Kitch]

I would hope that WOTC would be considering a re-vamp on the Birthright system, and more than likely, release it upon a much smaller scale campaign setting.

Cerilia is simply too huge for Wizards to fit into one or two books. It, in itself, requires a multitude of them, and given that Birthright is a generally unheard sector of DnD, I cannot see Wizards wanting to take a gamble in face of this.

Adding to the constant problem that the number of people who are downloading books instead of purchasing them, it places Wizards in the delema on if they want to take a risk on a generally underplayed version of the game.

What I can see them doing, however, is attempting to wrestle with the idea of a Cerilia-based video game.

[Sorontar]

hmmm... cannibal halflings. They start at the knees and work their way up?

To quote the "press release":

Our goal with the setting was to cleave as close to the original boxed set as possible while still allowing as many D&D options as we could and making the setting ideal for 4th Edition play.

It'll be interesting to see how the DS community take to the new version and whether they think it is DS placed in D&D4e or D&D4e placed in DS.

Sorontar

[Rowan]

A BR system could overlay any of the settings. It could actually be very, very interesting in Dragonlance, Eberron, or Dark Sun.

Still, it's not the rules that I want Wizards to revisit BR for. It's to flesh out the setting more and attract more attention to it.

I think what may happen with the fringe settings is that they may get some time in a Dungeon or Dragon Magazine article or two, and that's it.

[Mirviriam]

Well, the announcement of DS for 4e is pretty important for the system: it will allow the designers to show 4e is flexible enough to portrait a setting as bizarre as DS. Also, it's interesting they are not approaching the setting like they did with FR (they are going back in the setting story instead of adding a world shattering event).

About BR: I don't think BR problem is that is similar to Eberron (are you sure about that? AFAIK Eberron is pretty high on magic), is that BR wasn't a very sucessful setting at all. If you see the polls about what settings people want next, BR always scores pretty low in general compared to other settings that could be done: Dragonlance, Planescape, Ravenloft,...

In my oppinion, I think it will be more possible that they add BR elements in a future DMG, maybe in DMG 3 as it will be centered in epic level play.

I hate to say it, but ravenloft did have more pull than BR back in the day...but in in defense the past 10 years have filled with wanabe vampire/goth games & ravenloft has remained...boring?

[Vicente]

Cerilia is simply too huge for Wizards to fit into one or two books. It, in itself, requires a multitude of them, and given that Birthright is a generally unheard sector of DnD, I cannot see Wizards wanting to take a gamble in face of this.

Adding to the constant problem that the number of people who are downloading books instead of purchasing them, it places Wizards in the delema on if they want to take a risk on a generally underplayed version of the game.

What I can see them doing, however, is attempting to wrestle with the idea of a Cerilia-based video game.

They have fit FR in 2 books, and FR is way bigger than BR. Wizards said in Gencon that they are working also in a solution for the PDF problem and that Atari is doing a new DnD game that would be announced later this year.

[Thelandrin]

They also royally buggered up the Realms. There is almost no similarity between 3E and 4E Faerûn.

[Vicente]

I hate to say it, but ravenloft did have more pull than BR back in the day...but in in defense the past 10 years have filled with wanabe vampire/goth games & ravenloft has remained...boring?

Good news is that Ravenloft is going to be re-launched as a !¿boardgame?! (or so it seems). Planescape will probably never see the light as a setting as Sigil is appearing on DMG 2. But some heavy weights like Dragonlance and Greyhawk remain (even Spelljammer seems to have more support in this matter). Most people on ENWorld are leaning towards a totally new setting in 2011, so who knows...

[Birthright-L]

I think a Birthright relaunch is extremely unlikely.

But that doesn`t mean people can`t look at the relaunches that are
done for 4e and use them as a basis for their own fan-created
updates.... So, any relaunch is a good thing for BR fans since it
gives us an idea of how the designers might portray the particulars
of our setting.

Gary

[irdeggman]

I think a Birthright relaunch is extremely unlikely.

But that doesn`t mean people can`t look at the relaunches that are
done for 4e and use them as a basis for their own fan-created
updates.... So, any relaunch is a good thing for BR fans since it
gives us an idea of how the designers might portray the particulars
of our setting.

Gary

I agree, as long as they don't do what Paizo did when they did their 3.5 update of Dark Sun. Basically strippped out almost all things that made the setting unique and instead tried to cram the core 3.5 information into a Dark Sun-like setting. I mean they inserted paladins for crying out loud.

Athas.org's 3.5 Dark Sun at least kept to the "feel" of the original setting and instead of trying to allow everything 3.5 to be used, they looked at the 3.5 information and saw what worked and what didn't and then made some new stuff to fill the gaps.

[dundjinnmasta]

Good news is that Ravenloft is going to be re-launched as a !¿boardgame?! (or so it seems). Planescape will probably never see the light as a setting as Sigil is appearing on DMG 2. But some heavy weights like Dragonlance and Greyhawk remain (even Spelljammer seems to have more support in this matter). Most people on ENWorld are leaning towards a totally new setting in 2011, so who knows...

Ravenloft, Planescape, and Spelljammer probably won't ever see the light of day because some of the concepts are being rolled into the core-setting "Points of Light" though some books and alot of dragon/dungeon articles with Domains of Dread, the Dark Lord epic destiny, Spelljammer Ships (ships that travel the planes as opposed to "fantasy space"), Sigil, and some other planes-based cities/articles.

The above is both good and bad for these older games because it means people can atleast take the updated stuff and use it while they update the rest of the setting but they won't see a full fledge-setting update.

I also think that a Birthright relaunch is unlikely but would love to see it. However I think I got plenty of information to do a 4E Birthright game.

There are hints that we will see a Dragonlance and Greyhawk campaign settings based off of a throw-away line in the Manual of the Planes about Krynn and Oerth.