I reflected over D&D and realized something rather interesting. Each edition had a defining setting that only made sense for that edition. 1e had Greyhawk, 2e had Spelljammer, 3e had Eberron, 4e had ???, and 5e uniquely had Strixhaven. None of the other editions had a magic school, it wouldn't be befitting of those editions, but it works for 5th edition. What is a setting unique to your edition of a system? which one of these are your favorites?
4e had "nentir vale" which its retarded fanboys will tell you is the most amazing setting ever made but can't articulate why.
>>978667574e was Nentir Vale which, when you get over how ugly the splats were and how barebones it BEGAN, is basically Arnor and West Gondor after the plague that kills most of the people of those lands. The fall of the human empire explains why there's ruins and dungeons to explore and why there are Points of Light rather than a cohesive land.It's very Tolkienian but it did it so baldly that it feels soulless and commercial.
>>97866757Also interesting that you cite Eberron for 3e when I would say Eberron worked far better with 4e mechanics. Ghostwalk was the 3e setting, I think.
>>97866795Eberron was designed though as if the game mechanics were diegetic, which doesn't work with 4e's different mechanics.
>>97866762I have literally never heard of it lol, I wonder if it's any good.
>>97866795Well I had this in mind when I eventually conceived of the thread, tell me what you think >>97842449
>>97866757>and 5e uniquely had Strixhaven. None of the other editions had a magic school, it wouldn't be befitting of those editions, but it works for 5th edition.Strixhaven is just Harry Potter with serial numbers filed off then replaced with MtG serial numbers then shoved into D&D for "brand synergy" or whatever. That it "took off" is more a damning condemnation of the 5e audience than any respectable fit to the system itself.Because previous editions have in fact covered the subject of magic schools, in a natural extension of wizards being academic spellcasters. Strixhaven, meanwhile, roughly shoehorns D&D classes into MtG-targeted categorizations that themselves were roughly shoehorned into the vague mold of Harry Potter houses.FUCK that entire release period, it was SOULLESS cash-grabs!>>97866795>Ghostwalk was the 3e setting, I think.I look at it as more the last gasp of AD&D "make a setting for a batch of weirdass mechanics", personally, with how thoroughly it's "about" the bit of ghosts-but-outsiders-because-undead-are-icky.
>>97866757The Strixhaven book was ass, though. It told you next to nothing about the school, and a bunch of seemingly important events and challenges would just be resolved with a basic skill test.
>>978667575e is Forgotten Realms if you look at the 2014 core rulebooks.
>>97866757I only ever use My own homebrew setting, which is filled with a kitchen sink of whatever I like and think is cool
>>97867095Spelljammer is just treasure planet.
>>97867102The strong suit of 5e is allowing a DM to implement whatever they want. Strixhaven doesn't tell you too much about the school because it's expected that the DM will want to flesh those details out themselves, and run their own school setting.
>>97867114Common misconception, Forgotten Realms is actually system agnostic and all the editions fall back on it. It's not a setting unique to any one edition.
>>97867214Then what was the fucking point? If you buy a book about a magic school, one would hope the book would tell you something about it. Otherwise, it's less an adventure book and more of a license to legally use the name "Strixhaven".
>>97866757>None of the other editions had a magic schoolMystara/Known World for BECMI had the Glantri gazeteer, which let you play a student in a magical.school.That said, 2e is unique in that it had so many unique worlds, Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft... each being its own thing.
>>97867206Spelljammer came first. Still a pretty good movie.
>>97867235>Otherwise, it's less an adventure book and more of a license to legally use the name "Strixhaven".That would, in fact, appear to be the point. Shameless IP cashout, for IP that was only ever a stand-in for another more-popular IP.
>>97866762i skipped 4e entirely but i think the idea of every god having good and evil aspects is neat
>>97867206Is that a bad thing?
>>97867214I don't need a book to give me room to implement what I want I can already fucking do that you mong.
>>97866762They like it for the same reason /tg/ prefers 40k pre-Horus Heresy, or /v/ glazes FROMslop: it's vague and nondescript and lets you fill in the blanks with the power of IMAGINATION~~~~
>>97867095Also it passed up an easy lay up to include martials in the fun by not making them the Towns to the casters Gowns.
>>97866757This is the first time I am hearing of Strixhaven wtf is that
>>97868077It's a Magic: the Gathering setting for the Harry Potter crowd.
>>97866757At least the artist got the gargoyle's expression about right. >holyshit I am tired of these rich kid's bullshit, just fuck and get out of here already
>>97867235>he thinks the book is emptywow
Ok.What's your favourite system for running a magic school game?
It's weird to me that Strixhaven even got an actual book. WotC had ported MtG stuff into DnD before, but it was just free pdfs that had DnD stats for races from. MtG, which were generally stuff that could easily exist in the DnD universe as well, like lamias or various animal people. Making a whole book that's a DnD port of a MtG setting is on an entirely different scale, and if they were going to do it it's weird they chose Strixhaven of all places, which was such a nothingburger of a set, instead of something actually iconic and popular among MtG players like Ravnica.It also raises questions about how it actually fits in the setting cosmology. Does Strixhaven existing in DnD imply that DnD and MtG exist in a shared universe? They both do have planes that are different fantasy settings so it really wouldn't be much of a stretch, except that the underlying cosmology is vastly different. Magic in MtG revolves around the five colors of mana, which is kind of the defining thing of the whole game, but DnD cosmology does not have that.
>>97866762The point of it was being an example for an uncharted frontier where you could freely drop in adventure locations as "points of light".Kind of how in Legend of Mana you start with a blank world map where you place towns and dungeons you just heard of.4e DMs were supposed to create their own frontier, but were so unimaginative they wanted more official lore on the example setting.
>>97867398It still ripped off Treasure Planet.
>>97869212Thing is, that's the opposite of the design philosophy that they designed 4e's meat and potatoes with; the combat system is all about managing daily and encounter powers, in a rather bland grid-based crpg-style environment.
>>97866757There is nothing about Spelljammer which is specific to 2e at all. You can run Spelljammer in basically any tabletop system except maybe the pure futuristic sci-fi ones, and even then you could probably still manage it.
>>97866762As a retarded fanboy who likes the Nentir Vale/Points of Light setting but never played 4e I like it because it's a simple frontier setting with only a handful of safe settlements and lots of ruins to explore. It facilitates your basic dee and dee adventuring easily and doesn't have too much dumb shit in it (4e's obsession with dragonborn and tieflings nonwithstanding).
>>97869152There was a Ravnica D&D book though?
