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"The Population of Krynn has ALWAYS Been Mostly Tabaxi..."

Started by RPGPundit, July 29, 2021, 12:49:00 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

BoxCrayonTales

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 30, 2021, 09:39:28 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PMAnd what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?
Make a new franchise and story.
Im not clouded by anything. I hated endless reboots and shitty lazy sequels and IP worship before I ever heard the term SJW.
If you can't be bothered with basic fucking details of an existing story, just make ORIGINAL CONTENT.

Its shackling to remember the original, but its not lazy to use existing material for easy writing?
Does an alternate universe of the prior work count as new or does that set off your nerd autism too?

Quote from: Shasarak on July 30, 2021, 10:26:17 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PM
You try maintaining continuity across franchises that are many decades old and have countless entries and writers working on them. It's impossible. Doctor Who, Warcraft, Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer, Cthulhu mythos, etc couldn't do it even before the SJW infestation.

And what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?

You're letting your hatred of the SJWs cloud your judgement. Reboot is a tool like anything else. It can be used for good or ill.

Is it impossible?  Really?

In these days with hyperlinked wikipedia-type sites and searchable texts, it is getting less and less impossible.

Unless you are just so lazy and or unimaginative that you cant work within the existing framework.


And just for the sake of your argument.  Which author are you referring to when you say they are wanting to "reboot" their setting?  Obviously you must have 2 or 3 that you can name off the top of your head.

Tolkien. He once complained about the finality of publishing preventing him from changing a story afterward.

C.J. Cherryh released revised versions of her Rusalka trilogy that were heavily altered compared to their previous versions.

Chris Metzen, once creative director at Blizzard Entertainment, knowingly retconned his own work numerous times.

The 2002 He-Man reboot and 2011 Thundercats reboot. Those were great because they were made by people who actually liked the source material.

The premise of the alternate history genre is that historical events go in a different direction compared to our timeline, but prior to that divergence point it's the same universe as ours.

Mythology and fairy tales normally have multiple versions of the same stories. Fairy tales recycle the same plots so often that the ATU index exists specifically to organize and track it.

Any fiction with multiverses.

Chris24601

Quote from: Pat on July 31, 2021, 06:27:18 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 31, 2021, 01:52:38 AM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 30, 2021, 09:39:28 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PMAnd what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?
Make a new franchise and story.

Fucking This.

Reportedly, when George Lucas coudn't get the rights to Flash Gordon, he made a little fantasy sci fi movie called Star Wars. You may have heard about it.
It was a risk. A huge gamble. A challenge to create something new, inspired by other sources, sure, but not a sequel or a reboot or a reimagining with Flash Gordon slapped on the box.
I don't even mind a reimagining or a reboot or a sequel. Some of them turn out rather well. But we've got the modern, corporate machine cranking them out according to a formula gleaned from algorythms and focus groups. A crutch for less creative people to make cookie cutter films that are quickly consumed and forgotten.
Should Superman still be an aggressive guy beating up reporters because of wrongthink? Because the truth, justice, and the American Way boyscout is a retcon.

As far as I can tell, people are fine with retcons as long as they're done well. It's only when they're not done well that people start complaining about purity and canon.

Krynn is a weird example, because it sounds like the canon has become a huge mess. On top of that, it's a setting that's specifically a reaction to other settings. It doesn't seem as moored in canon in the first place.
It's also a case of "canon, like history, begins the moment you start following it."

For example, I didn't start reading Superman comics in earnest until the early 90's so, from my perspective, Lois Lane had always known Clark Kent was Superman and was his fiancée/wife. Sure, I reasoned there was a point early on when she didn't know and that's the point the movies were referencing... but the Lois & Clark tv show did the reveal at the end of season two so that just reinforced my assumption of the "Love Triangle for Two" being mostly "early installment weirdness" that people doing new versions jusr played with for a bit before moving on.

Of course I later learned about all the previous things; how the love triangle for two had been THE story for decades...

But I also that Jimmy Olsen and Kryptonite were only added because of the radio drama (wherein Superman arrived on Earth full grown) and that Clark and Lois originally worked at the Daily Star of Cleveland under editor George Taylor and, far from being the world's greatest reporter, Lois Lane was a 19 year old girl stuck writing a love advice column for the paper and kept getting into trouble because she took risks trying prove she could get and write real stories and that Clark (who was in his very early 20's) was his real identity, he had only normal human abilities turned up to 11+ by Earth's low gravity and he was a vigilante hunted by the police...

... and that Superman's original writers had originally planned for Lois to learn Clark's secret and become his full partner as an ongoing part of the story all the way back in 1941 (so barely three years/36 issues after Action Comics #1) only to have it nixed by executive meddling.

So tell me again, what's the canon for Superman?

I tend to doubt it's the vigilante crusader whose powers were just human ability turned up several notches, who stands up for the little guy against corrupt government and corporate figures, is teamed up with Lois Lane who knows his secret (and no red-headed kid sidekick to be found), works for George Taylor at the Daily Star in Depression-era Cleveland and whose greatest enemy is The Ultra-Humanite (who was actually the main character of S&S's original Super-man story).

Rather, I'm going to guess that for each person its whatever version you first encountered that you really paid attention to.

I'll admit though... the original recipe with no executive meddling actually sounds Kickass and if adapted as a period piece would probably be an amazing film.

And by the same token; someone give me the definitive canon for King Arthur and Robin Hood. Remember, by the standards some hold it must include every story organized in such a way that there are no contradictions.

And that's the situation for all the various fantasy gaming worlds that have now been around for 30-40 years too. I'd wager just a tiny fraction of Realms fans have even looked at the original Grey Box and the vast majority didn't even start into it until the Time of Troubles novels or the first Drzzt novel and most gamers under the age of 35 are only familiar with its 3e and later incarnations.

"Canon" has its uses (mostly for continuity within a single author's story) but it's not the end all and be all. It makes even less sense for RPGs where each DM is making the world their own and each FR campaign is probably mutually exclusive of every other FR campaign in terms of continuity.

Shrieking Banshee

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 31, 2021, 08:16:12 AM
Does an alternate universe of the prior work count as new or does that set off your nerd autism too?

If you see any disagreement to your ideas as just misplaced nitpicking (even though I stated im not a hyper stickler for canon), and start off the conversation that I am a fool for disagreeing with you, then I don't think it really makes sense for me to continue the conversation with me since you see me in such a low light.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 31, 2021, 08:56:39 AM
So tell me again, what's the canon for Superman?
Nothing, because nothing is sacred in Superhero comics. I wouldn't use the medium thats imploding because of constant neverending meddling and battles between different writers and editors (while the stories get more rehashed and tired with every decade) as an example of the benefits of loose cannon.

FingerRod

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 31, 2021, 08:56:39 AM
"Canon" has its uses (mostly for continuity within a single author's story) but it's not the end all and be all. It makes even less sense for RPGs where each DM is making the world their own and each FR campaign is probably mutually exclusive of every other FR campaign in terms of continuity.

Got it, and I am mostly in alignment with you. I do not care about the different Superman versions. I still gravitate to the one produced from Marlon Brando's balls, but I am okay with the others existing.

What I reject is WOTC going Disney's Star Wars on the past, and simply erasing it. They lack the talent to do a remaster and go toe to toe with prior settings/versions. It won't stand up. And they know it. Instead, they are going to erase what was there and tell the fans to accept the new or move along.

The early Superman history you shared sounds interesting. It is a shame it did not work out like the original creators intended.



Ratman_tf

Quote from: Pat on July 31, 2021, 06:27:18 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 31, 2021, 01:52:38 AM
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 30, 2021, 09:39:28 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PMAnd what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?
Make a new franchise and story.

Fucking This.

Reportedly, when George Lucas coudn't get the rights to Flash Gordon, he made a little fantasy sci fi movie called Star Wars. You may have heard about it.
It was a risk. A huge gamble. A challenge to create something new, inspired by other sources, sure, but not a sequel or a reboot or a reimagining with Flash Gordon slapped on the box.
I don't even mind a reimagining or a reboot or a sequel. Some of them turn out rather well. But we've got the modern, corporate machine cranking them out according to a formula gleaned from algorythms and focus groups. A crutch for less creative people to make cookie cutter films that are quickly consumed and forgotten.
Should Superman still be an aggressive guy beating up reporters because of wrongthink? Because the truth, justice, and the American Way boyscout is a retcon.

As far as I can tell, people are fine with retcons as long as they're done well. It's only when they're not done well that people start complaining about purity and canon.

That's why I said I don't neccessarily mind retcons when they're done well. And done well is the heart of the matter. Breaking canon in order to do something stupid with a character or story makes it stick out all the more. Like tossing out three movies worth of character development to make Luke Skywalker or Han Solo into shitty characters.

QuoteKrynn is a weird example, because it sounds like the canon has become a huge mess. On top of that, it's a setting that's specifically a reaction to other settings. It doesn't seem as moored in canon in the first place.

Canon and lore aren't so important to a D&D game. All campaigns have an element of "alternate reality". This is pretty much necessary when you have thousands of campaigns set in the same world, where one GM replaces the official main characters with their party of player characters. Or has events change due to the PCs decisions altering the "history" of how the published DL campaign goes.
But Lore is important. When they killed off all the major bad guys and turned Athas into a greener world, the setting lost a lof of it's appeal. 4th ed wisely "rebooted" Dark Sun back to the time of Kalak's death, because the metaplot changed the setting so much that the original appeal was gone.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung

Pat

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 31, 2021, 08:56:39 AM
So tell me again, what's the canon for Superman?

I tend to doubt it's the vigilante crusader whose powers were just human ability turned up several notches, who stands up for the little guy against corrupt government and corporate figures, is teamed up with Lois Lane who knows his secret (and no red-headed kid sidekick to be found), works for George Taylor at the Daily Star in Depression-era Cleveland and whose greatest enemy is The Ultra-Humanite (who was actually the main character of S&S's original Super-man story).

....

I'll admit though... the original recipe with no executive meddling actually sounds Kickass and if adapted as a period piece would probably be an amazing film.
I've used Superman 1938 or maybe up to the war, fairly frequently in super-hero games. Not with the same name, of course, because I favor original worlds. But the same personality and power set. He's a fun character, plus the power set is strong but not as overwhelming as later Superman became.

strcondex18cha3

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 29, 2021, 08:32:46 PM
I think Krynn is a dumb choice for a center setting. It's a reaction to the tropes of prior settings. Without those prior settings to compare its proposed changes with it goes from seeming different to merely having some quirks. Krynn is there to provide a contrast with the more conventional settings like Greyhawk or Blackmoor or The Forgotten Realms Tolkien pastiche.

1. The gods have been gone or at least under cover and suddenly they are coming back and sweeping away the false religion that more or less banned their worship. The dragons are returning as well as a new invading race of Draconian dragon men.

2. There was a cataclysm, later explained as a punishment from the gods where a meteor or asteroid destroyed the world equivalent of Rome at the height of its power. The cataclysm altered the land scape, brought gold in such high amounts that the metal lost its potential to be used as a currency metal. The gods left mankind to their own devices and in this time the dragons disappeared as well.

3. The gods were somehow formally organized into something like a government where one coming back brought others, their counterparts back as well as if some sort of arms limitation treaty was in effect. When they come back to Krynn directly their constellation reflects that by becoming invisible.

4. The mages being sorted into good, evil, and, neutral schools with some ability to change from one to the other and that have their own governing moon one of which is only visible to its followers is it's own strange thing.

5. Some of the races are altered somewhat. Kender replace halflings being loud, capricious, athletic, and rather child like rather than homesy stable slightly dumpy types.

6. Krynn as an alternate material plane originally, and a different planetary sphere in the void later on(Spelljammer compatibility), takes a figure from the normal setting, Tiamat the Chromatic dragon, and changes the alignment from lawful evil to chaotic evil, changes the domain to the Abyss instead of a layer of Hell, and promotes the new being to major godhood thus opening up a lot of "what if" variations to be explored.  Like maybe they could have a good Asmodeus equivalent or a neutral Demogorgon. Whatevs.

Krynn has it's main value as WEIRDO ALTERNATE D&D to be compared to earlier stuff by the DM and players. Some of the metagaming assumptions born of familiarity will be thrown out or twisted. That is the fun of it. It is not really great unto itself.  It is Mirror Universe/ Sliders D&D where WW2 was started by The Dominican Republic or something odd like that. Without Earth Prime a Sliders universe doesn't mean much. Without the normal TOS Star Trek universe, to be a reaction to,  the Mirror Universe is almost useless. It's just a ship full of rotten dickheads doing awful things.

While most of your points are broadly correct, your assessment couldn't be more wrong.
On a sidenote, every new setting tries to do something fresh and contrasting. The subversive world was Dark Sun, btw, not Dragonlance.

But here's a shocker:

What D&D lacks is a great fantasy world with mass appeal. Let that sink in.
D&D does not have a great "standard fantasy world". Krynn was their best shot, so far.

Nobody aside from hardcore fans associates any elves, dwarves, any characters like powerful mages, any lands or big events with D&D.
Warhammer kept everything super simple, copied our world, crank all tropes about the standard races to ten. After Lord of the Rings they are probably number two along with Warcraft in terms of world branding.

Forgotten Realms was utterly forgetable aside from the a tiny corner starring a certain Dark Elf, who now gets his LGBT covid jab and will be a lackluster cartoon of himself.
Rebooting Krynn might be their best chance at establishing something with mass appeal.

Chris24601

Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on July 31, 2021, 07:20:24 PM
Quote from: palaeomerus on July 29, 2021, 08:32:46 PM
I think Krynn is a dumb choice for a center setting. It's a reaction to the tropes of prior settings. Without those prior settings to compare its proposed changes with it goes from seeming different to merely having some quirks. Krynn is there to provide a contrast with the more conventional settings like Greyhawk or Blackmoor or The Forgotten Realms Tolkien pastiche.

1. The gods have been gone or at least under cover and suddenly they are coming back and sweeping away the false religion that more or less banned their worship. The dragons are returning as well as a new invading race of Draconian dragon men.

2. There was a cataclysm, later explained as a punishment from the gods where a meteor or asteroid destroyed the world equivalent of Rome at the height of its power. The cataclysm altered the land scape, brought gold in such high amounts that the metal lost its potential to be used as a currency metal. The gods left mankind to their own devices and in this time the dragons disappeared as well.

3. The gods were somehow formally organized into something like a government where one coming back brought others, their counterparts back as well as if some sort of arms limitation treaty was in effect. When they come back to Krynn directly their constellation reflects that by becoming invisible.

4. The mages being sorted into good, evil, and, neutral schools with some ability to change from one to the other and that have their own governing moon one of which is only visible to its followers is it's own strange thing.

5. Some of the races are altered somewhat. Kender replace halflings being loud, capricious, athletic, and rather child like rather than homesy stable slightly dumpy types.

6. Krynn as an alternate material plane originally, and a different planetary sphere in the void later on(Spelljammer compatibility), takes a figure from the normal setting, Tiamat the Chromatic dragon, and changes the alignment from lawful evil to chaotic evil, changes the domain to the Abyss instead of a layer of Hell, and promotes the new being to major godhood thus opening up a lot of "what if" variations to be explored.  Like maybe they could have a good Asmodeus equivalent or a neutral Demogorgon. Whatevs.

Krynn has it's main value as WEIRDO ALTERNATE D&D to be compared to earlier stuff by the DM and players. Some of the metagaming assumptions born of familiarity will be thrown out or twisted. That is the fun of it. It is not really great unto itself.  It is Mirror Universe/ Sliders D&D where WW2 was started by The Dominican Republic or something odd like that. Without Earth Prime a Sliders universe doesn't mean much. Without the normal TOS Star Trek universe, to be a reaction to,  the Mirror Universe is almost useless. It's just a ship full of rotten dickheads doing awful things.

While most of your points are broadly correct, your assessment couldn't be more wrong.
On a sidenote, every new setting tries to do something fresh and contrasting. The subversive world was Dark Sun, btw, not Dragonlance.

But here's a shocker:

What D&D lacks is a great fantasy world with mass appeal. Let that sink in.
D&D does not have a great "standard fantasy world". Krynn was their best shot, so far.

Nobody aside from hardcore fans associates any elves, dwarves, any characters like powerful mages, any lands or big events with D&D.
Warhammer kept everything super simple, copied our world, crank all tropes about the standard races to ten. After Lord of the Rings they are probably number two along with Warcraft in terms of world branding.

Forgotten Realms was utterly forgetable aside from the a tiny corner starring a certain Dark Elf, who now gets his LGBT covid jab and will be a lackluster cartoon of himself.
Rebooting Krynn might be their best chance at establishing something with mass appeal.
Frankly, when it comes to Dragonlance, I don't think it needs a reboot so much as a straight reset... i.e. don't change the lore, just redo the DL1-15 modules for 5e complete with the "how to use your own PCs instead of the pre-gens" that every one of those modules included and an overview of Ansalon c. The War of the Lance.

Because frankly, that's precisely how it got played back in the day; the players made their own PCs and ran with it. It's been decades, but as I recall the DM back then even contrived something to swing us back around from the Tanis/Sturm/Laurana group that swung west then north and joined up with the main armies opposed to the Dragon Lords and got us down to Sylvanoth to do the east around to the Bloodsea/Maelstrom and down for the final battle that Caramon, Raistlin and company did in the modules.

In terms of setup it's very 1e WEG Star Wars... where the default campaign was that you're playing the heroic Rebellion on the run from and trying to overthrow the evil Empire.

And I think 5e's bounded accuracy actually works really well in that sort of setup too since sufficient numbers of mooks can still be a threat to PCs you don't need to continually introduce newer tougher monster troops to keep the PCs from just liberating cities left and right the way high level 3e-4E PCs could because they could wipe out whole legions of 1-2HD critters without serious risk to themselves.

You're basically Robin Hood types but with higher magic and fantastic monsters to fight.

Jaeger

Quote from: FingerRod on July 31, 2021, 03:05:02 PM
...
What I reject is WOTC going Disney's Star Wars on the past, and simply erasing it... ...they are going to erase what was there and tell the fans to accept the new or move along.

This!!!!

Box crayons: "But ,but, but look at all the reboots in x,y, and z!.." Misses the point.

This is the point:

Quote from: FingerRod on July 31, 2021, 03:05:02 PM
... They lack the talent to do a remaster and go toe to toe with prior settings/versions.     It won't stand up. And they know it...

Everything WOTC has touched recently has proven that they are not up to the creative standards of the people who originally developed the classic properties they are "re-imagining" and bringing "inline with modern sensibilities."

The whole point of rebooting a creative IP is because somewhere along the line it had lost its way and gotten played out. The re-boots that work do so because they respect the original source material and stay true to the original creative intent and spirit behind it. Something the SJW's are incapable of doing.

i.e. Ravenloft. They only know that it was popular. So they did a reboot. They did not, and are incapable of understanding why it was popular; which is why the WOTC NuRavenloft Fucking Sucks...




Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on July 31, 2021, 07:20:24 PM
...
But here's a shocker:

What D&D lacks is a great fantasy world with mass appeal. Let that sink in.
D&D does not have a great "standard fantasy world". Krynn was their best shot, so far.

Nobody aside from hardcore fans associates any elves, dwarves, any characters like powerful mages, any lands or big events with D&D.
Warhammer kept everything super simple, copied our world, crank all tropes about the standard races to ten. After Lord of the Rings they are probably number two along with Warcraft in terms of world branding.

Forgotten Realms was utterly forgetable aside from the a tiny corner starring a certain Dark Elf, who now gets his LGBT covid jab and will be a lackluster cartoon of himself.

Rebooting Krynn might be their best chance at establishing something with mass appeal.


This guy gets it.

FR was designed by a hippie with little understanding of how or why myth, and culture were actually important. Lets be honest; most of the "worldbuilding" that people actually like like about the FR was done by the authors of the FR books who went in and wrote their own stories on top of Greenwoods bland pastiche of other pastiches.

The DragonLance Trilogy is no Lord of the Rings. That's for Damn sure. But unlike Greenwood's Forgotten Realms, when it came to fantasy worldbuilding, Krynn was created by people who at least had a clue.

The 'Realms has been so badly curated as a setting over the years that it is nigh impossible to unwind without a complete and total nuke it from orbit and remake from the ground up. More spell plagues just ain't gonna cut it anymore. And they know it.

Krynn gives them a shot at a more 'clean-sheet' reboot that won't ruffle any of the new fans feathers, as the IP has been relatively dormant for so long.

Either way they are demonstrating a singular lack of faith in their own "creative abilities" and confidence to create a new and evocative setting that will draw people in. Probably because deep down they know that they are not as good as the old TSR crew that came before them...



Quote from: Chris24601 on July 31, 2021, 07:48:32 PM
...
Frankly, when it comes to Dragonlance, I don't think it needs a reboot so much as a straight reset... i.e. don't change the lore, just redo the DL1-15 modules for 5e complete with the "how to use your own PCs instead of the pre-gens" that every one of those modules included and an overview of Ansalon c. The War of the Lance.
...

As NuRavenloft has shown, WOTC is utterly incapable of doing anything straight...
"The envious are not satisfied with equality; they secretly yearn for superiority and revenge."

Shasarak

Quote from: Jaeger on July 31, 2021, 09:07:32 PM
Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on July 31, 2021, 07:20:24 PM
...
But here's a shocker:

What D&D lacks is a great fantasy world with mass appeal. Let that sink in.
D&D does not have a great "standard fantasy world". Krynn was their best shot, so far.

Nobody aside from hardcore fans associates any elves, dwarves, any characters like powerful mages, any lands or big events with D&D.
Warhammer kept everything super simple, copied our world, crank all tropes about the standard races to ten. After Lord of the Rings they are probably number two along with Warcraft in terms of world branding.

Forgotten Realms was utterly forgetable aside from the a tiny corner starring a certain Dark Elf, who now gets his LGBT covid jab and will be a lackluster cartoon of himself.

Rebooting Krynn might be their best chance at establishing something with mass appeal.


This guy gets it.

FR was designed by a hippie with little understanding of how or why myth, and culture were actually important. Lets be honest; most of the "worldbuilding" that people actually like like about the FR was done by the authors of the FR books who went in and wrote their own stories on top of Greenwoods bland pastiche of other pastiches.

The DragonLance Trilogy is no Lord of the Rings. That's for Damn sure. But unlike Greenwood's Forgotten Realms, when it came to fantasy worldbuilding, Krynn was created by people who at least had a clue.

The 'Realms has been so badly curated as a setting over the years that it is nigh impossible to unwind without a complete and total nuke it from orbit and remake from the ground up. More spell plagues just ain't gonna cut it anymore. And they know it.

Krynn gives them a shot at a more 'clean-sheet' reboot that won't ruffle any of the new fans feathers, as the IP has been relatively dormant for so long.

You guys are rating Warhammer, Warcraft and Krynn above Forgotten Realms for branding and mass appeal?

And Hickman and Weiss above Greenwood for fantasy worldbuilding?

OK, I'd at least like to look at your evidence for that.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

FingerRod

#40
Quote from: Jaeger on July 31, 2021, 09:07:32 PM
The whole point of rebooting a creative IP is because somewhere along the line it had lost its way and gotten played out. The re-boots that work do so because they respect the original source material and stay true to the original creative intent and spirit behind it.

100% and when it is done for these reasons, it can work.

palaeomerus

Quote from: strcondex18cha3 on July 31, 2021, 07:20:24 PM

While most of your points are broadly correct, your assessment couldn't be more wrong.
On a sidenote, every new setting tries to do something fresh and contrasting. The subversive world was Dark Sun, btw, not Dragonlance.


Dark Suns came out about seven years after DragonLance so it really has no useful place in a discussion about how Krynn was envisioned as a reference to earlier D&D backgrounds encouraging the "what's different" game. Also there isn't much Krynn does that means anything without a conventional realm to rest on as a contrast.  Krynn is suitable to be a fruit on a branch but isn't seminal, and can't play the role of a root or standard. It needs a root to be meaningful.

Emery

strcondex18cha3

What I'm going to explain is by no means controversial. This should be somewhat common knowledge.

In order to properly build a franchise, the best practise is to create a big, world saving plot with lots of likable/well dislikable characters that drag you around colourful corners as they experience their coming of age/heroe's journey. You don't just "build" a realistic globe and go from there even though that seems like the logical method.

Greyhawk lacks everything in every department, badly. It's an utter fail from a franchise perspective.
Nobody knows who all these characters are, half of which derived from Gygax private groups, complete with silly, George Lucas-tier names.

Dragonlance novels were bestsellers. It was D&D's literary breakout. The writer duo managed to come up with truly iconic characters.
Salvatore managed that, too, but here's the twist: They all like the dark elf, the rest is unimportant. Neither are most plots epic, nor are the places magical, special or worth remembering. Forgotten Realms choked under its own obese worldbuilding.

Dragonlance on the other hand has at its core a pretty clever mythological trope variation which the idiots at TSR/WotC often didn't even bother to see through. This alone is practically enough.
The world has the right size as the heroes travel through most corners (of Ansalon).
Kenders almost broke into mainstream. The FR Dark Elves were a fresh take on matriarchy, a USP which the faggots now wanna squash!

Dark Sun tried hard but the novels were just ok.

Krynn has absolutely enough potential to make D&D hyoooge.
If the upper management/marketing had any sense, they would have specifically advised Weiss & Hickman to make the reboot TV compatible and bank on a netflix deal or something like that. The old trilogy would need some work in that regard. The christian angle has to go along with redundant shit like Fizban and the deus ex angle. Sex has to be cranked up etc. But it's very doable.

palaeomerus

Then it was a "see what's different" and now it's nostalgia at best. Rose tinted nostalgia. With a pile of sequels that fit less and less with the original trilogy. Oh and some side stories about Huma and Soth and stuff.
Emery

strcondex18cha3

Krynn is absolutely not "very different". I don't get how you would insist on it. It's fairly standard, which in terms of marketability is a good thing.

Piles of sequels are made possible through milking a decent franchise. Lord Soth was iconic btw. As was Raistlin (and in extension, Caramon). And Tasslehoff.
Even Tanis and Sturm had far more potential which the more experienced W&H duo will probably make good use of.

I've outgrown the original trilogy so that a reread is out of the question. So how would I even be nostalgic? My post outlines a plethora of arguments which you can try to debunk. Just repeating what you already said won't do the trick.