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D&D 5E Enough about Darksun, is there anything preventing a 5.5E Birthright remake?

Steampunkette

Rules Tinkerer and Freelance Writer
Supporter
Going to have to disagree.

I can't think of any other campaign setting where level 1 you start as ruling a kingdom. I mean you could do that in any campaign setting, but none of the rules or structure of the settings really support that. Cerilia is fractured into lots of small nations making politics an essential part of the setting much more so than any other settings you mention. The domain system is set up to support ruling a kingdom unlike every other setting. But not only are the countries fractured but the religions are as well, so you have multiple religions that worship the same god, but don't get along, adding a whole other level to the politics.
The setting doesn't have to "Support" that. That's what Roleplaying is for. Roll yourself up a level 1 Noble Fighter and call yourself a Princess. It works just fine.

And politics, -again-, don't require a specific setting-based mechanic. Just decide which gods don't like each other on Faerun and it's all sorted out.
Then you have unique a halfling race that can step into the Shadow World, elves that hate humans with a passion, the whole bloodline mechanic, and blood theft. Also you have the issue with magic being attached to the natural state of the land, so the more developed a region is the less magical it is, the Battle Magic mechanics. The fact that the key monsters are unique, you don't have a load of Gorgons, you have The Gorgon.

There are loads of things special about it.
Don't elves -always- hate humans in any setting? Even when they "Like" them, they're still aloof and look down on humans...

As far as Bloodlines and Blood Theft and the like WotC could probably drop a background and feat-line which does the same thing. And having unique monsters in a game is just saying "There's only one (of this specific kind of monster) in the world" which takes 7 whole words. Eight if the monster is a portmanteau.
Best of all NO GNOMES, that alone is a huge selling point.
I mean, honestly, couldn't you just remo-


Birthright for 5e if you're not cowards, WotC!!!
 

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Bagpuss

Legend
The setting doesn't have to "Support" that. That's what Roleplaying is for. Roll yourself up a level 1 Noble Fighter and call yourself a Princess. It works just fine.

And politics, -again-, don't require a specific setting-based mechanic. Just decide which gods don't like each other on Faerun and it's all sorted out.

No but it helps if the setting does support that. Just look at this map of Faerun see how most of the nations are separated by large areas of wilderness between their borders. Generally they only border with a couple of nations. You might call yourself a Princess as a 1st level noble fighter in Faerun, but does the setting support you with who your Seneschal is, what armies you command, what the taxes bring in and what it cost to run your court each month? Does it give you reasons to seek alliances, or other nobles approaching your court for aid? (Seems like the DM has a lot of work to support all that in other settings)

Compare that with the region of Anuire (a small part of Cerilia). Many of the nations there were all part of the Anuirian Empire, but now are all rival duchies wanting to be the next emperor. Here most nations have at least four or more neighbours all right on their border.

Take Roesone (a suggested player kingdom), for example, it is bordered by the hostile expansionist duchy of Ghoere to the north, but has The Spiderfell to the west, ruled by monstrous "Spider", two possible allies in Ilien and Medoere, and the elven nation of Aerenwe to the east. They are forced by location to make friends and deal with enemies. Then the barony has its own internal issues, while the state religion of Roesone is the worship of Haelyn, Impregnable Heart of Haelyn and the Orthodox Imperial Temple both look to become the dominant church. The setting tells you what troops you can field, what allies might be able to help you, what enemies might throw at your little barony.

Don't elves -always- hate humans in any setting? Even when they "Like" them, they're still aloof and look down on humans...

By hate I mean they occasionally form Wild Hunts to seek out and kill every human they come across (non-combatants women and children alike), level of hate. Slightly different.

As far as Bloodlines and Blood Theft and the like WotC could probably drop a background and feat-line which does the same thing.

Some sort of feat system would probably be a good way to mimic a lot of the bloodline abilities. Think that was how a 3rd Ed fan edition was done.

And having unique monsters in a game is just saying "There's only one (of this specific kind of monster) in the world" which takes 7 whole words. Eight if the monster is a portmanteau.

But they don't generally.
 
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Best of all NO GNOMES, that alone is a huge selling point.
Polish_20230303_082807038.jpg
I'm a monster, RAWR!

I always figured the reason they weren't presented as a PC option is because they had no blooded scions, since they were smart enough not to be standing in the middle of a battlefield during a gods' war.
 


Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
Fixed it for you.

Mod Note:
It is fine to disagree with folks, but could you please not use the "fixed it for you" mode of doing so? You can suggest they got it wrong without editing their words. It turns out people really don't like it when you change the words that came out of their mouths (or in this case, probably fingers). You get the idea.
 

Atomoctba

Adventurer
I think one thing preventing Birthright (setting I absolutely love) is the tone down to "everything in D&D to every setting". Birthright is very restrict in creatures, monsters, items, etc. I think that even the monk class does not work very well with the setting, not because the powers, but because the fluff.

Birthright has more medieval feeling than Renascence and does not work very well with magical items being "technology". And all the planes are just the Prime Material and the Shadow World. No Hell, no Abyss, no Upper Planes, etc. Shadow is the Ethereal and the Feywild mixed in one thing... that works! (incidental lore: the idea of Realms' Shadow Weave was initially an idea for spells from the Shadow World of Birthright, but never implemented on that setting).

And what about elves (oops, sidhelien, sorry) that cannot really die from old age and halflings that get this name because are half in this world and half in Shadow (with a sort of shadow walk as racial power)?
 

Bagpuss

Legend
Yeah, generally the assumed campaign is that everyone is human, and normally from the same culture as well. Which probably doesn't play as well with all the weird "unique" characters you have in the current meta.
 

JAMUMU

actually dracula
Birthright/Cerillia is my all-time favourite D&D setting. Here are the cool things I like about it and then some problems I think a reboot would face.

The more realistic/pretty overwhelming number of small states and petty territories all fitting together like a crazy jigsaw is a big change from the usual Points of Light With Blank Spaces set-up of other settings. It's all been explored, there is no unknown "wilderness frontier" for the players to rattle around in. The wilderness is already occupied. If you want it, then tell the DM that's where you want to have your territory.

And starting as a first level ruler of a domain does hit different. As well as their special extra different cool powers they get from their Special Blood(tm), many characters will start with a retinue, the sort of retinue an old school character wouldn't get until 9th level. So before you even start managing your realm, there's the matter of your bodyguard/household to take care of.

Then you have to actually run your realm. You can micro-manage it, split the responsibilities between the party (assuming you don't all want to start with your own petty nation), or find and hire advisors to make the job easier. But at the end of the day the meat of the game isn't kicking in doors and poking about adventuring. It's running your realm and politicking with other rulers, with an (admittedly big) side-order of undertaking missions to benefit and support your realm(s). And gold (measured in bars, not coins) is every bit as important as steel. Though the ever-churning events that you can't control and are always happening make strategising harder. Black Swan events? Birthright's got em all over, all the time!

The non-human species are tight! The elves are like the sidhe of the old tales, resent humans for their expansionism, and are not afraid of casually murdering them. Like how in some of the old stories, if you saw an elf you died. Or went blind, or whatever twist on the "don't go near the elves" moral the story had. Also the extradimensional-refugee creepy halflings are pretty much the only published halflings I like, apart from the old Mystara stuff. The existential threat from another dimension that ties in with them is also cool. Oh and the goblins are cool too! And the guys that fill in for the orcs are suitably scary.

Magic is special! By the time Birthright came out and especially by the time I got around to running it, I was soooo bored with D&D style magic. Wizard players have to worry about finding and accessing nodes to power their magic. And then worry about defending it from the couple of handfuls of other wizards in the setting.

The monstrous ruler guys are lit! And it's unlikely you'll be able to avoid dealing with at least some of them, and trying to fight all of them is a recipe for disaster.

So the problems? There are a few things that might rub some people's modern sensibilities the wrong way. There are so many moving pieces that running it can drive a well-prepared, skilled DM to absolute meltdown after a while, especially once the politicking starts spiralling out from the PCs. The players only really need to worry about their own realms (which is enough!) but the DM has to think about all the realms the PCs interact with, and then the realms that those realms interact with and so on and without discipline and focus it can get totally overwhelming.

Which brings me to my last problem, which is that a lot of the systems for realm management, especially the mass combat rules (which used sort of a card-based mini-miniatures system), are very much products of their time. Whole swathes of the rules that make Birthright different from every other D&D setting would need to be modernised, and likely written from scratch.

But man, Birthright is the best.
 

Atomoctba

Adventurer
And the guys that fill in for the orcs are suitably scary.
Orogs. That subterranean nasty people.

The monstrous ruler guys are lit! And it's unlikely you'll be able to avoid dealing with at least some of them, and trying to fight all of them is a recipe for disaster.
You do not want the Gorgon against you... And no, it is not a matter of I will kick his ass in a normal D&D style adventure. He will mess with you with just politics much earlier you can reach his door. And even if you reach, well, in 5e terms, he would have a very, very high CR.

EDIT: Just correcting bad grammar.
 

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