D&D 5E Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks Would Like To Explore Kara-Tur

According to Reddit poster bwrusso, who was in a small group investor meeting with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks last week, Hasbro's CEO (who was previously President of Wizards of the Coast before being promoted to his current position) currently plays in a Kara-Tur campaign and would personally like to see that setting explored further.

Kara-Tur is part of the Forgotten Realms, and is inspired by real-world East and Southeast Asia cultures, including China, Japan, Mongolia, and other regions. It was originally published in the 1985 book Oriental Adventures, and has since appeared in other formats including a boxed set in 1988. Eight adventure modules for the setting were published in the late 80s. In 2015's Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Kara-Tur is briefly described.

Cocks also touched on Spanish-language translations of D&D books in Latin America, and indicated that there were distribution issues with former licensing agreements in that region.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

When we are talking about firearms you are imagining only PCs are the gunfighters, but you forget when the PCs are from a land with a lower level of technology. If there are firearms a lot of classes and subclasses focused into melee combat would be rejected, for example the barbarian and the monk.

And players would creating low-level magic to sabotage firearms, for example illusory magic for smoke curtains, or little pieces of ectoplasm to block canons or to wet gunpowder, summoning swarm monsters..

* WotC could publish in D&D Beyond a little group of pages with a list of nations and organitations from Kara-Tur.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

It's not as if rain is great for conventional bows (crossbows, since they sometimes had a steel "string", are a different matter). And it's also an exaggeration to say black powder weapons "don't work in the rain", even matchlocks are usable although you'll get more misfires.

From a military point of view, there's plenty of advantages to firearms over bows/crossbows. But they're mostly things that don't matter (or at least aren't considered) in D&D. Logistics, effectiveness late in a campaign when half the archers are too sick or starved to pull their bows properly, simpler training - none of that matters to an individual adventurer, but does when an army is being outfitted.

There's old Chinese paintings that show soldiers using in an army using Bows, Crossbows and Muskets. It's might be very D&D now with Muskets being in the PHB, with armies being armed liked that.

 

[Chaltab]

Before semi-automatic weapons were a thing, bows still had certain advantages over guns--more reliable, better rate of fire. Unless everybody with a gun also has a feat that lets them ignore the loading property, there's still plenty of reason to use other weapons. Even melee combat still has a place since it's very hard to reload when someone is swinging a glaive at your face.

 

[CleverNickName]

From a military point of view, there's plenty of advantages to firearms over bows/crossbows. But they're mostly things that don't matter (or at least aren't considered) in D&D.

Yeah, I agree. Most of the advantages people think of when they imagine firearms aren't that big (usually just +damage), and the disadvantages are even worse (cost, reload time, weight, reload time, misfire chances, did I mention reload time?)

I should point out that "reskinning crossbows" wasn't my idea. It actually came from my players. Apologies in advance for the long, boring backstory...

I'm running a swashbuckling campaign with renaissance technology...so we're all about flintlocks and cannons over here. At Session Zero, when I was introducing the campaign setting, the players asked about firearms--specifically flintlocks. I said yes, of course, and their response was lukewarm. Groans and eyerolls mostly. Firearms in many splatbooks and campaign books just don't work with the way D&D combat is set up and the assumptions the game makes. They are either unrealistic (I can reload a black powder weapon in six seconds!?) or impractical (I have to spend ten actions before I can shoot again?!)

I understand the temptation to inflate the stats of firearms (damage especially). Here in the 21st Century, we imagine firearms to be the best weapon possible, and so we are tempted to mirror that assumption into the game regardless of the setting's technology. But this is a game, and that inflation has to be balanced with drawbacks, and that's counter-intuitive to our modern sensibilities of "guns are the best." Unless the damage was increased to absurd levels, the crossbow was still the superior choice because it didn't have to deal with inflated cost, increased weight, a Misfire causing it to break at random, etc.

So instead of firearms, my players wanted to know how to make crossbows deal the same damage as the firearms. (Ha ha ha nope, I said.) And crossbows have thematic problems in the setting...the the idea of pirates using bows and crossbows just seemed silly, because that's not what a pirate looks like in Treasure Island or The Pirates of the Caribbean. Can you imagine Errol Flynn with a crossbow? Because we couldn't.

"So you want a crossbow that doesn't look like a crossbow?" I asked.
"I mean...kinda, yeah," said one of my players. "Can't we just use a crossbow and call it a pistol?"
"Done," I said. "That was easy."

So in my campaign right now, "rifles" are heavy crossbows that go BANG. "Pistols" are light crossbows that go BANG. "Pepperboxes" are repeating crossbows that go BANG BANG BANG, a cannon is a ballista that goes BOOM, you get the idea. No new stats, no new mechanics, just one sentence added to the description: "When fired, this weapon creates an audible bang that can be heard up to a quarter-mile away."

I mean, we were already going to be handwaving stuff anyway; we might as well handwave everything.

 

[Scribe]

"So you want a crossbow that doesn't look like a crossbow?" I asked.
"I mean...kinda, yeah," said one of my players. "Can't we just use a crossbow and call it a pistol?"
"Done," I said. "That was easy."

So in my campaign right now, "rifles" are heavy crossbows that go BANG. "Pistols" are light crossbows that go BANG. "Pepperboxes" are repeating crossbows that go BANG BANG BANG, a cannon is a ballista that goes BOOM, you get the idea. No new stats, no new mechanics, just one sentence added to the description: "When fired, this weapon creates an audible bang that can be heard up to a quarter-mile away."

I mean, we were already going to be handwaving stuff anyway; we might as well handwave everything.

This is the way.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

I think ultramodern 5 had the right idea.

Guns are okayish, but you get most of your abilities that make them terrifying can from your class, so the level gauge stays intact

That was the intent, which can prove frustrating when people just glance at the weapons tables and automatically judge the system as underpowered without looking at the whole package. It follows the philosophy of 5E where the class carries the power more than the weapon.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have read the movie of the Simpsons was banned in Birmania because.. Lisa and Bart ad yellow and red, like the colors of the flag by a rebel group.

Firearms are possible in D&D but there is a serious risk when these appear then players stop to choose the classes focused to hand-to-hand combat: barbarians and monks, for example.

And enemies with firearms should be a different XP reward/challengue rating.

* Could magitek motors to be used to reload crossbows?

* And what about paper armours used in the ancient China? In Kara-tur the alchemy could help to create true miracles.