The New D&D Adventure Storyline Will Be Announced On June 2nd-3rd

Warmaster Horus said:

I suppose these big web media events are necessary these days, akin to React youtubes and SDCC panels wherein they present a product but it's 90% hype and 10% content.

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I don't think they're really meant for us - the Hollywood types serve to attract the attention of the wider market who otherwise might be completely unaware of D&D as anything other than a couple of funny words.

A fun post regarding an upcoming announcements and the thread again is just off-putting bitterns and desire for control. Tsk.

With that said, according to the more constructive posts, it might be liches and the undead, which would fit with their concept of assigning a campaign to each archetypal D&D foe. Can't wait for the art!

Morrus said:

I don't think they're really meant for us - the Hollywood types serve to attract the attention of the wider market who otherwise might be completely unaware of D&D as anything other than a couple of funny words.

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Agreed. I'll check it out but recognize ahead of time that it's a teaser meant for general audiences using cultural honeypots to draw in viewers.

Mercule said:

Put another way, I'd like WotC to pick a side of the fence. Either go ahead and officially state that D&D and the Realms are pretty much synonymous or give us something else. If they're married, I'll pick another rules system (or, at least, stop waiting for future content) and move on with life. If something else is released, I'll happily throw money at it.

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How have they not already made that very, very clear.

The Realms is the setting they are making the "default" for 5E. Every release shows this. There's token efforts to support other settings with the material that comes out -- planar rules in the DMG as well as some options that clearly speak to older settings like Oriental Adventures, some text in several of the adventures that suggests ideas for porting them to other settings -- but they are by far and away all FR at their core.

If that's all you need to move on, I think you've got it, unfortunately for Wizards. But you must note from the release of Curse of Strahd that they are open to other settings eventually, if doing so appears to be either (1) a wise and obvious business decision or (2) a worthwhile experiment once they are good well and ready to try a little market experimentation. Never before that. If what you're looking for is them to say, "No other settings, ever!" you'll never get that. If you're looking for, "We will start supporting some/most/all other settings in the near future!" you'll never get that.

So what is it you want?

You know, I was thinking for a way to have a multi setting adventure and came up with a few ideas. First, Why a multi setting adventure you might ask ? Well it would be a way to introduce to new players other settings than FR (which I love, btw, even if it is not my personnal favorite.) and so, with the feedback gauge for an interest in putting efforts toward publishing something else. For the ideas themeselves, they are a bit vague and obviously need working.

Idea 1: A big nasty evil wants to conquer/erase/assimilate multiple realities because he is, well a big nasty evil. (I know not really original, but could work). An alliance of sorts is coming into place to defend against him/it with a summit in Sigil, the city of Doors, the only place existing simultaneously in all realities. Players could be the one who found out about big nasty, being they were at the right place at the right time... and be instrumental to its final dedeat. You could have people coming from greyhawk, forgotten realms, mystara, ravenloft, planescape, dark sun, dragonlance, etc etc. You could also replace the big nasy with a collection of lesser nasties from those different settings..

Idea 2: A "cosmic" scavenger hunt, as the ultimate adventurer test, in multiple vistae, and with contestants from all universes... (think of a d&d equivalent to the "choose your path book the Contest of champions".

Idea 3: a combination of the first two, the big nasty would be behind the contest and wants to build a big "end of the world" weapon but with parts coming from all the universes.

As you see, it would be possible to at least acknowledge the existence of more settings than just the forgotten realms.

If well done, such a storyline, I would buy, and DM.

Mercule said:

So, complete disclosure: I want something other than FR published so that the "FR is the setting supported because it's the only setting people buy" thing doesn't become (any more of) a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Kinda…
The Realms was easily the most popular setting in 2e, when it had lots of competition. And it retained that popularity through 3e even though Greyhawk was the default.
It makes sense to just focus on the most popular of WotC's IP and use that as the baseline.


But in polls of favourites, old settings that haven't seen print in a decade or more still hold their own. The continued publication of the Realms doesn't seem to make fans of old settings lose their love for those worlds.

Mercule said:

If no other setting gets shelf space, there never will be brand new players clamoring for anything besides the Realms.

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Well, yeah. They'll never clamour for anything because they don't really know what they're missing.
Your statement is odd. It's suggesting releasing a product not because there's demand, but to create demand. That's rather backward.


Really, those new players won't clamor: they'll just make their own worlds. Which isn't a bad thing. (And even if WotC puts out Dragonlance or Birthright, the new players are unlikely to actually clamor for it…)


Alternatively… they'll buy those third party worlds. Midgard from Kobold Press or Exandria from Green Ronin/ Critical Role. Or adaptations of literary worlds, like Westeros.
Really, waves of new players coming into the game will care far, far more about the last two than anything WotC could put out.
I'm not sure why the burden of providing alternative settings rests on the shoulders of WotC.

Mercule said:

For that matter, there aren't any brand new players calling for Forgotten Realms, either. By that logic, WotC shouldn't have released SCAG, nor should they be using the Realms for adventures.

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WotC is using the Realms because that world is the least unpopular of their settings. It's easier than having blanks for names or having Perkins create place names/ a setting as he went along. To say nothing of Kobold Press, Green Ronin, and Sasquatch Games, who had to make adventures but be consistent with the lore/ world.
(Plus, making things up would just result in a Nerath/Nentir Vale situation where they end up creating another world.)


The Realms is a placeholder for your own setting. It's there because it's easier than a blank map.

Mercule said:

The whole "your old books still work" argument is a farce. The same is true of the Realms. There's no need to release any new Realms content.

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I agree. The 1e/3e books work just fine. We don't need a new Realms book.


However, there is a *slightly* better reason for the Realms to have a campaign setting: the world has changed following the Sundering. Which can't be said about other worlds, which have not changed since their last publication.
But, generally, the old material works just fine.

Mercule said:

There's no need to bake it into every single adventure. In 3E, Greyhawk was officially the default setting. I just looked at the 3E AP (_Standing Stone_, specifically) and there's almost no Greyhawk content in it. No mention of any "Factions" in the story hooks. Minimal placement in the setting. You could run it anywhere. Why do the 5E adventures have more setting-specific info? I'm not saying that no adventures should be setting-specific. Just that things like putting Five Factions hooks into _Curse of Strahd_ sucks.

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It's easy for a small 32-page site based adventure. But it gets much harder for a larger adventure that runs from 1 to 10+. There just needs to be a larger area. Once you add a story, you need more setting and lore and can't just have a series of rando dungeons.


They could just tell DMs to makeup the world as needed and provide some generic maps, but that's making far more work for the DM. Which is the exact opposite reason of why you run a published adventure, i.e. not wanting to make up content.


Plus, they wanted to connect the adventure storylines to the video game and novels, which are also set in the Realms.

Mercule said:

Putting _Princes of the Apocalypse_ in the Realms was pointless, other than to promote the Realms. Yes, Tharzidun can attack multiple prime worlds, but he wasn't included. It was just another uprising of the same old cults that would have been at least as well served by putting it in the original setting.

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Pointless other than allowing Neverwinter to have an Elemental Evil connection and allowing Adventurer's League characters to deal with cultists without changing Realms or expecting new players to learn an entirely new world.
It's not like it took much work to move it into Greyhawk. There was even conversion advice at the back.


Personally, I don't understand why the elemental princes would be limited to one setting when they're extraplanar beings.
That feels like getting upset the demon lords, like Orcus and Demogorgon, appeared in the Realms instead of being limited to Greyhawk. And yet people seem fine with Out of the Abyss.

Mercule said:

FR isn't "first among equals" or the only setting being published because it's being requested. FR is being confused with "the D&D brand" and it's being done intentionally because WotC is aggressively trying to expand beyond the table top and they see the Realms as being the most marketable setting. Personally, I think that's not the best move and it weakens the other D&D-related IP (Eberron, Ravenloft, Krynn, etc.).

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D&D has always been a game where you make your own setting. First and foremost.
The Realms isn't "the first among equals" because things aren't equal. Homebrew dominates play.


The Realms works because it's generic, but also the more familiar high fantasy, versus the less common swords & sorcery of Greyhawk.


I don't see how it weakens the other IP. Those books aren't going away.
Really, the only thing that can weaken the IP is a bad update. Like doing something for Ravenloft that removes the entire setting beyond Barovia, explains what the Dark Powers are, messes with the timeline, and portrays its most iconic hero as a sociopath and the wrong class.

Mercule said:

Go ahead and put out a Forgotten Realms movie. Just don't call it a D&D movie (at least not in gigantic print) because that kind of closes off the option for an Eberron (for example) movie, later, because folks will be wondering where Drizzt is and why the heroes are riding on a train.

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Yeah… that's totally not a problem I'm concerned with. Because that *highly* unlikely situation not only requires a successful D&D movie, but one successful enough that they have not only made sequels, but make enough sequels that they want to branch off into another world.


We should be so lucky…


Using the Realms in a D&D movie makes sense because it is generic. That way, the two or three people who watch the movie and decide to play the game will find the adventures and games they find representative of the experience on the screen. Seeing an Eberron movie and only finding Realms tables will put people off.
Plus, multiple worlds in one brand is kinda confusing. It's tricky enough for people to grasp the difference between Marvel and DC heroes at times, and those are owned by different companies. Different D&D worlds that have no overlap but are still D&D is risking needless confusion.


That said, having Realms focused movies in no way precludes an Eberron movie eventually. Not anymore than Marvel doing Avengers movies prevented Guardians of the Galaxy.
After ten movies in the Realms, they could easily do one in Eberron, because they could have established multiple worlds and laid the groundwork for a less traditional fantasy world.

Mercule said:

Really, what I'd hoped for, when they said they weren't going to do any setting books (including the Realms, initially) was that they might rotate through several of the settings for the AL seasons. So, Tyranny of Dragons is a double-length season and showcases the Realms. Then do PotA in Greyhawk. Return to the Realms with OotA. Do Ravenloft with CoS. Back to the Realms with SKT. Move on to an Eberron book. Etc. I'd even cycle through at least some of the Realms adventures (ToD was just bad, regardless of setting), and would be super excited both to have quality adventures for settings I love (Eberron, Greyhawk, Ravenloft) and well as take guided tours of those I never got around to using much (Dark Sun, Planescape).

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That just seems needlessly confusing. Especially for AL as games often bounce around seasons depending on who has played what and the level range of the tables.
What you describe would very quickly descend into playing in Greyhawk and then the Realms the next session then off to Ravenloft and back into the Realms.
Conventions would have more planes hopping than Magic the Gathering...


I also don't see why they need to rush, why they need to reintroduce a new campaign setting every year. There's no deadline. The faster they do that, they faster they burn through the A-settings and are left having to do a Red Steel storyline.
Plus, it also means less adventure. Having to explain the world at the same time you're explaining the adventure means less adventure. They don't need to "explain" the Realms or include a minimum level of new crunch to make the setting playable.


I wouldn't mind them opening up one setting each year on the DMsGuild. And I'm surprised they haven't done that yet. That's really all they need to do. We don't need an Eberron hardcover, we just need a few PDFs of Eberron races and rules.

To acknowledge my bias-- I no longer use the FR campaign setting much. I'd probably be happier if Greyhawk or Mystara were the main settings.

At any rate, it seems a little premature to assume this next storyline will exclude other settings. It might. But I don't think we have enough info to go that far.

Will it get a strong FR tie in? I think that's a given. FR is a default setting, as far as products. And I can see why. As they, hopefully, bring in new players, it makes sense that those players are given a familiar world as a touch point. Presumably FR was chosen due to its over all popularity. Given that, every adventure should have an easy tie in to FR. Furthermore, all else being equal, they might as well set adventures in FR and let others adapt it to other settings (which has been easy for me, anyway, so far). An example of 'all else not being equal' is Curse of Strahd, where there were compelling reasons to make Ravenloft a separate and isolated place.

But all that said, I-- perhaps being an optimist-- think that WotC haven't given up on using their other properties more substantially. Mearls has made vague comments several times indicating that they know there are people who love other settings and that they want to find a sensible and creative way to support that. In some recent interview, he mentioned he came close to putting Greyhawk on the schedule, not because it made sense, but because he loves Greyhawk and wants it out there. But he didn't because he had to concede it needed to fit into their overall strategy. He didn't go any further than that. But I, the optimist, think that the unspoken context there might be that they instead have been working on finding a cool way to support multiple settings. And since I've been pleasantly surprised several times by WotC during the 5e run, I'm hopeful that they've come up with something that will work.

Is it this next storyline? I hope so. Mearls has mentioned that his favorite storyline hasn't been announced yet. He seems excited, which makes me think it's happening soon. He likes Greyhawk which makes me hope they've found a way to bring out their other worlds.

Will it be full support like FR? Almost certainly not. Will we all be happy with how much support? No way. But let's just see what they come up with.

Cheers,
AD

I guarantee we'll see other settings supported, more and more, just as soon as sales start to slog noticeably.

I don't believe they are seeing any sort of slog yet, but that's just my opinion based on what (little?) we know of the market, currently.

Also, has anyone seen how many Kickstarters and DriveThru/RPGNow campaign settings there are that are either setting agnostic or are specifically 5e-compatible via the SRD? I've certainly lost count. (I'm also an English major, though, so counting is not my specialty.)

TarionzCousin said:

As long as it has a drunk human NPC pugilist named "Chokehold Chuck" it can't possibly fail.

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The Mulmaster Sea-Snake!

MNblockhead said:

SPOILERS!!!!

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I want to be spoiled!