D&D 5E Campaign settings in 5e

[pkt77242]

The player stuff is all we need.
There are a half-dozen Greyhawk products available here:
DnDClassics
Most major Greyhawk fans already have all the setting books they need. More are superfluous and would just cause debates from people who liked the setting before the Greyhawk Wars, those who liked the changes, the people who liked the lore changes for Living Greyhawk, and the people who hated LG.

All fans need is the unique setting crunch. Full setting books only accommodate new players, and those will likely find the Realms useful enough.
If WotC starts promising new settings people will hold off getting FR books to instead wait to see if their setting gets some love. And that's bad for sales.

While I agree that "could" be bad for sales, I think that your idea of putting the info in a digital magazine would be rather bad for profits, as it would only get them a minimal amount of money (say $5-10) when instead they could sell a campaign setting for $20-30, while they wouldn't sell as many due to the cost they would most likely make more money especially if they went with PDF's for the less popular campaign settings.

 

[Mercurius]

The problem with that is you're assuming will already have access to those old settings book Whilst this is kind of true with dndclassics, some people want dead tree format and some people would also like a setting to be brought up to date in presentation as well as rules and such. That said, I would also like to see a new setting as well!

I hear you, but was replying to the question about what we want, not what we think will happen, or even should happen from a financial standpoint.

That said, I like the idea someone made of updating older settings in Dragon. Not only does it encourage people to subscribe but it opens the creative flood-gates for new settings and such.

 

[Shemeska]

My main concern, however many settings we end up with, is this:

Let different campaign settings be different!

Athas doesn't have all the same classes and races available. Eberron has 13 moons and its own cosmology, and its drow have nothing whatsoever to do with Lolth. The Bane of Forgotten Realms is a very different god than the Bane of the world of Nerath and the Nentir Vale. And so forth.

Some editions have had an unfortunate tendency to try to homogenize. Don't. Different settings are effective or popular because of their differences. Don't sacrifice that.

Very much this.

With the caveat of allowing those settings that were metasettings (Planescape and Spelljammer) to return to being metasettings.

Additionally, when presenting certain settings, let's present them as faithfully to their original incarnations as possible. 4e/5e tieflings imposed on Sigil for instance would be a mess.

 

[transmission89]

I hear you, but was replying to the question about what we want, not what we think will happen, or even should happen from a financial standpoint.

That said, I like the idea someone made of updating older settings in Dragon. Not only does it encourage people to subscribe but it opens the creative flood-gates for new settings and such.

Touche sir, that is indeed what I asked. Perhaps I should have put a qualifier in the op about how one wold want it done were they in the "hot seat", factoring in market place realities.


Otherwise my my original proposal for how I would like it to be done would be thus:

"campaign box sets for all! Featuring maps, booklets and lots of other trinkets. Yes they are back!!!"

 

[Jester David]

While I agree that "could" be bad for sales, I think that your idea of putting the info in a digital magazine would be rather bad for profits, as it would only get them a minimal amount of money (say $5-10) when instead they could sell a campaign setting for $20-30, while they wouldn't sell as many due to the cost they would most likely make more money especially if they went with PDF's for the less popular campaign settings.

Funny thing, books only give back 1/5 of their list price. A $40 book generates $8 of profits or WotC.
A couple $5 2e PDFs from might make more money than a new book, as they have no production costs to pay off.

 

[Steely Dan]

Very much this.

With the caveat of allowing those settings that were metasettings (Planescape and Spelljammer) to return to being metasettings.

Additionally, when presenting certain settings, let's present them as faithfully to their original incarnations as possible. 4e/5e tieflings imposed on Sigil for instance would be a mess.

You could say they are a specific infernal branch of Tiefling, but still, I'm in no rush to include them in my Planescape campaign, got a daemon/yugoloth descended one, though.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm just thinking aloud here, as I don't remember a lot of details of the 2e tieflings, but...

Given the innate lawful nature of devils and the innate chaotic nature of demons, wouldn't it be not just possible, but thematically appropriate, to use the 4e-style tieflings as descendants of the former, and 2e-style tieflings as descendants of the latter?

 

[Shemeska]

I'm just thinking aloud here, as I don't remember a lot of details of the 2e tieflings, but...

Given the innate lawful nature of devils and the innate chaotic nature of demons, wouldn't it be not just possible, but thematically appropriate, to use the 4e-style tieflings as descendants of the former, and 2e-style tieflings as descendants of the latter?

The 2e style could have any fiendish heritage and any possible appearance. Rather inexplicably for an edition aiming for inclusion, compared to their predecessors, the 4e/5e tieflings have a uniform appearance and an explicitly infernal origin.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The 2e style could have any fiendish heritage and any possible appearance.

Well, yeah. I do remember that much.

I'm not saying my suggestion would 100% match up to the old canon. It won't; I wasn't trying to. Nothing will. Those days are done; the new tiefling is obviously here to stay, for good or ill.

I was simply suggesting it as one possible way for the setting to include both, while allowing each to maintain something of its own identity. In that context, I think the idea of the random tiefling representing a tie to chaos while the more "normal-race" homogenous tiefling representing law has some potential.

 

[Charles Wright]

I'm just thinking aloud here, as I don't remember a lot of details of the 2e tieflings, but...

Given the innate lawful nature of devils and the innate chaotic nature of demons, wouldn't it be not just possible, but thematically appropriate, to use the 4e-style tieflings as descendants of the former, and 2e-style tieflings as descendants of the latter?

I would go with a race known as "Planetouched" and make all of the others as sub-races.