Planescape Planescape to languish in purgatory?

[Mercurius]

In the past, Mearls - I THINK it was Mearls, but might have been Crawford has said that they eventually plan to revisit "all" the old settings.

The 5E publication schedule has been conservative, and it has served them pretty well. And I think - and please take this with a grain of salt because I am forgetting my source for this - that their marketing research showed them that the majority of players and DMs used homebrew settings. So by that logic, setting books would be the least profitable book to publish. And the first few years of 5E official publications reflect that philosophy. The ONLY setting book was SCAG, and it was the worst seller of the first three years of books. The conclusion was that the majority of the buyers wanted splat books first, adventures second, settings last.

More recently, three things happened to change this:

• Hasbro had them try the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica book, which is a setting book, to cross-market Magic: The Gathering. It sold very well. Theros followed.
• WotC tried Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron as an experimental digital-only product on Dungeon Master's Guild (as a PDF) and on DNDBeyond. It sold so well that they followed with the hardcover Eberron: Rising from the Last War setting book
• Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, the Critical Role setting book, was published earlier this year and blew away the sales of ANY 5E book in the past few years

So I think that by now it's been proven that the mantra "settings don't sell" is pretty false. The right settings will sell.

Now - this board is almost entirely dudes in their 40s and 50s for whom publishing 5E versions of Planescape, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, etc looks like a no brainer and Magic: The Gathering and Exandria look like shallow cash grabs. That's a very biased assessment, however. Not just because the Ravnica, Theros, and Exandria books are all quite good (which they are) but because from a certain Gen X point of view - which is not the point of view of the D&D fanbase writ large - Planescape is this huge deal that everyone is clamoring for.

In reality, Exandria is a way, way more popular, successful, and smarter setting to develop right now than Planescape. And I'm saying this as somebody who regards Planescape as the best 2E setting: despite how awesome it was, it was always niche, and it was never particularly financially successful. It is a fragment of a niche product from almost 30 years ago. Critical Role's fanbase, which is young, diverse, and rabid, rivals the size of the D&D fanbase itself, has a million viewers every week, had one of the most successful Kickstarters in the history of Kickstarter, and is about to have a cartoon on Amazon Prime.

If I'm WotC, my attitude would be "I'll get to Planescape when I get to it". And I would do it the way the did Eberron: get Zeb Cook to be the lead designer on a digital product on DNDBeyond and DMsGuild, open it up to DMsGuild creators to support, and see where it goes from there.

I'm in the latter half of my 40s and I approve this message. Let's be honest with ourselves: we're not the biggest demographic anymore, and probably haven't been for awhile - but especially in the 5E era.

Any future publications will seek to address this question: What does the current base want (and will buy)?

That said, I think the "settings don't sell" was true in the context in which it arose: the glut of the 90s-00s, which reduced setting sales in two ways: One, people spread their money around more with the sheer quantity of product available, and two, the law of diminishing returns was in full effect with setting supplements. A lot of people wanted the FRCS, but maybe not Complete Guide to Some Village in Lapaliiya (OK, it never got that bad, you get the point).

So the inverse would be: Settings are probably selling better now because A) there are fewer products, so a higher percentage will be purchased, and B) there are fewer fringe/specialty setting books.

 

[Mercurius]

If there is another thread that discusses this which anyone knows of, I'd be grateful for a link.

There are a lot of treasured past tense D&D campaign worlds that are being (as far as I am able to see) ignored by WotC. They have come out with several other settings, Ravnica, Wildermont, Theros, and even updated others (Eberron) but the settings we remember and love atrophy. Certainly we can take the 2e lore and import it into the 5e ruleset, but wouldn't it be wonderful to have 5e material in these universes? I thought that perhaps someone in the community here might have an inside view, or just a generally more educated understanding on these old settings (Planescape, Hollow World, Darksun, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, etc) and the plans for them in WotC, if any? Why invent new settings when the old ones are so beloved and playable if updated?

I titled the thread Planescape only because it was my favorite next to FR.

A couple things. One, we can probably be pretty confident that we'll see some version of the planes, less-so that it will specifically be Planescape. It might be, but it also could be a planes book that includes options for different approaches to exploring them.

If the "three classic settings will be attended to" holds to be true, as far as legacy settings, I think they fall into the following groups:

Top contenders: Dark Sun, Planescape, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Spelljammer
Unlikely, But Maybe...: Mystara, Council of Wyrms, Dragonlance*, Al-Qadim, Birthright, Nentir Vale
A Snowball's Chance: Jakandor, Hollow World, Blackmoor, Kara-Tur*, Maztica*, Ghostwalk

*A couple months ago, I would have had Dragonlance in the "top contenders" category.
**At least as previously done. I could see a complete re-making of either, but it would likely be radically different enough to be considered a new setting.

If I were to guess, I think the three will be Dark Sun and a re-working of Planescape with touches of Spelljammer and Magic-style planeswalking in the next year or two, and a Greyhawk box set for the 50th anniversary in 2024. I think we might see a further Ravenloft story arc at some point, but as we already had Strahd I don't think they included in the three. Similarly with the Forgotten Realms: they might do a Faerun book at some point, but it isn't one of the three classics that they're working on behind the scenes.

As I said, I thought they might surprise us with a new Dragonlance campaign story arc and setting book--and it seemed like that was possible--but that seems dead in the water, at least for the next year or two while they work out the lawsuit.

 

[jgsugden]

Out of curiosity - what do you want to see in an official 5E Planescape? Stats for the NPCs? Specific setting monsters? Repeating the lore of old or updating it to move it forward in time?

When running 5E Eberron, I find myself referencing the older edition books more than the newer edition.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

I agree with a lot of the posts and points above.

I have a feeling that maybe a larger amount of people I feel would be interested in playing Planescape, Greyhawk, etc might be DMs who have been running a campaign for decades in their own version of those settings. There wouldn't need to be a lot of updating - that's one thing I've loved about the 1e grey box Forgotten Realms. It's easy for me to pull it off the shelf and plunder from it because the stuff you need to make it 'Realms' isn't in the crunch as much as I feel it's in the writing and lore of it. YMMV

 

[Burnside]

Out of curiosity - what do you want to see in an official 5E Planescape? Stats for the NPCs? Specific setting monsters? Repeating the lore of old or updating it to move it forward in time?

When running 5E Eberron, I find myself referencing the older edition books more than the newer edition.

I'd want to see a 5E hardcover adventure set in Planescape tbh, rather than a straight setting book. An adventure that would use Planescape the way Tomb of Annihilation also effectively gives you Chult and Rime of the Frostmaiden (sort of) gives you Icewind Dale.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Out of curiosity - what do you want to see in an official 5E Planescape? Stats for the NPCs? Specific setting monsters? Repeating the lore of old or updating it to move it forward in time?

When running 5E Eberron, I find myself referencing the older edition books more than the newer edition.

I've come around to Eberron. I think one reason it's started to make an impact on me is that the setting feels more like the stories I want to tell as a DM, and another major factor is podcasts and forums make it easier to get access to Keith Baker and understand where he's coming from in 'his Eberron'. That's been pretty helpful, trying to dive into the setting.

 

[Mistwell]

Planescape, being of a nature which is rather like purgatory, is meant to languish there. I hope it pulls up a lounge chair in purgatory and sips umbrella drinks all day, glorifying in it's quiet dominance of purgatory.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If there is a Planescape Torment enchaded edition there are possibilities of a sequel, at least because it's a powerful brand, it's very origintal when today there are too many generic fantasy videogames.

And it's maybe the easiest option for a crossover between D&D and Magic: the Gathering.

And it is a setting what allows characters with a look of lots of different urban tribes, not only heavy metal. And celestial planes are good options for a kid-friendly tone.

 

[Mercurius]

Out of curiosity - what do you want to see in an official 5E Planescape? Stats for the NPCs? Specific setting monsters? Repeating the lore of old or updating it to move it forward in time?

When running 5E Eberron, I find myself referencing the older edition books more than the newer edition.

This bring me to a tangential but related point: the problem with producing new editions of old classics is that it may be tricky to get the right tone, and if you get the right tone for the classic feel, is it the right tone for now? For instance, how to A) Capture the original feeling of Gygax's Greyhawk (without Gary) and B) make it feel relevant and fresh in today's context? Would it resonate with younger players?

As for Planescape, it had a really 90s vibe to it, which may not translate so well to today. That doesn't mean they can't use the basic ideas and such--Sigil and its factions, the Outlands etc--but that some variation is likely and even necessary. For instance, we've got a few alternate approaches to the planar cosmology, all of which have fans. This is why I have suggested that the best approach to the planes would be a new Manual of the Planes which includes variant cosmologies and modes of travel, and then a story arc that details and is at least partially set within Sigil.

 

[twofalls]

It would be cool for Planescape, or Greyhawk or Dark Sun to be the "hot new thing" rather than "that settings the grognards are fanboys of."

I could be wrong, but I think the fact that you reminisce about a setting like Greyhawk plants you firmly in the grognard category.