D&D 5E What's coming out for D&D in 2017?

[TwoSix]

It does get me a bit miffed with all the shoehorning of things into FR. So far, the Elder Elemental Eye/Tharizdun, Strahd, now Acererak, what's next? -- Lord Soth pops up, being chased by Bigby and Elminster? Iuz threatens Cormyr? It's like DC Crisis on Infinite Earths, only with FR as being the last earth standing.

I'll be honest, even as someone who isn't a Realms fan, this sounds fairly awesome. Probably not every setting in existence, but smushing the kitchen-sink settings more defined by their NPCs than their geography and thematics into an uber-sink sounds great.

 

[Parmandur]

I'll be honest, even as someone who isn't a Realms fan, this sounds fairly awesome. Probably not every setting in existence, but smushing the kitchen-sink settings more defined by their NPCs than their geography and thematics into an uber-sink sounds great.

Right???

 

[TwoSix]

Right???

I mean, it's not like the Realms doesn't have a canonical example of being split apart into multiple worlds and smushed back together pretty recently.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, it's not like the Realms doesn't have a canonical example of being split apart into multiple worlds and smushed back together pretty recently.

Exactly! It's fun, man!

 

[neogod22]

I think the reason they are focusing on the Realms, is because it's the most complete world. Most of the other campaign settings kind of died off once the big crisis was taken care of. Forgotten Realms is literally the only campaign settings they can sell. If they are clever, they can make a new campaign in Ravenloft for every dark lord that breaches the mists, and build the demi-plane one campaign at a time, but they will have to make it interesting, because Curse of Strahd was too dark and depressing for some people. Like I said before about Planescape, it should be an epic tier only campaign. I've never played Ebboron so I have no opinion on it.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Considering all the clues dropped throughout all the books, including Dungeonology, I think we will get an adventure in Maztica as one of the next three. I am not sure they would do two separate jungle-based adventures, so one in Chult and one in Maztica is iffy. Could those two locations be tied together somehow into one mega-adventure?

 

[Henry]

I'll be honest, even as someone who isn't a Realms fan, this sounds fairly awesome. Probably not every setting in existence, but smushing the kitchen-sink settings more defined by their NPCs than their geography and thematics into an uber-sink sounds great.

It doesn't for me because to me those settings had a lot more going for them than just one or two notable NPCs. Krynn wizards, at least under 1e rules, were very distinguishable by their orders and mechanics; the knights of Solamnia were more than just alt-Purple Dragons. Any of the Dark Sun NPCs like Nibenay or Kalak or Rikus were not as distinguished as the core themes of the setting itself, which simply could not work in Faerun.

Now, their popularity is a different matter, I can't deny something like Faerun sells better; however,cannibalizing for parts just sells both Faerun and the other settings short, because Acererak, or Iuz, or Vecna, becomes very flavorless divorced from their original settings. In Krynn, Tiamat is Takhisis, dark goddess and mother of the most long range machinations. In Faerun, she's just another Super-Dragon with more heads than usual with delusions of true godhood, to be beaten back.

(And don't get me started on the old argument that Tiamat and Takhisis are two different entities, just looking at their trappings and the TSR timelines of things, they're as separate as Mercury and Hermes!)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I hear some kids I gotta chase off of my lawn...

 

[Jester David]

It does get me a bit miffed with all the shoehorning of things into FR. So far, the Elder Elemental Eye/Tharizdun, Strahd, now Acererak, what's next? -- Lord Soth pops up, being chased by Bigby and Elminster? Iuz threatens Cormyr? It's like DC Crisis on Infinite Earths, only with FR as being the last earth standing.

Tharizdun has been in the Realms since the 4th Edition era. He was part of the core backstory of the nu-Cosmology, and thus assumed part of the multiverse and the Realms. His cult appeared in Realms novels in that era as well.
So Elemental Evil did nothing new there.

Strahd wasn't in the Realms. He was in Barovia, as always.
The adventure begins in the Realms for one cut scene, before the adventurers are snatched up by the Mists. Like they do.
(Meanwhile, Mordenkainen was in Curse of Strahd, explicitly from another world.)

So, really, it's just Acererak.
I don't have a problem with an epic level demilich travelling between the planes. Especially after cheating death three or four times...

 

[Mercule]

I'll be honest, even as someone who isn't a Realms fan, this sounds fairly awesome. Probably not every setting in existence, but smushing the kitchen-sink settings more defined by their NPCs than their geography and thematics into an uber-sink sounds great.

That actually sounds like the antithesis of awesome, to me. There are no truly vanilla published settings.

This seems to be part of the problem with the whole conversation around implied setting. Gygax managed to inject flak flavor without constraining. For some reason, some folks just can't seem to understand that the way the Realms are used in 5E just isn't remotely similar.

 

[Mercule]

What's coming out for D&D in 2017?

Tharizdun has been in the Realms since the 4th Edition era.

So... He was a new arrival, too. The Realmsification of D&D is older than just 5E, and it's always been a bad thing.

Strahd wasn't in the Realms. He was in Barovia, as always.
The adventure begins in the Realms for one cut scene, before the adventurers are snatched up by the Mists.

Which was stupid. There was no reason to have any reference anywhere in CoS to any other setting.

This should serve as a cardinal example of things to not do.

So, really, it's just Acererak.
I don't have a problem with an epic level demilich travelling between the planes. Especially after cheating death three or four times...

Meh... Really, it's the Realms. I don't know that I have a problem with a plane jumping demi-lich, either. Just stop going back to the Realms. It might be cute if they were supporting multiple settings and kind of swapping them around. But they aren't.

Actually, it's more about the monotony. D&D should be more about home brew worlds than published worlds.

First, keep core books and "generic" adventures devoid of anything more than random names with almost no context.

Second, no one setting should get more than, say, 1.5 times the attention of any other. If you have one setting that's substantively outselling second place, work intentionally to shift that.

Third, use language that encourages DMs to build their own world and tweak published settings.

I have extremely mixed feelings about 5E. On the one hand, they managed to have probably the mechanically best version of the rules, to date. On the other, the handling of settings and other fluff is easily the worst of any time's I have to assume that either different people are making decisions out the rules quality is sheer luck.

And, yes, I'll acknowledge a particular contempt for the Realms that goes back to the gray box. But, I'd still object if Greyhawk, Krynn, or any other setting was in its place.