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

[Jester David]

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.

Disagree.
I like that the "big bad ultimate cosmic evil god" is larger than one setting. That Gygax's big bad is larger than just Greyhawk.

Even then, Tharizdun was only name dropped. The real bad guys were the elemental princes.
The Elemental Planes can be reached from any world. Why wouldn't there be cultist to the evil elemental princes in multiple worlds? It's not like demon lords are setting specific. Elemental cults should be as common as demon worshippers or dialobolists. Those aren't setting specific.

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

Again, disagree.
The Realms in CoS is pretty much just the name of a town. Rather than just make up a town name or random location, they grabbed a name from the Realms.
It's as close to irrelevant as possible. You start there, spend five seconds there, and are grabbed by the Mists.

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.

The thing is, keeping things generic is boring as eff. It gives no flavour and provides no examples for new Dungeon Masters.
D&D has never been generic. It's always had the veneer of Greyhawk. Or Nentir Vale. Just having "high elves" and "hill dwarves" isn't generic. Warlocks and their patrons aren't generic. Drow and intelligent dragons aren't generic. Mind flayers and their tie to gith aren't generic. Heck, the cleric and its gods are not generic.

D&D's adventures were never really generic either. Most assumed Greyhawk. Or Mystara in the case of Basic D&D.
Generic adventures are harder to use. It's forcing people to wouldbuild. Removing the choice. With the Realms you can play the default setting or make your own. There's a choice given. If you don't have time, you don't need to make a setting.

The generic exists. It's the SRD. Yawn. Hard to get excited about that plain text document of straight rules.

Sticking with the Realms also gives them nothing to work on for the art. Every time they say "draw a fighter" they have to recreate the wheel. Setting it in the Realms they can say "draw a Thurmish fighter" and it has meaning. Or "draw a human from Thay".
What elves, and dwarves, and tieflings look like has been established.

And the Realms helps tie together all the expressions of D&D beyond just the RPG. The video games, board games, minis, comic, novels, and theoretical movie. It's all using the same lore and setting.

There's no incentive to multiple worlds. It just divides the audience. Splits sales.

 

[oknazevad]

Keep on the Borderlands. The starter set will need a refresher soon, as you can't find it in non specialty stores. Maybe a riff on the classic sandbox?

Can't find it in non-specialty stores? Every single Barnes & Noble I've ever been in has it in constant stock. And I've even seen it in Toys R Us. It's actually pretty widely available.

 

[Prism]

I am guessing this is coming from somewhere, otherwise it feels very random.

As noted, undermountain and tsojcanth fit the open ended mega-dungeon more (or they could do temple of elemental evil yet again).

In the last Drizzt novel there is a paragraph describing a lich called Acerack currently dwelling in Chult. The paragraph kind of stands out as there is no mention of this before or after it and its otherwise fairly irrelevant to the story. I can't see it as anything other than a hint that R.A Salvatore has been asked to drop into his book.

I thought Acerack was a demilich rather than a lich though

 

[Prism]

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.

Also, until 3e the Elder Elemental Eye was actually nothing to do with Tharizdun. If we go back to original Greyhawk the Elder Elemental Eye was some form of ancient primordial planar being which I never felt was tied specifically into that world in any real sense, except for the fact that it was mentioned in the adventure modules. So really if we look at Princes of the Apocalypse then there is no Greyhawk link at all, except for the general theme.

Acerack is a different matter as he is a named character, and I don't really see the point of bringing him over, but I am keeping my mind open about it. I'm not sure why they couldn't have followed the other 5e adventures in using the theme but changing the names.

 

[TwoSix]

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

Meh. If FR is vanilla, GH is french vanilla, Mystara is chocolate chip, and DL is fudge ripple. Easy enough to mix together into a vanilla bowl with some chocolate chunks. The FR pantheon is loose enough to accept a few of the more interesting gods from the other pantheons. Put Ansalon somewhere in the southern part of Toril. Give Toril two new moons. Make the Circle of Eight a neutral-aligned counterpoint to the Harpers and Red Wizards. Done.

 

[Mercule]

Meh. If FR is vanilla, GH is french vanilla, Mystara is chocolate chip, and DL is fudge ripple. Easy enough to mix together into a vanilla bowl with some chocolate chunks. The FR pantheon is loose enough to accept a few of the more interesting gods from the other pantheons. Put Ansalon somewhere in the southern part of Toril. Give Toril two new moons. Make the Circle of Eight a neutral-aligned counterpoint to the Harpers and Red Wizards. Done.

That could work and be an interesting world. It wouldn't be any of the above, though. I suppose I could get behind it as a solution to "we only support the Realms". The pickled ham flavor might get lost in the casserole. Of course, it would really vex the folks who actually like pickled ham, which would be it's own sort of fun.

That's very different from just scrubbing off the Greyhawk serial numbers and replacing them with Realms bits. There is a flavor difference, even if it's the difference between chocolate chunk and fudge ripple. I actually like that comparison because, while I'm sure some folks can't hardly tell the difference, I actually don't care for fudge -- something about the texture kinda turns me off -- but I love chocolate chunks. Even better, just give me vanilla and let me add my own toppings.

Applying that to D&D, the Realms or fudge ripple, Greyhawk is chocolate chunk, and home brew is vanilla with toppings. My first choice would be vanilla to the point of blandness (in setting/canvas, not story), but Greyhawk doesn't suck. Something about the Realms has always bugged me.

When I picked up the gray box, my reaction was, "Well, this is cheesy and kinda lame. It'll see one print run and be done." Clearly, I was wrong about the public taste. Still, the success of the Realms has been like watching my uncle put ketchup (to switch up the food analogy, again) on everything: eggs, meatloaf, beef roast, baked potatoes, etc. At a certain point, it's just gross to the point where the smell of ketchup evokes such negative connotations that I can't hardly stand to see someone use it for fries or a hamburger. I'm pretty much at the same point with the Realms. Academically, it really doesn't matter whether the 15-year-later sequel to a 20-year-later sequel of the original Temple of Elemental Evil is set in Greyhawk or the Realms. In either place, it's way away from anything of any note, so what the heck? On the other hand, there's pretty good history with the Temple being based near Hommlet and Nulb, so what benefit does the change bring? In the end, it's like using ketchup instead of marinara on spaghetti -- throw in the right spices, and you could probably make it taste fine. Conceptually, though, it's kinda gross. Also, please just stop putting ketchup on everything.

Going back to your original idea of just stirring it all together, that would work for me. But, only if you really put it in a blender. Keep the names and vague context (maybe), but go ahead and have the Red Wizards be obsessed with the pure power of elemental chaos instead of fiends and Thay is an icy, northern island. It doesn't have to be different, but established canon either means something or it doesn't. The Lords of Waterdeep as a contemporary ruling body (or even a ruling body, maybe they're the leaders of the Zhentarim -- or competition) are as fluid as the Temple of Elemental Evil being on Greyhawk.

 

[LordEntrails]

...

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

...

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

....

Why?

You not only are showing a strong bias here, but you don't support your view. And you also seem to be dismissive of anyone with a different view.

I too love making homebrew worlds and campaigns. And I think when I do my players have a noticeably more enjoyable and rewarding time.

BUT, to make that the preferred or standard expectation, or implying that a GM that doesn't homebrew is... not doing there job is ... detrimental to the hobby.

Many GMs don't have the time, the ability, or the confidence to create or run homebrew. Failure to provide a complete game, which includes a setting, will severely limited the growth of the customer base.

IMO, for those GM's that do create their own homebrew, converting a module from one setting to your own isn't that big a deal. And as have been pointed out, there is really no way to make a generic or setting-less adventure because there are assumptions built into the core game.

 

[Mercule]

Why?

You not only are showing a strong bias here, but you don't support your view. And you also seem to be dismissive of anyone with a different view.

I too love making homebrew worlds and campaigns. And I think when I do my players have a noticeably more enjoyable and rewarding time.

BUT, to make that the preferred or standard expectation, or implying that a GM that doesn't homebrew is... not doing there job is ... detrimental to the hobby.

Many GMs don't have the time, the ability, or the confidence to create or run homebrew. Failure to provide a complete game, which includes a setting, will severely limited the growth of the customer base.

IMO, for those GM's that do create their own homebrew, converting a module from one setting to your own isn't that big a deal. And as have been pointed out, there is really no way to make a generic or setting-less adventure because there are assumptions built into the core game.

Maybe I worded things poorly.... I think it's fine for GMs to use published settings. Currently, I'm using Eberron, mainly because of time constraints, though I'm not sure I'm getting much benefit in that department.

My objection is really that I'm concerned that Forgotten Realms is becoming (has become?) synonymous with D&D. IMO, this is an extremely bad thing and should be actively avoided. This is not just because it's the Realms. I'd be unhappy if Greyhawk or Eberron became synonymous with D&D, too. IMO, one of the defining characteristics of D&D is that it is not tied to a specific setting. It's not completely devoid of all flavor, of course: you have chromatic and metallic dragons, three goblinoid races, etc. But those are scaffolding for the GM to work with, rather than constraints. Mind flayers might come from the Far Realms or they might come from an ancient wizard's experiments. Heck, humans might come from an ancient illithid's experiment to create a tastier elf.

It's like working with my kids on art projects. Sometimes, they end up with something that's actually really beautiful. They show it to me and I tell them it's great. Then, they decide to add more to it until the whole thing is overly busy and, while each element is well done and attractive, the whole is actually no longer appealing. Other times, the youngest gets in a "blue mood" such that the grass is a shade of blue-green, the sky is light blue, the house is slate blue, and so forth. I love blue. Monochromatic isn't always the best choice.

Looking at 5E, the designers can't seem to leave well enough alone, sometimes. The cardinal example is the Mystic. Mearls actually put together a really nice chassis for the class. I don't happen to object to the idea that some settings might use the Far Realms as the source of psionic power, but his fluff strongly implied that such was the default, rather than just an idea.

I can't actually recall having a serious negative reaction, when the PHB came out. I'm sure I did an eye roll at the amount of space devoted to the human ethnicities of Faerun and was probably mildly annoyed at the Weave sidebar, but no big deal. The appendices are really quite good and balanced as are some sidebars (Monastic Orders). The LMoP adventure used the Realms, but that was really just a small map of a remote area. I was really irritated that HotDQ wasn't better identified as being pretty tightly coupled to the Realms (I tried to rework it; it almost requires scrapping and starting from a story kernel and the story wasn't actually that great). PotA was a pretty good adventure where the setting was largely irrelevant, once you got into it -- I would have preferred to have the various faction hooks stuck in an appendix next to the setting conversion material, but the FR maps is no more intrusive than LMoP. OOtA and SKT both suffered from being tightly coupled to the Realms. CoS was mostly fine, but was a missed opportunity to put the faction material in an appendix or web supplement with similar launching points for at least a few other settings.

So, there are a couple things that I'd like to see done differently.

1) Clearly label adventures that are tightly coupled to the Realms, somehow. Yes, you can convert them, but some just take too much effort. I just want to know without having to read reviews or forums.

2) For "generic" adventures, go ahead and use Realms maps as the default, along with the names for gods, etc. Just leave things like pages 14-15 of PotA and 21-22 of CoS (Faction-specific hooks) out of the main body of the adventure. Put them in an appendix or web enhancement.

3) Continue using something like Appendix C of PotA. It wasn't perfect (by far), but it at least paid lip service to the other worlds. As a corollary to this, produce more adventures that aren't tied to the Realms.

4) Publish a couple of adventures that are tied to other worlds (Eberron would be my preference, but I'm open to options). When you do so, really do it. Have no more reference to the Realms in the Eberron adventure than you put Eberron references in SKT.

5) Put out a SCAG-like book for at least one other setting. In truth, I was fine with the phantom support for settings. I'd be okay with, say, a Dragonlance-like approach to another world where the adventure runs deep enough that a separate setting book isn't really necessary. But, actually do it and do it well.

Looking at that list, it was a long way to circle back to just being tired of the Realms being at the center of things. I don't mind some of the references; the Realms are part of the D&D canon. I don't mind the Realms getting a couple tightly-coupled adventures or the SCAG. I'm just ready to move on.

I've actually said, multiple times, that I'd probably just go with the flow of published adventures, if they actually did rotate through worlds. I like the idea of Athas, but really don't think I want to commit to playing it long enough to buy a bunch of setting material. I'm definitely in for a single hard-cover adventure, though. Ditto for Ravenloft, actually -- maybe a couple trips, here. I'd dip my toe into Birthright, too. Planescape has never appealed to me, but I'd try a one-and-done. As much as I dislike the Realms, I'd even be up for cycling through it, if that's what it was -- a cycle. I could park it in Eberron for a while, but I'd be willing to move on from that, if I got a nice, flavorful adventure that let me feel like I'd experienced the setting well.

As an additional benefit, cycling through the worlds implicitly looses any subconscious fetters on rolling your own. It provides the encouragement I'd like to see for home brewers.

 

[LordEntrails]

...
Looking at that list, it was a long way to circle back to just being tired of the Realms being at the center of things. I don't mind some of the references; the Realms are part of the D&D canon. I don't mind the Realms getting a couple tightly-coupled adventures or the SCAG. I'm just ready to move on.
...

I do agree whole heartily with this. I'm not a Realms fanatic and would enjoy most other settings and wish they were more readily available.

 

[Mercurius]

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

You know why Middle-earth is such an amazing fictional setting? One of the most important reasons is that there are no "random names with almost no context." Every name has history, which gives a sense of the depth - a depth that cannot be faked with cardboard set pieces.

Now RPG settings aren't the same as fiction settings, and I agree with your general feeling that the focus should be on homebrew worlds. But setting an adventure in a default world--like the Realms--gives the adventure some of that depth. Part of what make the original AD&D modules so evocative is that they were set in Greyhawk, and you knew every name had a story behind it.

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.

Why? I mean, I would like that as a customer. In fact, I would prefer they give single one-off setting books for the classic D&D settings, but set all new 5E stories in a new setting. But that ship has clearly sailed. But I don't see any reason for them to follow your recommendation other than because it is your personal preference.

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

They already do.

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.

My guess is that your contempt for the Realms colors your whole perspective on this.