Two New Settings For D&D This Year

if it comes out this year i would agree with you. Possibly published by a third party company that has a good reputation (Green Ronin etc) However if it’s coming next year I would stake all the money in my pockets that it will be a Curse of Strahd style book. Campaign with background and new monsters etc. Curse of Strahd was too successful not to repeat!
if it comes out this year i would agree with you. Possibly published by a third party company that has a good reputation (Green Ronin etc)

However if it’s coming next year I would stake all the money in my pockets that it will be a Curse of Strahd style book. Campaign with background and new monsters etc. Curse of Strahd was too successful not to repeat!
 

Gradine

The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
This was not an argument that I was expecting to go full-bore on Godwin's Law, but here we are.

[MENTION=6906155]Paul Farquhar[/MENTION] "...Arthas (I know, it's a retcon to canon),... "

I hope not.

Although if i imagine some Drizzt entering Athas by crashing his spelljammer within the cannibal halfling jungle .....

Not gonna lie, I would read that book.

I might have to replace the cover with something a bit less embarrassing though.

Like 50 Shades of Gray or Atlas Shrugged.
 

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DEFCON 1

Legend
Supporter
No one gets to decide whether or not any worlds are connected to each other, via Planespace or whatever. They already are. In the meta of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Sun things have appeared elsewhere in other games. Greyhawk things have appeared elsewhere in other games. All the terminology of all the facets of D&D have appeared back and forth across all the settings. It's already happened. It's been written. It's been produced. It's been published. And just because you as a specific DM do not want your specific table to be "connected" to any of it doesn't matter. You are a part of the D&D multiverse because you are playing D&D.

The best you can do is say that for your table and your game and your little pocket of the D&D multiverse, it isn't "connected" to anything else. It is it's own little area where never the twain shall meet. Which is great! Go right ahead! You can SAY whatever you'd like. Every DM's prime material plane for each game they run may or may not have any connections to any other game being run in terms of that DM's narrative. I mean usually there *is* a connection even if you don't mean it to... seeing as how you usually are using the exact same monsters that happen to have the exact same stats as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and you use the exact same magic items that have the exact same names and abilities as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and the physics of your world involve their exact same representation via the exact same game rules as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane... but sure, yours is it's own thing. You can say whatever you'd like.

But because you are playing D&D, on the meta level you are part of D&D. Whether or not you want to admit it.
 

Just because I mentioned there actually are canonical connections between Planescape and Dark Sun, doesn't mean the Athas is swarming with Planewalkers either.

Athas as a destination in the multiverse is sort of like countries that exist in our world like Moldova or Chad, you could go there if you wanted to, but you probably wouldn't because you'd rather be in other places like France or Mexico.
 

Mercule

Adventurer
I really really hope Eberron is among the settings to be supported soon
Agreed. I'm not sure how to read the various comments, though. There was some buzz around Eberron, a few months back. But, the comments about doing it like Ravenloft and "hard core fans" being happy don't sound much like Eberron, to me. I don't see Eberron as being a "go for a visit" setting and, while it has some pretty loyal fans, I'm not sure I'd have used the words "hard core".

My money is on Planescape, with Dark Sun being a possibility. If we're getting two, I'd be happy to see either of the above as the first, with Eberron for the second. Even though I don't make huge use of things like the Kalashtar, Dreaming Dark, etc. I want psionics included in the setting update. Since Mearls has said that psionics will come with Dark Sun, I'm hoping it's Dark Sun + Eberron. Not holding my breath, though.
 

Athas as a destination in the multiverse is sort of like countries that exist in our world like Moldova or Chad, you could go there if you wanted to, but you probably wouldn't because you'd rather be in other places like France or Mexico.
As for what Toril is as a multiversal destination, well there's Undermountain that has many portals to other places so it's a lot like this place I once went to called the Atlanta International Airport while trying to get to somewhere else. I heard there's this mythical city that exists outside the airport, but I never bothered seeing if there was such a place...
 

I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.

Borrowing elements from one historical culture without mentioning their possible enemies / opponents or other cultures extant in a given historical period is not "propaganda". These settings are not intended to present a historical reality or alternative. They are simply borrowing certain ideas for a kind of creative shorthand. The rabbit hole you're trying to go down has no end. Should settings be completely divorced from any connection to the real world? The use of language or other cultural elements to describe a setting is not derogative of any other real culture. Of course, you could create a setting which purposefully did so, but that is not what we are talking about here.

*edit* To avoid confusion, this reply is to a post that's pages back in the thread...
 
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Mercurius

Legend
No one gets to decide whether or not any worlds are connected to each other, via Planespace or whatever. They already are. In the meta of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Sun things have appeared elsewhere in other games. Greyhawk things have appeared elsewhere in other games. All the terminology of all the facets of D&D have appeared back and forth across all the settings. It's already happened. It's been written. It's been produced. It's been published. And just because you as a specific DM do not want your specific table to be "connected" to any of it doesn't matter. You are a part of the D&D multiverse because you are playing D&D.

The best you can do is say that for your table and your game and your little pocket of the D&D multiverse, it isn't "connected" to anything else. It is it's own little area where never the twain shall meet. Which is great! Go right ahead! You can SAY whatever you'd like. Every DM's prime material plane for each game they run may or may not have any connections to any other game being run in terms of that DM's narrative. I mean usually there *is* a connection even if you don't mean it to... seeing as how you usually are using the exact same monsters that happen to have the exact same stats as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and you use the exact same magic items that have the exact same names and abilities as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and the physics of your world involve their exact same representation via the exact same game rules as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane... but sure, yours is it's own thing. You can say whatever you'd like.

But because you are playing D&D, on the meta level you are part of D&D. Whether or not you want to admit it.

I fundamentally disagree with this take. Every DM is, or can be, the author and creator not only of their own prime material plane, but the entire multiverse. If I want to say "there is no Greyhawk in my multiverse," I can say that. It is absolutely true for my own campaign and nt only the prime material plane it is set in, but the multiverse. In a similar sense that an Eberron DM fully has the right to make their cosmology absolutely true.

Now most DMs don't play that way and instead willingly fit their prime material plane into the shared D&D multiverse. But each DM has the right to form the basic cosmological assumptions of their own game, without "actually" being part of some over-arching canonical multiverse.
 

DM Howard

Explorer
Now most DMs don't play that way and instead willingly fit their prime material plane into the shared D&D multiverse. But each DM has the right to form the basic cosmological assumptions of their own game, without "actually" being part of some over-arching canonical multiverse.

I think that is why the "multiverse" language that has been used so often already in 5th Edition has me on edge. I can appreciate things being connected, if the need is there, but I don't care for it as an assumption of the system as a whole.
 

Mercurius

Legend
Why can't we have a new setting?

I'm up for anything, but I can't say I get the draw of Planescape or Spelljammer.

Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.

I noticed this already in Xanathars, where Christian (Greek, Roman, Celtic) names and Muslim (Arabic) names are present, while Jewish (Hebrew) names were noticeably absent.

I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.

I think that is why the "multiverse" language that has been used so often already in 5th Edition has me on edge. I can appreciate things being connected, if the need is there, but I don't care for it as an assumption of the system as a whole.

I hear you. I think it is important to remember that no matter what WotC publishes, they cannot control your home game in any way. They can publish "every D&D campaign setting ever played is part of the multiverse," and for their version of things it could be true in an abstract sense, but for all practical purposes you can do whatever you want at your own table.

Anyhow, I thnk they would only ever publish something like that as a way of being inclusive - not as a some attempt to control.
 

Remathilis

Legend
I would suggest that Greyhawk's idiosyncratic value is more about tone and focus rather than content. It was the world of '60s-'70s fantasy pulp and sword-and-sorcery murderhobos. Less about the world-saving heroic epic fantasy of Forgotten Realms and more about schmucks the likes of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser looking for their next score. It's also the setting of the most iconic dungeons and adventures. It's a Points of Light setting where towns, heroes, and dungeons can just be dropped almost effortlessly into the map. So in some respects, Greyhawk is a DM's paradise as it exists less as a storied "setting" - though I am sure someone more knowledgeable will debate that point - and more as a sandbox and GM toolkit. The more that I GM, the more that I appreciate Greyhawk-style settings.

See, this is where perception means everything; I find Greyhawk, bland, painfully generic, and barely a setting as a collection of proper nouns and references that is unique and memorable only due to their constant inclusion in the core rulebooks and repeated retreads if nostalgic modules. It's never been more than the default assumptions given a proper name.

But that is the assumptions I have from the end of 2e and 3e era; when that's what they sold it mostly as. You see a pulpy world mercenaries, I see genericland. It's the same problem people are having with Planescape or Birthright in this thread; peoples preconceived notions are coloring whether a setting should get published.
 

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