D&D 5E Does 5E NEED a campaign world book?

[Desdichado]

Depends on what you mean by need. As a player, do I "need" a campaign setting update for my favorite D&D setting? No, absolutely. There's too much material already published that I can turn to to suggest that I need it.

On the other hand, as a publisher, do I need it the sales? Maybe. My impression is that campaign setting updates are relatively solid in that regard.

On the other other hand, do I need a new campaign setting? No, of course not, but that's one of the few types of products that I honestly still get excited about buying. I love flipping through campaign settings and pillaging them for ideas. Sometimes I even get excited enough about a setting to seriously consider using it as is.

And on the other, other (other) hand, you don't need a published campaign setting to publish material. The Witchfire trilogy was published years before Iron Kingdoms came out. Paizo put tons of stuff in Golarion before they published a campaign setting. The default 4e setting, as far as I know, never really got a proper campaign setting book at all. That didn't stop those settings from being out there useable (to at least some degree).

 

[The_Gneech]

It largely depends on what you want a campaign world book for. If you just want the lore, it's out there, either in the form of websites or older edition books. (The 3E Forgotten Realms book was gorgeous!) As for "current events" in a given game world, I would expect to find those in the adventures themselves.

If you want stat blocks, on the other hand, then I can see needing a book for that, although my own personal preference is for core rulebooks and adventures to take precedence.

-TG

 

[Garrand]

Besides updated lore and statblocks, there is another reason for publishing: keeping the gameworld in t on the market. Going back to older resources is fine, and there are plenty of pdfs available. But nothing keeps a gameworld alive than a book on the shelf at the FLGS. Greyhawk (my preferred canned gameworld) has courted obscurity more than once in the past few decades, completely overshadowed by the Forgotten Realms. For that reason alone I'd love to see a revamped campaign setting hardback on the shelves.

Damon.

 

[Boarstorm]

I kind-of feel like it does need a campaign book.

Yes, there's a lot of information on past settings already available. And if you know to look for it, that's great. But not everyone is coming into the game with decades of experience or knowledge of what has come before. For them, it can be an invaluable resource.

 

[Wrathamon]

I could see a Greyhawk book ... because its been a long time and I wouldnt mind having a nice greyhawk book ...

but, It could be just a history lore book system agnostic.

As for the campaign books with crunch ...

I think they can handle all that with Web Articles and adventures. The only campaign book I can see is a Heroes, Villains and Monsters of {insert campaign world} book.

The Classes and Races can come with the Adventure box set that has a players pamphlet.

Eberron could get a the races, backgrounds, and artificer class along with dragonmark system in a Awesome Adventure box set like Abbey.
Dragonlance, Darksun, Birthright and Planescape could work the same way.

 

[Mercurius]

I hear what the OP is saying, and from that perspective the answer is no - it isn't "needed," not with all of the info out there. If you want to play in the Realms you can grab the grey box and/or white book and go from there. And so forth.

But this is only part of the picture and, in the end, there are far more reasons to produce new campaigns books than not to.

1. Existing, veteran DMs don't need world books, but many of us want them. Want = money spent.
2. New DMs could certainly benefit from 5E-specific world material.
3. A new world generates creativity and excitement.
4. Ongoing support for a world acts as a focal point for the community, a unitive gel, so to speak (exhibit A: Paizo's Golarion).

With all that in mind, my advice would be to:

1. Publish beautiful, big world books for a few choice D&D worlds. Start with the Forgotten Realms and go from there, publishing one a year. WotC could even run polls, asking the fans what they want to see in this format and next. Likely candidates for the "full treatment" would be Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Eberron, and Planescape.
2. Publish smaller (but still beautiful) gazetteers that cover other worlds with 5E conversion guidelines. Likely candidates include Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Birthright, and those from the above list that didn't make the cut. And/or,
2.a. License out certain worlds for other companies to develop.
3. Create a new world that will be developed through an ongoing series of adventure paths, ala Pathfinder.

I've also advocated for the "Sandbox set" elsewhere, which could be a product focusing on a specific region of a world.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They've been pretty good at cramming a lot of information into their books so far, so I think that if they DO make a campaign setting, it should be one book that combines everything you need to know about the setting with extra setting-specific PHB-like materials (races, subclasses, feats) and MM stuff (mostly organizations, if not actual monster stat-blocks, though that would be fine too. AND on top of that, a short adventure.

Otherwise, I think just doing adventures that take place in different settings would be fine. Build the setting slowly with just hints of what it is, allowing DMs to flesh it out with their knowledge of the given setting, or place the adventure in another setting entirely if they choose.

Bah, I kind of like both those options.

 

[GameDoc]

[13][/13]I don't think veteran gamers need a setting book, but it would be nice. Even in the context of an Adventure Path, having some concept of the larger setting helps with ideas about roleplaying. How does each race and class fit into the setting? Any recent or major historical events that influence that? It helps players roleplay their characters and DMs roleplay NPCs to know this. Ultimately it's up to the DM to decide, but it's nice to have a default answer to keep or discard in favor of your own. It's even more helpful for newer players who don't have a steeped history with a setting they want to use. I think a relatively short publication on a given world would be great for this.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I want stunning 400 page tombs for each of the classic settings, either updated for 5E, or entirely system neutral. I'll buy every damn one.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

From a perspective of a DM who wants to know what canon is (regardless of how much I choose to follow it: you know, that whole thing about knowing the rules so you can break them), we absolutely need a campaign setting book for any setting that has evolved since it was last published.

The Forgotten Realms for instance. What is the Sundering? The best I've heard is along the lines of, "I think Abeir leaves, and um, it kinda feels more like the pre-4e Realms?" Which tells me very little. What about Dragonborn? There? Not there? There, but reinterpreted as half-dragons? Which deities are alive? That changes every year in the Forgotten Realms anyway.

They've implied they want to set a feel for the Realms and then stop having world-shaking events, but they haven't even told us what the last one did! We just know it's BIG.

The problem is that there is an official "current" Forgotten Realms with a date and everything, but nobody knows what the heck it looks like! If that isn't sufficient to ask for a new campaign setting, I'm not sure what is.

With regards to other settings that haven't had as much meta-plot, it is less necessary, but I still think it is warranted. I don't want an ongoing series of books and metaplot, but a single Greyhawk book, presenting a default starting date, and then a series of variants for other time periods (kind of like the 3e Dragonlance book, but with a lot more attention presented to the variant time period materials) would be great. I'd like to see the same thing for pretty much every setting. And I have absolutely no problem with chronologically rebooting the default starting date like 4e did with Dark Sun.

And some settings need 5e rules updates. I'm hoping will get domain management in the DMG, but Birthright has all that regency and bloodline stuff. Spelljammer has spelljamming, and needs a lot of creatures. Dark Sun needs a whole bestiary of it's own. If they don't create a Manual of the Planes with a lot of missing planar critters, a Planescape book is essential just to get important things like the good exemplars, heirarch modrons, traditional planetouched races, hordelings, etc.

I hate having to houserule that crap. Hate it. It's the kind of stuff I have to do before I ever start a campaign where it is going to be relevant.

So yeah, we need campaign setting books. Either that or really creative presentation. For instance, a Manual of the Planes might include the raw monster stats for all the important planar creatures, and the cosmologically and travel considerations for Spelljammer (plus monsters). Then I could be directed to purchase pdfs of the original materials for setting info. Dark Sun could be presented as an example setting (complete with critters and some cultural details) at the back of the Psioinics Handbook. The books could point us to the original materials "For more about planar campaigns, take a look at the Planescape Campaign Setting on www.dndclassics.com!)

Maybe we really just need a "Worlds of D&D" big sourcebook of rules and monsters. Include all the updated 5e rules for those of us who just need the rules, and provide a peek at the settings, plus direction to the products on dndclassics for those who need the setting materials.