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

[fuindordm]

I would totally buy a "Worlds of D&D" hardcover with a chapter each devoted to the major settings: Each chapter could provide:

• Introduction
• Major themes
• Beautiful map
• Descriptions of major countries and land features
• Historical eras and recent events
• Campaign ideas
• Specific backgrounds and feats
• Specific subclasses
• Specific spells and magic items

Budget about 30 pages per setting, so you get all of the above, but not highly detailed gazzetters or timelines. Add lots of gorgeous art for iconic locations and NPCs.

A 300-page book could easily fit 8-10 worlds. That covers Greyhawk, FR, Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, Planescape, Mystara, and Birthright at a minimum.

On the other hand, I'm pretty unlikely to buy hardcovers devoted to a single setting (except Eberron) because I simply don't need that much detail to write my adventures.

 

[Bayonet]

I would totally buy a "Worlds of D&D" hardcover with a chapter each devoted to the major settings: Each chapter could provide:

• Introduction
• Major themes
• Beautiful map
• Descriptions of major countries and land features
• Historical eras and recent events
• Campaign ideas
• Specific backgrounds and feats
• Specific subclasses
• Specific spells and magic items

Budget about 30 pages per setting, so you get all of the above, but not highly detailed gazzetters or timelines. Add lots of gorgeous art for iconic locations and NPCs.

A 300-page book could easily fit 8-10 worlds. That covers Greyhawk, FR, Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, Planescape, Mystara, and Birthright at a minimum.

On the other hand, I'm pretty unlikely to buy hardcovers devoted to a single setting (except Eberron) because I simply don't need that much detail to write my adventures.

This seems to make the most sense to me, and it sounds like something I might actually buy. The utility of a general purpose background sourcebook would likely appeal to more customers than the specific books, which means more sales. Wizards, get on this!


Personally I think that WoTC should put some more time and effort into publishing as many adventure modules as possible. I'd also like to see conversions for modules from previous issues. Re-print Keep on the Shadowfell, with updated enemy info, and I will buy it.

Also, keep that Starter Set in stores. I've been interested in D&D for years, but never had the time/money/group/whatever to get into it. When I saw what amounted to a dummy's guide to D&D sitting on the shelf in a bookstore for 20 bucks I thought "Hell Yeah!" and never thought twice about buying it. At first I just wanted to keep it around as a "Break Glass in Case of Nerds" thing, but the more I read of it, the more anxious I got to play. Now I've bought the PHB, tons of RP accessories, and found a group via Reddit.

Wizards should concentrate on getting newbies hooked. Once you're in, you'll buy anything.

 

[Parmandur]

From what Mearls and co. have said, it looks like the DMG might give us some information on the different settings; just about every setting TSR and WOTC ever published at least gets named in the PHB as is. Since they are focusing so much on IP, I'm sure that supporting settings will be a thing going forward.

 

[Jester David]

I think we need a Realms book, as so much of the world has changed. The old information is no longer valid, compared to Eberron or Ravenloft.

 

[drjones]

In the same way that Golarion was shown, bit by bit, in the early Pathfinder AP's? It's a strategy which has seemed to work for Paizo.

I dont have anything against golarion but I stopped buying the APs after the first one because it was rather specific to a world that did not fit well with mine. There is a lot to be said for a very colorful specific setting that provides a lot of hooks for stories but it does mean that someone has to be all in on that world. Seems like the opposite of the 'less, better books' idea they are going with so far.

I used the 4e and 2e Dark Sun and found them very useful in non-mechanical ways. I would love a really well made, mechanically unique approach to psionics for 5e but I think I could run a dark sun game just fine right now using the older books and my own creations.

 

[Warunsun]

Premium Hardcover Settings!

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.

I would buy these mythical 400 page hard covers especially if they were system neutral. A campaign book like this could be evergreen and apply to any edition or even the 6th or 7th edition. With that large of a page count you could have chapters on different eras of the settings as well so you could cover the Greyhawk Wars in a chapter and both the War of the Lance and the Age of Mortals for Dragonlance in the same book. I certainly would buy these campaign books but I have a feeling that Wizards isn't going to sell anything like them. Too expensive to produce and potentially too limited an area of interest. I personally would pay a premium price for them if they were well done and included digital tools like a CD-ROM with printable maps and interesting handouts, charts, and timelines.

I think we are going to be stuck with just dndclassics.com for now. They are slowing releasing a wealth of information on that site. I think the prices for some of the PDFs are quite steep when you consider all the money you must pay to print them out. It would be nice if they would offer a reasonable POD+PDF option.