D&D 5E 5e most conservative edition yet? (In terms of new settings)

[Parmandur]

The MtG settings work because they're being written by someone on the MtG team who was on the D&D team. So it's not taking D&D RPG team resources for much of it. And are cheaply made, since they can use recycled art.

You are right on in this post: however, take a gander at the credits for the Theros book. More resources, in terms of manpower, are being thrown into the books these days, as the team has expanded and continues to do so.

 

[Jester David]

You are right on in this post: however, take a gander at the credits for the Theros book. More resources, in terms of manpower, are being thrown into the books these days, as the team has expanded and continues to do so.

Yeah. It's not a one-man-show for sure.
They have (the amazing) F. Wesly Schneider from the D&D Team and Wyatt from the MtG team as the main credits. And three members of the D&D team doing "rules development".
But they also have a dozen freelancer writers and four freelance editors. It's not eating into resources that would be spent on the other two books. (Which is why they can do four books each year when they were doing three.)

 

[Parmandur]

That's my only distinction. WotC's D&D team hasn't created any new setting for 5e. They just move licensed settings through the pipeline.

Originality is overrated.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

That and make a whole bunch of new settings didn't lead to financial success during 2e.
For every Dark Sun that was a financial success, there's a Planescape that was popular but didn't sell (at time time). Or a Red Steel. Or a Council of Wyrms.

Furthermore, even if the new setting is super well-received and equal in popularity to Eberron or Dark Sun... they might as well have published Eberron or Dark Sun. They're not any better off. And that's the best case scenario.
It's High Risk and Average Reward.

The MtG settings work because they're being written by someone on the MtG team who was on the D&D team. So it's not taking D&D RPG team resources for much of it. And are cheaply made, since they can use recycled art.


And Explorer's Guide to Wildemount doesn't count because it's tangentially related to someone's homegame that also airs as a streaming show?
That doesn't affect the quality of the product. And there's large stretches of the setting the show never touched on.

But, okay then... how about:
Esper Genesis
Talislanta: The Savage Land
Arcanis
Amethyst
Scarred Lands
Primeval Thule
Midgard

I mean... it's not like the WotC team has magic powers that make their writing better than other people's words. And the big part of campaign settings is the lore and the world, so even the crunch and mechanics is less important.

Heck, it doesn't even need to be for 5e since lore is mechanic neutral. You could easily use Golarion, and take advantage of the second most supported and detail rich fantasy world in gaming.

Oof, you definitely added some counter arguments against just creating random settings for originality's sake.

I am really bad at articulating why it's important that this hypothetical "original" setting is created by WotC. I'll try though. In no particular order

• None of the settings you list are usable in Adventurer's League. And probably they never will be.
• As above, none of those setting materials are available in D&D Beyond
• Are those setting materials above easily integrated in Roll20 with existing officially published D&D materials?
• Porting over to other settings like Golarion - yes of course that can be done; but feels like a lot of work. Work that I am not interested in doing; nor do I get paid to do it.
• There is something about a new setting published by WotC that elevates it. Makes it literally "official". For example, I almost never hear anyone asking for anyone to reprint "Dragonmech" or "Midnight" (Ok, maybe Midnight). But boy people seemed pretty darn excited for an official Eberron campaign.

I guess that's it.

I see 100% why WotC doesn't publish original settings. Just not sure if that's good or not. Seems like most people here think that's good. Is there any chance that they are not creating the potential IPs of the future?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

By that standard the Realms is licensed. After all, it was created by someone else and not originally a D&D setting.

I think people need to stop using 2nd edition as a yardstick when it really was the outlier. Ever other edition has been 3 or fewer settings.

Yeah. I wonder if there are some bean counters at WotC who know EXACTLY how much all those semi-ok settings cost TSR; and maybe they are not now creating original settings due to that evidence. Most of us will never know; but it's an angle I hadn't considered. There are lots of reasons why TSR got into financial trouble; I guess this may be one of them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

TSR was prolific but support was often lacking. Many lines were dropped. The 2e era had it's fair share of weak books. It was not all glorious.

You say that, and it's definitely technically true, but it seems to me that a "poorly supported" 2E setting had a lot more support, typically, than a typical 5E setting, which is one-book-and-done.

Let's not re-write history. 2E was absolutely fantastic for settings. 3E and 4E didn't remotely come close, and 5E is even weaker than those, with the vast majority of its settings being merchandised tie-ins, either to third-party stuff or MtG.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yeah. I wonder if there are some bean counters at WotC who know EXACTLY how much all those semi-ok settings cost TSR; and maybe they are not now creating original settings due to that evidence. Most of us will never know; but it's an angle I hadn't considered. There are lots of reasons why TSR got into financial trouble; I guess this may be one of them.

it was definitely one of the reasons. We loved those boxed sets, but TSR was losing money on them. Birthright for instance had tons of great ideas, but it sold poorly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

it was definitely one of the reasons. We loved those boxed sets, but TSR was losing money on them. Birthright for instance had tons of great ideas, but it sold poorly.

I don't buy, for one cold second, that Planescape was "losing money", given the absolutely vast amount of material, much of it quite fancy, that they put out for it. Some individual products may have sold poorly, but now way overall it was.

So "those boxed sets" seems like a gross generalization to me. I'm sure Birthright wasn't a huge seller, but I very much doubt DS or PS had any sales problems, nor the FR. I can believe there was too much material coming out, after all, you can only play in one setting at once, but TSR would have gone under in the early '90s if stuff like DS and PS wasn't making money.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

You say that, and it's definitely technically true, but it seems to me that a "poorly supported" 2E setting had a lot more support, typically, than a typical 5E setting, which is one-book-and-done.

Let's not re-write history. 2E was absolutely fantastic for settings. 3E and 4E didn't remotely come close, and 5E is even weaker than those, with the vast majority of its settings being merchandised tie-ins, either to third-party stuff or MtG.

Did TSR drop any settings until WotC bought them? The ones that went on hiatus prior to 3E were Spelljammer, AlQadim and Kara The and that may have been post 97 takeover.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Did TSR drop any settings until WotC bought them? The ones that went on hiatus prior to 3E were Spelljammer, AlQadim and Kara The and that may have been post 97 takeover.

What does drop mean in this context? Stop producing material for? If so yes they dropped loads.

Also, come on, Spelljammer's last product was in 1993, how is that "may have been post 97 takeover"? You can look this stuff up you know?

Al Qadim's last product was 1998, but that was a very random 32-page adventure that came out of nowhere. Until then, the line had been dead since 1994.

Not sure what "Kara The" is? Kara Tur? The last OA book in 1990. Thats barely even 2E and you're saying it might have been "post 97"? Man whaaaaa? Am I missing something?