D&D General What are the "dead settings" of D&D?

[Aldarc]

From what I recall, Ghostwalk was essentially meant to be plugged into a given setting with the idea that the city of Ghostwalk could be a part of nearly any setting. Kinda like Green Ronin's Freeport, but far more niche.

I would also add to my earlier point that one could easily take the premise of Ghostwalk and drop it into the Nentir Vale, such as Hammerfast, which is a dwarf and orc city that features a lot of the spirits of the dead.

A non-exhaustive list of third party settings (some of these are wild guesses):

• A - Significant active campaigning: Golarion (as Pathfinder), Midgard
• B - Large cult following: Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Ptolus, Scarred Lands, Middle-earth
• C - Small cult following: Freeport, Lost Lands, Diamond Throne
• D - Little or no active following ("Dead settings"): Diomin, Castlemourn, Kingdoms of Kalamar (now probably small cult following as Hackmaster setting), Dawnforge, Morningstar, Melnibone,

What following does Diamond Throne have? I love it as non-LotR fantasy, but I rarely if ever hear people talk about it. I get more discussion from Midnight and Dawnforge.

 

[Flamestrike]

I just wonder what the percentage is. Is it 5%? 1%? 0.1%? 0.01%?

As for "trivial to find people talking about their Ravnica games", I've been searching for actual play threads/podcasts featuring people playing Ravnica now, but I wasn't initially able to find any at all. I found a number of ended campaigns from 2019, and a cool-sounding podcast, but that was also over.

I did find a subreddit for Ravnica for D&D, which whilst not super-active, is a bit more active than the Dark Sun subreddit, so there's that. Still, you'd hope so, given Ravnica fans are probably 10-20 years younger than DS ones (and thus vastly more likely to be on reddit. That's literally the only place I could find, but its something!

The DS subreddit being so much more active than the Greyhawk or Dragonlance ones (I mean, you'd kind of expect this, DL/GH players are probably mostly 45+ and thus less likely to be on reddit) does help explain why WotC might be so keen on it. Not because of the subreddit, obviously, but because they have data suggesting Dark Sun has a lot of people interested in it.

This also suggests, to me at least, something pretty interesting - that a setting featuring in official products is very important in getting that setting to a younger generation, and keeping that setting alive long-term. Why do I say that? Because I strongly suspect that if Dark Sun hadn't been a 4E setting, then it wouldn't have a subreddit nearly populous as the Ravnica one. It would probably still be less dusty than the GH/DL ones, but not that active.

So that, for me, bolsters people's arguments that older settings "should" get some kind of official release.

Yeah, the Birthright forums are pretty dead now as well. Much more active in 3.5 days, and then totally died in 4E and now are only patrolled by a few rusted on die hards.

To be fair, the PC power levels of 5E dont really match Birthright without stripping a lot of the more magical stuff from classes (barring Blooded scions etc). Monks never really had a place in the setting, spellcasting was limited to blooded scions, and it always tended to have a grittier and more mundane feel. It's not really in line with 5E's more 'core' gonzo approach (common to Faerun and Greyhawk) plus 'magic everywhere' common to those two and Eberron.

Loved that setting though.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

For my part, I'd suspect that the following are in section D:

Red Steel
The Black Company
Thieves World

There are also some one-off Dragon magazine adaptations of existing properties that probably count - I doubt anyone is still playing in Terry Brooks' Shannara or Mieville's Perdido Street Station (or at least, using the rules from Dragon magazine).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Mieville's Perdido Street Station

There was an official Dragon Mag take on Perdido Street Station?! With China Mieville involved? I mean I know he's a keen RPGer and had a ton of D&D experience (most of his novels contain at least one pretty direct D&D reference, like the classic like in Perdido Street - "I'm just in this for the gold and experience!", or how one of the characters in Kraken views himself as a "Paladin in Hell"), but I did not know that. He's a pretty cool guy, I spoke to him once briefly after a lecture he gave on the immanent in city fantasy.

EDIT - Wow found it. You really don't want to get in the way of someone with a Possible Sword, which sounds about right. Huge article, too, but it came out around one of the times I was very definitely not playing 3.XE, which explains why I never saw it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

• A - Significant active campaigning: Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Exandria, Ravnica, Theros

• B - Large cult following: Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Nentir Vale, Mystara

• C - Small cult following: Blackmoor, Spelljammer, Kara-Tur*, Al-Qadim*, Dragonlance, Planescape, Lankhmar, Ravenloft, Wilderlands of High Fantasy

• D - Little or no active following ("Dead settings"): Birthright, Council of Wyrms, Dragon Fist, Dragonlance, The Horde*, Malatar*, Maztica*, Ghostwalk, Jakandor, Kingsdom of Kalamar, Mahasarpa, Pelinore, Rokugan, Warcraft

Note- anything with an asterisk is a setting that is within Forgotten Realms, but this is mostly about campaigns primarily playing within them.

Explanations:
Anything within A is currently and actively supported by WOTC. Should be a no-brainer (including Theros, upcoming).

B includes the primary Grognard / Legacy settings (GH, Mystara), as well as the settting for the last edition (4e) and Dark Sun.

C might be controversial; DL is barely played, if much loved, AFAIK. Same with Planescape.

Dead is dead.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@Snarf Zagyg

Dark Sun seems to have a highly comparable following to Ravnica, despite last having a new book ten years ago, thus it's slightly questionable that you put it in B, and Ravnica in A.

Dragonlance, from what I can tell, may have a larger active following than Greyhawk. Thus it is very hard to see why DL is D and GH is B - actually DL is in C and D so that's weird. I'd put both GH and DL in C.

Ravenloft is pretty actively played right now due to the 5E AP. Hard to see why that isn't a B.

Edit as for current campaigns:

1) Taladas (heavily modified, technically Dragonlance I guess though I never think of it that way) - 5E - running
2) Eberron - 5E - playing
3) Thylea (Odyssey of the Dragonlords setting) - 5E - playing
4) Ravenloft - 5E - playing

 

[JiffyPopTart]

All I have to offer is what's happening at our table....

We have three rotating GMs, each with their own campaign.

1. Forgotten Realms - 5e rules
2. Al-Qadim - Castles and Crusaders rules
3. Homebrew Setting - 5e rules

 

[Parmandur]

I just wonder what the percentage is. Is it 5%? 1%? 0.1%? 0.01%?

As for "trivial to find people talking about their Ravnica games", I've been searching for actual play threads/podcasts featuring people playing Ravnica now, but I wasn't initially able to find any at all. I found a number of ended campaigns from 2019, and a cool-sounding podcast, but that was also over.

I did find a subreddit for Ravnica for D&D, which whilst not super-active, is a bit more active than the Dark Sun subreddit, so there's that. Still, you'd hope so, given Ravnica fans are probably 10-20 years younger than DS ones (and thus vastly more likely to be on reddit. That's literally the only place I could find, but its something!

The DS subreddit being so much more active than the Greyhawk or Dragonlance ones (I mean, you'd kind of expect this, DL/GH players are probably mostly 45+ and thus less likely to be on reddit) does help explain why WotC might be so keen on it. Not because of the subreddit, obviously, but because they have data suggesting Dark Sun has a lot of people interested in it.

This also suggests, to me at least, something pretty interesting - that a setting featuring in official products is very important in getting that setting to a younger generation, and keeping that setting alive long-term. Why do I say that? Because I strongly suspect that if Dark Sun hadn't been a 4E setting, then it wouldn't have a subreddit nearly populous as the Ravnica one. It would probably still be less dusty than the GH/DL ones, but not that active.

So that, for me, bolsters people's arguments that older settings "should" get some kind of official release.

Yeah, good question: WotC probably has some idea, since part of their regular customer surveys goes into questions about Setting: heck, the last big survey let slip a lottle early and included Exandria in the list of official Settings to pick from...

 

[The Glen]

Blackmoor was established to be in the ancient history of Mystara. I'm pretty sure it's a retcon, but they did establish they are in the same world, just with Blackmoor happening long before all the later Mystara stuff.

The story behind it is Gary needed an ally in the power struggle at TSR so he brought Dave Arneson back with the promise that they will allow him to do blackmoor. They put it in the distant past of mystara, thousands of years before current day. Then they blew it up wiping it from the face of the map, and removing all aspects of it aside from a few scant mentions here or there.

 

[The Glen]

For my part, I'd suspect that the following are in section D:

Red Steel
The Black Company
Thieves World

There are also some one-off Dragon magazine adaptations of existing properties that probably count - I doubt anyone is still playing in Terry Brooks' Shannara or Mieville's Perdido Street Station (or at least, using the rules from Dragon magazine).

Red Steel is a part of Mystara, a 2nd edition expansion.