D&D 5E 3 Classic Settings Coming To 5E?

On the D&D Celebration – Sunday, Inside the D&D Studio with Liz Schuh and Ray Winninger, Winninger said that WotC will be shifting to a greater emphasis on settings in the coming years.

This includes three classic settings getting active attention, including some that fans have been actively asking for. He was cagey about which ones, though.

The video below is an 11-hour video, but the information comes in the last hour for those who want to scrub through.



Additionally, Liz Schuh said there would be more anthologies, as well as more products to enhance game play that are not books.

Winninger mentioned more products aimed at the mainstream player who can't spend immense amount of time absorbing 3 tomes.

Ray and Liz confirmed there will be more Magic: The Gathering collaborations.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There are different themes at play, but 'Asian mythology' is a massive thing that encompasses a lot. A lot of stuff you had in the west just wouldn't exist in the east simply due to how they are and how they've developed

Disney found this one out the hard way with how bad Mulan is being torn apart in cinema, and folks pointing out how that seems like a western fantasy, not a Chinese one, are right on the ball

Yet a lot of other stuff, including some Disney output, straddles the divide of Western and Asian fantasy. Avatar (the cartoon) is a good example - it was intentionally "Asian" in style, yet very little of what goes on in it is anything that wouldn't be in D&D. (For a Disney example see the upcoming Raya - The Last Dragon, which honestly looks straight-up like a high-budget Avatar rip-off).

Mulan is getting ripped up for a thousand reasons, but in terms of fantasy, the issue is that it's an arguably even more Westernized take than the previous one (but ironically also more acceptable to the current Chinese government). That's a problem because it's a specifically Chinese story/myth. If we're talking about fantasy that isn't about a specific story/myth though, that's going to be a lot harder to pin down.

It's not a unidirectional flow, either, of the West adopting stuff previously more popular in Asian fantasy - the flow is bidirectional, with fantasy stuff from Asia often adopting very Western aesthetics and ideas mixed in with Asian ones.

 

[Remathilis]

It seems to me that Dark Sun is pretty much a given at this point.

Considering Mordenkain's, Tasha's, and Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Greyhawk seems likely, too.

Now, here's the thing. In the current AL guide, SCAG is not allowed as a source for races, subclasses, or spells and is not even mentioned as far as I could see. This is particularly odd. Perhaps this means that a full Forgotten Realms setting may be in the works.

Slight correction: SCAG is still allowed for characters designed for prior seasons (1-9, or ToD to BGDiA) and at this point the list of things that haven't seen reprint is vanishingly small (ghostwise halflings, a few subclasses and the backgrounds). Most of it has or will show up in Xanathar, Tome of Foes, and Tasha. What I guess it does do is stop you from playing a duergar swashbuckler, as those are now in separate books.

 

[Nymrod]

Mulan is getting ripped up for a thousand reasons, but in terms of fantasy, the issue is that it's an arguably even more Westernized take than the previous one (but ironically also more acceptable to the current Chinese government). That's a problem because it's a specifically Chinese story/myth. If we're talking about fantasy that isn't about a specific story/myth though, that's going to be a lot harder to pin down.

Heck as a Greek I take offense at Disney's Hercules over . . . everything? But at the same time, Theros is a solid interpretation of Greek myth. Which is why I am hoping for a new Kara Tur, the world (and D&D) has changed enough for them to do it right.

 

[Reynard]

I think that since D&D is a fantasy game maybe designers and DMs could come up with some cultures and ideas that, you know, are fantastical and not based on some crappy pastiche or caricature of a historical Earth culture.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I think that since D&D is a fantasy game maybe designers and DMs could come up with some cultures and ideas that, you know, are fantastical and not based on some crappy pastiche or caricature of a historical Earth culture.

The likely result will fail as badly as the random syllable name game used for fantasy place naming typical of settings. Caricatures of real settings allow us to fill in the blanks.

The amount work needed to come up with convincing morays, folkways, traditions, holidays, languages that feel lived... is beyond the skill of someone designing ttrpgs. Wait until they try and see if that doesn’t feel like a worse outcome.

Making it relatable makes it approachable.

 

[Reynard]

The likely result will fail as badly as the random syllable name game used for fantasy place naming typical of settings. Caricatures of real settings allow us to fill in the blanks.

The amount work needed to come up with convincing morays, folkways, traditions, holidays, languages that feel lived... is beyond the skill of someone designing ttrpgs. Wait until they try and see if that doesn’t feel like a worse outcome.

Making it relatable makes it approachable.

You don't seem to think much of RPG authors.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The likely result will fail as badly as the random syllable name game used for fantasy place naming typical of settings. Caricatures of real settings allow us to fill in the blanks.

The amount work needed to come up with convincing morays, folkways, traditions, holidays, languages that feel lived... is beyond the skill of someone designing ttrpgs. Wait until they try and see if that doesn’t feel like a worse outcome.

Making it relatable makes it approachable.

Yep. Most writers struggle to even come up with vaguely convincing system of names for an "invented" culture, let alone the rest of it. There's more than just chuckin' a few apostrophes in it and calling it a day.

 

[Reynard]

Yep. Most writers struggle to even come up with vaguely convincing system of names for an "invented" culture, let alone the rest of it. There's more than just chuckin' a few apostrophes in it and calling it a day.

Planescape. Dark Sun. Eberron. Probably the three most popular settings after FR, and none of them are wild pastiches of Earth cultures.

 

[Coroc]

Let us complicate the discussion a bit more and check what "loaded" topics or cliches are within the original darksun:

Slavery
Arena fights
Very stereotyped races, like halfgiants are all dimwits, elves are all thieves, halflings are all cannibals and mul are all slaves.
Racism : Elves vs halelves e.g.
Everything and it's mother is evile or has to act evil to survive

So, if you are of the opinion that a 5e DS would be mainly targeting new players, which one of the points above would they accept?

If you also want to reach the old school fans of the setting, how much alteration will they tolerate?

 

[Reynard]

Let us complicate the discussion a bit more and check what "loaded" topics or cliches are within the original darksun:

Slavery
Arena fights
Very stereotyped races, like halfgiants are all dimwits, elves are all thieves, halflings are all cannibals and mul are all slaves.
Racism : Elves vs halelves e.g.
Everything and it's mother is evile or has to act evil to survive

So, if you are of the opinion that a 5e DS would be mainly targeting new players, which one of the points above would they accept?

If you also want to reach the old school fans of the setting, how much alteration will they tolerate?

There's obviously a place for grimdark fantasy -- Abercrombie is still popular, among other authors -- and I think that's the place Dark Sun could sit in the D&D canon. Now, I don't know if WotC would do a grimdark setting. And I also don't think WotC should worry to much about "older fans" -- they likely omprise a pretty small slice of the purchasing customers these days just by way of demographics.