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.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

So does game of thrones

Not a recommendation when it comes to a modern RPG setting...

 

[Mecheon]

I said it already in another thread, and I wasn't joking: gnomes should be a subspecies of halflings. Naturey gnomes are already basically halflings with a bit of magic, and tinker gnomes can be just halflings from a technologically focused culture.

I remaining disagreeing on that, gnomes have their own niche that's completely different from the halfling niche. Sink halflings into gnomes would be the smarter decision and also not have resulted in a certain lawsuit a few decades ago

Also we saw what happened the last time they left gnomes out. Folks were not happy

If we're removing things, half-elves and half-orcs should have a Pathfinder 2-esque trait you can apply to things rather than being fully fledged races

 

[Khelon Testudo]

Halflings could be "farmer gnomes" or "rural gnomes".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Halflings could be "farmer gnomes" or "rural gnomes".

Yes, sure. It works that way too.

 

[ChaosOS]

While I know there was serious backlash to 4e's PHB2 delaying things like half orcs, gnomes, and druids, I actually really like the extra thought they put into some historically troubled races. Fey gnomes were a really good addition to core, and even in Eberron where I feel gnomes had the best definition it added some color. "Lolrandom" gnomes aren't great, and tinker gnomes usually suffer from the issue that their inventions don't get to impact the rest of the setting.

 

[Remathilis]

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but the lore building of 4e was HIGHLY UNDERRATED. 4e sought to make the D&D universe into a coherent one. It even put a tremendous amount of thought into systematizing the undead and their origins.

The two biggest problems with 4e's lore was a.) It was spread out all over the place and there was no easy starting point to act as a good primer for it, and b.) It had the unfortunate task of replacing 30 years of beloved garbled mess. If they had done a good "Nentir Vale gazetteer" for PCs and DMs to use as ground zero (rather than spreadv nuggets of it through the rulebooks, Dragon mags and modules so that you need a decent wiki to keep track of it) and kept it to Nentir Vale at first and then work parts of it into other settings rather than crash the systems with major changes it might have gone better.

 

[Quickleaf]

Honestly I assume that if anyone would publish Planescape again, they'd ignore Faction War.

Another thing that you're going to have to address is the fact that TSR nuked most of the settings before they went way in an attempt to try to change up the world to boost sales. This was generally regarded as a terrible idea as it took away what made so many of the settings popular.

Planescape was known as the multiplanar Freakshow partially because of the art. But it was also well-regarded because it had all of the inter factional internecine sniping that caused most of the conflict in Sigil. Then the lady of pain kicks them all out of the city and suddenly the major source of conflict is gone.

Mystara did this with its cold war vibe as the two largest empires could squash everybody else lile bugs but were too evenly matched to defeat each other without destroying themselves. Then Wrath hits and Alphatia's gone and Thyatis is a shell of itself. No more cold war and again the major source of conflict is removed.

If you're going to bring the settings back you have to bring them back when they were at their most popular because that's what people wanted. We remember them at their peak. Planescape without factions and mystara without a cold war are boring. The same holds true for the other ones as well

I really really hope so. I loved the hell out of Planescape and Faction War really bugged me. Given 5e's propensity for ignoring past canon when they want to, I certainly hope that if they do bring us back to PS that they just kinda leave that bit behind.

Or the Lady of Pain might just let them back in to Sigil again, but with restrictions that make factional fighting much more behind-the-scenes. That opens things back for factional conflict, but with more nuance and intrigue.

On the Faction War possibly working, the thing is the narrative space for factions but outside of Sigil was already occupied by the Sects (several of which WERE factions that got exiled on the last time the Lady did a purge)

Back in 2012, RPG Codex interviewed Monte Cook (who wrote for the Planescape line), and he shared some insights into the plan to resolve Faction War and return the factions – but then the product line came to its end. Codex Interview - RPG Codex Interview: Monte Cook on Dungeons & Dragons and RPG Design

Faction War was never meant to be the end of PS. There was supposed to be a follow-up adventure/sourcebook that rebuilt things. But the line was cancelled before it could come out. A real shame. In later years, however, I was able to produce a sort of Planescape reunion product for Malhavoc Press called Beyond Countless Doorways. I brought together Zeb Cook, Michele Carter, Colin McComb, Ray Vallese, and Wolfgang Baur, some of the core minds that PS came from, and we put together a d20 sourcebook about planar travel that I'm really proud of.

 

[Older Beholder]

Another million to one wish list item,
But I would love a Dragonlance campaign book that covered both Ansalon and Taladas

 

[Nymrod]

Back in 2012, RPG Codex interviewed Monte Cook (who wrote for the Planescape line), and he shared some insights into the plan to resolve Faction War and return the factions – but then the product line came to its end. Codex Interview - RPG Codex Interview: Monte Cook on Dungeons & Dragons and RPG Design

And that would have been solid for Planescape (and perhaps needed for some factions, especially the Mercykillers whose philosophy attracted people on extremely different ends of the spectrum). But the truth is that so many settings got nuked during editions transitions (in FR with the "Realm-shaking events" occuring annually was pretty much a joke at some point).

Honestly for me the best thing would be for all settings to work a bit like Eberron. Find a great point in time, take the setting there for canon, let a few things be mysteries and do not officially move it forward, letting novels and adventures be POSSIBILITIES. If possible include ways to play the game at several points in time (As e.g. Dragonlance did in 3E). It gives everyone, including the writers, the most freedom. If someone wants continuity for their fiction, well this is fantasy and we have many an example of multi-novel stories in the same setting. As for GMs, them and their players can decide ahead of time when they want to play in a setting and what they want to have there. If in my FR the kings of Impiltur and Cormyr marry, then that's how it is in my FR after all.

The issue of course would be if there is any consensus on what the best time (and place) for a setting is. Some settings imo had fairly reasonably timelines were catastrophes did not happen just to fit an edition-ending campaign. I could see keeping Greyhawk as it is for instance. But beyond Planescape with its Faction War, what about e.g. Ravenloft and the Grand Conjunction?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Are people seriously debating on gnomes vs. halflings again... I really don't think the average player cares that much about this.

I mean, Critical Role, arguably the most popular piece of D&D content this decade, originally had two gnomes in its first campaign. I get people find D&D gnomes and halflings too similar to each other, but hell, half-elves and humans are pretty dang similar to each other and no one complains.

So let's focus up on the campaign stuff again?