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.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Don't let the Guvners hear ya say that, berk.

who?

 

[Mind of tempest]

All due respect to Mike Mearls, but that's wrong for the world as a whole. There are definitely regions it's true of, but Mystara is a crazy quilt of tones.

but it does have dog people and I could get it sold out by nothing but the dog people.

 

[Faolyn]

Planescape seems highly likely, esp. given DiTerlizzi doing stuff to do with it recently-ish. Plus it's not any kind of minefield, really.

Well. There are still some issues. Old Planescape let you hang out with gods from modern-day religions (e.g., Indian/Hindu gods) and kind of treated them as being as mythical as the Babylonian gods, which made even my atheist self cringe. And speaking of which, I personally would like it if the Athar actually did something positive in Sigil, rather than just be "those jerk atheist guys who target and sabotage clerics." Every other faction has a useful role of some kind. If the Doomguard can have the armory (IIRC), the Bleakers can have soup kitchens, and the Indeps can control the Bazaar, then let the Athar have, I dunno, the printing presses or something.

Fortunately, these are issues that are easy to address.

 

[Faolyn]

but it does have dog people and I could get it sold out by nothing but the dog people.

It is really surprising that D&D hasn't had a core canid race.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It is really surprising that D&D hasn't had a core canid race.

yeah, the furrys would buy it on mass then we get dog lovers and the book would just print money.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Redacted.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'll hold that the WotC folks are likely looking at their survey material and using that to decide what settings are most important to publish. The only survey we know some results for is this one: D&D Monthly Survey | Dungeons & Dragons

There are 3 tiers of popularity based on these results:

1. Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms
2. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer
3. Everything else

Of the "top-tier," we have already gotten FR (if you seriously think you're getting an FR campaign book when there is the SCAG and mini-settings packed into every annual adventure, you're crazy), Ebberon, and now Ravenloft. That leaves both Dark Sun and Planescape in the top-tier.

So I hold that the two being worked on are Dark Sun and Planescape. They will both sell very well, and I think that people over-estimate the hassles of new rules and adjusting them to modern sensibilities.

I'll also hope Spelljammer comes out with an adventure book, ALA Descent into Avernus, but that's just blind hope.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

we would need a new manual of the planes before we get planescape as merging both would need lots of pages, are there any others left?

You can publish both easily. There will not be a 5E Planescape book that would ever cover the planes as well as all the various Planescape boxed sets did. But even devoting multiple pages to each set of the planes, comparable to the boxed sets, would be a big improvement over the DMG. Toss in a large chapter on Sigil, with one page write-ups of other planar cities like Gloomwrought (I think that's it; I didn't play 4E), the City of Brass and the City of Glass, and that's a ton of content. Stick player-facing planar content upfront, planar monsters in the back, and you're good to go.

Manuel of the Planes' Manual of the Planes is about the most straightforward 5E book WotC could publish.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Redacted

 

[embee]

I think more people would be OK with slavers being the kill-on-sight bad guys. But you could be right and it might be a step too far, considering how sanctioned and normalized it is in the setting.

Consider the problems that DS presents to the alignment grid.

How do you have Lawful Good if upholding the law, which sanctions chattel slavery, directly contradicts the furtherance of good, the autonomy and dignity of sentient beings? In theory, a Lawful Neutral character would willingly turn a blind eye to the plight of a slave while a Neutral Good character may help a king, who has a large number of slaves, retrieve some McGuffin.

Also, kill on sight in Dark Sun is almost always easier said than done.

And, of course, there will always be an edgelord who wants to play an evil character or run an evil campaign.

There's a whole lot of heavy lifting to be done.