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.

 

[Zardnaar]

Depends on the people, usually it falls under the Neopagan crowd but there are people locally following the Babylonian deities by working back through the Picatrix and Goetia to recover the tradition. It is also closely related to the Phoenician practitioners like the Ordo Templi Astarte but the ones I know refer to themselves as just followers of the Sumerian deities and think it's cool when their deities show up in fiction. I have a friend who loves that Pazuzu is the demon in the exorcist.

It's a revival though so they're about as guilty of cultural appropriation as D&D writers using the myths lol.

There's no continuity between the ancient beliefs and the modern revivals.

 

[teitan]

It's a revival though so they're about as guilty of cultural appropriation as D&D writers using the myths lol.

There's no continuity between the ancient beliefs and the modern revivals.

Yeah but that wasn't the context, the context was real world religions and these are people actively worshiping these entities and working towards reviving their traditions. WOuld you say the same thing about those reviving the Viking religion in ICeland on a massive scale?

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah but that wasn't the context, the context was real world religions and these are people actively worshiping these entities and working towards reviving their traditions. WOuld you say the same thing about those reviving the Viking religion in ICeland on a massive scale?

Yes I would.

You can't really lecture D&D for stealing tropes and myths when you've done the exact same thing.

 

[teitan]

Yes I would.

You can't really lecture D&D for stealing tropes and myths when you've done the exact same thing.

I wasn't. I was pointing out that religion has always been fodder for fiction and the weird need some feel to be offended for others of other religions or cultures, especially when many of D&D's portrayals of these things are sourced in those cultures themselves. I was trying to understand why it was offensive with Indian/Hindu entities vs Babylonian entities because real world religions. A study will show that modern Hinduism has more in common with Theosophical tropes than traditional Hinduism, so much so that there are "traditional Hindus" trying to reclaim the religion from Theosophical ideas. One example is the chakra system where it has generally been accepted that they are certain, specific colors but no one can source these colors any farther back than the late 19th century. Yoga as well isn't an ancient practice as many believe and most of the well respected books on Hinduism were often written by white men in America and Europe. Particularly one name William Walker Adkinson who wrote on various Hindu sounding pseudonyms and became a popular source in the east & west on Hindu practices. Even Christianity is a modern religion in the form that we know it, dispensationalism of the fundamentalists and the prosperity gospels of the evangelists being either mid 19th century creations in the form of dispensationalism and prosperity gospel being a fusion of Christianity, New Thought (also sourced to Atkinson through the Kybalion) and wealth (now known as MLM) generating systems of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Basically I was saying it's ok to use ANY religion as long as it's respectful and not for the sake of a cheap villain or joke but not to be selective because while YOU may not think there are people not following those gods, you would be very wrong and if you are afraid to offend one, you should extend that to all gods because you should not insult Osiris lest you also insult Shiva in another form.

 

[Zardnaar]

I wasn't. I was pointing out that religion has always been fodder for fiction and the weird need some feel to be offended for others of other religions or cultures, especially when many of D&D's portrayals of these things are sourced in those cultures themselves. I was trying to understand why it was offensive with Indian/Hindu entities vs Babylonian entities because real world religions. A study will show that modern Hinduism has more in common with Theosophical tropes than traditional Hinduism, so much so that there are "traditional Hindus" trying to reclaim the religion from Theosophical ideas. One example is the chakra system where it has generally been accepted that they are certain, specific colors but no one can source these colors any farther back than the late 19th century. Yoga as well isn't an ancient practice as many believe and most of the well respected books on Hinduism were often written by white men in America and Europe. Particularly one name William Walker Adkinson who wrote on various Hindu sounding pseudonyms and became a popular source in the east & west on Hindu practices. Even Christianity is a modern religion in the form that we know it, dispensationalism of the fundamentalists and the prosperity gospels of the evangelists being either mid 19th century creations in the form of dispensationalism and prosperity gospel being a fusion of Christianity, New Thought (also sourced to Atkinson through the Kybalion) and wealth (now known as MLM) generating systems of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Basically I was saying it's ok to use ANY religion as long as it's respectful and not for the sake of a cheap villain or joke but not to be selective because while YOU may not think there are people not following those gods, you would be very wrong and if you are afraid to offend one, you should extend that to all gods because you should not insult Osiris lest you also insult Shiva in another form.

I don't use RL religions in games because of issues like this.

I'll make an exception for extinct religions (ignoring revivals) and even then I've run one Egyptian game in 28 years of D&D.

I'm not going near a modern religion in D&D with a 10'pole and figured this out in about 1993, 94 at the latest.

I'll ignore revivals because their claims are about as legit as D&D's.

 

[Aldarc]

It's a revival though so they're about as guilty of cultural appropriation as D&D writers using the myths lol.

There's no continuity between the ancient beliefs and the modern revivals.

Just because something is a revival or there has been a disruption of continuity doesn't inherently mean that it's a form of cultural appropriation. Context matters a lot in these situations: e.g., who's doing it, to whom, what they are doing, intent and sincerity, why they are doing it, the power imbalance (i.e., punching up/down), etc.

Even on a basic pass, it's hard to imagine that a commercialized American game product depicting other cultures and a revivalist movement of a nation's pre-Christianized beliefs are equivalent positions, much less the "exact same thing," when it comes to "cultural appropriation." So this likely stems from a desire to depict others as being "just as guilty" - regardless of whether that accusation passes the muster - as if that somehow makes any cultural appropriation on D&D's behalf a defensible position, which is absurd. It's essentially an admission to guilt wrapped in a bad faith argument.

 

[Zardnaar]

Just because something is a revival or there has been a disruption of continuity doesn't inherently mean that it's a form of cultural appropriation. Context matters a lot in these situations: e.g., who's doing it, to whom, what they are doing, intent and sincerity, why they are doing it, the power imbalance (i.e., punching up/down), etc.

Even on a basic pass, it's hard to imagine that a commercialized American game product depicting other cultures and a revivalist movement of a nation's pre-Christianized beliefs are equivalent positions, much less the "exact same thing," when it comes to "cultural appropriation." So this likely stems from a desire to depict others as being "just as guilty" - regardless of whether that accusation passes the muster - as if that somehow makes any cultural appropriation on D&D's behalf a defensible position, which is absurd. It's essentially an admission to guilt wrapped in a bad faith argument.

Not really it's stupid to insist anyone owns the old religions.

Greek one lasted until 9th century, Egypt 6th century with maybe some remnants in the 7th and Viking one was mostly gone by 12th not sure on any remnants.

You're free to believe whatever you like but I'm free to use them in D&D.

MCU cough cough.

 

[Aldarc]

Not really it's stupid to insist anyone owns the old religions.

For what little it's likely worth, it's even worse to make bad take strawman arguments like this.

 

[Zardnaar]

For what little it's likely worth, it's even worse to make bad take strawman arguments like this.

There's no link there though. Anyone reviving those beliefs is doing cultural appropriation.

Those cultures are long dead and they're not even that accurate in a lot of cases to what they've revived.

Isn't that what cultural appropriation is?

 

[Scribe]

See this is why I love fantasy with gods that aren't pulled straight out of human faiths.

I love the concept of what divinity would mean if gods dropped gifts and power on folks, without the baggage of stepping on someone's belief system.

Not worth the trouble.