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.

 

[Faolyn]

That said, I hope we don't shy away from every possible thing that could be seen as remotely controversial. Planescapes is about belief and to see that watered down would return the planes to "place where the high CR monsters live"

Well, you have to admit that the Lawful Good members of the Harmonium don't seem to care all that much that their compatriots are attacking and killing Indeps. I'd be happy if they address the problems that arise in each faction because of things like that rather than ignore it.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Last I heard, Wizards and the authors had come to an agreement and the first new Dragonlance novel was supposed to be out this summer. Did that change?

It is, but initially the release was blocked. Then W&H sued, some deal was made, and it's being released. There was a point within the past year where these novels were being blocked by WotC, and I find it very odd that WotC could have been blocking the novels while also planning on releasing a Dragonlance setting book (even if the later changed their mind on the novels release).

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Well, you have to admit that the Lawful Good members of the Harmonium don't seem to care all that much that their compatriots are attacking and killing Indeps. I'd be happy if they address the problems that arise in each faction because of things like that rather than ignore it.

The Revolutionary League / Anarchist part of me would say they're all complicit and still valid targets, after my cell decides on what causes to support and which enemy of the people need to die...

 

[JEB]

It is, but initially the release was blocked. Then W&H sued, some deal was made, and it's being released. There was a point within the past year where these novels were being blocked by WotC, and I find it very odd that WotC could have been blocking the novels while also planning on releasing a Dragonlance setting book (even if the later changed their mind on the novels release).

It sounded like Wizards of the Coast never intended to block the novels from being released. (If they wanted that to happen, they would have just broken the contract.) Rather, they appeared to have withheld further approvals on the novels because Weis and Hickman were refusing to make certain changes. I imagine the plan was to pressure them into acquiescing, but instead the authors filed suit. And now they've worked something out.

None of that precludes Wizards having started on a Dragonlance setting book well before any of the legal snags happened. And keeping the new novels out of print wouldn't have prevented them from releasing a Dragonlance setting book, either.

 

[Aldarc]

It's weird that nobody here sees things controversial about some of the factions in Planescape, they're clubs that the players can join, and there's extremes like the Authoritarian Harmonium on one end that has issues with genocide from their homeworld and racially motivated police violence, and on the other extreme end their opposite the Anarcho-Communist Revolutionary League which certainly engages in terrorism and political violence as a means to and end.

Granted most people do take a step back and realize that there are extremists in just about all factions, but the setting' post-modernism has the thing that neither of them are wrong (or right).

My primary issue with the Factions and one of my biggest beefs with Planescape is that its approach and use of philosophy is almost farcically sophomoric. Ravnica, in contrast, works for me because it's not so much trying to re-appropriate philosophic ideas, movements, and schools of thought, but, rather, it is re-contextualizing its own in-house MtG Color Pie.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't want to step on any toes (I know you are a huge Mystara fan, and are working on an incredible setting book for the setting), but this is not a cohesive theme. Most of the 5E settings (with the notable exception of Forgotten Realms) can be boiled down to a one-or-two sentence explanation of "What adventures you would run here."

I'm not sure the same can be said for Mystara, at least not without overlapping with settings like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, which polls suggest are generally more popular than Mystara. I find it pretty unlikely that WotC has any clear idea of how to publish Mystara for 5E unless they try to fixate it on a theme, or will even try.

And although Mearls description of Mystara is not accurate (it's far too broad a setting for such a generalization), I think there is a perception that this is what Mystara was like. The most popular iteration of Mystara is probably the arcade game, which definitely leans in to a very colorful, almost JRPG style of fantasy.

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And I do think there is a niche of nostalgia for '90s fantasy. These arcade games of the era, and games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, and Dragon Quest, share a lot in common for artistic style. I do think a rebrand of Mystara might be able to capture that essence in the bottle, even though it wouldn't really be the same as its original conception.

Good point re: the arcade game.

I think if Mystara was brought back, having it be sort of "Classic '90s anime/JRPG-influenced fantasy" with everything very iconic and clear in the visual style would definitely be a good approach. It is indeed not quite the original conception of Mystara, but it would work well with it. With sufficient visual design effort and good marketing, I think that could actually be a hilariously massive hit.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My primary issue with the Factions and one of my biggest beefs with Planescape is that its approach and use of philosophy is almost farcically sophomoric.

I assume it's designed to be accessible to players who haven't studied philosophy to sophomore level...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My primary issue with the Factions and one of my biggest beefs with Planescape is that its approach and use of philosophy is almost farcically sophomoric. Ravnica, in contrast, works for me because it's not so much trying to re-appropriate philosophic ideas, movements, and schools of thought, but, rather, it is re-contextualizing its own in-house MtG Color Pie.

That's a pretty silly beef with Planescape, because whilst it is shallow, what they did with the Factions was really fun and effective, and got people engaged with the ideas involved, to the level that was appropriate for Dungeons and Dragons (this ain't Philosophers and Philanderers or whatever). Ravnica is a very nerdy take in a bad way, that basically layers nerd stuff on nerd stuff. It's fine for MtG, where you're expected to be engaged with idiotic incestuous/self-referential nerd stuff like the colour pie, but it's lame for D&D. It's not engaging or fun, and it doesn't speak to remotely the breadth of players that Planescape's approach did. If Planescape veers slightly into Monty Python or sketch show territory at times, that only helps the accessibility and is indeed part of the charm of the setting.

I assume it's designed to be accessible to players who haven't studied philosophy to sophomore level...

Exactly! It's all very well for philosophy majors or self-regarding "readers of philosophy" to sneer (and guys we're all laughing at your degree anyway so...), but it wasn't shallow because Zeb Cook couldn't have made it deeper, it was shallow because it was intended to be engaging and fun not "educational". Even the shallow stuff it has honestly promotes a lot of thinking about thinking and ideas that most people just don't do.

 

[Aldarc]

I assume it's designed to be accessible to players who haven't studied philosophy to sophomore level...

That’s not what sophomoric means in this context.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That’s not what sophomoric means in this context.

It doesn't matter what it means in your context. Some of us haven't studied philosophy at all.