D&D 5E WotC: 5 D&D Settings In Development?

WotC's Ray Winninger spoke a little about some upcoming D&D settings -- two classic settings are coming in 2022 in formats we haven't seen before, and two brand new (not Magic: the Gathering) settings are also in development, as well as return to a setting they've already covered in 5E. He does note, however, that of the last three, there's a chance of one or more not making it to release, as they develop more than they use.

Two classic settings? What could they be?​

So that's:

• 2 classic settings in 2022 (in a brand new format)
• 2 brand new settings
• 1 returning setting

So the big questions -- what are the two classic settings, and what do they mean by a format we haven't seen before? Winninger has clarified on Twitter that "Each of these products is pursuing a different format you've never seen before. And neither is "digital only;" these are new print formats."

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions, there are two more products that revive "classic" settings in production right now.

The manuscript for the first, overseen by [Chris Perkins], is nearly complete. Work on the second, led by [F. Wesley Schneider] with an assist from [Ari Levitch], is just ramping up in earnest. Both are targeting 2022 and formats you've never seen before.

In addition to these two titles, we have two brand new [D&D] settings in early development, as well as a return to a setting we've already covered. (No, these are not M:tG worlds.)

As I mentioned in the dev blog, we develop more material than we publish, so it's possible one or more of these last three won't reach production. But as of right now, they're all looking great.

Of course the phrase "two more products that revive 'classic' settings" could be interpreted in different ways. It might not be two individual setting books.

 

[Rabulias]

It was confirmed in a later tweet that they won't be Digital-Only.

Hmmm... "neither is 'digital only'" does not preclude partially digital products.

 

[Zaukrie]

Pretty sure you could introduce guns and other low level tech w/o imperialism if you wanted......my money is still on post apocalypse, well, not my money, more like it is what I'd do.....

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Yes, very much agree with this.

My biggest concern is that format is entirely online, which would just suck.

I'm hoping they mean a box set, and I suppose they could get away with calling it "new" because it would be for a lot of newer folks, at least as far as a setting is concerned.

It could also be a multi-media, with a hard-copy component and online resources to "unpack" certain elements. For instance, a Magic-style "art of" book, with rules online. But I'm not sure why they'd bother.

Another option would be multiple products, so the "new format" is just presenting the setting in several products, including a book, an accessories set (or box) with a screen etc. But they've already kind of done that.

So, yeah, there's a sense of creeping doom about "new format," mainly because of the concern that it will either be something too novel and annoying to use, or entirely in cyberspace, which would remove the joy of having a hard-copy product.

Ray has already said they are in print, not digital only.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Plus, 2E's settings reinvented the wheel and constantly competed against one another. 5E's settings tend to compliment each other and include a bunch of suggestions on how to re-use things for other settings. "Don't care about Greyhawk? Buy Saltmarsh anyway for the boat rules and the setpieces to slot into whatever coastal cities you want. Don't care about the Realms? Frostmaiden's still got a bunch of wintery setpieces!"

Plus honest TSR would have survived those issues if it hadn't made so many other disastrous business decisions. I've never seen evidence that most of the settings were unprofitable, but read of the many bad business decisions and in some cases bad luck.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Plus honest TSR would have survived those issues if it hadn't made so many other disastrous business decisions. I've never seen evidence that most of the settings were unprofitable, but read of the many bad business decisions and in some cases bad luck.

Reading through Art & Arcana, there's definitely a sense that to the extent there was a business plan, it wasn't a great one.

Every line will get X supplements, period? (Unless they sell really well, in which case they'll get more.) What if the line tanks? Why are you still cranking them out?

What's the goal in publishing a new line? A new niche? Support a new novel? Appease someone powerful within the organization?

I grew up playing in Greyhawk and read the Dragonlance novels, but I have a hard time understanding why those had to keep going once the Forgotten Realms ended up being a runaway freight train. I get why some fans wanted them to keep going, but TSR wasn't a charity.

If they were producing what made the most financial sense for the company (no Buck Rogers line, for instance, no matter who owned the rights), they likely wouldn't have gotten themselves in the mess they did.

 

[Staffan]

Plus honest TSR would have survived those issues if it hadn't made so many other disastrous business decisions. I've never seen evidence that most of the settings were unprofitable, but read of the many bad business decisions and in some cases bad luck.

This is probably the best account of why TSR failed, written by the person Wizards sent in to save the things that could be saved. The most relevant excerpt would probably be: I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.

In other words, TSR published tons of junk. At their (seeming) height, they published something like a dozen products per month, spread out over a number of sub-product lines. Here's what they released in 1994, for example:

Spoiler

Core (25):
First Quest
Council of Wyrms
Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume One
The Complete Paladin's Handbook
The Complete Druid's Handbook
The Complete Book of Villains
Age of Heroes Campaign Sourcebook
The Crusades Campaign Sourcebook
Encyclopedia Magica, Volume I
Fighter's Challenge II
Temple, Tower & Tomb
Wizard's Challenge II
City Sites
Fighter's Screen
Priest's Screen
Thief's Screen
Wizard's Screen
Treasure Chest
Deck of Encounters, Set One
Deck of Encounters, Set Two
Deck of Psionic Powers
Fighter's Player Pack
Priest's Player Pack
Thief's Player Pack
Wizard's Player Pack

Dark Sun (4):
City by the Silt Sea
The Will & The Way
Black Spine
Forest Maker

Ravenloft (9):
Ravenloft Campaign Setting
Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales
Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium Appendix III: Creatures of Darkness
Van Richten's Guide to the Created
Van Righten's Guide to the Ancient Dead
Adam's Wrath
The Awakening
Hour of the Knife
Howls in the Night

Planescape (7):
Planescape Campaign Setting
Planes of Chaos
Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix
The Eternal Boundary
Well of Worlds
In the Abyss
The Deva Spark

Mystara (6):
Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure
Hail the Heroes
Night of the Vampire
Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix
Poor Wizard's Almanac III & Book of Facts
Red Steel Campaign Expansion

Forgotten Realms (10):
The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels
City of Splendors
Elminster's Ecologies
Elves of Evermeet
Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast
Cormyr
Book of Lairs
Marco Volo: Departure
Marco Volo: Journey
Marco Volo: Arrival

That's a total of 61 products, or five per month (and I'm not counting novels in this). At least 12 of those were boxed sets, making for one per month. One was a revision of a setting only released four years prior (with a second revision coming three years later).

All in all, the biggest problem was that TSR churned out so, SO much junk. And a major contributor of all that junk was that they were supporting five settings that year (including launching two), in addition to core D&D. I'm not saying there weren't some good things in that pile – throw enough stuff at the wall, and some of it will stick.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

All in all, the biggest problem was that TSR churned out so, SO much junk. And a major contributor of all that junk was that they were supporting five settings that year (including launching two), in addition to core D&D. I'm not saying there weren't some good things in that pile – throw enough stuff at the wall, and some of it will stick.

That list is so hilariously awful. Whoever insisted that players needed their own screens should have been physically thrown out of the building, especially since they were putting out player character "packs" the same year that could have (and maybe did have) the same sort of information in it.

So much of that release list could be cut away with a machete. There are maybe 12 products on there that have truly passed the test of time.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This is probably the best account of why TSR failed, written by the person Wizards sent in to save the things that could be saved. The most relevant excerpt would probably be: I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.

In other words, TSR published tons of junk. At their (seeming) height, they published something like a dozen products per month, spread out over a number of sub-product lines. Here's what they released in 1994, for example:

Spoiler

Core (25):
First Quest
Council of Wyrms
Monstrous Compendium Annual Volume One
The Complete Paladin's Handbook
The Complete Druid's Handbook
The Complete Book of Villains
Age of Heroes Campaign Sourcebook
The Crusades Campaign Sourcebook
Encyclopedia Magica, Volume I
Fighter's Challenge II
Temple, Tower & Tomb
Wizard's Challenge II
City Sites
Fighter's Screen
Priest's Screen
Thief's Screen
Wizard's Screen
Treasure Chest
Deck of Encounters, Set One
Deck of Encounters, Set Two
Deck of Psionic Powers
Fighter's Player Pack
Priest's Player Pack
Thief's Player Pack
Wizard's Player Pack

Dark Sun (4):
City by the Silt Sea
The Will & The Way
Black Spine
Forest Maker

Ravenloft (9):
Ravenloft Campaign Setting
Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales
Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium Appendix III: Creatures of Darkness
Van Richten's Guide to the Created
Van Righten's Guide to the Ancient Dead
Adam's Wrath
The Awakening
Hour of the Knife
Howls in the Night

Planescape (7):
Planescape Campaign Setting
Planes of Chaos
Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix
The Eternal Boundary
Well of Worlds
In the Abyss
The Deva Spark

Mystara (6):
Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure
Hail the Heroes
Night of the Vampire
Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix
Poor Wizard's Almanac III & Book of Facts
Red Steel Campaign Expansion

Forgotten Realms (10):
The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels
City of Splendors
Elminster's Ecologies
Elves of Evermeet
Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast
Cormyr
Book of Lairs
Marco Volo: Departure
Marco Volo: Journey
Marco Volo: Arrival

That's a total of 61 products, or five per month (and I'm not counting novels in this). At least 12 of those were boxed sets, making for one per month. One was a revision of a setting only released four years prior (with a second revision coming three years later).

All in all, the biggest problem was that TSR churned out so, SO much junk. And a major contributor of all that junk was that they were supporting five settings that year (including launching two), in addition to core D&D. I'm not saying there weren't some good things in that pile – throw enough stuff at the wall, and some of it will stick.

It sounds like while some of it was junk, the real problem was under pricing. I've heard of other problems too.

 

[Zaukrie]

This is probably the best account of why TSR failed, written by the person Wizards sent in to save the things that could be saved. The most relevant excerpt would probably be: I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.

In other words, TSR published tons of junk. At their (seeming) height, they published something like a dozen products per month, spread out over a number of sub-product lines. Here's what they released in 1994, for example:
...............

All in all, the biggest problem was that TSR churned out so, SO much junk. And a major contributor of all that junk was that they were supporting five settings that year (including launching two), in addition to core D&D. I'm not saying there weren't some good things in that pile – throw enough stuff at the wall, and some of it will stick.

It wouldn't have to be junk to sit around. That's just too much to buy. And, a lot of the monster stuff really overlapped, or could have been in Dragon Magazine (don't forget, that was also for sale then)

 

[Tsuga C]

There are almost certainly going to be changes, but the question is whether they'll be minimal (like Eberron) or nearly total (like Ravenloft). I would hope for the former, but now that the line's been crossed, I expect the latter (for Planescape and any other classic setting).

I advise avid fans of the old settings to keep their expectations low for any revival; it's a good way to avoid disappointment.

Given a choice between major alterations and not being revived, I'll go with the latter. They got it right the first time and I'd much rather it remain what it was meant to be rather than undergo major revisions that turn it into the tabletop RPG equivalent of New Coke.