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.

 

[Parmandur]

Interesting - I had assumed it was a Nautiloid, because he was a Mindflayer (I don't have the adventure), is it not? And when you say rules, how detailed are you talking? Last I heard people were claiming 5E had "no official spelljamming rules" and fighting over homebrew attempts at them.

About a half page of rules for Spelljammer helm as a Magic Item. As my grandfather always said, "good enough for government wotk."

It is Nautaloid shaped, but it's made of wood. The Mindflayer (who wears a a trifold hat and Carribean pirate costume) has a crew of Orogs he recruited from another planet in Realmspace. The tension of the denizens of that dungeon level is that he has resorted to eating his xrews brains, and his crew doesn't want to be eaten.

 

[Parmandur]

It is a Nautiloid in particular, not just a spelljammer.

The book doesn't actually include all the rules for Spelljamming exactly. It includes all the information on the ship's structure, includes a Stardock accessible from level 16, and has the Helm taken to level 23. If you get the helm and put it on a boat, any boat under 100 tons, you can make the ship you're on function as a spelljammer with a speed of miles per hour equal to your highest unexpended spell slot level.

No information about interplanetary travel, nothing about Phlogiston or the Spheres. Just "Your boat now flies at a speed based on your spell slots, has an atmosphere at 70F at all times, and has gravity".

I mean, it can be improved from that basis. But a whole book that goes into those details and gives a solid space setting...could be legit.

 

[OblivionDrive]

I mean, it can be improved from that basis. But a whole book that goes into those details and gives a solid space setting...could be legit.

We already got basic vehicle rules from Saltmarsh. All they’d need to do is expand on them some really. A fair chunk of the work is already done.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I’m just seeing a canvas that is ripe for repainting that didn’t get to live up to its full potential when it originally came out for a number of reasons where you see forgettable trash. We can obviously agree to disagree on that.

I'm not sure we actually disagree. Those are two spins on the same thing to me. I don't think it could ever have lived up to its full potential because I don't think anyone at TSR cared about it or liked it enough, not even Jeff Grubb, though. And think part of the reason they didn't care about it enough (and fans didn't either) is that it was a compelling high concept, but that's where it ended - they didn't manage to make the actual setting compelling too.

It is a Nautiloid in particular, not just a spelljammer.

The book doesn't actually include all the rules for Spelljamming exactly. It includes all the information on the ship's structure, includes a Stardock accessible from level 16, and has the Helm taken to level 23. If you get the helm and put it on a boat, any boat under 100 tons, you can make the ship you're on function as a spelljammer with a speed of miles per hour equal to your highest unexpended spell slot level.

No information about interplanetary travel, nothing about Phlogiston or the Spheres. Just "Your boat now flies at a speed based on your spell slots, has an atmosphere at 70F at all times, and has gravity".

That makes a lot of sense, and is more like what I was expecting, given all the "5E has no spelljamming rules!" stuff was post-Mad Mage.

I mean, it can be improved from that basis. But a whole book that goes into those details and gives a solid space setting...could be legit.

Problem being that Spelljammer as of 1989 and the early 1990s was not, imho, remotely close to a "solid space setting". It had some "baddies", but no real compelling conflicts or stories or memorable stuff beyond simple stuff "Giff were bizarrely cool!" "Neogi were super-creepy!" "The Elven Navy seem like wankers I can't understand why the book seems to think they're okay!" and "Space Hamsters were lolz!".

 

[Steampunkette]

I mean, it can be improved from that basis. But a whole book that goes into those details and gives a solid space setting...could be legit.

Which is why I think it'd be an awesome expansion of Planescape. Because the Spelljamming Rules themselves would be pretty simple to model from the point they're already at, just need the inter-stellar and inter-planar portions to make it amazing. Fly your Spelljammer into the plane of fire and have the deck stay at 70F, gird yourself with heat protections, and set out.

Traveling between worlds, seeing the goofy stuff and the serious stuff, doing the on-the-deck fighting thing, making the travel between planes and planets something important rather than just another portal...

It'd be baller.

 

[Parmandur]

Problem being that Spelljammer as of 1989 and the early 1990s was not, imho, remotely close to a "solid space setting". It had some "baddies", but no real compelling conflicts or stories or memorable stuff beyond simple stuff "Giff were bizarrely cool!" "Neogi were super-creepy!" "The Elven Navy seem like wankers I can't understand why the book seems to think they're okay!" and "Space Hamsters were lolz!".

Well, look at Ravenloft circa 1990, versus 2021. A 5E Spelljammer is not limited by the past.

 

[Parmandur]

Which is why I think it'd be an awesome expansion of Planescape. Because the Spelljamming Rules themselves would be pretty simple to model from the point they're already at, just need the inter-stellar and inter-planar portions to make it amazing. Fly your Spelljammer into the plane of fire and have the deck stay at 70F, gird yourself with heat protections, and set out.

Traveling between worlds, seeing the goofy stuff and the serious stuff, doing the on-the-deck fighting thing, making the travel between planes and planets something important rather than just another portal...

It'd be baller.

Spelljammers travel in the Prime Marerial, though, not through dimensions. That's an established part of the 5E cosmos. They are not likely to change the unified metasetting they have built up.

 

[overgeeked]

the lack of gun in spelljammer is just odd, people would love a setting with guns.

Right?

Another reason why I didn't like the Phlogiston, though I'd think that with the invention of percussion cap technology someone would figure out how to compress a bit of Phlogiston inside a metal cap and use it as a propellant.

The phlo is weird. Cool weird, mostly. But weird.

Phlo as energy source would work well...as long as you're not following the original setting. The phlo dissipates when brought into a crystal sphere and ignites when it comes into contact with even a tiny spark of fire.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I see where you're coming from, totally but Spelljammer is the wrong kind of silly.

Like "kids today" do indeed like a lot of stuff that's kind of superficially "silly" (as did my generation, really), most of it represented by various somewhat-actually-edgy cartoons like Rick & Morty or Infinity Train (I'm sorry, it is, based on what I've seen of it), or, especially for a slightly older generation, now in their later twenties mostly seriously fluffy/secretly kind cartoons with a slight edge of self-knowing-ness like the previous gen of MLP (I dunno if there's a new gen yet I haven't been following - I've literally watched six episodes of MLP in my life, well, over the age of 10 anyway) or Steven Universe or w/e (actually SU is extremely serious at times, but that's part of the whole deal).

Spelljammer belongs, very firmly, to an older breed of much less self-aware or totally un-self-aware, much less secretly-edgy (or equally, secretly kind - Spelljammer is neither) silliness, that is silly more for the sake of being silly, doesn't feature references or much in the way of "meta" commentary or the like. It has a relationship to the LOL SO RANDOM era of the internet (a long-ago time), which whilst later, featured a lot of the same sort of stuff that didn't really have a meta component, it was literally just silly to be silly.

So I think it would take a lot of work to reshape that into a modern-friendly kind of silly.

And I guess the big issue is, there ain't much to work with. You have a very bland and rather featureless space setting. Even Realmspace, Krynnspace etc. which probably won't feature due to potential IP damage, don't actually help much because they're also pretty bland. I hate to say it, but based on the decent amount of Spelljammer stuff on the shelf behind me, this was not TSR's greatest work. This was not something they were really doing a great job with. This setting was not written at the same level as Taladas, Dark Sun, or Planescape, all of which had a hell of a lot of energy. It feels like an artifact from the mid-80s, but not like, compellingly '80s, just... old. Like a boardgame you find from back then in an attic, and give a go, and turns out, it wasn't actually very good!

And it's whole age of sail, empires rock! deal would need re-working.

So where Dark Sun and Planescape are really solid settings that you could re-work, Spelljammer is more like the idea for a setting, which you'd have to rebuild from the ground up. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, does mean it would be a lot more work than something like Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or Planescape.

I don't know why anyone is responding to this with more than "That's just your opinion, man."

There is no objective analysis in this comment at all, and is entirely based off of what @Ruin Explorer personally likes. Which is fine (everyone's entitled to their own taste), but personally everything bemoaned here is stuff I enjoy.

I personally like how Spelljammer is taking influences from HG Wells, Burroughs, and a Ptolemaic views of cosmology to build a "space fantasy," that isn't actually science fiction at all and is firmly fantasy.

 

[ZeshinX]

Hell, I know I'm going to get rocks thrown at me, but Greyhawk is pretty mediocre (I've believe this since I was 11, note, and first read stuff for it)

You're not alone there, I find Greyhawk amazingly boring and uninspiring. It lives up to the "grey" part of it's name exceedingly well to me...dull and bland.

To each their own however, but the market hath spake with Greyhawk me thinks. It's been, as you point out, given many opportunities at resurrection and each time was met with a resounding "Meh".