D&D 5E What of the already done settings do you think WotC is revisiting for a Setting Book?

[Marandahir]

View attachment 141097

"That doesn't sound right…"

FR smash!



*… … …I would note that FR is near the bottom of the settings barrel imho, but it really seems to SMASH its way through the competition… Must be a combination of book fans, with FR lore geeks who get all huffed about setting retcons, and people who just want to play fantasy kitchen sink D&D and not worry about specific setting restrictions or details that deviate from what's in the PHB. The only other settings that come close to fitting the above bill are Greyhawk and Dragonlance, but Greyhawk doesn't have nearly as strong a readership profile, and Dragonlance is exceptionally difficult to tell new stories in that aren't already covered in the War of the Lance.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Don't forget Greyhawk. Ghosts of Saltmarsh was set in Greyhawk.

We aren't. But does Saltmarsh count as a "setting" to be revisited, or was it just an adventure? It's a possibility, but it does seem to semantically stretch things. It seems more likely that Greyhawk would be among the classic settings to be "updated" rather than "revisited".

 

[overgeeked]

snip

Yes.

D&D Monthly Survey | Dungeons & Dragons

dnd.wizards.com

Personally, I think it's the most boring kitchen sink of all the boring kitchen sinks TSR/WotC has put out. But other fans seem to like it.

 

[Marandahir]

We aren't. But does Saltmarsh count as a "setting" to be revisited, or was it just an adventure? It's a possibility, but it does seem to semantically stretch things. It seems more likely that Greyhawk would be among the classic settings to be "updated" rather than "revisited".

While I agree with you regarding gradations, I do think that there's a bone to pick here regarding Ravenloft and whether Curse of Strahd counts as a setting or just an adventure. Remember that all campaign settings were in the beginning were the setting details of a Campaign, so buying something like Ravenloft was buying the Ravenloft campaign about Strahd von Zarovich. It's only later on that these Campaigns grew into a full "setting" in the sense of having books entirely devoted to being a gazetteer. Of course, not the same with settings crafted wholecloth to fit a genre a la Eberron or the M:tG imports. But even Exandria serves as a modern-day example of the Ravenloft or FR or Greyhawk model; the tale grew in the telling, as it were.

 

[Parmandur]

View attachment 141097

I mean, yeah, I think it probably is.

 

[Marandahir]

Yes.

D&D Monthly Survey | Dungeons & Dragons

dnd.wizards.com

Personally, I think it's the most boring kitchen sink of all the boring kitchen sinks TSR/WotC has put out. But other fans seem to like it.

Thanks for the definitive citation. So we can know for certain, at least among the people who responded to WotC's June 2015 survey at the time they responded to the survey, FR is far and away the most popular setting.

I wonder if tastes have changed at all in the last 6 years. I feel like they probably hew pretty close to those results still, though the satisfaction of having Ravenloft and Eberron now in 5e might change up the rankings. Maybe some people voted strategically to try to bring back a lost setting, and would vote differently now that those two settings have been featured. I also wonder where Exandria, Ravnica, Theros, and Strixhaven would fall on the list!

 

[Parmandur]

We aren't. But does Saltmarsh count as a "setting" to be revisited, or was it just an adventure? It's a possibility, but it does seem to semantically stretch things. It seems more likely that Greyhawk would be among the classic settings to be "updated" rather than "revisited".

Curse of Strahd : Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

as

Ghosts of Saltmarsh : Bigby's Guide to Greyhawk...?

Could be the model Winninger has in mind for a "revisit."

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks for the definitive citation. So we can know for certain, at least among the people who responded to WotC's June 2015 survey, FR is far and away the most popular setting at the time they responded to that survey.

I wonder if tastes have changed at all in the last 6 years. I feel like they probably hew pretty close to those results still, though the satisfaction of having Ravenloft and Eberron now in 5e might change up the rankings. Maybe some people voted strategically to try to bring back a lost setting, and would vote differently now that those two settings have been featured. I also wonder where Exandria, Ravnica, Theros, and Strixhaven would fall on the list!

I'm sure things have evolved, but the Forgotten Realms is still very popular, and a rich vein if mineable material for Homebrewers.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Curse of Strahd : Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

as

Ghosts of Saltmarsh : Bigby's Guide to Greyhawk...?

Could be the model Winninger has in mind for a "revisit."

No, GoSM is not a setting book at all, so its not a revisit.

 

[Marandahir]

Curse of Strahd : Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

as

Ghosts of Saltmarsh : Bigby's Guide to Greyhawk...?

Could be the model Winninger has in mind for a "revisit."

Honestly, I think Ghosts of Saltmarsh is more in like with Tales of the Yawning Portal and Candlekeep Mysteries (as an anthology of adventures that don't cleave closely to the various seasons of AL). Maybe Curse of Strahd was a first attempt at that, and they didn't know what to do with it with AL so just made a Domain of Dread connection at the Moonsea. Even with AL Season 6, they tried to make a season around TotYP but ultimately all they did was make a couple bridge adventures to the various adventures in the anthology, which worked strangely because they would follow up on a Greyhawk giants adventure but now the epilogue/sequel to that adventure is in the Anauroch for some reason? Clearly wasn't thought through carefully and before the time of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, they had thrown out the idea of having a second AL season per year, so GoSM got to be sort of stand-alone without AL tie-in (save for the one WotC-published adventure on the DM's Guild that ties in but doesn't exist as part of any AL season). Candlekeep Mysteries plays the same into AL as GoSM, so I imagine they'll keep churning out non-AL anthology books every other year in the spring, while the off-years will get something else instead…