D&D General What are the "dead settings" of D&D?

Today the companies notice the value now is in the brands, in the franchises, the IPs. It is easier to use an almost forgotten franchise than starting from zero.

Since the 3rd Ed the main goal by WotC is to sell crunch: magic items, PC races, spells, feats, prestige classes/subclasses...

Birthright may come back because it is the perfect setting for a economic management and strategy videogame.

Even Jackandor, the little ugly duckling of the D&D setting could become very popular thanks to an animated movie with a Disney princess' rip-off (like Moa but with more monsters and some little touchs of Xena).
 

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GuyBoy

Hero
I am afraid that I must regretfully disagree. IMO settings that are no longer actively supported and published by the owner are dead. They are worse off than editions no longer supported and published by WotC because there is no OGL/access point for them. What substitutes for these settings on DMsGuild is more placation than anything else, to wit, Greyhawk isn't even included (nor do I see it ever being included). The idea that Greyhawk is in "limbo" or "frozen," for example, is a distortion of reality, a wishful and wistful thought long sipped at because it forestalls the bitter taste of reality.
I disagree to some extent with Rob.
I’m not sure Greyhawk can be termed dead. It was pretty significant as recently as 3e where it was the default setting, and saw action in products like Ruins of Greyhawk. It also carries the cachet of being Gygax’s setting and has a healthy online fan presence in places like Oerth Journal and Canonfire.
Of course, I also accept that I may be wistfully and wishfully sipping at the rich wine of memories of Eclavdra and Tharizdun.

Talking of wine, whilst ships still sail on the Winedark Sea, The Wilderlands of High Fantasy will never expire entirely.
 

I disagree to some extent with Rob.
I’m not sure Greyhawk can be termed dead. It was pretty significant as recently as 3e where it was the default setting, and saw action in products like Ruins of Greyhawk. It also carries the cachet of being Gygax’s setting and has a healthy online fan presence in places like Oerth Journal and Canonfire.
Of course, I also accept that I may be wistfully and wishfully sipping at the rich wine of memories of Eclavdra and Tharizdun.

Talking of wine, whilst ships still sail on the Winedark Sea, The Wilderlands of High Fantasy will never expire entirely.
Not going to argue too long on fan supported or created material vs. published and supported company material, for my position is as one would describe a discontinued model of car. Yes there are those who still tinker with them, form clubs around them, write histories of them, but they are gone except for that. Studebaker anyone? Just because it was in the Muppet Movie didn't change the fact that it was gone. Then there is the discontinuance of 2E in the switch to 3E and the resulting disfranchisement that produced sites and material from these, like Dragonsfoot, They held onto the past system before the OGL hit and OSRIC appeared where it became viable again marketwise in the 3rd party sense. Before then 1E/2E were abandoned and dead. Like I intimated upthread, the editions have a better rebirth chance once killed due to the OGL. No such option, really, with the settings.
 

Faolyn

(she/her)
Ravenloft and Planescape have effectively been killed off for good, outside of DMsGuild, since 3rd edition and later have clearly proved WoTC has no intention of bringing back the settings as they existed in the late 90s. (Look at Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and Curse of Strahd - they have nothing to do with the Ravenloft setting, and indeed contradict it in several aspects). As for Planescape we might get an adventure set in Sigil with a Gazzetteer. But that will be it because for better or worse WoTC decided Planescape turned a lot of players off the planes with its cant and distinctive style (not to mention the tone of exclusivity a lot of the products had).
While CoS has mostly been a disappointment to me, since I've had to rewrite large portions of it, I'd have to say that VGR is a fine continuation of the line. Is it identical to the 2e and 3x books? No. Does it do its job well? Yes, I think it does, for the most part.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
what on earth is dragon fist?
Dragonfist was a wuxia setting that came out right at the end of 2e. WotC offered it as a free download from their site in the early 2000 but it was soon drowned by the introduction of 3e.


Birthright had a biggish following in 3e but its dropped since then, nonetheless there remains interest in Kingdom-level play which might help bouy up Birthright (although popularity of other rulesets (Pathfinder) might spell its final demise)
 


Greyhawk is more alive than Darksun, Spelljammer (which really isn't a "world" perse) or Dragon Lance as WotC is still releasing explicit Greyhawk content in the form of modules. However, I'd argue that that latter three are dead, and Greyhawk is dying. Each has its own flare that makes for interesting content. The love of Dragon Lance comes primarily from the novels and not the RPGs. If the novels are not selling then it's dead. For Greyhawk, Darksun and Spelljammer the opposite is true. They have fans because people played D&D in those settings. The love of Greyhawk is classic swords and sorcery that the earliest years of D&D were built on, considering the game's creators built and played in that world. There's still a place for each of these but whether or not WotC decides to keep them alive remains to be seen.

I still run Greyhawk and Spelljammer for 5e. I've wanted to play in and/or run a Darksun game but it never gained ground. I loved what they did for Darksun 4e but we never got around to playing it. For a decade I've tried and had three different Greyhawk campaigns with different players. I suspect it's because swords and sorcery the setting is far more open since anyone can picture themselves in a world with a little more magic and a few more monsters, rather than a weird outerspace adventure, a world teeming with dragons, or a dead world ruled by psionics and dracoliches. The niche aspect of these other settings makes them intriguing, but also limits them.

Insofar as Ravinica as a new and alive setting, I'd put it in the same realm as Spelljammer or Darksun - it's a niche world of gaming. I know lots of DMs and groups that use the WotC supplements for Ravinica, but none who play the setting. Mind you, I'm currently playing MtG with the D&D expansion every week and not a single card gamer is interested in the RPG. One of the players who holds tournaments has a homebrew world that borrows quite a bit from Eberron. As he told me, the Guilds for Ravinica work just fine for a card game as they separate the decks on fundamental differences in magic but that doesn't work well for RPGs as the parties and their interests vary greatly. The monolithic nature of the guilds limits the game, as is designed, but it also limits the DMs. Eberron's guilds were designed in an RPG, and their economy is built in the system you play, not a different system and then imported. Ravinca has great ideas you can steal, but no one is using it as a campaign setting. Dragon Lance has similar problems with their Knights and uber NPCs. It's great for novels but not for RPGs.

WotC really has the power to kill or revive these worlds. As we've seen with movies and television, sometimes the worst thing you can do is try to revive something that you thought was dead.
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
We just had a levels 1-10 5E official adventure for Ravenloft, and I'm pretty sure the stuff from Plansecape is referred to a fair bit now that the great wheel is back (there have been Sigil references etc, and decent into Avernus had a fair bit of references in there as well).

I'd give my kingdom for an official Birthright... anything really. Heck; just a reference in an official book somewhere would be nice. Faerun, Greyhawk, Eberron and Krynn get all the love.
As someone said upthread, book sales do not equate to settings played. I bought Ravnica and Theros, but I'd never play it.
 

Voadam

Legend
what on earth is dragon fist?

Dragonfist was a wuxia setting that came out right at the end of 2e. WotC offered it as a free download from their site in the early 2000 but it was soon drowned by the introduction of 3e.
Dragonfist was fantastic. It was 2e with a few differences, each base class had slightly higher hit dice and their own automatic martial art that did damage based on the class, and it used ascending AC and attack bonuses instead of THAC0 in a 2e rules system.

It also had some fantastic monsters like hopping vampires which I do not remember seeing in Oriental Adventures or Kara Tur materials.
 

Mind of tempest

(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
Dragonfist was fantastic. It was 2e with a few differences, each base class had slightly higher hit dice and their own automatic martial art that did damage based on the class, and it used ascending AC and attack bonuses instead of THAC0 in a 2e rules system.

It also had some fantastic monsters like hopping vampires which I do not remember seeing in Oriental Adventures or Kara Tur materials.
Do you mean the Jiangshi?

does anyone have a copy as I kinda want to cut it up for parts?
 

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