D&D 5E How do you hope WotC treats the upcoming classic settings?

[Hussar]

Folks, I'm not saying it couldnt be appropriate for young readers. I was in Grade 5 or 6 when I first read it.

I'm saying 'Train your Dragon' isnt what I think of when I think of DL.

That said, going back to the original post that kicked off this tangent, I see now that I misread it, and yes you could totally have a split off line aimed at kids via books or comics.

So, I was incorrect in what the line was aiming to provide.

Couple of things.

1. Train Your Dragon 3 is PG-13. It has, apparently, drugs, sexual content and naughty language. IOW, it's more adult content than Dragonlance.

2. Dragonlance at the time was marketed to the YA fantasy crowd. DL was never intended as an adult series. The primary audience for DL was the same as Harry Potter, or, now, How to Train Your Dragon. I'm frankly rather baffled how you came to the idea that DL was meant for an older audience.

So, with that in mind, why do you think that DL is a mature audience series?

 

[Scribe]

Couple of things.

1. Train Your Dragon 3 is PG-13. It has, apparently, drugs, sexual content and naughty language. IOW, it's more adult content than Dragonlance.

2. Dragonlance at the time was marketed to the YA fantasy crowd. DL was never intended as an adult series. The primary audience for DL was the same as Harry Potter, or, now, How to Train Your Dragon. I'm frankly rather baffled how you came to the idea that DL was meant for an older audience.

So, with that in mind, why do you think that DL is a mature audience series?

I'm not saying its mature audience, what I was saying it isnt, is something to be marketed to 8 year old.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not saying its mature audience, what I was saying it isnt, is something to be marketed to 8 year old.

You mean like, say, Harry Potter? 8 is the first year for Hogwarts (or is it 9?). Seemed to work pretty well.

What do you think a product for an 8-10 year old looks like?

 

[Keldryn]

You mean like, say, Harry Potter? 8 is the first year for Hogwarts (or is it 9?). Seemed to work pretty well.

Close. First year students at Hogwarts are 11 to 12 years old.

 

[Scribe]

You mean like, say, Harry Potter? 8 is the first year for Hogwarts (or is it 9?). Seemed to work pretty well.

What do you think a product for an 8-10 year old looks like?

Something like Strixhaven.

 

[Umbran]

You know, I get what you're saying, but it's impossible to have a decent debate

First off, not all discussion needs to be "debate".

Nor do I think this really qualifies as a debate- the argument form is one-sided. It was posited that the setting could/should be updated, and I saw people rejecting that posit, but I haven't seen a solid substantive reason why not. Like, is there harm done, or something?

The fact that some people like it the way it is, and might not like an update, is not substantive.

 

[Umbran]

That’s funny. The guy screeching about censorship doesn’t want something new published unless he agrees with it.

Mod Note:

Making snarky personal comments isn't cool. Stop it. Thanks.

 

[Quickleaf]

The thing about Greyhawk is that the only thing that's really interesting today is that it's a perfect representation of early 80's DnD'isms. So how do you update something like that to the modern edition? If you try to keep things as unchanged as possible you end up with a setting that doesn't fit the game it's made for, but if you try to adapt everything to the latest edition then you get a setting that's mostly bland and boring.

We had a whole thread on pitching the Greyhawk reboot. Here were my thoughts on a "Greyhawk Worldbuilder's Guide", re-posted from there, along with the Gygax quote that inspired my thinking:


"When I was asked by TSR to do my World of Greyhawk as a commercial product I was taken aback. I had assumed most DMs would far prefer to use their own world settings. …
The relatively low level of NPCs, and the balance between alignments was done on purpose so as facilitate the use of the world setting by all DMs. With a basically neutral environment, the direction of the individual campaign was squarely in the hands of the DM running it."
— ENWorld, Q&A with Gary Gygax part 4, 2003

What would the 5e Greyhawk book look like?

• Worldbuilder's/Adventure Writer's Guide: Despite approximately half the fanbase preferring homebrew settings, we don't yet have a "worldbuilder's guide" or "guide to making adventures" for 5e. Everything from the direction of rivers & where mountain rain shadows fall to how to craft a compelling faction as an antagonist (perhaps using the Scarlet Brotherhood as an example) & how to hook more mercenary-minded players beyond gold. The DMG is a great introduction, but this could go much deeper and provide templates useful to newer and experienced DMs alike. And this harkens to Gary Gygax's sentiment that each DM should make the setting their own.
• Fill-in-the-Blanks/Random Tables: With different views among the Greyhawk fanbase, and with Forgotten Realms as a setting heavily drenched in canon, perhaps embracing a more "OSR playbook" approach to mysteries & edges of the map might be a way to make something broadly appealing and also distinctive. The wonder of random tables is that they also give newer or time-harried DMs something to hang their creativity on when fleshing out the unknown & also present an avenue for those intimately familiar with Greyhawk to present their ideas as possibilities rather than canonical fact.
• Starting Towns/Short Adventures: One of the most essential parts of a new D&D game, and one which can involve plenty of elbow grease, is the starting town – as brilliantly realized in Hommlet – so a hypothetical book could include a couple potential starting towns each with a single-session adventure to get you started.
• DMG 2: There are many places where rules and narrative inform one another, such as prevalence of higher-level NPCs, or how spells are created, where there is room to go beyond the existing resources. We've seen little piecemeal approaches to this in Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, but this hypothetical book would be the place to take a deep dive into how house rules & rules interpretations affect your setting.
• Nostalgia Meets Streaming: By using recognizable NPCs from Greyhawk lore (Circle of Eight, Eclavdra, Lum the Mad) as examples of how to design antagonists, allies, and quest-givers, or using the Free City of Greyhawk as a template for city design, inspire a culture of creation and design which newer gamers can show off in DMs Guild or on various livestreams.

 

[Faolyn]

We had a whole thread on pitching the Greyhawk reboot. Here were my thoughts on a "Greyhawk Worldbuilder's Guide", re-posted from there, along with the Gygax quote that inspired my thinking:

While what you wrote is really awesome and something I definitely think is worth making and buying, it's... well, it's a Worldbuilder's Guide that uses Greyhawk as its examples. It's not a Greyhawk reboot, though, which is what Sorcerers Apprentice was looking for.

 

[Quickleaf]

While what you wrote is really awesome and something I definitely think is worth making and buying, it's... well, it's a Worldbuilder's Guide that uses Greyhawk as its examples. It's not a Greyhawk reboot, though, which is what Sorcerers Apprentice was looking for.

I suppose that's right, yes. Sort of in the same way that Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft used various domains of dread as examples of various types of horror, but also had sections devoted to generally covering each of those types of horror. Here's the principles... and here's the example.