D&D 5E Revisited Setting News: Its not the 2023 Classic setting, but rather for 2024

[Paul Farquhar]

Understood. So, all of that to say, the answer is pretty much yes. There are acts of villainy even villains can't do. I get it, but it is unfortunate that we are forced to limit story telling in this way.

No one is forcing you to limit your storytelling. WotC are forced to limit their storytelling because they can't afford to antagonise the parents of a 12 year old reader.

 

[Remathilis]

It wasn't even a jungle. The Gazetteers said that the woods (redwood forests) are heavily populated by moose and wolverines. But then there are the cats. And while sure, they could be any sort of melanistic cat, it's completely natural to see "black panther" and think of jaguars and leopards.

Thanks, it's been so long I forgot that Valachan wasn't even jungle. He really was "Dracula but with cats" I guess...

 

[Remathilis]

That's what I was getting at. They could get away with a reboot of Ravenloft (at the cost of annoying a vocal portion of veteran fans), but that might not work as well for all the other candidates.

My guess - they could totally reboot Spelljammer; they would be taking a big risk by totally rebooting Dragonlance (but could do a reset to the War of the Lance); and a total reboot of Dark Sun will depend on how many of the core elements (dying world, arcane magic bad, psionics good, oppressive sorcerer-kings, dissimilarity with core D&D) get tossed aside in the process.


FR most definitely has not been rebooted to the same extent as Ravenloft was in 5E. Retconned, yes; physically changed, yes; but not disassembled and rebuilt from scratch.

Forgotten Realms also doesn't need the extent of changes some other settings have: it only needs to create places for non-evil orcs and drow on the Sword Coast and do some revised lore for some of the "fantasy x" areas like Chult. They can fix this with a minor time jump rather than a RSE.

Although as I've thought about it: Eberron might be a good candidate for the 2024 revised book. Warforged, Kalshatar and dragonmarks are all going to need a Tasha updating, as might the artificer if there is any major structural changes to classes. They could make the second book about Xen'drik if they don't want to repeat RftLW's lore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The worldbuilding was the problem with the 2nd edition version. Once the vampires start engaging in international trade and commerce they stop being monsters and become people with unusual dietary requirements. 5e restores the nightmare logic that first appeared in the second module, The House on Griffin Hill.

Nightmare logic facts just change. It serves to undermine the players genre savvy and makes the horror far more effective. The simple fact that stuff changed, irrespective of what the changes where, was a massive improvement over "this is a real world, but with more vampires" of the 2nd edition. And of course, with nightmare logic stuff could change back at any point, so you can use whatever version best suits.

All of this assumes that the nightmare logic is what's desired. I was first introduced to Ravenloft with the 2nd ed campaign setting, and a setting is what I liked and wanted. As it was expanded in Domains of Dread and later with all the 3rd ed stuff, more details were added and the setting got better and better. Then the rights reverted to WotC again, who proceeded to retread the original module again and again over multiple editions (mostly), cumulating in VRG, where they proceeded to do the same thing to the rest of what used to be a setting but was now just a series of unconnected nightmare lands, where most of the NPCS are fake and you can't make a difference in the world because everything just resets. VRG is a decent book for what it was intended to be, but it was very, very far from what I liked about Ravenloft. It convinced me that WotC has no business adapting their own settings.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I was first introduced to Ravenloft with the 2nd ed campaign setting

This is probably your problem. I came in with the original 1st edition modules, and never much cared for the 2nd edition version. And World of Darkness, or World of Darkness in D&D as the 3rd edition version was, was never really a setting for telling tales of terror, it was more a grimdark emo goth themepark.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Eh, I can see the appeal of the original incarnation. It's sort of like preferring the minimalist presentation of the Greyhawk Folio/World of Greyhawk boxed set to the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer's voluminous detail.

That all being said, I find the change of making, mostly, bordering domains all into unconnected islands a subtraction. If you didn't want your dread lords to interact with each other in your game you could easily do that, but the plausibility was there.

I'm also of the opinion that swapping out new dread lords and characters could easily be explained by the vagaries of the mists, as was constantly called out in the original texts, instead of changing all kinds of characteristics of existing characters without explanation. You could just make new characters to fill those roles who have all the attributes you would like without altering existing canon for no reason. Why couldn't they just make new characters? That would likely satiate most criticisms in this regard. Instead of changing Peter Parker, make Miles Morales.

 

[Remathilis]

All of this assumes that the nightmare logic is what's desired. I was first introduced to Ravenloft with the 2nd ed campaign setting, and a setting is what I liked and wanted. As it was expanded in Domains of Dread and later with all the 3rd ed stuff, more details were added and the setting got better and better. Then the rights reverted to WotC again, who proceeded to retread the original module again and again over multiple editions (mostly), cumulating in VRG, where they proceeded to do the same thing to the rest of what used to be a setting but was now just a series of unconnected nightmare lands, where most of the NPCS are fake and you can't make a difference in the world because everything just resets. VRG is a decent book for what it was intended to be, but it was very, very far from what I liked about Ravenloft. It convinced me that WotC has no business adapting their own settings.

As a fan of Ravenloft, I have to say that Ravenloft needed an overhaul one way or another. It sat in a weird space between "functional campaign setting" and "haunted fun house". It either needed to function as a world primarily with horror overlays or it needed nightmare logic and absolute artificial domains, but trying to marry the two concepts felt like it didn't service either. The geography didn't make sense. The Mists and closing borders should prohibit trade and commerce. High tech domains sat next to low tech ones. Magic and demihumans were feared or disbelieved, despite nations brimming with both. The moon changed count, size, color and phase by crossing the border. It didn't have enough versimulitude to be a real setting, and it wasn't fake enough to have that dreamlike quality. It either needed to devote itself to the weekend in hell, or become a spooky Forgotten Realms.

I had, until this book was announced, wanted the latter. So much so, I had started building my own setting as "Innistrad but with D&D races" or "Darkon, but a continent". This book did a great job on convincing me Ravenloft is great when you drop much of the pretence of a functional economy and focus on the strange. Ymmv of course, but I don't feel they betrayed the old setting as much as gave it the focus it needed to be exciting and mysterious again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is probably your problem. I came in with the original 1st edition modules, and never much cared for the 2nd edition version. And World of Darkness, or World of Darkness in D&D as the 3rd edition version was, was never really a setting for telling tales of terror, it was more a grimdark emo goth themepark.

It is absolutely my problem, but that doesn't change my irritation with them throwing away two editions of setting development in favor of continuous retreads of an 80's module.

 

[Faolyn]

Thanks, it's been so long I forgot that Valachan wasn't even jungle. He really was "Dracula but with cats" I guess...

It feels like it should be a jungle. But they didn't even do that. I'm guessing because it's part of the Core, which is temperate--anything of a different climate got made into an Island. That's one good thing about breaking the Core into individual domains. You don't have to worry about having each place make sense in comparison to its neighbors.

 

[Faolyn]

This is probably your problem. I came in with the original 1st edition modules, and never much cared for the 2nd edition version. And World of Darkness, or World of Darkness in D&D as the 3rd edition version was, was never really a setting for telling tales of terror, it was more a grimdark emo goth themepark.

I honestly don't get this. Any setting or game is as scary as you, the DM, can (and want to) make it.