WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Remathilis]

Lay the setting down, sort it out, get it right, release it, and then leave it alone and go on to making the next one. Put another way: release the setting as a single snapshot in time, with at least enough history given to explain how things got to the point of that snapshot, and stop there. Do NOT be tempted to "officially" update or revise it later.

The two biggest factors to why a setting changes is a.) mechanical update and b.) change in player taste/sensibilities. The Dragonlance of 1e isn't the same Dragonlance of 3e or 5e for no other reason than D&D isn't the same in 1e as it is in 3e and 5e. Classes have been added, rules have changed. Re-releasing Dragonlance adventures, even with all the ACs going upwards, still wouldn't work because the game assumptions (and audience assumptions) have changed.

I mean, if we followed this concept, Greyhawk would have ended at 1e, Ravenloft at 2e, and Eberron in 3.5. What settings would be using for 5e? Exandria? Ravnica? You might as well not bother making setting material and do a generic "World of D&D" that is never defined except it contains whatever is in that edition's core and splat books.

I get the desire to have things remain forever the way you found them, but preserving them in amber is a terrible way to keep the game alive.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

(And Planescape fans may well be the most opinionated fans of an older setting. I have a hard time seeing WotC being able to make more than a large plurality of them happy.)

We're Planescape fans - if the setting didn't give us reason to argue incessantly over something fundamentally inane and pointless, we wouldn't be happy with it in the first place.

 

[Remathilis]

We're Planescape fans - if the setting didn't give us reason to argue over something fundamentally inane and pointless, we wouldn't be happy with it in the first place.

It IS the setting built around philosophers with clubs...

 

[Micah Sweet]

The two biggest factors to why a setting changes is a.) mechanical update and b.) change in player taste/sensibilities. The Dragonlance of 1e isn't the same Dragonlance of 3e or 5e for no other reason than D&D isn't the same in 1e as it is in 3e and 5e. Classes have been added, rules have changed. Re-releasing Dragonlance adventures, even with all the ACs going upwards, still wouldn't work because the game assumptions (and audience assumptions) have changed.

I mean, if we followed this concept, Greyhawk would have ended at 1e, Ravenloft at 2e, and Eberron in 3.5. What settings would be using for 5e? Exandria? Ravnica? You might as well not bother making setting material and do a generic "World of D&D" that is never defined except it contains whatever is in that edition's core and splat books.

I get the desire to have things remain forever the way you found them, but preserving them in amber is a terrible way to keep the game alive.

You can keep the game alive with new settings and lore-light sourcebooks.

 

[Lanefan]

The “temptation” comes in the form of (“hardcore”) fans of particular settings calling for them to be updated (with consistent lore) only to then be upset when they do release it but it’s not as they imagined. For example, many people seem to want a comprehensive forgotten realms setting book for 5e, a setting that is not exactly wanting for available lore! Meanwhile, If wotc releases a new setting like radiant citadel or an mtg setting, people complain about it not being a classic setting.

There's a big difference between these things:

1 - issuing a FR guide for 5e that does nothing but update the mechanics of what was already there to suit the 5e system; this wouldn't need to be the size of a full hardcover book as the material would probably fit into a publication the size of a 1e adventure module.
2 - issuing a FR guide that updates the mechanics but at the same time punts all the lore some number of years or decades into the future and-or rewrites large swathes of it.

I suspect 1, above, is probably all that most people want.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

But if WotC had done a completely different horror setting (say, Innistrad or Something New) then the fans would hoot and holler about how Ravenloft was ignored in favor of some new hotness. This would have been made doubly worse if any elements from the older setting got reused in the new one (either directly or indirectly). WotC would be ignoring a memorable IP (or two, if they opted for new over Innistrad) and start with a brand-new, never used IP because they were afraid changing the Vistani of Ravenloft would hurt some Superfan's fee-fees.

To add a bit of support to this, when Ravnica was published, a bunch of Planescape fans complained that the book being published would guarantee that Planescape would never get an official 5e book. And with Planescape getting an official release next year, we know with 100% certainty that those people were wrong.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

To add a bit of support to this, when Ravnica was published, a bunch of Planescape fans complained that the book being published would guarantee that Planescape would never get an official 5e book. And with Planescape getting an official release next year, we know with 100% certainty that those people were wrong.

There was also a fair bit of grumbling over Radiant Citadel replacing Sigil early on, until Ray Winninger came out and said that it was doing nothing of the sort as clearly as he could without announcing Planescape early.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To add a bit of support to this, when Ravnica was published, a bunch of Planescape fans complained that the book being published would guarantee that Planescape would never get an official 5e book. And with Planescape getting an official release next year, we know with 100% certainty that those people were wrong.

That was before Ravenloft (and later Spelljammer) was released. Now I have no faith that they'll do a good job with Planescape, given the huge lore changes of Ravenloft and paucity of material in Spelljammer. I'm actually expecting the worst of both worlds.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We're Planescape fans - if the setting didn't give us reason to argue incessantly over something fundamentally inane and pointless, we wouldn't be happy with it in the first place.

I wonder if Planescape would work as a two-book set with a robust Manual of Planes in one book and Sigil and the philosphers with clubs in the other.

Is the Planescapeness of it all separable from the planar setting information? I think it probably is, for a lot of fans.

 

[Remathilis]

I wonder if Planescape would work as a two-book set with a robust Manual of Planes in one book and Sigil and the philosphers with clubs in the other.

Is the Planescapeness of it all separable from the planar setting information? I think it probably is, for a lot of fans.

Well, there has always been a difference between Planescape and the Manual of the Planes. For me, Planescape was about Sigil, the Factions, and making the planes adventurable for low level PCs and planar natives. It's a difference of focus.