D&D 5E D&D's Classic Settings Are Not 'One Shots'

In an interview with ComicBook.com, WotC's Jeremy Crawford talked about the visits to Ravenloft, Eberron, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, and (the upcoming) Planescape we've seen over the last couple of years, and their intentions for the future.

He indicated that they plan to revisit some of these settings again in the future, noting that the setting books are among their most popular books.

We love [the campaign setting books], because they help highlight just how wonderfully rich D&D is. They highlight that D&D can be gothic horror. D&D can be fantasy in space. D&D can be trippy adventures in the afterlife, in terms of Planescape. D&D can be classic high fantasy, in the form of the Forgotten Realms. It can be sort of a steampunk-like fantasy, like in Eberron. We feel it's vital to visit these settings, to tell stories in them. And we look forward to returning to them. So we do not view these as one-shots.

- Jeremy Crawford​

The whole 'multiverse' concept that D&D is currently exploring plays into this, giving them opportunities to resist worlds.

When asked about the release schedule of these books, Crawford noted that the company plans its release schedule so that players get chance to play the material, not just read it, and they don't want to swamp people with too much content to use.

Our approach to how we design for the game and how we plan out the books for it is a play-first approach. At certain times in D&D's history, it's really been a read-first approach. Because we've had points in our history where we were producing so many books each year, there was no way anyone could play all of it. In some years it would be hard to play even a small percentage of the number of things that come out. Because we have a play-first approach, we want to make sure we're coming out with things at a pace where if you really wanted to, and even that would require a lot of weekends and evenings dedicated to D&D play, you could play a lot of it.

- Jeremy Crawford​

You can read more in the interview at ComicBook.com.

 

[Scribe]

I think it's the same reason that Baldur's Gate 3 is such a contrast to WotC products, in virtually every way - there's blood, tears, sex, death, monsters and real horror and it's very much R-rated and aimed at grown-ups, and WotC is very much wanting D&D to be genuinely "family friendly". Not PG13 even - just straight-up PG.

I really really hope that Wizards has the sense to see the success of BG3, and understand there are plenty of people out there who are 100% not interested in their kid friendly D&D, but who very much grew up and want the D&D that could exist as proven with BG3.

 

[Reynard]

Is steampunk-like" really wrong? Or is it close enough for the target audience?

"It is like Steampunk, but there is no steam. Or clockwork. Or bowler hats. Or Victorian England analogues. There's noir and pulp adventure, though, which, you know, aren't steampunk either. So, yeah, 'steampunk-like!."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I really really hope that Wizards has the sense to see the success of BG3, and understand there are plenty of people out there who are 100% not interested in their kid friendly D&D, but who very much grew up and want the D&D that could exist as proven with BG3.

What's kind of funny is part of the appeal of D&D and RPGs back in the day, when we were teenagers, was that they weren't "for kids", and the few that verged on that generally seemed less appealing. That you might start as a kid but that RPGs still had stuff to offer as a teenager and adult, and whilst I don't think WotC are intentionally trying to stop that, nor could they, I think the relentless focus on keeping it PG, whilst others do not is probably setting D&D up for something of a fall in the next decade or so as people who are playing D&D aged 14 or whatever get increasingly older.

 

[sevenbastard]

Spelljammer is currently the best selling adventure at Amazon.

Imagine how well it could do if they would have fully baked it? But I guess that hopefully means it will get a sequel?

 

[overgeeked]

I am sure you realize this, but that people can run Dark Sun (or whatever) with the tools on hand is not even slightly the point.

It depends entirely on what you want. Do you want to actually run a Dark Sun game? You can with the tools already on hand.

People that want these settings want them because that means the setting is alive.

Dark Sun is my single favorite ever setting for D&D. I don't want WotC to touch it. They couldn't even handle Ravenloft or Spelljammer without fumbling and they're dead simple settings compared to Dark Sun. Ravenloft is my 2nd favorite and Spelljammer my 3rd. Mystara and Al-Qadim round out my top 5.

That people still play the setting is what keeps it alive. Whether WotC publishes another book about it or not is irrelevant.

And, more importantly, it means their preferences are validated.

People should not look to a mega-corporation to have their "preferences validated."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"It is like Steampunk, but there is no steam. Or clockwork. Or bowler hats. Or Victorian England analogues. There's noir and pulp adventure, though, which, you know, aren't steampunk either. So, yeah, 'steampunk-like!."

Steampunk is, in my opinion, without a doubt the most-abused genre term in all of genre history.

The abuse started almost immediately, as the "punk" element got thrown out the window like an errant top hat. This happened within like, 3-4 years of the term being coined for The Difference Engine.

Even in the 1990s, steampunk rapidly came to mean "totally twee bollocks where salt-of-the-earth engineers work hand-in-hand with top hat wearing aristocrats to have a jolly good time in silly airships and nobody thinks about the brutality of empire or the oppression of the workers". Castle Falkenstein's original edition was a perfect example of this, absolutely leaning into "Aristocrats rule!" bollocks, loving etiquette and duels and fancy nonsense, and completely ignoring the horrors of that era, with this pathetic "Well the British Empire sucked I guess, don't know about the rest" attitude too.

And it's just got worse since then.

I didn't even notice it was that bad because he at least used "steampunk-like" rather than just "steampunk", recognising that there is a difference, but yes, that is an aetherpunk setting (or magitech) not steampunk, and leans into 1900s through 1920s tropes, not late 1800s ones.

 

[Parmandur]

What's kind of funny is part of the appeal of D&D and RPGs back in the day, when we were teenagers, was that they weren't "for kids", and the few that verged on that generally seemed less appealing. That you might start as a kid but that RPGs still had stuff to offer as a teenager and adult, and whilst I don't think WotC are intentionally trying to stop that, nor could they, I think the relentless focus on keeping it PG, whilst others do not is probably setting D&D up for something of a fall in the next decade or so as people who are playing D&D aged 14 or whatever get increasingly older.

I mean, teenagers have always been the main audience.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, teenagers have always been the main audience.

Right, which is why you don't make it for kids. Teenagers don't want stuff that is made for teenagers, they want stuff that is made for adults.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, teenagers have always been the main audience.

Yeah, and I have to say, if I was an older teenager right now? WotC would be losing me. Because nothing they're doing speaks to older teenagers. Younger, I'm sure they're doing well, though they wouldn't be making me a life-long obsessive, because what did that was the sort of detailed lore they're increasingly eschewing. Even in the 1990s D&D lost ground by being, and I hate to say this, insufficiently edgy. 3E, for all it's many, many, countless failings did bring some of that edge back. Even early 5E still had a bit of that vibe, but it has been steadily draining away, and I'm terrified we're going to get full-twee-mode Planescape rather than the Planescape of the 1990s which retained enough edge to prevent it going twee.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Dragonlance is my favorite. But let’s face it all their settings are missed opportunities. They should be living settings where things happen like KP Midgard. Instead they make one dimensional settings forever stuck in time. The books lack worldbuilding and really only serve as a narrow slice, just a jump off point for an adventure that really has little context to the broader world.

That is what I like about them actually. Just flavor, not a whole meal. That works for our group best. That being said I welcome some courses in the already visited settings