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.

 

[Vaalingrade]

We won't know that until the AI write it for us.

Nah, that's the Infinite Grift Era.

 

[Reynard]

Nah, that's the Infinite Grift Era.

I'm not saying that the AI we have now are going to suddenly evolve sentience. But I think there is a real possibility some idiot is going to hand the reins of some very important things to the AI anyway.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not saying that the AI we have now are going to suddenly evolve sentience. But I think there is a real possibility some idiot is going to hand the reins of some very important things to the AI anyway.

Lawyers have done it. Imagine what happens when a banker does it and the AI lies about the exchange rate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nope.

The 1800's is not necessary for steampunk just like the 1980's isn't necessary for cyberpunk.

And yet almost every full-on steampunk setting is in fact set in 1800s, and hews to 1800s superficial social norms just with the racism, misogyny, homophobia, intrinsic gender roles and so on carefully removed, and the violent classism turned down in a way that only an American could credit. Sometimes they forget a bit too, like most 1990s steampunk was still basically pro-colonialist and thought that the upper classes genuinely were better people, including Castle Falkenstein, and it wasn't even really anti-Imperialist, it just quietly removed most of the imperalism without figuring out how they got to this place without the triangle trade and so on (hint: they couldn't have).

Anyway funny that, if they really "don't need the 1800s". You do see some in fantasy settings, but ironically that stuff tends to be much more critical! Much more capable of acknowledging that to have a class of incredibly wealthy industrial barons and aristocrats and so on, you need an oppressed underclass. That's the real problem underlying most steampunk - they always want the grimmest trappings of Victoriana, but with none of what caused them to exist, even though they make no sense. They want aristocrats without an underclass - just an impossibility by definition. They want factories churning stuff out without anyone working in them and suffering - despite the fact that they depict people working in them! They want smoke without soot.

You could make a much better case for dieselpunk not needing the 1900s, for example, because instead of being set in the 1900s, it tends to be set in nebulous non-times. The aesthetic is also less fetishistic of specific elements of 1930-1960s attire and style than steampunk is of Victorian stuff.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Look, if you want darker and edgier steampunk, then write it. I'm just giving a view of the subculture from the inside; like what people actually are attracted to steampunk for.

And yes: smoke without soot is EXACTLY THE POINT. The smoke is cool in isolation, so why not create a creative space where we can enjoy the smoke without all that damn soot? Soot sucks. We can ignore it in this space. Not ignore it in the real world, but in this creative and aesthetic space.

This is like yelling at someone for liking cheeseburgers because they aren't eating the cheeseburger explicitly for the fat and clogged arteries.

 

[Reynard]

And yes: smoke without soot is EXACTLY THE POINT.

That is a nice turn of phrase.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Yes they are which is why I stopped buying them. They only care enough about a setting to sale the ONE adventure then they move on.

 

[deganawida]

I mean, t'was murdered before it could be born, as it were. But yeah very briefly it was a critical genre in the 1980s, there are a number of books that fit, and then the existence of The Difference Engine popularized the term, and within a few bloody years we've got people basically worshipping one of the most depraved aesthetics in history, and calling it steampunk when all they really mean is Victoriana.

The Difference Engine is a fantastic novel. Kudos for mentioning it!

 

[bedir than]

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.

Yes, why haven't Wizards already put out a book because BG3 did so well in the [checks dates] last ten days! How long can a book take these days?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is like yelling at someone for liking cheeseburgers because they aren't eating the cheeseburger explicitly for the fat and clogged arteries.

To me it's more like being annoyed that someone is trying to convince people that cheeseburgers are totally cool and we should all want cheeseburgers and fetishize cheeseburgers without acknowledging either the horrific process that leads to their creation or the effects they have on your body.

Let me be clear - I don't think LARP side of steampunk, which I imagine you're involved with, is really the problem at all. LARP is LARP, and it's not a major deal. People dress up as a lot worse than silly Victorians in LARP-type situations, as I'm sure you're abundantly aware!

What I think is a problem is common-ness of steampunk imagery in our society, to the point where it's now the dominant imagery of the industrialized 1800s. It's far, far, far easier to find media representations of steampunk than it is of the industrial parts of the actual 1800s, at this point. People have been growing up for some time now never having seen or read really anything that accurately depicts the 1800s in cities and conurbations, but they pretty much seen or read a ton of steampunk aesthetic stuff, all of which will have been twee and mindlessly positive. It strikes a violent contrast with 1800s imagery - people will have seen and read brutal depictions of the slave-owning South, of the harsh life in the US West, but the cities? No. The utter horrors and exploitation of industrialization are basically kept under wraps. And it absolutely impacts their attitudes to the 1800s - a lot of younger people think living back then in a city wasn't that bad, maybe even kind of cool, when most of them would have been in the workhouse or dying in factory fire after having lived on near starvation wages.

Maybe that's the real problem here - not that steampunk has become this debased aesthetic - though it has - but that it's become the dominant representation of the industrialized 1800s, because no-one is willing to represent that society even close to how it was.

And I do think that if you make films or books or other works about a fictionalized 1800s, and they draw on real-world 1800s aesthetic yet are non-critical of the real 1800s, that's genuinely problematic and really disrespectful to million of people who suffered and died. But if it's just dress-up who cares.

(Again, what strikes me is that the steampunk stuff which isn't set in the 1800s are the most fiercely critical of 1800s cultural ideals and most reflective of how tough the life was for most people - c.f. the recent Leech by Hiron Ennes.)