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]

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.

So what about the people who just want to enjoy a burger without being shouted at by Very Serious People who think we all need to be Very Serious?

I did enough cynicism in the 90's. I'm done. Let me have my damn goggles and wood paneling and waxed moustaches.

 

[CleverNickName]

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.)

Before the "steampunk" asthetic became mainstream in the late 90s and early 00s, the only fictionalized 1800s that we really had to draw from were gaslamp capers like Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes, and classical sci-fi like Dr. Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde. (I'm sure there were others, but these were the big ones.)

I'm not saying that's a bad thing--I love me some gaslamp, I love classical sci-fi---but I also think there's plenty of room in the genre for zeppelins and steam-powered robots. Folks today have a lot to say about the impacts of industry on peoples' lives, bodies, and environment, and steampunk is an excellent lens to examine those things with. So what if the "steam" is replaced with magic?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So what about the people who just want to enjoy a burger without being shouted at by Very Serious People who think we all need to be Very Serious?

I did enough cynicism in the 90's. I'm done. Let me have my damn goggles and wood paneling and waxed moustaches.

I honestly think I made a better point above than just cynicism.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I honestly think I made a better point above than just cynicism.

What I got was more or less 'teach people cynicism'.

And also the gross misconception that the only pop culture image of the 1800's is steampunk and not like sad, gritty cowboys and land barons or dying coal miners and child labor.

 

[Parmandur]

I honestly think I made a better point above than just cynicism.

I'd actually say that a happy-happy joy-joy view of the 19th century is way more cynical, at any rate.

Even in "polite society" of the time, I can't help but think of C. S. Lewis autobiography when he goes into detail about how trench warfare in WWI was a marked improvement for him on the Hell that was late Victorian/Edward isn't middle class life.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What I got was more or less 'teach people cynicism'.

And also the gross misconception that the only pop culture image of the 1800's is steampunk and not like cowboys and land barons or dying coal miners and child labor.

I literally mentioned cowboys...

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.

If you want to see being realistic about the 1800s as cynicism, that's on you, but it's funny how it only applies to the industrialized cities.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

That's just the nature of the beast. The people that whine about Monks being in their "medieval European" fantasy don't actually want an authentically medieval European experience. They want a Renaissance Faire with magic.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If you want to see being realistic about the 1800s as cynicism

Okay. Here's the plot:

I don't want to see being realistic.

That's my secret, Cap.

I know I've been super low key about that in my history on these boards, but there it is.

 

[bedir than]

I would love the MPAA to read and rate the adventures that people say are G to PG.
Many of these involve things that if existed as a single scene in a movie they'd be immediately R

 

[Scribe]

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?

Odd angle, when we are talking about not just the 'global leader' but the essential monolith in the space who have as a corporate entity.

Had block buster success in games.
Had NTY Best Sellers.
Had established characters over decades.
Had actual settings with depth.
I assume, have people within the company looking around and seeing what else is successful, or has been successful.

Just because Wizards literally fell into success ass backwards despite consecutively rolling natural 1's over and over and over, doesnt mean they shouldnt be able to apply some actual logic. Some of us have been saying for years on end "yeah thats nice and all, but when do we get something for us?" to all the over sanitized 'safe' PG stuff.