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.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'll be sitting here reading about D&D and someone will describe Eberron as a 'classic D&D setting' and my brain will make that record-scratch sound and I'll think "What? No way, it's too new to be called a classic! It was released just two---? Oh god. Two decades ago. Nevermind, carry on."

Eberron is as old now as Dragonlance was, when Eberron was released.

Getting old. When Nirvana released Nevermind they were at a point in time closer to the Beatles than we are to Nirvana's Nevermind.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This it for me—I just want the mechanical support so I can use the older setting material or use elements from different settings of the past in my homebrew settings. I don't expect WotC to do more than shallow renderings of old settings, so I'm good with just the game mechanics thereof.

What mechanical support do you need? I mean, aside from third party and fan conversion the monsters are mostly there and what is missing?

 

[Azzy]

What mechanical support do you need? I mean, aside from third party and fan conversion the monsters are mostly there and what is missing?

I have no desire to make a list to defend my desire, thank you.

 

[overgeeked]

Ah, gotcha. I'm coming at it more from the "giving fans the tools they need" angle.

As you say, and as I said upthread, most of what referees would need is either already in the game or already out there. I think the fan creators should be able to earn a few bucks from their hard work.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I have no desire to make a list to defend my desire, thank you.

Man! I am not attacking your position, I just find it unusual that one would have old material and need an official conversion. I have ran adventures written for basic D&D in 5e and I mostly just swapped in the monsters from the original with their 5e counterparts. I kept an eye on the encounter difficulty via looking at the encounter experience and it worked fine. Most of the encounter ran ok without adjustment, some of the boss fights I had to tweak.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For the record: the proper term for Eberron's aesthetic (to the point that Eberron's player base likely coined it) is "Dungeonpunk". Because the technology being extrapolated to Science Fantasy proportions is specifically sufficiently-analyzed, D&D-style, magic.

Dungeon Punk - TV Tropes

Dungeonpunk was actually coined by WotC in the lead up to 3E, I believe, to describe the "back to the dungeon" aesthetic and vibe they were going for. (Since they had just finished with the 1990s, that also meant lots and lots of pouches.)

It sort of crosses over with the TV Tropes take on it, since that's WotC's default take on fantasy, IMO. (Throw an anti-magic shell over Faerun and even relatively "ordinary" people's lives would get dramatically changed, given how pervasive magic is in the setting.)

 

[Queer Venger]

this is great news!! Im really hoping that Spelljammer gets a little more love in terms of setting and combat rules and cannot wait for Planescape

 

[Queer Venger]

I don’t care if I’m the minority, I’d love to see another campaign style book focused on another part of the Forgotten Realms before anything else.

I think that the upcoming Red Wizards of Thay book may do that I hope

 

[ersatzphil]

I suspect WotC does think Spelljammer was a success, since they're doing another setting in almost an identical format.

Given that the production timeline for a official D&D book is well over a year, I suspect it’s entirely possible that by the time they realized that Spelljammer was poorly received, Planescape was too far along to make major changes to - I recall a YouTube video where Perkins was tripping over himself to explain that the Planescape set was going to be much, much larger than the Spelljammer one.

 

[kenmarable]

Manual of the Planes sorely needed

FWIW, they won't be official, high production value WotC releases, but I will say that many of us have been veeeeerrrryyy eager for Planescape to open up on DMs Guild and are well aware of the major gaps WotC has left, such as a Manual of the Planes. I know quite a few people with things in the works and I'm sure there are many more beyond those. Prior to the Spelljammer release, I would have bet money that WotC would bring back Planescape with a new Manual of the Planes. But they didn't, so some of us will try our best to cover what they don't.