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.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I suspect they are more interested into making money thanks DMGuild than the sourcebooks themself.

The return of Birthright is possible thanks popularity of Song of Fire&Ice(Game of Thrones). It is the perfect setting for a strategy or city-building videogame.

Dark Sun is too special to be buried and forgotten so easily. Maybe there is an open door for a spiritual succesor, the same crunch but a different lore. And it was too linked with the metaplot. The sorcerer-kings were the big evil bosses, and there weren't more villains with that power level. Maybe is possible a return by means of a backdoor.

I reimagine the Athasian Tablelands like a demiplane within the "spirit realm", a echo plane like Feywill or Shadowfell. By fault of defiler magic the cosmic barrier between the material plane and the spirit realm were weaker, and this is very bad. The spirit realm had to work like a purgatory to clean sinner souls with a bad karma, but now it is like a failed state. And now the (deceased) sorkerer-kings are the new rulers. Here there isn't slavery in the traditional sense. Ordinary mortal can't endurace so well like the "petitioners", the "reincarnated sinners suffering penance". Here the slavery of innocent souls is very short because very soon they are clean again and then their penance ends. The ordinary mortals could suffer "inertured servituded" by fault of economic debts or unpaided (excesive) taxes.

I would like to know if the future D&D cosmology after Vecna event will allow alternate timelines or uchronies. For example Jackandor being invaded by the Athasians, or Dragonlance where the summer of chaos didn't start.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh I see - do we know why they're delayed? That seems kind of weird.

Yes. Lack of printing capacity.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Trust their actions not their words. The quality of setting books as setting books has been generally mediocre for all of 5E (Eberron being the only real counter-example, though Theros ain't bad - Ravenloft was good as "how to play horror D&D", mediocre at best for "Here's Ravenloft!"), and whilst Planescape sounds like a distinct improvement from the nadir that was Spelljammer, it doesn't sound like it's a huge change in direction, just a recognition that they went too far.

I can't agree with you here. I think the quality of settings has been mediocre for the whole of 5e - but the problem here is that the quality of settings is in part a matter of quantity as much as it is quality. I don't think that there's a single setting book that is as pointless as Forgotten Realms Setting Book #15 in either 2e or 3.X or even Eberron Setting Book #15 in 3.5 . But the point here is that there might have been 15 setting books in total across the whole of 5e when, although each individual supplement in a setting past the first two or three is generally low quality they all add something and there were more than 15 setting books for the Realms in 2e and both the Realms and Eberron in 3.5.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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

First off I do not think Spelljammer is that bad but it is 547 in Books Overall on Amazon, and No. 5 in Dungeons & Dragons ahead of Xanathar's, Ravenloft and even Bigby's. I really doubt WoTC sees it as a failure.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Sorry about that.

There a a ton of monsters, several races, spells, etc. that I'd like to see (and I haven't been enthused with much of the stuff I've seen on DM's Guild—with the exception of Zakhara: Adventures in the Land of Fate, which is boss).

Eh! ok, I think there are too many monsters. It is one of the things that put me off D&D in my earlier days of gaming. Too many top level predators to co-exist.
You are obviously not interested in rolling your own then.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

BG3 had been in early access since October 2020 and it was almost immediately getting rave reviews. They had time.

Also, I'm not sure what the downside would have been if they had chosen this moment to release Bigby's Glory of the Aberrations instead of a giant-focused book. If BG3 was a flop, the book would have likely still been well received.

Even with that Sven told his IT people not to expect more than 1ook concurrent users peak. This is a lot bigger than they anticipated.

 

[Reynard]

Avernus is a prequel to BG3, not s "tie in." What I want is an actual big fat adventure book that is an adaptation for tabletop play.

 

[Remathilis]

Remember the first five years of 5e when everyone bemoaned that the Forgotten Realms was the only setting WotC was supporting and people felt it was going to absorb the rest of the D&D? Even when WotC referenced things beyond Faerun it was dismissed as being part of Faerun? How there was Greyhawk erasure? (Bigby, Tasha and Mordenkainen twice vs Volo and Xanathar)? Curse of Strahd was happening on Faerun? It literally took Ravinca and Eberron to convince people WotC knew what they were doing? Anyone still want to argue Grand Unified Theory of the Realms anymore?

No?

So now again WotC is advertising that they have plans in the future that don't match what the current docket of books show, except for a few outliers (Wildmonte and Ravenloft) and yet everyone claims to know their mind and read their plans. I absolutely think WotC will come back and put out another Spelljammer or Dragonlance book sometime in the next 10 years. I don't think they said "welp, scratch Krynn off the list". I don't know if we'll ever get a book like Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting again, but we will absolutely get supplements and modules in these settings again.

 

[Parmandur]

What about Vecna is a special 50th anniversary celebration? Is he going to jump out of a cake? (Please say yes.)

It's going to be a world hopping Adventure, so probavly full of Easter eggs and references to 50 years of D&D.

 

[Parmandur]

Avernus is a prequel to BG3, not s "tie in." What I want is an actual big fat adventure book that is an adaptation for tabletop play.

Potatoes, pahtato. It has a massive Baldur's Gate Gazateer (seriously, big enough for a TSR book), which keys in on the same are as Act 2 of the game. It really does dovetail with anyone interested in the TTRPG coming from the game.