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.

 

[overgeeked]

Think of it this way. When you write a book, the first thing the publisher, librarian or person doing the marketing wants to know is; Fiction or Non-fiction? If you say fiction, they are then going to want to place it into a genre, like; Children's, Folklore, Action & Adventure, Fantasy, etc (see List of writing genres - Wikipedia). Have you noticed Aetherpunk is not a recognizable genre? (Heck, even RPGs is not)

That's generally because the people keeping track of and trying to organize the information are several steps behind and trying to play catch up with the people generating the content. There are also a lot of ways to organize information. Some classification schema work better than others. Library of Congress, Dewey, and others are generally rigid and slow to change that’s why folksonomies are becoming more of a thing some libraries use. Also note that that wiki link is to literary genres, i.e. fiction labels. RPGs are non-fiction. They are instruction manuals for playing games, so in classification systems like Dewey, they are in the 790s...specifically 793, indoor games and amusements.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I look forward to the $10000 anniversary edition books.

Maybe they'll print a single copy of PHB written entirely in Gygaxian prose.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Maybe they'll print a single copy of PHB written entirely in Gygaxian prose.

Have it on a tropical island surrounded by unknown hazards, then run a reality TV show where you start on a beach naked and have to craft your tools to access the book.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hose it on a tropical island surrounded by unknown hazards, then run a reality TV show where you start on a beach naked and have to craft your tools to access the book.

I'd watch it.

 

[overgeeked]

Hose it on a tropical island surrounded by unknown hazards, then run a reality TV show where you start on a beach naked and have to craft your tools to access the book.

Sounds like an XCrawl variant.

 

[Shardstone]

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.

I think future success will rely on combining edge and twee to make a self-aware combo that becomes the new thing. In other words, the future is anime.

 

[Aldarc]

Leaving "aetherpunk" aside, I do believe that the portmanteu term "magitech" is pretty clear and intuitive for most people while also describing Eberron fairly well.

 

[Reynard]

Leaving "aetherpunk" aside, I do believe that the portmanteu term "magitech" is pretty clear and intuitive for most people while also describing Eberron fairly well.

The only thing I don't like about "magitech" is implies higher technology than Eberron possesses.

 

[overgeeked]

I think future success will rely on combining edge and twee to make a self-aware combo that becomes the new thing. In other words, the future is anime.

I hope so. I honestly cannot wait for more games to be even more explicitly anime-themed.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I hope so. I honestly cannot wait for more games to be even more explicitly anime-themed.

Castlevania is the best Ravenloft campaign!