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.

 

[Reynard]

Castlevania is the best Ravenloft campaign!

I ran a one shot con game that was a high level hit on Strahd and built him with Dracula from Castlevania as the template. it was AWESOME.

 

[Parmandur]

Again, that's not somehow special to the 50th anniversary.

Unless you are posting from a cave, you have seen marketing tie ins that capitalize on anniversaries. The US just had a weirdly pervasive celebration of McDonald's Grimace, of all things. THAT'S what I'm talking about WotC not doing with the 50th anniversary.

Every other company would be slapping gold foil on books and selling them as special 50th anniversary books. (And given that they are going to be selling more than the 2024 core books next year, they absolutely have the capacity to do this.) WotC won't be doing so, despite it being the kind of monetization that everyone would be OK with.

I mean, unlike those two instances, there are no lucrnsibg complications to 50th anniversary celebration stuff. We will be inundated with it soon enough.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We will be inundated with it soon enough.

Everyone but actual WotC knows how to manage this, yes.

The point was -- as always -- that WotC does not even seem to understand why this is worth doing.

Everyone who was upset about the worst case scenarios about what "monetization" means -- and there's more than one active thread about the issue on this board right now, so people still clearly care about this -- should be asking WotC to make money with anniversary-branded stuff, rather than letting the suits fill that shortfall with microtransactions and what have you.

 

[Maxperson]

That's the first time I've seen that particular take on that. In fact, by far the biggest complaint I've seen here and elsewhere is that the set didn't have enough ship rules, especially in regards to combat. That's over complaints over not having more info on planetary systems and so on. For many, the ships are the core part of Spelljammer - the setting is named after a ship after all!

Yes, ships and ship combat are important. Instead of an adventure, though, they should have had more settings in space, talk about asteroids, types and encounters on them. Ideas of nebula. Random "sphere"(in quotes since spheres are gone) generation. Some known systems like The Realms, Greyhawk, and other big ones. And so on. Actual setting stuff

 

[Reynard]

5E's return to leaning on adventures is actually really interesting if you think about it.

 

[Incenjucar]

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.

I mean "magitech" is what I called it when congratulating "Hellcow" back when he first won the contest.

 

[deganawida]

5E's return to leaning on adventures is actually really interesting if you think about it.

As much as I love the TSR boxed sets from 2e, I do believe that adventures are the superior method to develop settings. I don’t think it’s coincidence that those who played the 1e adventures in Greyhawk and Mystara are their biggest champions.

 

[billd91]

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

It's been done.

 

[Stormonu]

5E's return to leaning on adventures is actually really interesting if you think about it.

They've been really heavy into trying to ensure there's content to play with. A lot of 1E and 2E had reading material for the DM, with the assumption the DM would create the play content. The shift in focus really ties into "I don't have enough time to make stuff, just do it for me so I can jump into the action". For us old-timers, its a bit disconcerting because a fair bit of lore is mixed in/hidden in those adventures that we're used to getting in setting sidebars or pages on the subject in the setting book.

 

[overgeeked]

As much as I love the TSR boxed sets from 2e, I do believe that adventures are the superior method to develop settings. I don’t think it’s coincidence that those who played the 1e adventures in Greyhawk and Mystara are their biggest champions.

I've never played in an official Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Mystara, or Spelljammer adventure. I'd say I'm a champion for those settings.