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]

there is no clear original King Arthur, he was presumably a ruler fighting off the Anglo-Saxons somewhere towards the end of Roman rule in Britain

Much of what we have today with Excalibur, Merlin, etc. is embellishment, from 1200 onwards. I am not sure that a story that stayed pretty much the same for 700 years is a good example for needing changes to stay relevant

???

This might be the worst example one could use for something that 'hasn't changed': the greatest crossover fanfic of all time, starring Lancelot, the man from another story, Morgana La Fey she who was three characters, Excalibur and Caliburn, Nimue and the Lady of the Lake, who is Merlin's Lover or Daughter or Mother or Yes, Morderd, the son who wasn't, and a cavalcade of guest star knights from Celtic, Britain, French, and prot-Germanic folklore.

People can't even agree on whether the codifier for this Frankenstein of folk tales is The Matter of Britain or La Morte de Arthur. There's even been a question of whether Gregory of Monmoth himself wasn't a fictional character (Mostly because apparently no one was allowed to just be a good writer back in the day, but still).

 

[Parmandur]

I am sure some scholar can find a lot of differences where a casual observer would say they are essentially the same. Since the retellings are aimed at the casual observer…

As to changing itself, I do not think there is something akin to an evolution happening. Different people put a different emphasis or even make actual changes for their version, but the next one then does not branch off from theirs, it goes back to an older source and makes different choices, independent of the previous one. The core stays, the different stories drift roughly equidistant around that center.

Would you say Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Jackson’s movie are drastically different or essentially the same?

Jackson's movies are quite an achievement, but I would consider his story as fundamentally different from Tolkien, yeah. One of my friends in College put it as "he made some exciting movies based on the boring parts of the books".

 

[mamba]

But...it didn't? Stuff got changed all the time, even after the Medieval consolidation into Romances?

I actually took some deep dive classes on Arthuriana from world experts on the literature in College, and there were assuredly lost original amd intermediate versions that experts have teased clues out of the Medieval Legends, too. An everevolving legendarium, as legendaria are wont to do.

If you have some references that are not a $30 paywall, I am interested.

Never cared much for Arthur, to me all versions I read / saw were broadly the same, similar to how three people telling you about the same event will not be identical either

 

[mamba]

This might be the worst example one could use for something that 'hasn't changed'

and all those changes have been baked in for hundreds of years, not exactly showing that constant reinvention is needed to stick around

I did not say it never changed, how else could a lot of it been added in the 1200s

 

[Reynard]

I am sure some scholar can find a lot of differences where a casual observer would say they are essentially the same. Since the retellings are aimed at the casual observer…

As to changing itself, I do not think there is something akin to an evolution happening. Different people put a different emphasis or even make actual changes for their version, but the next one then does not branch of from theirs, it goes back to an older source and makes different choices, independent of the previous one. The core stays, the different stories drift roughly equidistant around that center.

This is demonstrably wrong. The course I linked does the demonstrating. The short version: most people build on stories, not rewind all the way to the "original" (quotes because even if they do, it is almost never the original). This is doubly true of Arthur, because those stories were not controlled by copyright or corporate lawyers.

Would you say Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Jackson’s movie are drastically different or essentially the same?

There is an excluded middle there. moreover, this is actually a really good example because there are a couple different Tolkien licenses and some only allow sublicenses from the film licenses, while others are limited to the core trilogy, appendices and the Hobbit, while yet others are more expansive. Each of these licenses means that the derivative materials -- adaptations in other media as well as new material by new authors -- vary quite a lot. Thereby, Middle Earth and the Lord of the Rings are evolving and will continue to do so.

 

[Reynard]

and all those changes have been baked in for hundreds of years, not exactly showing that constant reinvention is needed to stick around

Demonstrably untrue to the point of being disingenuous in order to make a point.

 

[mamba]

Jackson's movies are quite an achievement, but I would consider his story as fundamentally different from Tolkien, yeah.

yeah, then I can see why you would say the same about Arthur

 

[mamba]

This is demonstrably wrong. The course I linked does the demonstrating.

Did not pay $30 to find out

Demonstrably untrue to the point of being disingenuous in order to make a point.

what was demonstrably added since say 1600 that is a recurring theme since?

 

[Parmandur]

If you have some references that are not a $30 paywall, I am interested.

Never cared much for Arthur, to me all versions I read / saw were broadly the same, similar to how three people telling you about the same event will not be identical either

This is one of those cases where the Wikipedia page is full of pretty sound academic stuff:

"A 2007 academic survey led by Caitlin Green has identified three key strands to the portrayal of Arthur in this earliest material.The first is that he was a peerless warrior who functioned as the monster-hunting protector of Britain from all internal and external threats. Some of these are human threats, such as the Saxons he fights in the Historia Brittonum, but the majority are supernatural, including giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, dogheads, giants, and witches. The second is that the pre-Galfridian Arthur was a figure of folklore (particularly topographic or onomastic folklore) and localised magical wonder-tales, the leader of a band of superhuman heroes who live in the wilds of the landscape. The third and final strand is that the early Welsh Arthur had a close connection with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. On the one hand, he launches assaults on Otherworldly fortresses in search of treasure and frees their prisoners. On the other, his warband in the earliest sources includes former pagan gods, and his wife and his possessions are clearly Otherworldly in origin."

King Arthur - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[nevin]

I never read them, so it didn't affect me. Prior to the Disney buy out, the only Star Wars I was familiar with was the six films and the Clone Wars, which they coincidentally kept.

Also, the Extended Universe was never officially canon, like the current stuff is. Thus, I never treated it as such.

nvm. they just did in one clean sweep what Lucas had been doing slowly for years.