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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So should they have changed the name with every edition and stopped calling it Dungeon and Dragons in 1989? (Or 2000?)

2000 would have been my preference, if you insist on me taking an extreme view in this ridiculous argument. I was never talking about rules anyway and you know it. This is a fluff discussion.

 

[Remathilis]

2000 would have been my preference, if you insist on me taking an extreme view in this ridiculous argument. I was never talking about rules anyway and you know it. This is a fluff discussion.

Rules inform fluff. In 1989, monks became a kit for spellcasting priests. In 2000, dwarves can cast arcane magic. Those change lore as much as they change rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Rules inform fluff. In 1989, monks became a kit for spellcasting priests. In 2000, dwarves can cast arcane magic. Those change lore as much as they change rules.

Many settings spanned editions (prior to 4e) without retroactively changing that setting's history.

 

[Parmandur]

Urgh, I already didn't like 5e Spelljammer for a bunch of different reasons, but that hadn't even really registered with me properly.

Who decides to make a swashbuckling spaceship setting, then neglects both fighting other spaceships in your spaceship, and also actually having any damn navigation or route-finding choices to make in your spaceship? I mean, they might as well just have created a setting that simply teleported you to the next dungeon, and saved EVEN MORE of the page count.

There is a ship combat system, and it works just fine.

 

[Remathilis]

Many settings spanned editions (prior to 4e) without retroactively changing that setting's history.

...in a way that was unacceptable to you.

Which is the crux of the matter. They are changes that you are willing to accept and ones you aren't and the only difference is whether you like the change or not. This is not an objective measure of anything except personal taste.

 

[Micah Sweet]

...in a way that was unacceptable to you.

Which is the crux of the matter. They are changes that you are willing to accept and ones you aren't and the only difference is whether you like the change or not. This is not an objective measure of anything except personal taste.

Neither is yours. You seem to think it's all fine, and I don't. That's all any discussion around here (especially regarding WotC's choices) is really.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Ravenloft was "retouched" because WotC wanted less limits for the players to add their own ideas, for example the new dark lords created by fandom themself.

Category:Darklord - Mistipedia

Falkovnia was rebooted because it was too grimdark. Gothic horror doesn't mean an eternal bloodbath. Maybe the original dark lord was killed because that type of tyrant earns easily too many enemies, among good and evil people.

Greyhawk and Mystara have to prove they aren't only FR with a different hat.

Could the sorcerer-kings of Arthas become dark-lords within Ravenloft? What if there is an alternate timeline where the cleasing war was avoided or stopped before causing too much damage?

This sounds like musical bands adding electronic music to country songs, for example. It is different, it is not like the true original but this doesn't mean this was wrong.

Birthright in the age of internet and electronic tools could suffer a radical change.

Hasbro is interested into selling different types of products based in Spelljammer and other settings, not only the TTRPGs, or at least the original plan is not these as main source of incomes.

Nentir Vale was created to be a sandbox.

Gamma World can't be the same in the age of shooter videogames where the same enemy but with a different firearm means a change of the challenge rating.

 

[JEB]

despite them not having made a 5E Greyhawk

Ghosts of Saltmarsh actually updates Greyhawk - a small section of it, anyway - for 5E. It seemed largely compatible with earlier portrayals, except for making tieflings more prominent (and that doesn't seem like a deal-breaker since they tied them to Iuz).

 

[JEB]

And I believe that if you don't like the design of something, design a  new thing.

Had they made a lot of the radically overhauled Ravenloft domains into brand new domains (like Dementlieu), or at least acknowledged that they had once resembled the classic domains and had changed because of an in-universe reason (like Valachan), I suspect you'd have seen fewer upset fans. (Still would have been some upset, since some folks want zero change, but certainly less than we got.)

 

[Parmandur]

Ghosts of Saltmarsh actually updates Greyhawk - a small section of it, anyway - for 5E. It seemed largely compatible with earlier portrayals, except for making tieflings more prominent (and that doesn't seem like a deal-breaker since they tied them to Iuz).

It was low-key a timeline reset to the original box set time-frame, which could be controversial since it erases Greyhawk continuity since 1984.