Dungeons & Dragons Teases New Campaign Settings

Dungeons & Dragons seems to be preparing to explore brand new campaign settings. Last week, EN World had the opportunity to visit Wizards of the Coast headquarters and get new details about D&D's 2025 slate. While much of the focus was on the newly announced Eberron: Forge of the Artificer book or the upcoming pair of Forgotten Realms book, the D&D design team is also looking at expanding their official multiverse to include brand new worlds.

When asked about the decision to return to Eberron in 2025, the D&D design team noted that keeping the Fifth Edition ruleset allowed them to grow the game instead of rehash it. "One of the opportunities that we have by revising the game, as opposed blowing it up and starting over, is we can actually move forward," said Jeremy Crawford, game director . "And I can't wait until we can tell you about 2026 and 2027."

"With Jeremy Crawford taking on the game director role and then Chris Perkins taking on the creative director role is that we were able to really reestablish a world building environment," added Jess Lanzillo, VP of D&D Franchise at Wizards of the Coast. "What does that mean? We can really establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms and also look to creating new ones again. That's something that we are working on and we don't have anything to really discuss today other than to tell you like we are re-establishing everything that we have and we are going to make some new stuff too."

While Wizards of the Coast has integrated Magic: The Gathering worlds and Critical Role's Exandria as campaign settings for 5th Edition, D&D's last truly new campaign setting was Nentir Vale, a 'points of light' setting that established small bastions of civilization in an otherwise dark world. In 2023, D&D introduced the Radiant Citadel, a new city within the Ethereal Plane that was connected to numerous new civilizations and worlds briefly touched on in anthology books.

 

[MGibster]

Didn't like 4 people buy that setting when it was new. If I recall from ben Riggs' numbers, it was NOT a popular setting.

I was one of those four people. From what I can recall, the concept was interesting but it wasn't easy to work it into how my group played AD&D.

 

[Reynard]

Honestly, it'd be best to present it as a new setting but a wink and a nod and some easter eggs should imply maybe it's the world of Cerilia in the future or something under a new name. Maybe something happened to swap the power from godly bloodlines to some other mechanism.

WotC has not done these kinds of books for 5E, but if they did do a generic/setting-agnostic Kingdom and Warfare style book, I could see them doing Birthright as the "sample setting." Sort of best of both worlds there.

 

[payn]

I was one of those four people. From what I can recall, the concept was interesting but it wasn't easy to work it into how my group played AD&D.

Yeap the domain stuff was conceptually excellent, but mechanical execution much less so. An opportunity to reclaim the glory!

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

WotC has not done these kinds of books for 5E, but if they did do a generic/setting-agnostic Kingdom and Warfare style book, I could see them doing Birthright as the "sample setting." Sort of best of both worlds there.

I think you and I are broadly of the same mind. Maybe like 50% of the book is kingdom rules, 40% of the book is updated Cerilia and then 10% of the remainder is suggesting ways and plots to work the rules into other settings ("You could be starting a colony in Q'barra", "You have inherited De'Arnise Keep in the suburbs of Athkatla", etc)

 

[Reynard]

I think you and I are broadly of the same mind. Maybe like 50% of the book is kingdom rules, 40% of the book is updated Cerilia and then 10% of the remainder is suggesting ways and plots to work the rules into other settings ("You could be starting a colony in Q'barra", "You have inherited De'Arnise Keep in the suburbs of Athkatla", etc)

I was thinking the other way: the majority of the book is the rules and advice on how to do it in any setting, then the example that shows how it is done is Birthright.

Not that it matters. WotC is not going to do a book like that.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Where is Birthright??

Not light and whimsical enough?

 

[MGibster]

Not try to be snarky, but what is wrong with the name Birthright in today's environment, is it likely a genetics thing?

They'll have to rename it Nepotism. Instead of being adventurers, the player characters are nepo babies.

I certainly have no objection to an entirely new setting. At this point, when it comes to past settings, I'm more in love with the idea of Dark Sun than I am with what I can actually remember about it. Dark Sun, Birthright, etc., etc. had their chance. Let's go with something new. My only advice for WotC is to concentrate on making a good setting for gaming purposes without being overly concerned about casting the widest net possible for their audience. You're not going to make everyone happy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not try to be snarky, but what is wrong with the name Birthright in today's environment, is it likely a genetics thing?

Birthright as a phrase is a pretty dodgy phrase, because it's associated with racists, eugenicists, Nazis, and, somewhat ironically, zionists (I mean that in the most absolutely literal, apolitical, fact-based sense with no judgement intended - I'm talking about the organisation Birthright). People who start talking about "birthrights" as a concept usually seem to be well advanced on the road to pointy white hoods and flaming torches, and even when they're not, it's rarely a good look.

The setting they would probably not use largely because it's a bit bland and generic and out-of-date (in a non-dodgy, just tired) kind of way. Also even a lot of people who liked Birthright can't actually describe the setting in any detail!

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court was Isekai?

If something can be of a genre before that genre is invented, yes. And most of us subscribe to the notion that things can be, because we call stuff science fiction or fantasy that's from before those two things existed as named, trope-identified genres. In fact Isekai is kind of common - Narnia and the Wizard of Oz, for example, or John Carter of Mars. Even stuff like Thomas Covenant - in fact that hits a ton of Isekai tropes absolutely flat on!

Isekai is just a convenient term for a long-existing form of fiction - "portal fiction" is often functionally the same thing, it's hard to separate the two and probably not worth doing. I'd also say it tends to be one of the laziest and most often trope-y and full of cheap wish fulfilment or manipulation fantasy genres, but that's neither here not there.

Every setting that does not take place inside Plato's Cave is technically a form of isekai

I love this concept.

 

[Parmandur]

What I expect in terms of new Settings:

• A Feywild equivalent to Ravenloft
• An Inner Planes Elemental Chaos Setting.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I love this concept.

DungeonMaster and DeMiurge kinda sound similar