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.

 

[payn]

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!


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.


I love this concept.

It’s a tricky prospect I’ll give you that. I’m still gonna ask for it even if it ain’t gonna happen.

 

[ersatzphil]

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.

I personally like Northrop Frye's "Green World" term. As a literary form, it most certainly predates freaking anime.

 

[Morrus]

"Birthright" is associated with some Israeli propaganda programs.

Take the politics elsewhere, please.

 

[Mercurius]

Birthright fans talk about it like its, I don't know, Star Wars - with millions of fans clamoring for easter eggs to validate their nostalgia. It really was a secondary setting in terms of prominence, and only during one edition. The chances of them doing more than just "here's an example of kingdom building" are rather slim. As with many things TSR, it might be time to let go of the hope that it will be revived and just enjoy it for its place in the halls of D&D history. I mean if they haven't revived Dark Sun--a much more popular setting--I don't see them doing much with Birthright.

Chances are a new setting would be targeted at "kids these days" - the masses of Zennials and Alpha kids who started playing during 5th edition. I don't think they're inherently any more or less diverse in taste than older generations, but they do have a different set of cultural references and media than TSR era folks. So we're probably more likely to see something drawn from more recent video games, social media culture, and all the stuff 21st century pups are into rather than Howard, Moorcock, Vance, Lovecraft, Tolkien, John Carter, etc etc.

I could see something either in the "fey whimsy" side of things, or maybe teen dystopia, as that remains a popular sub-genre of sff, or possibly some kind of cosmic fantasy superhero thing. Whatever they put out is probably not going to be what I personally would want to see, but I haven't been their target audience since, I don't know, the George W Bush administration. I haven't played D&D in a few years and if I did would probably go for one of the Free League games instead, but I'm always interested to see what new iterations of D&D look like, even if it isn't my bread and butter.

 

[Stormonu]

If WotC does an honest to goodness new setting, I would like to see them do something radically different from other D&D settings. Give me a world of flying islands and airship pirates. give me a aquatic setting. Give me super far future science fantasy. give me a dyson sphere.

I'm up for a Dark Waters style swashbuckling and sword & sorcery campaign with muskets, dark magic and flying ships.

 

[Reynard]

I'm up for a Dark Waters style swashbuckling and sword & sorcery campaign with muskets, dark magic and flying ships.

IN

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Birthright fans talk about it like its, I don't know, Star Wars - with millions of fans clamoring for easter eggs to validate their nostalgia. It really was a secondary setting in terms of prominence, and only during one edition. The chances of them doing more than just "here's an example of kingdom building" are rather slim. As with many things TSR, it might be time to let go of the hope that it will be revived and just enjoy it for its place in the halls of D&D history. I mean if they haven't revived Dark Sun--a much more popular setting--I don't see them doing much with Birthright.

Chances are a new setting would be targeted at "kids these days" - the masses of Zennials and Alpha kids who started playing during 5th edition. I don't think they're inherently any more or less diverse in taste than older generations, but they do have a different set of cultural references and media than TSR era folks. So we're probably more likely to see something drawn from more recent video games, social media culture, and all the stuff 21st century pups are into rather than Howard, Moorcock, Vance, Lovecraft, Tolkien, John Carter, etc etc.

I could see something either in the "fey whimsy" side of things, or maybe teen dystopia, as that remains a popular sub-genre of sff, or possibly some kind of cosmic fantasy superhero thing. Whatever they put out is probably not going to be what I personally would want to see, but I haven't been their target audience since, I don't know, the George W Bush administration. I haven't played D&D in a few years and if I did would probably go for one of the Free League games instead, but I'm always interested to see what new iterations of D&D look like, even if it isn't my bread and butter.

You could say the same thing about Spelljammer.

It's really more can they fund the right hook that will fet both new and old fans interested in Birthright.

 

[Reynard]

You could say the same thing about Spelljammer.

It's really more can they fund the right hook that will fet both new and old fans interested in Birthright.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Birthright has near the D&D-culture cache that Spelljammer did.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Birthright has near the D&D-culture cache that Spelljammer did.

Probably not, but if WotC thinks they have the right hook for it, they might not feel they need that.

 

[bedir than]

I'm up for a Dark Waters style swashbuckling and sword & sorcery campaign with muskets, dark magic and flying ships.

I'd love this