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.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not sure what you have seen, I have seen some art and nothing about the rules it uses

I have seen pages that show the game has classes, hit points, armour class and abilities that look very much like spells, although they are acquired from gear.

 

[kapars]

Is the D&D cook book not one of their best sellers? The obvious answer here is a Delicious in Dungeon collaboration or their own take on that if the licensing isn't possible.

 

[mamba]

I have seen pages that show the game has classes, hit points, armour class and abilities that look very much like spells

that describes a whole lot of TTRPGs right there, nothing specific to D&D or 5e

I would not be surprised if it were 5e, but I would not be surprised if it weren’t either

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I have seen pages that show the game has classes, hit points, armour class and abilities that look very much like spells, although they are acquired from gear.

Yeah it's very clearly a cheap/lazy reuse of 5E's rules in that sad and clumsy "d20"-era way we saw so much of in the early '00s with 3E. Every single genre and game had to be 3E-ified, even if it was a total disaster and the rules a complete mismatch.

that describes a whole lot of TTRPGs right there, nothing specific to D&D or 5e

I would not be surprised if it were 5e, but I would not be surprised if it weren’t either

I suggest you check out the pages released and then come back and tell us if you still think this. It looks to be at least as "5E" as the WotC Star Wars RPG was 3E, which is to say, "a lot". My guess is it'll be even closer and less daring than the Star Wars RPG.

 

[TheSword]

Birthright is probably deader than dead. A setting about domain management, conquest and rulership determined by bloodlines and divine right is absolutely the wrong thing for this moment. I don't want to invoke Morrus's lire, but a setting based around Blood and Soil is not a good idea at this point in history.

I disagree. That expression invokes racial elements, promised lands and territorialism which I don’t think are baked into the Birthright setting. As I said in my previous post anyone can come to rule a domain, there is no racial prerequisite. It’s worth noting that there is also nothing about the name Birthright that means it has to be called that. It could easily be the Cerillia setting or the Anuire setting, or the Iron Throne setting.

On the contrary, it’s more about husbandry, nurturing paired with the dynastic wheeling and dealing that occurs in Game of Thrones or The Witcher. With a few interesting spins.

• There is a strong environmental message. Land that is allowed to flourish generates more magic. While land that is overly settled and industrialized generates less magic.
• There is a strong mechanical incentive to work with other regents cooperatively - guild, temples and law in your own lands, that you are unlikely to benefit from yourself.
• Territories can and do change hand frequently but this is far more likely through diplomacy and negotiation than invasion.
• The elven-human tension is as present or distant as the GM wants to make it. The setting makes it clear that there are heroes and villains on both sides and the elven retreat/hunt is handled quite maturely.

If a Witcher Board Game/TV show/CRPG/TTRPG can be made now, I see no reason why this setting can’t.

 

[polyhedral man]

"Birthright" is associated with some Israeli propaganda programs.

Fun fact. A contender for Birthright's slot was a concept by Jeff Grubb called Stormfront. The term was much later (very unfortunately) used by a Nazi forum. The moral of the story is - get your setting out there and claim the term associated with it... before some random extremist group uses it!

 

[Parmandur]

Not sure what you have seen, I have seen some art and nothing about the rules it uses

No, we saw rules text for Magi...er, Science Items. They weres specifically D&D and even more specifically 5E (Proficiency Bobus was mentioned, AC, math checked out).

 

[Parmandur]

that describes a whole lot of TTRPGs right there, nothing specific to D&D or 5e

I would not be surprised if it were 5e, but I would not be surprised if it weren’t either

The game math was very obviously and specifically D&D, and they were formatter as 5E items.

 

[Staffan]

Fun fact. A contender for Birthright's slot was a concept by Jeff Grubb called Stormfront. The term was much later (very unfortunately) used by a Nazi forum. The moral of the story is - get your setting out there and claim the term associated with it... before some random extremist group uses it!

That reminds me: In the RPG TORG, something called Reality Storms is a big part of the setting. The game is about the world getting invaded by other realities, and on the border between these realities interact great big storms happen that make things weird.

Anyhow, the designers wanted a "well-intentioned extremist" group in the setting, who are intent on defeating the invaders no matter what the collateral cost (turns out that if you just remove the stuff maintaining the invading reality, people who had already transformed to it and then transform back don't have enough reality juice remaining and instead go poof). When they previewed this group, they wanted to call it "Storm Front", but fortunately they weren't locked in on that and could fix it in response to fans (me!) pointing it out to them. I believe they became Storm Break instead.

 

[TheSword]

That reminds me: In the RPG TORG, something called Reality Storms is a big part of the setting. The game is about the world getting invaded by other realities, and on the border between these realities interact great big storms happen that make things weird.

Anyhow, the designers wanted a "well-intentioned extremist" group in the setting, who are intent on defeating the invaders no matter what the collateral cost (turns out that if you just remove the stuff maintaining the invading reality, people who had already transformed to it and then transform back don't have enough reality juice remaining and instead go poof). When they previewed this group, they wanted to call it "Storm Front", but fortunately they weren't locked in on that and could fix it in response to fans (me!) pointing it out to them. I believe they became Storm Break instead.

Stormfront was also an IT shop, I believe, that sold iPad stations for cafe’s and businesses.

We definitely have to not cede ground to nutters. There are too many people on the planet to avoid all references to all things. We need to pick our battles.