WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[ART!]

On a purely rational level: D&D needs less settings, not more. Too much of D&D is fractured into settings that are 65% alike but 35% different enough that options don't port over well. Dragonlance elves aren't exactly the same as Greyhawk elves. Ebberon's planes aren't configured like Planescapes. Kender and warforged can't adventure together without world hopping shinanigans. The Scion of the Three subclass must be refluffed to work on Exandria, etc. You create these ghettos of design where people argue X doesn't belong in Y setting or you get overly generic fluff that doesn't tie things to the world because it has to work in any world.

This dovetails with what I posted about monsters - if theyre just going to port standard 5.5E monsters into a new setting, for me that really reduces my interest level.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I'd definitely love an ice age official setting at some point, where the world is slowly getting colder every year.

Reading a worldbuilding project called Serina currently, and a big chunk part of that covers the ice slowly closing in a bit further every year. Eventually just a thin strip of equatorial ocean and and some islands scattered about remain.

 

[Remathilis]

Fluff goes in the setting book, not the core book.

Yeah and that's the problem.

Have you seen how the lore of elves is basically nothing? That's because they aren't allowed to have a culture because every setting has a unique culture for them that doesn't mesh with any other. If D&D had one setting (let's just use Greyhawk as the example) you could talk about elves coming from common homeland, having a common culture and unique traditions that elves from that land share. And then you can have elves that don't fit the norm or come from other places play as exceptions via customizable cultures. But the PHB elf has to fill the role of the Tolkien like elves of Oerth, the slightly different ones of Faerun, the radically different ones of Eberron and Athas, etc. So you get the most generic, bare bones stuff because it has to support a dozen different worlds.

Maybe a better example. Xanathar's Guide had a samurai subclass. How many D&D worlds is samurai actually a thing? Faerun has Kara-Tur. But is there an Asian feudal society on Oerth? Krynn? Eberron? Athas? Not to my knowledge. It's a player option without a home in most official settings, requiring the DM to refluff to something else, add lore content to justify, or ban for not fitting. IMHO, a official D&D option should work with an official D&D setting without the DM having to justify why. That's why I bought a setting rather than homebrew, to have that done for me. But with so many settings having narrow niches, it fails despite the samurai being an option for the game since 1e.

And if samurai is too niche, how many official D&D settings ban orcs? Too many IMHO.

One setting. Like Golarion, has a place for everything in the game. You wanna homebrew? Pick and choose. But the default game should accept all parts of the game without bans and work arounds.

And I say this as someone who deeply loves Eberron and Ravenloft. But I know it's better for the game to have one catch all setting than a patchwork of settings that are only vaguely compatible.

 

[bedir than]

I do want new settings.

But I don't want new settings if the Character Builder doesn't allow limitations at the campaign level.

THIS IS THEIR INTENT!!!

I missed this when I got excited about the new builder

Behind the Screen: The New Quickbuilder and Future Character Builder Concepts

Step behind the proverbial DM screen and help shape future improvements to the D&D Beyond character builder.

www.dndbeyond.com

• Put the DM back in control of their campaign, including which rules it uses or omits.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

And I say this as someone who deeply loves Eberron and Ravenloft. But I know it's better for the game to have one catch all setting than a patchwork of settings that are only vaguely compatible.

Trouble is a single 'does everything' setting just does everything badly. Or if it does entirely focus on a single tone or theme, alienates every player who doesn't enjoy that base tone or theme.

You already see it with how ubiquitous magic is in base 5e, meaning that every setting has to follow that expectation. So anyone wanting a gritty low magic setting is completely out of luck.

When it comes to a base game expectation, it's easier to add to what's in the core three books than it is to remove things in the core three books.

 

[payn]

I’d love to see a D&D setting get even a tenth of the development of Golarion but that isn’t going to happen.

So, sure toss another setting on the pile I’d take a look.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah and that's the problem.

Have you seen how the lore of elves is basically nothing? That's because they aren't allowed to have a culture because every setting has a unique culture for them that doesn't mesh with any other. If D&D had one setting (let's just use Greyhawk as the example) you could talk about elves coming from common homeland, having a common culture and unique traditions that elves from that land share. And then you can have elves that don't fit the norm or come from other places play as exceptions via customizable cultures. But the PHB elf has to fill the role of the Tolkien like elves of Oerth, the slightly different ones of Faerun, the radically different ones of Eberron and Athas, etc. So you get the most generic, bare bones stuff because it has to support a dozen different worlds.

Maybe a better example. Xanathar's Guide had a samurai subclass. How many D&D worlds is samurai actually a thing? Faerun has Kara-Tur. But is there an Asian feudal society on Oerth? Krynn? Eberron? Athas? Not to my knowledge. It's a player option without a home in most official settings, requiring the DM to refluff to something else, add lore content to justify, or ban for not fitting. IMHO, a official D&D option should work with an official D&D setting without the DM having to justify why. That's why I bought a setting rather than homebrew, to have that done for me. But with so many settings having narrow niches, it fails despite the samurai being an option for the game since 1e.

And if samurai is too niche, how many official D&D settings ban orcs? Too many IMHO.

One setting. Like Golarion, has a place for everything in the game. You wanna homebrew? Pick and choose. But the default game should accept all parts of the game without bans and work arounds.

And I say this as someone who deeply loves Eberron and Ravenloft. But I know it's better for the game to have one catch all setting than a patchwork of settings that are only vaguely compatible.

I don't think it is. I think the looser the fluff in the core book, the more freedom both designers and GMs have in creating worlds. Forcing them to strip stuff out first makes no sense.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I’d love to see a D&D setting get even a tenth of the development of Golarion but that isn’t going to happen.

Until they have another Baldur's Gate 3-level hit, in whatever medium. At that point, I suspect we're going to see them go hard on supporting it, given recent chatter about how they know they've missed a lot of easy pitches across home plate in recent years.

Now, whether that's a TV show, a videogame or some as-yet-unannounced movie, who knows.

 

[Steampunkette]

WotC should absolutely release a new setting. No, working with Disney isn't an option since Disney's licensing would wipe out most of Wizards' impetus in creating a setting.

But -what- kind of setting should they launch?

THAT is the big stumbling block.

Horror? They've got Ravenloft. Swords and Sorcery? Dark Sun. High Fantasy? Forgotten Realms. Piracy? Forgotten Realms. Steampunk? Eberron. Orientalism? Forgotten Realms. High Fantasy but different? Dragonlance, Nentir Vale, Etc.

Most of the different core ideas or identities of settings they could create would just be splitting the cash they could get off making more content for a setting they already have. Most of the people who would love a new high fantasy setting are still gonna buy the next FR installment, but FR diehards aren't going to bother shelling out $60 on a new setting they don't need since all their stuff is FR.

From a profit margin perspective, unless they get something UNIQUE and interesting to an extreme degree, it just makes more sense to keep pumping out material for the properties they already have that people are always begging for more of, anyhow.

 

[Remathilis]

Trouble is a single 'does everything' setting just does everything badly. Or if it does entirely focus on a single tone or theme, alienates every player who doesn't enjoy that base tone or theme.

You already see it with how ubiquitous magic is in base 5e, meaning that every setting has to follow that expectation. So anyone wanting a gritty low magic setting is completely out of luck.

When it comes to a base game expectation, it's easier to add to what's in the core three books than it is to remove things in the core three books.

That's the other foot. I don't want D&D to be the floor wax and dessert topping system. I want D&D to do D&D well and other games to handle horror or low magic or Apocalypse wasteland.

I realize this is a controversial stance. But I find D&D tries too hard to be everything to everyone and ends up doing none of it as well as it could. So I would rather a tighter focused game that does what it does well than a game that everyone treats as their second favorite RPG.