WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[Reynard]

YES

Good conducive talk, there!

More seriously: Anything they could put into a Steampunk Setting they can just put into Eberron with the faintest tweak. That is what I was saying. Not "Eberron is Steampunk".

Sorry. Pet peeve of mine.

But I agree insofar as things that ARE steampunk can be aethetpunk'd up in order to fit in Eberron.

 

[Remathilis]

Most other modern games are focused. I suppose we can go to the hospital room, wake up the comatose form of GURPS and yell at it, but for games that are popular in 2026, D&D and Pathfinder stand out for how unfocused they are.

Pathfinder is even more focused. If you buy a book for PF, you know everything in the book works with Golarion. You don't have to decide if a kender spellfire sorcerer with a dragonmark is possible. In Pathfinder, it is and there is lore for it

not seeing the problem here, put the Elf crunch in the PHB, put the fluff in the setting book, then not every elf in every world has to be essentially the same

Then to play an elf, your player needs to buy and read two books (core and setting). Not many players who aren't ardent fans of the game are going to do that.

I hear what you are saying, I just fundamentally disagree. The less fluff in the core rules the better. See: Shadowdark.

I have. Shadowdark only makes sense if you've already played enough D&D know what an elf or paladin is. It assumes you know what it's talking about and thus doesn't hold your hand to explain it.

 

[Corinnguard]

(world of) warcraft setting. (Although this may be too late)

There was an attempt back in 3e to create a World of Warcraft RPG that used 3e D&D's game mechanics.

There was a 'second edition' of this RPG.

This version of the RPG was closer to the MMORPG with regards to races, classes, etc.

It would be nice if there was an official 5e version of the MMORPG. Right now, there are a number of homebrewed versions of it for 5e.

 

[Corinnguard]

Urban Fantasy as in the modern genre, not "medieval fantasy set in a city."

A 5e version of the Urban Arcana RPG would be nice.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This version of the RPG was closer to the MMORPG with regards to races, classes, etc.

The first one was technically a Warcraft III-based book, as it was developed before WoW was released.

 

[mamba]

Then to play an elf, your player needs to buy and read two books (core and setting). Not many players who aren't ardent fans of the game are going to do that.

it will probably have to be the DM either way

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Pathfinder is even more focused. If you buy a book for PF, you know everything in the book works with Golarion.

But Golarion is still a big place and Pathfinder has a lot of tones.

"We're going to start a new Pathfinder campaign" doesn't tell you much, other than mechanically. It could be a dungeon crawler, a high fantasy game, a horror campaign, weird science, pirates or even more.

"We're going to start a new Vampire: The Masquerade campaign," in contrast, narrows things considerably. Maybe it'll be a political game or an Underworld style battle against other supernatural beings, but if it's not one of those, you'll be able to squint and see those play styles from within your campaign.

"We're going to start a new Pirate Borg campaign" or "we're going to start a new Mothership campaign" or especially "we're going to start a new Eat the Reich campaign" or "we're going to start a new Deathmatch Island campaign" tells you almost everything you need to know.

"We're going to start a new D&D campaign" could mean almost anything. If you want to recruit someone to play in your campaign, you have to explain a lot to get them to know what to expect, even generally.

 

[Remathilis]

But Golarion is still a big place and Pathfinder has a lot of tones.

"We're going to start a new Pathfinder campaign" doesn't tell you much, other than mechanically. It could be a dungeon crawler, a high fantasy game, a horror campaign, weird science, pirates or even more.

"We're going to start a new Vampire: The Masquerade campaign," in contrast, narrows things considerably. Maybe it'll be a political game or an Underworld style battle against other supernatural beings, but if it's not one of those, you'll be able to squint and see those play styles from within your campaign.

"We're going to start a new Pirate Borg campaign" or "we're going to start a new Mothership campaign" or especially "we're going to start a new Eat the Reich campaign" or "we're going to start a new Deathmatch Island campaign" tells you almost everything you need to know.

"We're going to start a new D&D campaign" could mean almost anything. If you want to recruit someone to play in your campaign, you have to explain a lot to get them to know what to expect, even generally.

I'm not disagreeing, only pointing out Golarion does with one setting what D&D does in six. Clearly it's not as focused as something like Shadowrun, but it's a damn sight better than what D&D does

 

[Remathilis]

it will probably have to be the DM either way

And people wonder why their players PCs don't match the setting lore...

 

[Tonguez]

I'd love to see a setting that is designed for the current player-character lineup. I'm currently having a hard time imagining the place of many sub-classes in the game world (glamor bards, world tree barbarians), getting my head around race relations (why are monster PCs not attacked on sight?) and understanding how to represent the role magic system in world (what is a spell slot? How does the prevalence of magic--especially rituals--affect the living conditions and the economy?).

Questions like these have prevented me from running a game of D&D since 2014; instead, I have opted for other games I can better comprehend.

yeah I agree with this, the classes and race seem to be designed on whim and ephemera with no central identity holding them together in a cohesive 'story'. Some of them new subclasses really dont fit anything that makes sense unless you build that specific fiction in or have a open kitchen sink