D&D 5E 3 Classic Settings Coming To 5E?

On the D&D Celebration – Sunday, Inside the D&D Studio with Liz Schuh and Ray Winninger, Winninger said that WotC will be shifting to a greater emphasis on settings in the coming years.

This includes three classic settings getting active attention, including some that fans have been actively asking for. He was cagey about which ones, though.

The video below is an 11-hour video, but the information comes in the last hour for those who want to scrub through.



Additionally, Liz Schuh said there would be more anthologies, as well as more products to enhance game play that are not books.

Winninger mentioned more products aimed at the mainstream player who can't spend immense amount of time absorbing 3 tomes.

Ray and Liz confirmed there will be more Magic: The Gathering collaborations.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The only bit of Mystara I'm familiar with is the Savage Coast/Red Steel, but I suspect WotC would want to do some very significant re-invention of that part of the setting before releasing it in the modern day. Non-human cultures who are fairly ham-fisted photocopies of, for example, indigenous Australian and Louisiana bayou people, from memory, with fairly minimal research or sensitivity - that wouldn't play now. As an Australian, the portrayal of the Wallara raised my eyebrows 20 years ago, it's certainly not going to fly in 2020. Not to say it was actually malicious or anything, but it was not sensitive, informed, or aware, and I don't think modern WotC would want to grasp that particular nettle when there's seemingly more popular settings still in their back catalogue.

So true, Savage Coast in the Red Steel iteration was itself a reinvention of the Savage Coast from what appeared in the Princess Arc episodes in Dragon Magazine. The Red Steel iteration leaned heavily into the “Age of Exploration” theme of Renaissance-level nations encountering stone-age or Bronze-age peoples. Tortles seemed to be universally relegated to peasant class status in every nation. Gnolls and goblinoids near the Savage Baronies were dressed up as as raiding Native Americans. Orcs of the Orcs Head Peninsula’s jungle looked to be headhunting raiders. The online release of the Savage Coast did make goblinoids and orcs playable PC races.

Lots of subject matter that I would love to see a reinvention that redoes such things.

 

[see]

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't really know how they deal with IP that they do allow DM's Guide writers to touch. But it might be one of those things where WotC doesn't want to let DMG writers have access because if then if WotC starts writing it again and they produce something that happens to be like something a DMG writer made, then the DMG writer might then claim that their IP was stolen. So then WotC would have to put a clause in the legal document saying that they either own all created IP or a DMG writer can't sue WotC if WotC happens to make something just like the DMG writer made, and nobody is going to like that.

The DMs Guild "Community Content Agreement" already includes a provision that WotC can use anything in a submitted work without notice or compensation.

Rather, the fact that DM's Guild content has to be limited to both the current edition of the game and to either no setting or the specific settings that WotC owns and has published for the current edition seems to be a marketing choice to make sure that DM's Guild content is solely support for WotC's in-print books.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Would you count a werewolf as a canid?

Is this one of those "where does the 800lb gorilla sit?" questions?

Because I think the answer with a werewolf is? "Does he want me to?".

So true, Savage Coast in the Red Steel iteration was itself a reinvention of the Savage Coast from what appeared in the Princess Arc episodes in Dragon Magazine. The Red Steel iteration leaned heavily into the “Age of Exploration” theme of Renaissance-level nations encountering stone-age or Bronze-age peoples. Tortles seemed to be universally relegated to peasant class status in every nation. Gnolls and goblinoids near the Savage Baronies were dressed up as as raiding Native Americans. Orcs of the Orcs Head Peninsula’s jungle looked to be headhunting raiders. The online release of the Savage Coast did make goblinoids and orcs playable PC races.

Lots of subject matter that I would love to see a reinvention that redoes such things.

A reinvention would probably want to cast the players as, y'know, not the colonialist scumbags come to rob from the natives, and not cast perfectly decent peoples as bloodthirsty part-demonic hyena-people.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The only bit of Mystara I'm familiar with is the Savage Coast/Red Steel, but I suspect WotC would want to do some very significant re-invention of that part of the setting before releasing it in the modern day. Non-human cultures who are fairly ham-fisted photocopies of, for example, indigenous Australian and Louisiana bayou people, from memory, with fairly minimal research or sensitivity - that wouldn't play now. As an Australian, the portrayal of the Wallara raised my eyebrows 20 years ago, it's certainly not going to fly in 2020. Not to say it was actually malicious or anything, but it was not sensitive, informed, or aware, and I don't think modern WotC would want to grasp that particular nettle when there's seemingly more popular settings still in their back catalogue.

Mystara is also the home of the stunningly racist Drums on Fire Mountain.

There's definitely a lot WotC would need to hack away before republishing it as a big single package.

That said, Mystara mostly came out one gazetteer at a time. Both Karameikos and Glantri, almost certainly the two most popular nations there, by a huge margin, would require much less work to fly in 2021.

Karameikos is a traditional D&D Good Guy Kingdom, with an ancient civilization lurking in the woods and a fairly famous evil wizard rubbing his hands together gleefully in his tower.

Glantri is basically Italian petty kingdoms, if all the rulers were high level wizards who didn't want anyone interfering in their business. Oh, and a canal city for their capital.

Both would be very easy to re-release today. Glantri could be the anchor for a big book of spells and arcane goodies, if WotC wanted to do one of those again this edition, and they didn't want to use MTG's Strixhaven for its mini-setting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Rather, the fact that DM's Guild content has to be limited to both the current edition of the game and to either no setting or the specific settings that WotC owns and has published for the current edition seems to be a marketing choice to make sure that DM's Guild content is solely support for WotC's in-print books.

Letting people use mothballed settings does support the in-print PHB, DMG, MM and the other semi-generic supplements.

My assumption is the person who made the call is one of the folks who's less comfortable with the semi-pro marketplace.

 

[tetrasodium]

Letting people use mothballed settings does support the in-print PHB, DMG, MM and the other semi-generic supplements.

My assumption is the person who made the call is one of the folks who's less comfortable with the semi-pro marketplace.

It makes some sense in a way too though & Eberron is a good example of why. Prior to wayfinder's guide being released I can remember at least two or three fan works floating around the community for various setting specific things like dragonmarks that handled it wildly different from each other. When wayfinders came out most of them were updated to the standards & put on dmsguild in some form. Without the limit people could have purchased stuff that may or may not get updated to even remain compatible.

 

[darjr]

I get it!
If you haven’t been watching there have been big changes in AL recently. Control especially has been made more centralized within WotC.
I was bewildered, but it get it. They are tooling it to work simultaneously with more “settings” or adventure books.

 

[teitan]

Well. There are still some issues. Old Planescape let you hang out with gods from modern-day religions (e.g., Indian/Hindu gods) and kind of treated them as being as mythical as the Babylonian gods, which made even my atheist self cringe.

Wait... so why does it make you cringe with India/Hindu beings but not Babylonian? I know a ton of people actively worshipping the Babylonian deities. This comment makes no sense to me. Religions have been used for fictional fodder for generations. The Babylonian deities are as real a religion as the Hindu or even Abrahamic religions.

 

[teitan]

I don't think those are ears; I think they are embellishments on the mantle he is wearing. Everyone in that whole cast of characters is wearing a very fancy hat.

That's Set.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's Set.

Okay, I believe you. And my point still stands.

At any rate, according to Wikipedia: "In art, Set is usually depicted as an enigmatic creature referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal, a beast resembling no known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, a jackal, or a fennec fox. " So the jackal vibe is still there with Set as it would have been with Anubis. But then it goes on to say, "The Egyptians themselves, however, made a distinction between the giraffe and the Set animal. During the Late Period, Set is depicted as a donkey or as having a donkey's head."

Anyway, let's welcome Bottom to the thread!