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.

 

[The Glen]

Being shallow is tragically underrated. Still waters don't run deep- it's more that ... wait, what were we talking about?

The only thing that should be deep is a grave.

And cuts. I do love me some B tracks

 

[Faolyn]

My primary issue with the Factions and one of my biggest beefs with Planescape is that its approach and use of philosophy is almost farcically sophomoric. Ravnica, in contrast, works for me because it's not so much trying to re-appropriate philosophic ideas, movements, and schools of thought, but, rather, it is re-contextualizing its own in-house MtG Color Pie.

Well, the entire point of Planescape is philosophy. It may not have been as in-depth as it should have been, but then again, if it went too in-depth, it could easily be too weird for players to enjoy.

 

[Aldarc]

But I am pointing out that:

A) Ravnica already exists. So there's no competition with it and Planescape.

and

B) Ravnica is not hugely popular, so it's not like Planescape would be damaging some future demand for Ravnica content.

Which I felt like were implied concerns.

You are very likely misreading my point with Ravnica or my criticisms regarding Planescape's Factions, as I don't think either of these points are particularly relevant to my posts. My point with Ravnica is that I prefer how its Guilds extend from core ideas of the MtG Multiverse whereas I don't get that same sense from Planescape's Factions. The philosophy of the Factions comes across to me, for the most part, as being fairly disconnected from the wider ideas of the D&D Multiverse as a nature of their philosophies being fairly directly "cribbed" from real world philosophic ideas. And it is this disconnect and unrooted character of the Factions' philosophies that gives it a shallow, sophomoric feeling to me.

This is not to say that Ravnica is a better setting than Planescape or anything of that sort: I'm not interested in whatever setting pissing contest that you want to this into. I nevertheless find Ravnica useful for illustrating my point as Ravnica and its Guilds have a similar niche as Sigil and its Factions. I have my own criticisms of Ravnica, but they are not especially relevant when putting forth one of my criticisms of Planescape.

This is again not to say that people are wrong to like it or that there's anything wrong with people for liking it, but, rather, I don't personally find the Factions of Planescape to be particularly engaging, particularly in connection to D&D. I want to like it - it seems like a setting that I should enjoy based upon the basic sales pitch - but I don't.

Well, the entire point of Planescape is philosophy. It may not have been as in-depth as it should have been, but then again, if it went too in-depth, it could easily be too weird for players to enjoy.

My problem is not with philosophy per se, but how it Planescape implemented it with their Factions. I'm not suggesting that the respective philosophies should involve treatise-long philosophic tracts, but, rather, that it should ideally engage the setting or address the D&D multiverse in more meaningful ways than they often do. The depth should come from how it extends outwards from the D&D multiverse. It's a city of magical doors to other planes of existence, where morality and ethics have ontological essences and the like, but the philosophic ideas such a magical multiverse produces are mostly copy-paste re-hashes of real world earth philosophies? It's personally a bit of a letdown.

 

[Faolyn]

"Feature not a bug" gets used almost too liberally to excuse some pretty shoddy things that aren't necessarily designed to be meaningful features IMHO. I guess my own preference is not that the factions are built around either alignment or shallow readings of philosophy, but, rather, in ways that actually engage the D&D multiverse and planes in interesting ways. Athars IMO come close as they challenge the standard D&D treatment of gods as gods.

Also consider that it was released in the 90s. Satanic panic, the constant demand for new products, and a lot of other things worked to tone the setting down quite a bit.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm asking about the snobbery on my part, which was not red text, specifically. I felt pretty personally attacked by "sophomoric" and "sophistry" and so on though - I feel like it's fair to pick that up as a very sneering kind of argument.

Unless your name is actually "Planescape," somehow share a name with one of its various factions associated with my criticisms, or were one of the various published setting writers, I was most definitely not personally attacking you nor did I even quote or address you anywhere.

 

[TwoSix]

Unless your name is actually "Planescape" or somehow share a name with one of its various factions associated with my criticisms, I was most definitely not personally attacking you nor did I even quote or address you anywhere.

My mother's maiden name is actually "Xaositect".

 

[Aldarc]

My mother's maiden name is actually "Xaositect".

Crazy.

 

[Faolyn]

My problem is not with philosophy per se, but how it Planescape implemented it with their Factions. I'm not suggesting that the respective philosophies should involve treatise-long philosophic tracts, but, rather, that it should ideally engage the setting or address the D&D multiverse in more meaningful ways than they often do. The depth should come from how it extends outwards from the D&D multiverse. It's a city of magical doors to other planes of existence, where morality and ethics have ontological essences and the like, but the philosophic ideas such a magical multiverse produces are mostly copy-paste re-hashes of real world earth philosophies? It's personally a bit of a letdown.

Yes, the philosophies should have been used more in depth, but the writers were shackled by several things. One of which is the old trope of Status Quo is god. One of Arcadia's layers got sucked into Mechanus, but in "reality" there should have been more of it. But they couldn't easily do that as a meta-plot without first turning it into an adventure path or saying that this was an alternative Great Wheel.

And that's not even taking into consideration all the weird rules that the AD&D writers were under, like never letting evil win and stuff like that.

And of course the philosophies are copypastes from the real world! It's D&D! Everything is copypasted from the real world. But seriously--what philosophies would you have included that (a) weren't from the real world and (b) still accessible to and understandable by people in the real world?

 

[TwoSix]

And of course the philosophies are copypastes from the real world! It's D&D! Everything is copypasted from the real world. But seriously--what philosophies would you have included that (a) weren't from the real world and (b) still accessible to and understandable by people in the real world?

I guess they could have some factions run by planar species that have some motivation that normal mortals simple can't understand, but that might have been too out there.

 

[Aldarc]

And of course the philosophies are copypastes from the real world! It's D&D! Everything is copypasted from the real world. But seriously--what philosophies would you have included that (a) weren't from the real world and (b) still accessible to and understandable by people in the real world?

Some ideas off the top of my head? A philosophy or two that actually engaged 'magic' as a quintessential property of the universe. A philosophy that somehow believes that that planes were once a singular entity and seek to recombine them to reform "god" or "the totality of existence." A philosophy that engages the idea that since a fiend that stopped being evil is no longer a fiend that this means that evil can be "cured" or that all can be "redeemed." It's about taking some of the core assumptions of D&D's planar fantasy and working from there.