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.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Just off the top of my head, you have zombies/voodoo (Souragne), mummies (Hal Akir), ghosts (Mordent), witches and witch-hunters (Tempest), and the gaslamp fantasy you described? Nova Vaasa. You even have a domain filled with the scariest monsters in D&D: Kender (Sithicus)! And that's just for starters! Sure, CoS did its best to create a monster-mash, but I wouldn't exactly call that "covered" any more than I would go to a Mexican restaurant, get a combo plate and claim I've eaten everything on the menu.

CoS did well enough to get a big-budget reprint, a new minis, and some nods in Tasha's. We know there were two products featuring Vistani in it (we've guess CoS: RV is one of them) and the last UA had undead warlocks and spiritualist bards. There are a few signed that point in that direction is all I'm saying... They COULD left-field us and give us Innistrad to coincide with the 2021 Vampire/Werewolfs product they announced, but I sincerely doubt they are going to pass up the no brainer in horror gaming just because they did it back in 2016. If anything, the fact its considered one of their best modules might give them reason to keep going with it now that they know settings sell.

Sithicus is hardly "filled" with kender. There's one tiny village of vampiric kender. It's mostly a place of amnesiac elves.

Nova Vaasa isn't anything at all like gaslamp fantasy. It's more Islamic Hungarian horse lords ruling overcrowded medieval cities. Paridon is gaslamp, and the closest after that is Mordent, Dementileu or Richemulot.

The bigger problem is that the Barovia in CoS is so far away from the Barovia depicted in 2nd and 3rd edition Ravenloft. The former is some sort of grab-bag of horror tropes complete with half of the citizens either being monsters or without souls. The latter is a Wallachia-analogue ruled over by a former warlord turned vampire where most of the inhabitants are unaware there even is any supernatural monsters in their domain and most live their entire lives without encountering any. It is also far larger.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Nethither vale from 4e

Ghostwalk?

 

[Coroc]

Do you guys all interpret this as setting= setting book? Or is it rather e.g. A desert adventure with some hints how to put it into Anauroch for the always FR people?

The expeditions into classic settings so far were adventures like CoS or GoS which you could use quite universally.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Yeah, let's be honest. Based on the prior releases we are either going to get straight 5E conversions of old material (Ghosts of Saltmarsh) or a "reimagining" which slightly or completely changes the canon of the existing setting (Curse of Strahd). Only Forgotten Realms and Eberron will continue as they pretty much are, and I think that's because they are the only settings that have existed through WoTC's entire tenure.

So I'd think you could get a conversion of the classic Dragonlance modules (people seem to want to play this aspect of DL rather than explore the deeper aspects of the setting - I don't understand that myself, but it seems to be the consensus), a Dark Sun setting along the lines of 4E, a Planescape/Manual of the Planes setting, and maybe Spelljammer.

We're not seeing a big deluxe Birthright book, guys.

 

[TwiceBorn2]

Birthright.
There, I said it.

Although it didn't make my top 3, I would gladly buy a 5e Birthright book... but I won't hold my breath waiting for it to be made.

 

[Coroc]

Although it didn't make my top 3, I would gladly buy a 5e Birthright book... but I won't hold my breath waiting for it to be made.

well but birthright special rules apart from the mass combat and economic stuff etc. were few. The bloodline powers, the shadowrealm and some uniqe named mobs.
The real essence were those splatbooks for the players, describing one domain. And they will not go for that.
So i think whatever setting they put their hands on, it will not be Birthright.

 

[FriendlyFiend]

No idea which way WotC will go, but my wishlist would be ...

1) Planescape
2) Dark Sun
3) Spelljammer

Though I could be tempted to swap (3) out for a deeper delve into Ravenloft.

 

[Nymrod]

well but birthright special rules apart from the mass combat and economic stuff etc. were few. The bloodline powers, the shadowrealm and some uniqe named mobs.
The real essence were those splatbooks for the players, describing one domain. And they will not go for that.
So i think whatever setting they put their hands on, it will not be Birthright.

"Apart from the mass combat and economic stuff" which is the focus of the setting? I mean sure you could perhaps change it so you kept the setting's story, kept bloodline powers but did not keep regency/war gaming/realm building but then it would just be a pretty run of the mill fantasy setting. Birthright was different in that it was set up for a non-traditional RPG experience that had strong strategy elements.

 

[Coroc]

"Apart from the mass combat and economic stuff" which is the focus of the setting? I mean sure you could perhaps change it so you kept the setting's story, kept bloodline powers but did not keep regency/war gaming/realm building but then it would just be a pretty run of the mill fantasy setting. Birthright was different in that it was set up for a non-traditional RPG experience that had strong strategy elements.

How would you do the real complicated mass combat and economic stuff for 5e, which is on the lighter side of number of rules?
But let us not discuss that, but if they would write a 5e rulebook with all the extras, so it would become a large book, then they still would need the splat books, which is the main base for birthright. The birthright campaign does not make sense without them, since it is the "lore" aka background of each players regency.
Maybe they make a board game with D&D elements out of the birthright setting?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

How would you do the real complicated mass combat and economic stuff for 5e, which is on the lighter side of number of rules?
But let us not discuss that, but if they would write a 5e rulebook with all the extras, so it would become a large book, then they still would need the splat books, which is the main base for birthright. The birthright campaign does not make sense without them, since it is the "lore" aka background of each players regency.
Maybe they make a board game with D&D elements out of the birthright setting?

Everyone I know who ran campaigns set in Birthright ignored their dumb mass combat and economic rules. Because people ignored it, the product could ignore it as well. The setting was fine enough to earn a novel line that didn’t use mass combat rules. It’s a setting where PCs could play as rulers, with actual inherited bonuses tied to your domain. That their halfings were shadow realm exiles made them different. A 5e product that focused on this would be fine, people were not interested in Birthright would buy to import simple ruler and domain rules.

But I am leaning to hoping WotC does not do Birthright because MCDM’s 5e Kingdoms and Warfare product is being designed right now and I want it to sell well!