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.

 

[Aldarc]

Eberron largely fizzled in 3rd edition, was released during an edition that largely tanked, and has almost no other tie-ins.

I don't think that this has any actual bearing to reality. Eberron is in WotC's Top 3 settings according to their own research. Eberron was revived in 4e to great success. It was revived again in 5e to even greater success. Both the Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron and Exploring Eberron are in the Adamantine sales on DMsGuild. Exploring Eberron was the quickest that any product ever shot to Adamantine.

Dragonlance is arguably either WOTC's second most popular product, or quite possibly its first. The only reason Dragonlance isn't the main setting is because TSR never figured out how to convert the huge interest in the stories into RPG players and WOTC didn't try.

None of which changes the fact that it remains only a Tier 2 popular setting and not a Tier 1 setting (e.g., Forgotten Realms, Eberron, etc.).

 

[ChaosOS]

The Eberron comment is super weird, it's been the second most popular setting for ages. Also, some official wotc numbers (from 2 years ago)

The popularity of settings in the survey fell into three distinct clusters. Not surprisingly, our most popular settings from prior editions landed at the top of the rankings, with Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms all proving equally popular. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer all shared a similar level of second-tier popularity, followed by a fairly steep drop-off to the rest of the settings. My sense is that Spelljammer has often lagged behind the broad popularity of other settings, falling into love-it-or-hate-it status depending on personal tastes. Greyhawk and Dragonlance hew fairly close to the assumptions we used in creating the fifth edition rulebooks, making them much easier to run with material from past editions. Of the top five settings, four require significant new material to function and the fifth is by far our most popular world.

- D&D Monthly Survey | Dungeons & Dragons

Given that Eberron has had a book release since then I'm going to hazard a guess its popularity has only gone up, not down. Meanwhile, Dragonlance hasn't had a relevant release in over two decades. I get that this board has a lot of people whose foundational D&D experiences were in the late 80's/early 90's, but a lot has changed since TSR sold the IP to WotC.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Curse of Strahd let the PCs, literally,

Spoiler

discover the Dark Powers sealed in little coffins in a lost temple in Barovia

Fair to say it makes no attempt to adhere to Ravenloft Canon at all. I suspect it'd be an excellent adventure to play with a good DM, but when it comes to canonicity it's rhyming slang of the 2e/3e Ravenloft setting, at best.

Also,

* Dusk elves. Dusk elves everywhere, whereas elves have been virtually unknown to 2E/3E Barovians.
*

Spoiler

Madame Eva as Strahd's half-sister

.

Nothing wrong with doing a revamp of I6 that doesn't hold to the setting's canon--I had no issues with Expedition to Castle Ravenloft as such (the missing ending, on the other hand)--but don't try to pretend it's something it's not.

 

[Ath-kethin]

For a Mystara campaign setting, I'd pay three times what I would pay for any of the other "classic" settings.

Depends. If they retcon the 2e retcons back out of the setting (like where they changed King Kol to be an elf since in 2e there was no RAW way for a kobold to cast wizard spells), I'd consider it. Especially if they used Mystara as a means of introducing epic levels and paths to Immortality/godhood.

If they leave the 2e goofiness on there, they can keep it.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Also,

* Dusk elves. Dusk elves everywhere, whereas elves have been virtually unknown to 2E/3E Barovians.
*

Spoiler

Madame Eva as Strahd's half-sister

.

Nothing wrong with doing a revamp of I6 that doesn't hold to the setting's canon--I had no issues with Expedition to Castle Ravenloft as such (the missing ending was a much bigger annoyance)--but don't try to pretend it's something it's not.

Also, Van Richten was alive when he shouldn't be. (Curse of Strahd is either set way before his birth (see Ireena Kolyana being there rather than Tara Kolyana, Barovia being the smaller version, pre annexation of Gundarak) or after his death, with no explanation of how he came back to life.

Also no Thaani or Forfarian inhabitants.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Dragonlance is owned by WotC. I don't know where the idea that WotC doesn't have the full rights to all Dragonlance IP comes from.

This.

The fact that every time there's an edition change they pull in Weis & Hickman to legitimize the mechanical changes in-world as a novel/series doesn't change the fact that DL was a TSR property and is now a WotC property.

Margaret Weis/Sovereign Stone was licensed to produce D&D supplements in the 3.5 era, but the IP has always belonged to TSR/WotC.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Was Al-Qadim really that insensitive in the way it handled things though? The issue with Kara Tur is that it tried to cram dozens of major cultures of East Asia into one setting and didn't do that good a job at it. Al-qadim I felt did a much better and more respectful job at that.

I've been working on a 5e Al-Qadim update for years, along with an Arab advisor. The short answer here is "yes. It really was that insensitive."

It's been fun, to say the least.

 

[M.L. Martin]

This.

The fact that every time there's an edition change they pull in Weis & Hickman to legitimize the mechanical changes in-world as a novel/series doesn't change the fact that DL was a TSR property and is now a WotC property.

I don't know that that's ever happened. The 1E/2E changeover was accomplished with no events, not even on the level of Greyhawk's Fate of Istus module. The Fifth Age and the changeover to the SAGA System came after Dragons of Summer Flame was written and turned in with no input from anyone on the game side, and the first design was actually a standalone AD&D 2E variant until management said 'no AD&D, and card-based.' The one thing that might fit this criteria was the War of Souls, which was more about letting Weis & Hickman take control of the setting back.

 

[Aldarc]

I've been working on a 5e Al-Qadim update for years, along with an Arab advisor. The short answer here is "yes. It really was that insensitive."

It's been fun, to say the least.

I would love to hear some of the insights that you gathered from your advisor regarding the insensitivity of Al-Qadim.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I don't know that that's ever happened. The 1E/2E changeover was accomplished with no events, not even on the level of Greyhawk's Fate of Istus module. The Fifth Age and the changeover to the SAGA System came after Dragons of Summer Flame was written and turned in with no input from anyone on the game side, and the first design was actually a standalone AD&D 2E variant until management said 'no AD&D, and card-based.' The one thing that might fit this criteria was the War of Souls, which was more about letting Weis & Hickman take control of the setting back.

In fact 2nd edition Dragonlance had no Hickman/Weis input on the game side for the entire edition.