D&D 5E 5e most conservative edition yet? (In terms of new settings)

[Marandahir]

One major issue with settings is that TSR created a bajillion of them. Then they discovered they were competing against themselves. Putting out a periodic setting book (or licensing one) keeps some interest, but it also keeps it from feeding on itself. As for completely new settings, why bother when you've got a gigantic supply of existing settings under your control?

Incidentally, this is also why we get only a handful of products a year from WotC. Why spend the money to print oodles of books that compete against themselves when they can outsource the filler resources to the DM's Guild and take a cut of each pdf on-demand sale?

3e and 4e may not have had 2e's problem with too many settings, but they definitely followed the problem of too much too fast. Pacing the material out means you can turn out high quality products, playtest a lot and get the crunch and flavour just right, and it means it's a boatload more likely that most tables will purchase your darn books in some capacity (D&D Beyond's partial purchases are a godsend in this way - folks who would have bought the pretty book still buy the book, but folks who wouldn't have been able to afford the whole book every book but want a bit of the crunch from it can buy just that bit and WotC gets a sale).

Consumer data is much more effective these days. Even back in 2e, a lot of the strategy of the time was "throw it at the wall and see what sticks." The ubiquity of the internet, social media, web browsers tracking your searches, companies like Amazon tracking your purchases, it all means that WotC has the tools at their disposal to be extremely smart about how and what and when they publish books, settings or otherwise.* Project Insight isn't about shooting down everyone who might resist HYDRA's new world order, it's about selling us paper and plastic and virtual toys. Crack is cheaper.

I'd say then, WotC's choices could alternatively look conservative or adventurous from an outside POV because we don't have the big data that they do. I personally think that boiling down all smart investments and spenditures to a company acting fiscally conservative is a bit shallow a perspective. In this capitalist system, the company (Hasbro) is responsible to its shareholders, and is trying to make the biggest profit it can for them. Whether that's in a short term turn-around or long-term turn-around depends on what the Board is pushing. Usually it's a mix of both, or erring on the short-term. But short-term vs long-term aren't synonymous with adventurous vs conservative – a short term profit could be linked with an adventurous choice if the company decides to bet big on an untested stock, but it could also be linked with a conservative choice if the company decides to turn out a well-oiled machine rapidly. We can't really pierce the veil of which are conservative vs adventurous choices without the data. We CAN see that WotC are slowing down to turn out long-term products, spending far more time of R&D, and leaning into licensing deals to create stop-gaps between these products. But the products themselves could be considered adventurous if they are untested. You never quite know what the sales will be until the product goes to market. We just have SO much more data these days that by default, any smart company that wants to stay afloat is going to look somewhat conservative in their choices because they're playing a different game than they did 20-30 years ago.

ANY company. Think about baseball. Yes, the ball players are the stars, and their speed and abilities create openings in the game for profound moments, but every professional team now spends an enormous amount of time pre-gaming out the matches and choosing just the right pitchers, fielders, and batting orders to combat what they know from the past pitching and battling profiles of their opponent teams. And then they spend time and energy training those team members to be ready to win against them. All the teams are doing this, so the victories are either in the budget differential between the teams, or else in the margins opened by profoundly transformative players. Hence why the biggest expeditures on ANY professional sports' team are to buy transformative players and in big data research and strategy.

We live in an era where the term conservative just doesn't describe how companies use data anymore.

*Tools too - the technology of the time finally allows for online, easy to use, content-license-included virtual table tops and rules encyclopedias, unlike the incredibly roundabout and difficult to use and financial disasters that were the 4e digital tools. Gods, I loved them, but I would never go back to them from what I use now. And those tools further feed into the consumer data analysis team at Hasbro.

 

[Shiroiken]

We live in an era where the term conservative just doesn't describe how companies use data anymore.

Yup. There's so much in way of market analysis that we simply cannot tell. We can make a few observations, but that's it.

There's been a consistent rise in sales over the years. The fan base seems content enough to not require a new edition or even a revision. The slow release schedule combined with the DMGuild has allowed a balance between "official content" and the need some have for new material. Overall I'd say that WotC has found a sweet spot, and I'd guess that they're carefully watching indicators to correct as needed.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Financially, it makes more sense for WotC to update and reprint the Tal'Dorei guide than any other setting.

Exactly. Fiscally conservative. That's WotC (Hasbro).

 

[Eyes of Nine]

One major issue with settings is that TSR created a bajillion of them. Then they discovered they were competing against themselves. Putting out a periodic setting book (or licensing one) keeps some interest, but it also keeps it from feeding on itself.

That's a very valid concern, and no doubt the business heads at WotC are aware of market cannibalization.

As for completely new settings, why bother when you've got a gigantic supply of existing settings under your control?

Exactly. Fiscal conservatism.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Maybe WotC realized that they can never please everybody, and decided to leave the bulk of setting creation to homebrew and third parties? There are loads of excellent new 5E settings out there (I own several thanks to Kickstarter)--just not published by WotC.

ETA: Here's a list of many of them:

D&D 5E - List the Third-Party 5th Edition Campaign Settings

Below is a list of existing published campaign settings. To qualify to be on this list, there are three requirements: it must be by a third party publisher, it must be published and for sale (if we listed all the fan creations, the list would be impossible), and it must be for 5th Edition D&D...

www.enworld.org

Yes, agreed. Upthread somewhere I tried (poorly) to articulate why it's important to me (just me) why I would like some original 5e settings.

I know there are settings that are not "official". But that's not quite the same thing, to me.

Two more reasons -
When published by WotC, I assume a certain level of both quality and balance with already existing official settings (we can argue that, but I think it's ok overall).
Books published by WotC are available in most distribution channels, in particular my FLGS with little effort; most 3rd party items are not without extra effort.

 

[jayoungr]

When published by WotC, I assume a certain level of both quality and balance with already existing official settings (we can argue that, but I think it's ok overall).
Books published by WotC are available in most distribution channels, in particular my FLGS with little effort; most 3rd party items are not without extra effort.

I get that, especially point #2. But I really think you're doing yourself a disservice if you cut out third-party settings completely. Many of them are amazing, and every bit as balanced as something WotC would put out.

 

[Marandahir]

I get that, especially point #2. But I really think you're doing yourself a disservice if you cut out third-party settings completely. Many of them are amazing, and every bit as balanced as something WotC would put out.

This is true, but they're not balanced and created with each other in mind. So when you delve into third party, you need to be wary of flavor AND crunch overlaps, and pick and choose if you care about a consistent approach for how your table tackles these concepts.

My general rules for my table:

1st party publications are approved for player resources, unless the setting we're in is prohibitive of said content.

DM's Guild Adept material is also approved for the most part, as these are chosen from the best of the best writers on the Guild and have been approved by WotC. There are a couple duds or a few cases where WotC have gone ahead and adapted the same concept that a Guild Adept publication wrote, so in those cases, 1st party version trumps the "2nd party" content. Same deal with Adventurer's League publications, as well as publications by Ed Greenwood, Keith Baker, Matt Mercer, and any other "official setting creators."

Then there are truly 3rd-party DM's Guild content, like Ulraunt's Guides or The Great Dale, which almost always overlap and cause problems with each other. Any usage of these has to be approved by the by. Moonshaes Regional Guide and adventures also fall into this category, as they're not from Ed Greenwood, even though they've been adopted by the AL for play. And the same goes for any non-Guild 3rd party publication, such as The Lost Lands - Borderland Provinces, or Adventurers in Middle-earth 5e. If that content is to be used, we need to vet it for the campaign.



When it comes to playing in those settings, it's a lot easier to confirm balance and usage. Use the core rules, any official 1st party additions that make sense with the setting, and the core setting book. It's easy to look up if the setting is wildly popular on DriveThruRPG, EnWorld, Tribality, etc, and as long as you're sticking carefully to just the core rules and the 3rd party campaign setting, everything should work out (obviously, can't assume the book would be able to predict the new expansion content like Xanathar's if it was published earlier).

I would note that if you can still get your hand on Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, there are some issues with the book because it's 3rd party and because it's older that are easily resolved by ruling that Wildemount trumps Tal'Dorei when it comes to alternative mechanics for the same idea (like Ravenite Dragonborn). I assume that if Tal'Dorei was republished by Mercer with WotC, they'd just reprint the Ravenite stats from Wildemount than try to carry over the stats from Tal'Dorei's first publish run with Green Ronin.

Above all, explore and feel free to tinker with third party content and settings if you find them broken or problematic in some way. The game is yours, and neither official nor semi-official rules should bind your table from making the changes needed to function effectively.

 

[jayoungr]

This is true, but they're not balanced and created with each other in mind. So when you delve into third party, you need to be wary of flavor AND crunch overlaps, and pick and choose if you care about a consistent approach for how your table tackles these concepts.

Are you assuming that a given table will be using content from multiple third-party settings in the same campaign? Because, although I do that myself, I doubt that is the default approach.

If you're not assuming that, then can you expand a bit on why not being created with other third-party settings in mind is a drawback?

 

[Jester David]

This is true, but they're not balanced and created with each other in mind. So when you delve into third party, you need to be wary of flavor AND crunch overlaps, and pick and choose if you care about a consistent approach for how your table tackles these concepts.

Because there is no flavour and crunch overlap in the official WotC settings?

 

[Marandahir]

Because there is no flavour and crunch overlap in the official WotC settings?

That depends on how much you consider stepping on toes 5e official WotC sources are. I'd argue that the Bladesinger and the Eldritch Knight occupy two separate niches that approximate "Warrior-Mage," just as the Battle Master and the Purple Dragon Knight/Banneret both approximate Warlords but from different perspectives.

What I'm speaking to is like Tal'Dorei listing stats for Ravenite Dragonborn and then Wildemount listing separate stats for Ravenite Dragonborn. Irreconcileable.

Or DM's Guild Adept title, Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else, featuring Noble Genie Warlock and Runeguard Fighter subclasses, and then those same concepts showing up in official WotC UA.

WotC aren't going to publish in 5e 2 separate versions of the Warlock - Genie Patron. They might publish a Genie patron and an Elemental/Primordial patron, if desired enough, and yes, there's flavor overlap there, but it's not quite the same thing.

My issue is that there's dozens of different takes on the Fey Patron Warlock, or the Fey Magic Sorcerer, or yes, the Warlord and the Swordmage, on the DM's Guild, let alone beyond into the aether of the interwebs and esp Reddit. These are mutually incompatible because they are tackling the same goal but from different angles with different methodologies. If the OP wants to figure out which source is best for their game, that's hard to decide, because there's no good comparison showing them all side by side (that I know of!).

When it comes to settings, there are similar issues: If I want to play in an East Asian-inspired setting, I don't have the tools in official WotC products. So I could look at the DM's Guild – there's like a dozen Oriental Adventures in there by different authors. There's also the brilliant Shore of Dreams (set in Faerûn, but a Kara-Tur colony). I could also weigh other options - there are some conversions of Legend of the Five Rings, for example. But which is the best, the most balanced and suitable approach to play this genre setting in 5e? It's unclear.

But sure, there's overlap between Greyhawk and Mystara and the Realms and Dragonlance and Nerath (and sure, let's throw in Exandria too). But guess how many of those have been officially published in 5e? Greyhawk's got a couple of adventures, but is not open for business on the Guild unless you're supporting Ghosts of Saltmarsh specifically. Exandria and the Realms are the only Kitchen-Sink High Medieval Fantasy settings officially published in 5e, and they feel vastly different in terms of story vision.

I imagine we'll get some sort of publishing of Dragonlance in the future, if only because of the Draconian mention in the PHB (and that they went out of their way to change Draconians in Tal'Dorei into Draconbloods in Wildemount - evidence that WotC has plans for Draconians). But WotC is actively trying NOT to step on their own toes with genres.