D&D 5E 5e needs to push its IP instead of churning out splatbooks.

[B.T.]

D&D has always done the "generic fantasy" thing, but "generic fantasy" is pretty bland, especially with a million d20 clones out there. High quality writing and a solid setting will help sell books. (Just look at Exalted or Dark Heresy. Total piss for mechanics, and yet they have legions of devoted fans.) WotC should revive the old classics and push them (along with published adventures).

Of course, to do this, WotC need to hire competent writers who can produce interesting material. Faerun? Greyhawk? Terrible generic fantasy crap filled with DM wank about high-level wizzyrds. Put some effort into the non-mechanical stuff.

Just because you don't like something is no reason to call it crap. Please reign in the profanity. Thanks. - Lwaxy

("Crap" is not profanity. Thanks. - B.T.)

 

[RangerWickett]

Why rehash the same old same old? People got excited about Eberron, and if I recall correctly they've got two other settings up their sleeves from the Great Setting Search back in 2003.

If you stick to your old settings, people will either get bored if you keep it all as-is, or will complain about you changing stuff if you try to progress the plot. I'd much prefer, like, 2 or 3 books per old setting, then one new setting every year. Do it like Magic does, and figure out a way for these disparate settings to have some loose connection, and maybe even a meta-plot that threatens them all.

 

[B.T.]

The goal of WotC is to bring in the old gamers, and I think that supporting settings like Ravenloft and Dark Sun right off the bat would earn them a lot of good will with those players. They can write new stuff, too, if they want to; I just think that the 3e/4e strategy of shoveling out splatbooks leads to gamer burnout.

 

[El Mahdi]

I see nothing good coming of this thread...

 

[Zaukrie]

I think the lack of support from wotc, like what they did with dungeon and dragon magazines, and the lack of many modules is a big part of what has happened to 4e (and I dm 4e). I will not get into the other part of the op's point.

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[slobster]

Faerun? Greyhawk? Terrible generic fantasy crap filled with DM wank about high-level wizzyrds.

That comment pretty well encapsulates why it would be hard for wizards to pull this off. Don't get me wrong, I love me a system that interleaves well with its setting. Rokugan suffered a lot when it was ported over to 3E back in the days when WotC owned L5R, for example.

But the "terrible generic fantasy crap" you see is other peoples' favorite things about D&D. And thanks to video games, novels, and other expanded universe stuff many gamers unfamiliar with D&D specifically see it as all but synonymous with the Forgotten Realms.

Besides that, for an edition about uniting the base, well, I think that alienating a broad swathe of your most dedicated fans aint the way to move forward. I'd love to see a few more books dedicated to meshing fantasy worlds with D&D rules, but I don't think they'll abandon FR in the meantime (Greyhawk is less certain, but will hopefully see a little love, even if just as reprints a la the 3.5 and AD&D reprints).

 

[Jester David]

The whole entire point of D&D Next is NOT to exclude ideas. "Bland" fantasy has just as much value as magitek or steam fantasy. And D&D needs to lure back old, lapsed players just as much as it needs to win over new players.

5e needs to work and enable people to play classic traditional fantasy just as much as it much work with different and funky "Nouveau Fantasy".

Their most noteworthy setting is the Forgotten Realms. While dismissed by many it is easily their most profitable setting. There's a strong belief it's going to be the default setting for 5e. No way WotC does anything to risk losing those funds.

 

[ComradeGnull]

Agree with the idea that more support for some of the settings would be a nice improvement over the way they were treated in 4e. In particular, I think Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Eberron would be really well served by the small core/plug-n-play module structure of 5e. In fact, it might even be worth while to make those the default settings for low magic/dark gothic/high magic gaming in the same way that Greyhawk used to be the default fantasy setting. You could extend that further, and give each playstyle/modular ruleset its own default setting drawn from old D&D settings:

Greyhawk I have mixed feelings about. It's been in the shadows of the other settings since AD&D 2e, frankly, and outside of folks that started playing prior to 1986 doesn't have that much resonance or mindshare. I started playing in 1989 and frankly I can't name any one particular feature of the Greyhawk setting, though I've tried to get into it once or twice. It just hasn't had much support. Maybe make it the default retroclone setting- most of the people interested in that style of play probably are already familiar with it.

Which leaves:
* Forgotten Realms- a good candidate for the default default setting for everything
* Krynn/Dragonlance- Not sure about the licensing status here. The setting has been reshaped a lot over the years by repeated attempts to update it or bring it into new settings. Probably my favorite setting, but sadly may be time to retire it, or at most publish a single 'all eras' book that updates it to the current rules.
* Spelljammer- May not fit with the in-game cosmology any more. Maybe a good single-book setting packaged with optional rules for vehicle/ship-to-ship combat.
* Planescape- Pretty nichey. Maybe pairs well with epic-tier play & rules for traveling between the planes.

 

[Drowbane]

My guess is that the OP is a troll. FR is the hottest D&D setting to date. Still, some do prefer Greyhawk or Eberron. I would like to see WotC do something bold and use one of the other top 3 settings from the 2003 contest. I would love to see what Rich Burlew's setting looks like.

4e FR was highly offensive to long time FR gamers.

"Drowbane: WotC never owned L5R...?" Err nvm, guess they did own the rights to the setting. I thought the 3.0 OA had been a cooperative effort between AEG and WotC. Silly me.

 

[Serendipity]

The problem is that D&D does generic fantasy pretty badly. It does 'D&D style fantasy' (which at this point I think qualifies as it's own genre) to the exclusion of all else - and a lot of those things get in the way of generic fantasy.
Unlike some people, I think that's a pretty good thing. In some respects I agree with the OP, regardless of their intentions, in that I think emphasizing the unique D&Disms/IP (i.e. illithids, the Gith etc etc) is the best way forward for D&D.
And please, if there's to be a default setting for the next edition, make it something NEW already. The last new thing D&D did, setting-wise was Eberron and that was in what, 2004? EIGHT years ago?