D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[Parmandur]

Well I do think there’s some element of nostalgia for all the settings. But I would also agree that Dark Sun has something different to offer thematically when compared to a lot of the more traditional settings like those you mentioned.

I think that when it comes to Dark Sun we’ll see a book when they’ve figured out how to present it in as multi-purposed a way as possible. Like, a psionics primer, Tyr gazetteer, Athas monster manual, and adventure path. Some kind of mix to appeal to as many people as possible.

We’ll see. Eventually!

Oh, I think they have the how and the what figured out, but the question is when. Mearls laid out a whole plan on stream last year, and it would work similar to the Setting books they've already done. They have a two-year development cycle, and I expect we'll see it sooner rather than later.

 

[Matchstick]

Don't you remember the UA article about Modern Magic? There is a open door for the return of Urban Arcana, and one reason is because it's easiest to be adapted to an action-live movie (and you can sell toys with vehicles) or serie, something like "Blink" with Wil Smith. And I bet Hasbro wants a TTRPG of the Hasbroverse. But before we will have to see previous steps as a Gamma World videogame, the remake of "Masque of the Red Death", Spelljammer and maybe Red Steel/Savage Coast to playtest the right power balance between firearms, magic and fighters without previous two.

D20 Modern is a challenge for game designers, because a monster as a dinosaur in a Sword & Sorcery may be a true knightmare for PCs but with modern tech it can be killed with only one shot. A slasher or an alien bug can ver too dangerous in a survival horror where PCs are unnarmed civilians, but cannon foder in a battlefield campagin where PCs are one-man-armies. Remember the lieutenant Ripley against the xenomorph aliens, or the zombies/infected before and after Resident Evil 4.

I could bet a Fortnite: Save the World TTRPG is possible.

If Fantasy Flight Games loses the licence of Star Wars WotC is the best candidate to get it again.

There are sci-fi TTRPGs using 5Th Ed system, but also Paizo has opened a door with its Starfinder.

There are actually two UA's. One has Modern Magic and the other talks more about converting UA.

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Edit: that's two different UA's! Unearthed Arcana and Urban Arcana.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Someone else's nostalgia for <insert setting here> is no different from mine for 4e. It bears no connection to WotC's reasons for making commercial publication decisions.

Oh, there's maybe one, small difference. When WotC comes through with something to satisfy their setting nostalgia, the worst that'll happen is those who wanted a different setting next will grouse at the order of publication.
If WotC were to deliver on your nostalgia, the interwebs would fulminate with nerdrage, books would burn, mobs would descend on your local FLGS with torches and pitch-forks*, and the hobby would teeter on the brink of apocalypse.








* or flashlights and tuning forks, depending on your local dialect.

 

[TwoSix]

If WotC were to deliver on your nostalgia, the interwebs would fulminate with nerdrage, books would burn, mobs would descend on your local FLGS with torches and pitchforks, and the hobby would teeter on the brink of apocalypse.

But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

 

[Bacon Bits]

I totally don't get the notion that somehow Planescape is less well known or less potentially popular than Dark Sun for the broader, new D&D player base. Planescape is not only inherently connected to whatever setting you already run in, including your homebrew, it is the basis for one of the most celebrated CRPGs of all time that is still played today thanks to a recent remaster and consistently tops the Best RPGs lists. It is almost certain that Planescape has a bigger D&Dpop culture adjacent footprint than Dark Sun.

Other way around. Planescape is built on the foundations of the default cosmology which were already present. They were not Planescape before Planescape was printed. They're the default cosmology of the Great Wheel. Planescape takes the Great Wheel and then introduces Sigil as the campaign setting, which happens to have portals all over the place to the other planes. That doesn't mean that any reference to the Great Wheel is automatically Planescape. Quite the opposite. Planescape doesn't get to claim the existing material as restricted to it's campaign setting any more than Fighter, Elf, Magic-User, or Lawful Good are parts restricted to Greyhawk. Truly, Planescape is primarily a re-imagining of the concept of the World Serpent Inn from Tales of the Outer Planes (OP1), grown and expanded into a full campaign setting.

Planescape itself is merely the parts that the Planescape Campaign Setting introduced: the PR-appropriate names for demons, devils, daemons, and angels; the PR-appropriate names of the planes, especially the lower ones; and the Sigil-centric Lady and faction system added to have a functional metropolis to base a campaign in. The meat of the setting, however, is Sigil, the Lady, and the twelve factions because that's really the only part that's new. It's intentionally just an extension of the Great Wheel. It's intentionally a campaign setting that lauches off the Manual of the Planes. It's meant to be a way to run MotP content so that low level characters can experience it without immediately dying (which is basically what the MotP tells you will happen). That's it.

 

[Reynard]

Other way around. Planescape is built on the foundations of the default cosmology which were already present. They were not Planescape before Planescape was printed. They're the default cosmology of the Great Wheel. Planescape takes the Great Wheel and then introduces Sigil as the campaign setting, which happens to have portals all over the place to the other planes. That doesn't mean that any reference to the Great Wheel is automatically Planescape. Quite the opposite. Planescape doesn't get to claim the existing material as restricted to it's campaign setting any more than Fighter, Elf, Magic-User, or Lawful Good are parts restricted to Greyhawk. Truly, Planescape is primarily a re-imagining of the concept of the World Serpent Inn from Tales of the Outer Planes (OP1), grown and expanded into a full campaign setting.

Planescape itself is merely the parts that the Planescape Campaign Setting introduced: the PR-appropriate names for demons, devils, daemons, and angels; the PR-appropriate names of the planes, especially the lower ones; and the Sigil-centric Lady and faction system added to have a functional metropolis to base a campaign in. The meat of the setting, however, is Sigil, the Lady, and the twelve factions because that's really the only part that's new. It's intentionally just an extension of the Great Wheel. It's intentionally a campaign setting that lauches off the Manual of the Planes. It's meant to be a way to run MotP content so that low level characters can experience it without immediately dying (which is basically what the MotP tells you will happen). That's it.

Sigil is mentioned in the DMG. The outer planes and Planescape are inextricably linked at this point.

 

[pemerton]

Any of those versions is available, and you can use them to convert to 5E. I believe that’s @pemerton’s point. The lore is available.

Correct.

Indeed, and that is why I am more interested in setting books full of 5e focused crunch. The fluff I can find anywhere.

Other than psionics, the "crunch" necessary to run Athas is very straightforward If you have 2nd ed Dark Sun books, just port all the stuff into 5e. If you're not sure how to do that, I recommend the 4e books which will give you the basics (because 4e is much closer than 2nd ed AD&D to 5e in its basic mechanical chassis).

Just as one example: templars can be done as vengeance or perhaps conquest paladins;; or - following 4e's lead - as a variety of warlock.

Someone upthread said they want 5e stats for Mordenkainen! I've seen one set of stats in the Rogue's Gallery, another in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, another in the GH City boxed set, 3E stats in the Living Greyhawk material, and different 3E stats in the Epic Handbook. In each case he's a high level wizard with very strong ability scores (most distinctive, at least in my memory, is his high CHA as well as his high INT) and at least in some versions he has access to all spells beyond the normal INT limits. Adapting this to 5e seems trivial. How hard is it to stat up a high level mage, whether using the PC-build rules or the various stat blocks in the MM.

If there really is a significant market for a new set of wizard stats with the name "Mordenkainen" at the top of them then our hobby is in a sorry state!

 

[Parmandur]

Correct.

Other than psionics, the "crunch" necessary to run Athas is very straightforward If you have 2nd ed Dark Sun books, just port all the stuff into 5e. If you're not sure how to do that, I recommend the 4e books which will give you the basics (because 4e is much closer than 2nd ed AD&D to 5e in its basic mechanical chassis).

Just as one example: templars can be done as vengeance or perhaps conquest paladins;; or - following 4e's lead - as a variety of warlock.

Someone upthread said they want 5e stats for Mordenkainen! I've seen one set of stats in the Rogue's Gallery, another in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, another in the GH City boxed set, 3E stats in the Living Greyhawk material, and different 3E stats in the Epic Handbook. In each case he's a high level wizard with very strong ability scores (most distinctive, at least in my memory, is his high CHA as well as his high INT) and at least in some versions he has access to all spells beyond the normal INT limits. Adapting this to 5e seems trivial. How hard is it to stat up a high level mage, whether using the PC-build rules or the various stat blocks in the MM.

If there really is a significant market for a new set of wizard stats with the name "Mordenkainen" at the top of them then our hobby is in a sorry state!

Also, spoiler alert, Mordenkein has been stated as an NPC in a 5E Adventure product.

 

[Parmandur]

Sigil is mentioned in the DMG. The outer planes and Planescape are inextricably linked at this point.

Heck, Sigil and the Outlands are described in the PHB.

 

[3catcircus]

Correct.

Other than psionics, the "crunch" necessary to run Athas is very straightforward If you have 2nd ed Dark Sun books, just port all the stuff into 5e. If you're not sure how to do that, I recommend the 4e books which will give you the basics (because 4e is much closer than 2nd ed AD&D to 5e in its basic mechanical chassis).

Just as one example: templars can be done as vengeance or perhaps conquest paladins;; or - following 4e's lead - as a variety of warlock.

Someone upthread said they want 5e stats for Mordenkainen! I've seen one set of stats in the Rogue's Gallery, another in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, another in the GH City boxed set, 3E stats in the Living Greyhawk material, and different 3E stats in the Epic Handbook. In each case he's a high level wizard with very strong ability scores (most distinctive, at least in my memory, is his high CHA as well as his high INT) and at least in some versions he has access to all spells beyond the normal INT limits. Adapting this to 5e seems trivial. How hard is it to stat up a high level mage, whether using the PC-build rules or the various stat blocks in the MM.

If there really is a significant market for a new set of wizard stats with the name "Mordenkainen" at the top of them then our hobby is in a sorry state!

So which set of stats do you pick as the starting point for conversion? What if you convert them differently than me? That's the crux of why people may want WotC to do the 5e stats - they own the IP and they can make the hard (er) decision as to what his 5e stats should look like so that they can consistently be used (previous two sets of 3e stats notwithstanding). Let's say your DM wants Mordenkainen as an influential NPC and converts his stats and they are vastly different than when WotC converts them in a product he later wants to use. Why handwave that with your players if you don't have to had those stats been converted already...

Older DMs may not have the time to do their own conversions and younger DMs may not know the stats exist to be converted.