D&D 5E D&D Needs New Settings

[The Green Hermit]

A space East India Trading Company is also quite scary.

I really miss the British pub that I used to frequent. Had great breakfast, bangers, meat pies, fish and chips, and other stuff I never got around to trying.
The idea that British food is boring or bland is a myth.

I’d want it pretty tightly themed around the idea that stars are sentient on some level and some are not at all friendly. I’ll see if I can find some 4e articles about the Stars that could be patrons of Star Pact Warlocks. They were very good.

I don't remember the name of it, but when I went to London a couple of years ago, I went to Sir Ian McKellan's pub (mainly to geek out about Gandalf's staff) and the food was amazing!

 

[The Green Hermit]

Yes the colonies have become rather continental in their taste

though you still cant beat a good sausage roll and a custard tart

not to mention that Black pudding and onions has been reinvented by the gourmet set

Why would ANYBODY want to eat black pudding? I tried it once (because you have to, when you are in England) and it was just blah and dry.

 

[Manbearcat]

Perhaps they could do something better. Something that they’ve never done:

1) Provide an in-depth structure for procedural generation of setting and situation (like Torchbearer Dungeons or Traveller Lifepaths).

2) Teach and encourage GMs to generate setting and situation on the fly, during play, that is attendant to player-flagged (through character build or through answers to GM questions) PC dramatic need.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Perhaps they could do something better. Something that they’ve never done:

1) Provide an in-depth structure for procedural generation of setting and situation (like Torchbearer Dungeons or Traveller Lifepaths).

2) Teach and encourage GMs to generate setting and situation on the fly, during play, that is attendant to player-flagged (through character build or through answers to GM questions) PC dramatic need.

I’ve been wanting a “Guide To The Multi-Verse” that acts as a tour of various worlds and a guide to worldbuilding, for years.

Fairly short chapters giving an overview of Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Mystara, Greyhawk, and then 2-4 MtG settings that really embody a sub genre of fantasy, like Eldraine, Innistrad, Khaladesh, Ikoria, etc.

In each chapter on a world, notes on what makes that world work, and what can make a game there pop.

 

[Tonguez]

Perhaps they could do something better. Something that they’ve never done:

1) Provide an in-depth structure for procedural generation of setting and situation (like Torchbearer Dungeons or Traveller Lifepaths).

2) Teach and encourage GMs to generate setting and situation on the fly, during play, that is attendant to player-flagged (through character build or through answers to GM questions) PC dramatic need.

Kevin Crawford’s already done that innit?

 

[Steampunkette]

I would absolutely -adore- new settings for D&D.

I thought Ghostwalk and Eberron were interesting back in 3.5. But they were -so- intently focused on creating as many new races, classes, prestige classes, and spells that they really didn't bother trying to make new campaign settings, much less effort incorporating all the wild new mechanics into a new setting.

We've seen Magepunk but how about, and for those of you who have never looked over at my avatar or name this -might- be a shock... Steampunk?

A Pseudo-Victoriana campaign setting focused largely on Urban Adventures in a world that isn't dramatically mapped out beyond a few specific large communities and the names of some neighboring nation-states..? Somewhere where much of the map is left largely empty for GMs to fill in as they see fit, but where those handful of cities are -deeply- involved and carefully mapped to provide players with a hellacious quantity of potential directions to go? I don't think D&D has released an Urban Campaign Setting in... ever.

How about a largely aquatic "Waterworld" style campaign setting (concept, not the movie. Love ya, Costner, but damn you had some stinkers). Aboleths swimming free in the ocean, endless archipelagos and small islands rather than big singular landmasses. Whole campaigns designed in an episodic manner as the crew of a ship "Maps" a series of islands, each one with it's own theme and style.

Take a note from Midnight and make a Points of Light campaign setting in a world where the Evil Gods have won and conquered the world. Where paranoia and questions of loyalty and intention are features. Where players can't be -sure- their neighbors won't turn them in for being decent folk.

In an absolute Script-Flipping, how about a setting where Psionics are normal and Wizardry and Sorcery are rare, and much-maligned?

How about a setting where Druids, Barbarians, and Rangers are largely Eco-Terrorists eager to destroy the "Civilized" lands and return them to the Natural World? Where player Druids are threats to Law and Order even when they're -not- murderous plant-hugging monsters and are "Betrayers" of the Natural World in the eyes of other Naturalist characters.

How about a setting where the whole thing is focused around a World-War? Where the majority of the continent is -at war- during the game, and players spend their time either being a part of or avoiding the militaries of the world, searching over battlefields for lost treasures, or building up keeps and castles to defend themselves and their loved ones from the endless trading of land by making deals with each side as they come.

More settings would be amazing.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Not sold on new official settings
There's dozens of great unofficial game books. The news page is advertising one by some dudes from Blizzard right now
Anyone can do that
But only Wizards can make a Greyhawk or Hollow Earth book

 

[Dark Arcarnist]

Just spit-balling here....how about the setting is a world-sized, magic powered robot where organic life is very much treated like an infestation? Mechanical immune systems wandering through cavernous work spaces. Areas of radiation, oceans of coolant/ lubricant/ water, deserts of metal filings. Sage-like autonomous sub-systems that need mobile partners to collect runic memory substrates from distant levels, or techno-cancers corrupting the local galvanic-alchemical node. PCs trading/raiding for resources with other colonies descended from ancient explorers, or seek out the distant docks on the surface where those explorers may have left their Spelljamming ships so long ago. Magic users are actually mech-arcarnists who tap into the robot-worlds thaumaturgical fields or high yield ley lines to build empowered armours & weapons, or fungi-powered mutagen-alchemists who dose themselves for short term psionic boosts, body enhancements, astral projection or to act as a gate for some Outsider horror. Warriors armed with clockwork repeating crossbows, crystal battery powered wheel-lock pistols firing glyph-enscribed penetrators or wind-up burrowing flechettes, programmable saw-toothed swords, transparent shields with ablative layers. Clerics seek to commune with the continent sized Mind. Rogues train to pick apart defensively reactive & aware locks, or climb through spaces of variable gravity. Bards hack local data exchange hubs to download mnemonic tonal cascades into their steel guitar-projector sets. Aarakocra settle beside permanent updrafts, goblins ride maintenance bots on raids, vampires nest in crypto-storage cells, mind-flayers haunt the planar anomolies of the main reactors & nomadic elven paladins cruise the endless circulatory rails.

 

[Dark Arcarnist]

I'll apologise right here if I repeated anything someone else might've posted already, I haven't read the whole thread.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

About Spelljammer to recover the monsters, PC races (even adding as "guests" the aliens from d20 Future) and factions is totally possible and relatively easy but..... we don't know hypothetical plans to alter the D&D multiverse cosmology. Maybe the reboot it will be more radical than in Ravenloft.... and designed to allow homebred mash-up version of famous sci-fi franchises. Spelljammer is the ace in the hole, but Hasbro would rather to make money with known IPs if it's possible, especially "milking" ( = trying to get the maximum benefit) Star Wars.

Other option would be a spiritual successor set in Magic: the Gathering, allowing recover the old ideas and adding new elements. (Impossible? no more than a cyberpunk version of Kamigawa! why not the space fantasy version of Kaladesh? and with some hiddeen easter eggs about transformers or Rom the space knight).