D&D 5E D&D's Classic Settings Are Not 'One Shots'

In an interview with ComicBook.com, WotC's Jeremy Crawford talked about the visits to Ravenloft, Eberron, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, and (the upcoming) Planescape we've seen over the last couple of years, and their intentions for the future.

He indicated that they plan to revisit some of these settings again in the future, noting that the setting books are among their most popular books.

We love [the campaign setting books], because they help highlight just how wonderfully rich D&D is. They highlight that D&D can be gothic horror. D&D can be fantasy in space. D&D can be trippy adventures in the afterlife, in terms of Planescape. D&D can be classic high fantasy, in the form of the Forgotten Realms. It can be sort of a steampunk-like fantasy, like in Eberron. We feel it's vital to visit these settings, to tell stories in them. And we look forward to returning to them. So we do not view these as one-shots.

- Jeremy Crawford​

The whole 'multiverse' concept that D&D is currently exploring plays into this, giving them opportunities to resist worlds.

When asked about the release schedule of these books, Crawford noted that the company plans its release schedule so that players get chance to play the material, not just read it, and they don't want to swamp people with too much content to use.

Our approach to how we design for the game and how we plan out the books for it is a play-first approach. At certain times in D&D's history, it's really been a read-first approach. Because we've had points in our history where we were producing so many books each year, there was no way anyone could play all of it. In some years it would be hard to play even a small percentage of the number of things that come out. Because we have a play-first approach, we want to make sure we're coming out with things at a pace where if you really wanted to, and even that would require a lot of weekends and evenings dedicated to D&D play, you could play a lot of it.

- Jeremy Crawford​

You can read more in the interview at ComicBook.com.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's 'Disney' not to pack every story with boobies, incest and gore. Remember that.

 

[Scribe]

Yes. And it was not done by WotC. There will probably be a BG4 for you to play in another decade or so. Maybe other more mature video games from other still not WotC companies. But WotC will not follow up with the product you want. They will continue to churn out Dinsey-fied versions of beloved settings on occasion or outright ignore their own IP. As they have done.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Witchlight yes. That's more like it and it shows they can get it. Though it slightly lacks bite/edge from what bits I've read.

Just wanted to comment of this, Wild Beyond the Witchlight is one I bought and read completely. I have not run it because I do not think it would be a good match for my group.
There are lot of ways to one could approach it but there is potential for some very strong stuff there.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

They really sold it on the possibility of getting through the whole Adventure without getting into any fights...but that would take some fancy talking and thinking from players, to be honest, and there is plenty of PG-1÷ pushing material in there.

It would also involve making some very dark bargains in my opinion.

I mean...Radiant Citadel was mostly written by younger writers? And yeah, it's a "Solar Punk" environment...but that's in with Zoomers now. It may have been boring to you...but you and I aren't the target audience. My children who fell in love with the Ruby Pangolin are.

 

[The Glen]

I largely agree...the use of real-world myths and legends was intentional, and a lot of it was very well-done from a respectful and carefully-researched point of view. "GAZ-2, Emirates of Ylaruam" is my favorite example; I think it does a great job of presenting the different cultures and mythologies of the different real-world North African/Middle Eastern countries, without crossing the line into farce (at best) or racism (at worst).

Unfortunately, for every "Emirates of Ylaruam" there is an "Orcs of Thar," and that book is written in the language of Mordor which I will not utter here. There is no way--no way in all Nine Hells--that product would ever make it past a Cultural Sensitivity expert today. Even my praise of GAZ-2 in the previous paragraph, as well-meaning as it is, was written from the perspective of a white American dude with much to learn about Middle Eastern culture.

So I understand the demand for an updated Mystara product, and I also understand why Wizards of the Coast can't take the risks needed to make that product. That's why I'm thankful for the fans, who are putting in the work that the IP owners and investors can't afford to.

EDIT: Basically, I came here to say something like this:

Ninja'd by Ruin. Again.

Well then we fix it. Best way to do that is to remove the silliness that was rife in TSR at the time. Humanoids in Mystara copy the culture of who they are fighting. Broken Lands has tribes copying the Mongolians, Comanche and Romans though each by a different tribe. Or the Ethengar, Atruaghin and Thyatians. All three of those books were written seriously, copy that style. Make the orcs scary as they are mimicking the humans that defeated them and applying the tactics against their foes. You can keep the theme of orcs gradually becoming the people they fight and make them scary and remove the worst parts of the original book.

A side note in Ylaruam, that book stands alone in its structure because it was more of a fill in the blank supplement where the culture was explained with common story threads, but there were no npcs, cities or anything else on the map ever given detail. That happened with a few early products but it fell out of favor quickly.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

And yet almost every full-on steampunk setting is in fact set in 1800s, and hews to 1800s superficial social norms just with the racism, misogyny, homophobia, intrinsic gender roles and so on carefully removed, and the violent classism turned down in a way that only an American could credit. Sometimes they forget a bit too, like most 1990s steampunk was still basically pro-colonialist and thought that the upper classes genuinely were better people, including Castle Falkenstein, and it wasn't even really anti-Imperialist, it just quietly removed most of the imperalism without figuring out how they got to this place without the triangle trade and so on (hint: they couldn't have).

Anyway funny that, if they really "don't need the 1800s". You do see some in fantasy settings, but ironically that stuff tends to be much more critical! Much more capable of acknowledging that to have a class of incredibly wealthy industrial barons and aristocrats and so on, you need an oppressed underclass. That's the real problem underlying most steampunk - they always want the grimmest trappings of Victoriana, but with none of what caused them to exist, even though they make no sense. They want aristocrats without an underclass - just an impossibility by definition. They want factories churning stuff out without anyone working in them and suffering - despite the fact that they depict people working in them! They want smoke without soot.

You could make a much better case for dieselpunk not needing the 1900s, for example, because instead of being set in the 1900s, it tends to be set in nebulous non-times. The aesthetic is also less fetishistic of specific elements of 1930-1960s attire and style than steampunk is of Victorian stuff.

Your first paragraph reminds me of the only Space 1899 campaign I ever participated in, the players, the majority of them being Irish played Fenians with the exception of the American.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have said several times Hasbro is interested into D&D to sell different types of products, not only TTRPG, and also after Vecna event some D&D could retunr, but rebooted.

I love Dark Sun but it is not only about potential controversies but also crunch reasons. It is not so easy to sell in these days when players fear their favorite class or PC specie is not allowed in the Athasian Tablelands. What if I want monks, psionic ardents(3.5 complete psionic), drumites or maenads in Athas, or a totemist shaman(magic of incarnum) or a crusader (3.5 Tome of Battle)?

Radiant Citadel is right to show "at your home you can cooke your pizza in the way you want". WotC sells you "the musical instruments and some music sheet" but you choose the type of music you are going to play. But I would rather those "cosmopolis" as big as modern cities, not like the old Rome (or other capital of an ancient empire).

I suspects the most of new settings will arrive before in Magic: the Gathering. I don't blame them.

WotC doesn't reject the steampunk genre, but 5ed hasn't been designed with the necessary power balance about the firearms and modern technology. At least in Gamma World the ray guns are relics, and designed to avoid the reverse engineering if one falls in enemy's hands.

* I feel curiosity about the "vampires with morrions" in the future "lost caverns of Ixalan".

* WotC can create a "reimagined version" of the best ideas for setting published by 3PPs.

Real History can be too risky because you can't know when troubles could start. There are facts any body doesn't like to be remember, for example: the Opium war in China, the genocide against the natives in Tasmania, or the criminal actions by the general Jacob H Smith in Philippines, or the war crimes by the "liberator" Simon Bolivar against prisoners.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I guess. I had not really thought of that.
You win this time, Crawford!

The idea of Eberron PCs running around as war correspondents for a Sharn newspaper blew my mind when I first read it, so it sticks in my mind.

 

[Parmandur]

The idea of Eberron PCs running around as war correspondents for a Sharn newspaper blew my mind when I first read it, so it sticks in my mind.

Rising from the Last War does a great job proposing Adventure and Campaign structures that you just aren't likely to see in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Im

And how old are your children? Single digits? double-but-not teenage?

I just don't buy that someone who is 16 now thinks that's cool. Whereas the Ruby Pangolin would have obsessed me when I was 10.

As for solarpunk, yeah, it is, but what's interest isn't bumbling around in a super-positive already-achieved solarpunk environment, it's fighting for one to come into existence. You can see this in campaigns people run in podcasts and so on.

i don’t know parmandr but my children are 20 & 22 and they loved radiant citadel. They still run it with their friends at school. So technically not teenagers anymore, but pretty close!