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

Some of these classic settings will be revisited!

Spelljammer-ship-in-space-asteroid-city.jpeg

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.
 

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DarkCrisis

Reeks of Jedi
It's the same issue that Gygax and company had. D&D immediately started changing the fantasy space when it appeared, but instead of saying "hey, let's start incorporating the good ideas from videogames and movies," they stuck with their influences being novels and short stories from the 1930s through the early 1970s.

I know a lot of people chuckled at it, but WotC putting Minecraft content on D&D Beyond was an actual hopeful sign in the sense that they might not all be falling into the same trap. Like it or not, Minecraft has more influence over what today's kids think of as fantasy than Lord of the Rings ever will.
hank azaria GIF
 

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Vaalingrade

Legend
Now you know how it felt when people stopped carrying about the Matter of Britain so much, or Aesop's Fables, or That Time Ogg Saw a Really Big Rock.

Damn kids these days, not appreciating how bit that rock was.

and I hear they're putting some stupid French Knight in the Matter of Britain. That'll never last. No one is going to want to hear about this 'Lancelot' when they can hear about Hector and Bors.
 

While today's youth have different influences, the differences are not so monolithic. I would expect a bigger difference in rural/urban experiences, as the world has gotten much more indoors-oriented since the 90s. Anime is older than D&D.
Anime unites all. Im from a rural home and all my boys were watching gundam,dbz, etc
 



Stormonu

Legend
How many folks on this thread are backing Obojima? :unsure:
I'd thought about it, but think I'm going to wait for "retail" release. My home space is limited, so I don't need a lot of the extras - just the book and maybe the potion cards. It just hits the right levels of "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Spirited Away" to grab me*.

However! I wouldn't allow anything from it in a regular D&D game; though it's fine as its own system riffing off D&D rules. I'm not much for "crossing the streams" in games/genres.

*Yeah, I know that's the point, since they say it's heavily influenced by Studio Ghibli, it's just that those two are my favorite.
 

Mecheon

Sacabambaspis
But a certain sad corner of D&D players being angry that anime exists is about 30=40 years old. coming in around the time they needed to bridge their unfounded rage at Diablo to their unfounded rage at World of Warcraft.
Jokes on them, Spelljammer has Bionoids (which are just. Guyvers) and Spirit Warriors (which are just. Aura Battlers). The anime's been in there since Spelljammer!

I will say though in respect of the new settings, the ones left over are a bit of a harder sell to new audiences. As much as I love Dark Sun, it has its Problems and, there's a few reasons its inspirations of pulp aren't exactly the popular thing these days. Greyhawk and Mystara hit the point that FR is a much easier sell, as for FR you can just go 'Hey, its the setting of Baldur's Gate 3' and then like, what do you do for the other two? We've had countless threads debating on what exactly Greyhawk's style is, but its a mash up ala FR (Just with more crashed spaceships) at its core, and Mystara is just another different flavour and with potential problems if you dig further. They each need their own aesthetic to sell them which, isn't helped by Dragonlance also being there and sniping away the "More oldschool heroic fantasy" vibes

Like, I reckon Birthright has a better chance because Birthright at least has its own aesthetic and you can sell it as the more Game of Thrones-y variant (and also sell mass combat rules)
 




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