D&D 5E Is there any indication that WotC will launch a new setting?

[Parmandur]

Whenever any of the primary designers are asked about settings, they say that they do plan on getting to them. But which settings and in what capacity and at what point....those details they do not share. I don't have any links to provide evidence, but I know I've read that on more than one occasion.

But, just because something is said to be part of the plan doesn't mean it actually will wind up happening.

Honestly, I see the introduction of any alternate setting as kind of a step back, in a way. And I say that as a fan of several of the settings. Currently they are doing what they can to expand the game and the player base. They're altering past models of how game material is presented and how it's divided along player/DM lines. They are trying to reach as broad an audience as possible.

Publishing a setting book is a shift away from that. It's a niche product that by definition will appeal to a smaller audience. It appeals to the nostalgia of fans who were around when those settings first appeared and also to a section of the main audience that may find the setting that's offered appealing.

So I'd only expect to see a product like that once sales have leveled and it seems they've got as large an audience as they're likely to get. Until then, it doesn't make any sense to spend the time amd resources on a product that won't have the same potential for mass appeal.

Unless they come up with a way to present setting material in a way that can also be a mass appeal book. They did a great job with Curse of Strahd, but other settings may be more challenging.

I think, long term, we will probably see something like the World's of Magic the Gathering books for D&D: bit pure fluff, rules independent coffee table books.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Why are so many of the regular posters in this thread so badly misinformed

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/mike-mearls-tales-yawning-portal - Mearls brings up wanting to do Greyhawk and insists the team has been talking about and working more on the stuff for other settings than anyone expects.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/881717018482712576?lang=en - Mike speaks to the Designs team mission in both bringing back all the old settings and grow DND as a whole as well.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/886642893267456000 - The DND Multiverse is officially connected, all those world are out there on the same material plane, seperated by wild space ala SpellJammer.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...ngers-Initiative-WotC-Staff-Levels-Fave-Pizza - Mike Mearls confirms that they have specific plans for other settings, that they can't yet discuss.

On top of that the Official DCA stream has hinted at this idea few times, Holly Conrad's character is from Sigil, Morenkainen explicitly from Greyhawk makes an appearence in Curse of Strahd. Tomb of Annihalation has a gate key for a place in Sigil, Acerak is explicitly a planar wanderer as well.

 

[Parmandur]

Why are so many of the regular posters in this thread so badly misinformed

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/mike-mearls-tales-yawning-portal - Mearls brings up wanting to do Greyhawk and insists the team has been talking about and working more on the stuff for other settings than anyone expects.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/881717018482712576?lang=en - Mike speaks to the Designs team mission in both bringing back all the old settings and grow DND as a whole as well.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/886642893267456000 - The DND Multiverse is officially connected, all those world are out there on the same material plane, seperated by wild space ala SpellJammer.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...ngers-Initiative-WotC-Staff-Levels-Fave-Pizza - Mike Mearls confirms that they have specific plans for other settings, that they can't yet discuss.

On top of that the Official DCA stream has hinted at this idea few times, Holly Conrad's character is from Sigil, Morenkainen explicitly from Greyhawk makes an appearence in Curse of Strahd. Tomb of Annihalation has a gate key for a place in Sigil, Acerak is explicitly a planar wanderer as well.

All of that is true, but doesn't indicate that there will be standard setting support anytime soon. I expect we will see DMs Guild support, and coffee table art books.

The default setting is Homebrew connected to the D&D multiverse, with Forgotten Realms as a default example much of the time.

 

[zeldafan42]

Honestly, if you’re that hungry for new settings, then may I point you over to WotC’s other IP, Magic. Magic the Gathering has well over a dozen “settings” in the form of various planes, and they’re making more every year. Between the Art books, which contain tons of fluff and setting details, and the free Planeshift PDFs that contain mechanics for playing characters from the settings and advice on converting existing monsters to fit the world, you have everything you need.

 

[Parmandur]

Honestly, if you’re that hungry for new settings, then may I point you over to WotC’s other IP, Magic. Magic the Gathering has well over a dozen “settings” in the form of various planes, and they’re making more every year. Between the Art books, which contain tons of fluff and setting details, and the free Planeshift PDFs that contain mechanics for playing characters from the settings and advice on converting existing monsters to fit the world, you have everything you need.

I wouldn't be surprised if they release a Magic: the Gathering RPG with 5E rules at some point: WotC is crossing their brand streams these days.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

All of that is true, but doesn't indicate that there will be standard setting support anytime soon. I expect we will see DMs Guild support, and coffee table art books.

The default setting is Homebrew connected to the D&D multiverse, with Forgotten Realms as a default example much of the time.

That's a very strange reading of what they've said on the subject, it seems as if the long term work and planning that they're doing for this would be somewhat easier were they going to put out a coffee table art book and open it up on DMsGuild. Like, where did you even get that from? the MTG art books? Seems kind of a random thing to pull in. If they were doing that, there would be no reason to discuss their thinking on how to properly do Spelljammer or Greyhawk, they mentioned that the next step in the design process for the new classes was to filter them through Dark Sun and Eberron to make sure that they fit the settings they need to. They also mentioned that they attempt to seed new content in their previous content (Strahd's entry in the MM foreshadowed COS, for instance, Acerak is featured on the DMG, and so forth) Mike Mearls further invokes this here: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/02/15/which-year-is-5e-spelljammer/ suggesting that Volo's is hinting at a Spelljammer adventure.

It also seems like part of the reason we haven't seen settings so far has to do with the release schedule, its been brought up that they expect 5e to last at least a decade, which we're still in the first half of- it's possible that they'll eventually move on from the Realms and do the next setting for a year or two, then move on again. I'm also not sure what sort of product you think they recently started testing on UA, we've gotten Eladrin, Gith, and Tiefling subraces associated with specific rulers of the nine hells, that has planar adventures written all over it.

 

[Parmandur]

That's a very strange reading of what they've said on the subject, it seems as if the long term work and planning that they're doing for this would be somewhat easier were they going to put out a coffee table art book and open it up on DMsGuild. Like, where did you even get that from? the MTG art books? Seems kind of a random thing to pull in. If they were doing that, there would be no reason to discuss their thinking on how to properly do Spelljammer or Greyhawk, they mentioned that the next step in the design process for the new classes was to filter them through Dark Sun and Eberron to make sure that they fit the settings they need to. They also mentioned that they attempt to seed new content in their previous content (Strahd's entry in the MM foreshadowed COS, for instance, Acerak is featured on the DMG, and so forth) Mike Mearls further invokes this here: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/02/15/which-year-is-5e-spelljammer/ suggesting that Volo's is hinting at a Spelljammer adventure.

It also seems like part of the reason we haven't seen settings so far has to do with the release schedule, its been brought up that they expect 5e to last at least a decade, which we're still in the first half of- it's possible that they'll eventually move on from the Realms and do the next setting for a year or two, then move on again. I'm also not sure what sort of product you think they recently started testing on UA, we've gotten Eladrin, Gith, and Tiefling subraces associated with specific rulers of the nine hells, that has planar adventures written all over it.

A Manual of the Planes style book, fairly clearly: which would be multiverse generic, for all D&D.

Mearls also said recently on Twitter that books like SCAG are not really on the cards, with setting information being put more into adventure books, ala Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation. They will still not towards and occasionally make use of other settings, but beyond maybe some options and possibly coffee table books, don't expect much more.

 

[SmokeyCriminal]

Yes, The Director of D&D Nathan Steward has said they are working on different setting stuff on his Twitch show 'Fireside Chat.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6XqKdZZJKc&t=2506s

41:20

He promises they are working on stuff and point out all the different home game settings WotC are current running for themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P252_IFLN9E

51:29

Nathan says how they will be moving out of the Sword Coast setting.

Also a little fun new fact that Nathan Steward confirmed in the last Fireside Chat. In the very first Fireside Chat a chat viewer asked him why they didn't have 2 D20 dice in their dice sets because of the Advantage system that 5e has. He said that it was a great point and that he was going to see about doing it from now on. So he has officially confirmed that from now on D&D dice sets will come with 2 D20s.

Nathan Steward does these Fireside Chats on the first friday of every month LIVE on https://www.twitch.tv/dnd and he speaks very honestly about all sorts of WotC topics. Its a very interesting look behind the curtain and he also explains the reasoning behind decisions. Plus he gives away lots of really cool stuff.

 

[guachi]

I'll believe it when I see it. D&D is now the Forgotten Realms RPG. Full stop.

We won't be getting books on new settings. We won't be getting books on existing settings aside from the Realms. It'll never happen. The Golden Age of settings is dead and buried. The Forgotten Realms Borg will strip mine other D&D worlds and leave them barren of anything unique.

 

[TerraDave]

Why are so many of the regular posters in this thread so badly misinformed

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/mike-mearls-tales-yawning-portal - Mearls brings up wanting to do Greyhawk and insists the team has been talking about and working more on the stuff for other settings than anyone expects.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/881717018482712576?lang=en - Mike speaks to the Designs team mission in both bringing back all the old settings and grow DND as a whole as well.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/886642893267456000 - The DND Multiverse is officially connected, all those world are out there on the same material plane, seperated by wild space ala SpellJammer.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...ngers-Initiative-WotC-Staff-Levels-Fave-Pizza - Mike Mearls confirms that they have specific plans for other settings, that they can't yet discuss.

On top of that the Official DCA stream has hinted at this idea few times, Holly Conrad's character is from Sigil, Morenkainen explicitly from Greyhawk makes an appearence in Curse of Strahd. Tomb of Annihalation has a gate key for a place in Sigil, Acerak is explicitly a planar wanderer as well.

There is some confusion on this.

The Multi-verse is basically the setting, and several WotC products say how to use them in different parts of that multi-verse. They give a lot of nods to FR, but they are mostly nods. There is very little Volo in Volo's guide.

There is also the huge amount of campaign specific material from past editions released as PDFs.

But I think the bigger problem is that they have a long term plan. And this plan almost certainly includes things they have not done yet.

It took a while, but eventually, they did do DMs Guild (surprise!), the 5E SRD/OGL, license electronic support, other 3rd party licenses, a book of monsters, a sort of player splat book, another very much player splat book coming soon, a book of non-linked adventures. And they have years, years, to release other new non-AP things.

So Mearls has actually said several times they are going to cover other settings. We don't know exactly what, or when, but somethings are going to come along that they haven't done yet for 5E. You can count on it. But you may have to wait awhile.