D&D 5E Is there even a new D&D setting?

Though we’ve been speculating about what the new setting recently pre-announced for D&D might or might not be (Icewind Dale being one suggestion), there's some doubt about whether it exists at all!

The press release that was sent out said:

Fans of D&D will learn all about the new setting and storyline as well as accompanying new products

The web page for the event says:

Fans of D&D will learn all about the new storyline as well as accompanying new products

The word “setting” is missing from the web page, but exists in the press release. The text is the same otherwise.

I don’t know which order the two were written in, or if the latter changed, or if the former contains extra information.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I really quite liked the later books, the War of lost souls was another dragonlance epic that saw the world set right, more or less.

Me too.

It was pretty much Dragonlance: The Sundering

 

[teitan]

For me Dragons of Summer Flame was the last hurrah.

I think between that, Saga, and War of Lost Souls people just checked out.

I don't know, I recall War of Lost Souls sort of reviving the series after the Fifth Age debacle. What really killed it I think was the cancelling of MWS licensing. It seemed to suck the heart out of everything Dragonlance. Novels, games, comics but war of Lost Souls and the Kang novels, the Raistlin novels did really well compared to the post Summer Flame and Fifth Age period. Those were awful.

 

[Mercurius]

Hiya!

Huh. Seems everyone immediately jumped on the "New Setting!!! SQWEEEEE!!!!!"...and pretty much..."...oh...and a storyline thing... meh...I guess that's cool...'ish...."

Then the revise the statement and take out "setting".

Well, seems to me that if I was in charge of D&D...well, the writing is on the wall. Virtually EVERYONE wants a new setting. Not virtually everyone wants a new storyline. I mean, D&D isn't about people buying other peoples imagination...it's about using your own. It's one of he main reasons I've bought all of zero 5e books past PHB, DMG, MM. I have very little interest in a "fully fleshed out story...but put into railroad-style-adventure format". They are fun on occasion, when nobody wants to really 'get serious' or do much thinking, and just want to mostly turn off their brain and 'follow the breadcrumbs' to see where the pre-determined story goes. Then sure. I've ran Pathfinder "Adventure Paths" and had a blast. But I/we can only stomach that sort of...hmmm...how to say it.... "expected play style" for so long. Fun while it lasts, but I/we really enjoy a MUCH more open-ended style of play (re: "evil wizard, in that tower, making monsters and testing them on the village below....get 'em!"...where all the details, NPC motivations, NPC reactions, PC 'solutions', etc is all up for grabs and form organically through play).

Anyway. My point was...everyone seems to be far more excited about a setting. I wonder if that's why they removed it; to temper expectations. I don't think it will be as bad as "Diablo Immortal" bad...but...
A new setting? Yeah, THAT I might be interested in spending $100 on. Another "adventure path'esq hardback storytime adventure" for $60? No...not even for half that.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

By "everyone" I assume you mean everyone on ENWorld and similar on and off-line contexts, inhabited by long-term D&D fans, and we may now be their secondary marketing target, distantly beyond the many more new and more casual fans.

So while I agree that setting books tend to by a certain demographic of D&D players that tend to participate in such forums, it is a sub-set of a sub-set of a sub-set (and maybe more sub-sets) of the total fan base. It is probably still a large enough number to make regularly producing setting books--at least in the 2 books per year manner of the last couple years--financially profitable, but I'm just pointing out that it isn't necessarily representative of the wider fan-base.

 

[Mercurius]

Is that DragonLance alone? They did write at least one other (pretty good) series together that wasn't D&D-based.

All of their books. An article from 2004 says 22 million, so I'm guessing sales have slowed considerably since then but still continued, so 25 million seems reasonable. I don't know how many are Dragonlance, but I would guess well over half--maybe three-quarters or more.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Yes all of Dragonlance is out of print so any you see in stores were printed probably a decade ago. I think the last book was Dragons of the Hourglass Mage

Well, not actually.

Dungeon Masters Guild - Dragonlance -

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Parmandur]

By "everyone" I assume you mean everyone on ENWorld and similar on and off-line contexts, inhabited by long-term D&D fans, and we may now be their secondary marketing target, distantly beyond the many more new and more casual fans.

So while I agree that setting books tend to by a certain demographic of D&D players that tend to participate in such forums, it is a sub-set of a sub-set of a sub-set (and maybe more sub-sets) of the total fan base. It is probably still a large enough number to make regularly producing setting books--at least in the 2 books per year manner of the last couple years--financially profitable, but I'm just pointing out that it isn't necessarily representative of the wider fan-base.

Mearls and Crawford swore up and down for years that they were working on a plan to make Setting books in a new way that would work as widely sellable products, and we (the enfranchised forumites) were pretty dismissive of their talk. However, with the Ravnica book they seems to have cracked the nut of how to make a book that introduces a new Setting while being useful to just about anybody, or at least useful enough to be worth purchasing, hence solving the "splitting the fanbase" problem of decadent late TSR.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I’m gonna go with a Lolth and Menzoberranzan inspired adventure and setting book.

So, Out of the Abyss doesn't do it for you?

 

[whimsychris123]

So, Out of the Abyss doesn't do it for you?

Lol, haven't read it. I'm guessing Lolth and Menzoberranzan make an appearance? Nevermind then. I just wanted to throw something out there besides Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and Planescape.

New prediction: Dragonlance or Dark Sun

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Lol, haven't read it. I'm guessing Lolth and Menzoberranzan make an appearance? Nevermind then.

Yes, it's based around having to stop some of Lolth's schemes, and you go to Menzoberranzan and fight many drow and spiders.

 

[teitan]

Well, not actually.

Dungeon Masters Guild - Dragonlance -

www.dmsguild.com

Those aren't novels....