D&D 5E New stuff?

Maybe you could be right. I explain. If it will become public domain, then everybody will want to use it, causing a saturation. Something like when Walt Disney used public domain characters and then other produced their "mockbusters". That is the reason big companies would rather to use their exclusive IPs.

Other reason is Middle Earth is like a "snow globe", precious to be watched, but it is frozen in the time, it can't change, evolutionate. And it can't be mixed with other lines .

But WotC could borrow some elements some time, for example hobbits could be used as PC race, or a fae domain (Witchlight) imitating Tolkien's style. Or they could appear as "easter eggs".

I guess WotC will would rather to start almost from zero creating their own Middle Earth but adding a lot of Tolkien touch.
 

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They know that "hard" canon isn't really useful to them or users, but...they have included Spelljammer allusions in many places, and Planescape allusions in other places...but not Planesjammer, and they have continued to talk about the shared universe as he lays out here, consistently, for years.

I understand that some people don't want the phlogiston et al, but that is what WotC has been layign down, the Planejammer stuff is all fan speculation in spite of what WotC ahs said and put in books.
Eh, I don't have skin in the game other than I liked the Spelljammer themed stuff that was in 4e. If there's tools for me to mine for my own setting, I'll be happy. I personally think they're doing just Spelljammer right now, and that Planesjammer is fan spec too, but I'd caution taking something Crawford said in a YouTube video as confirmation of what they're doing in a future book.
 

Maybe you could be right. I explain. If it will become public domain, then everybody will want to use it, causing a saturation. Something like when Walt Disney used public domain characters and then other produced their "mockbusters". That is the reason big companies would rather to use their exclusive IPs.

Other reason is Middle Earth is like a "snow globe", precious to be watched, but it is frozen in the time, it can't change, evolutionate. And it can't be mixed with other lines .

But WotC could borrow some elements some time, for example hobbits could be used as PC race, or a fae domain (Witchlight) imitating Tolkien's style. Or they could appear as "easter eggs".

I guess WotC will would rather to start almost from zero creating their own Middle Earth but adding a lot of Tolkien touch.
It's just not going to be in the public domain anytime soon. And WotC doesn't need it. They've long since abandoned using the terms Hobbit and Balrog, after all.
 

Eh, I don't have skin in the game other than I liked the Spelljammer themed stuff that was in 4e. If there's tools for me to mine for my own setting, I'll be happy. I personally think they're doing just Spelljammer right now, and that Planesjammer is fan spec too, but I'd caution taking something Crawford said in a YouTube video as confirmation of what they're doing in a future book.
And while that's fair, the point is that for several years both Crawford and Perkins have been dropping hints that they are not afraid of crystal spheres, Phlogiston, and all that jazz.
 

I wouldn't want to say exactly how they will do it, but when Spelljammer released is was it's own cosmology. Separate from the Great Wheel, separate from Krynn, etc. If you played Spelljammer, those cosmologies where wrong. It's pretty clear that now WotC want a unifying cosmology. It's so they can sell multiple setting books for the same player characters.
Hi Paul. I am not sure where you are getting this information, but is is entirely not true. I own the original Spelljammer box set (I purchased it the week it was released) and I DMed many adventures in it over the decades, there is nothing in the Spelljammer cosmology that contradicts the D&D plane system. In fact, the Spelljammer cosmology entirely fits within the D&D planar system.
 

Jeremy Crawford detailed the canon assumptions in this video about Eberron and Ravnica, including that Ravnica and Enerron are on the same Prime Material as every other world and can be reached by Spelljamming in the Phlogiston between Crystal Spheres
Hey, can you indicate where in that 49-minute video he says that Eberron and Ravnica were canonically in the same Prime Material as every other D&D setting and can be reached by spelljamming? That would be interesting, since they were much more coy about D&D and Magic being in the same multiverse when the Forgotten Realms MTG set came out.

Also worth noting that video was in 2018, which was practically a different era as far as D&D at this point. (Mike Mearls was still creative director, for example.)
 

Hey, can you indicate where in that 49-minute video he says that Eberron and Ravnica were canonically in the same Prime Material as every other D&D setting and can be reached by spelljamming? That would be interesting, since they were much more coy about D&D and Magic being in the same multiverse when the Forgotten Realms MTG set came out.

Also worth noting that video was in 2018, which was practically a different era as far as D&D at this point. (Mike Mearls was still creative director, for example.)
Here are quotes that I take from a posting on this topic that I made on June 1, 2020 (D&D 5E - The Multiverse):

I think there has been an intentional ambiguity built in in order to retain the unique flavor of settings. For example, in preparing for Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, Keith Baker and Jeremy Crawford brainstormed ideas how to handle the cosmology of Eberron. In an interview with Dragon Talk published on July 25, 2018, Crawford noted that Baker came up with the idea that the dragon shards are pieces of the crystal sphere that have fallen to Eberron. There are also its own planes associated with it, but the Wizards team still conceives of Eberron as part of the same Material Plane as the others D&D worlds (e.g. Krynn, Abeir-Toril, Oerth, Athas, etc.).

Yet, in a section in Eberron: Rising From the Last War called "Planes of Existence," Eberron is described as both "part of the Great Wheel of the multiverse" and also "fundamentally apart from the rest of the Great Wheel, sealed off from the other planes even while it's encircled by its own wheeling cosmology." That seems ambiguous.

On the other hand, in the July 25, 2018 Dragon Talk podcast (and in other podcasts where the subject of the multiverse has come up, Crawford and also Chris Perkins have reiterated this point), Crawford notes (and these are exact quotes that I am transcribing for everyone's benefit):

"I often get asked, ‘are all the worlds in the same universe [by “universe” he means “Prime Material Plane, which he says just before this],’ the official answer is ‘yes.’

“The Prime Material Plane is where all the D&D settings reside [. . .] Spelljammer was a D&D product years ago that grappled with what’s going on inside the Prime Material Plane [. . .] Spelljammer is specifically about the Prime Material Plane and how you might get from one D&D world to another.

“Let’s talk about Eberron. There was a period in D&D’s life, especially around the 3rd edition years, where this idea of all of D&D’s worlds being in one giant setting together, that idea started to go out of focus. And, you started ended up with worlds that were really shepherded and designed to be their own thing [. . .]. But again, it’s important for people to remember for the background of D&D, the original assumption in 1st edition was that the worlds were all in a multiverse together and that is also the assumption of 5th edition. And so, Eberron, in its original conception, arose in that environment when the worlds were not conceived of as having this relationship to each other.

“Keith Baker and I in the lead up to Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron, we had about a year ago, a real fun talk about Eberron’s relationship to the rest of the cosmology because Eberron introduces an interesting twist in that it’s not just a world, it’s also a world with a set of planes around it; it assumes an entirely different cosmology. And that posed an interesting question: like how do we reconcile this with this multiverse that all the other D&D worlds are in? Keep in mind that some of those worlds are in it but cut off, like part of the story of Dark Sun is that it is in the D&D multiverse, but because of the catastrophe is cut off from the other worlds.

“Keith and I’s [sic] discussion was really great in that we realized that this is not a hard problem to solve. In fact, it’s not a problem at all [. . .] Keith said, ‘what if the Ring [of Siberys] is a crystal sphere?’ When the Progenitors created Eberron, they wanted a world they could call their own. And they wanted more than a world, they wanted a universe they could call their own, and made a world with little planes surrounding it, with the desire of controlling something of their own.

“The story of Eberron, Keith and I realized, was that these Progenitors wanted to solve this problem by creating a world of their own: a world complete with its own planes, and then they cut it off; with the Ring of Siberys, they cut it off from the rest of the multiverse [. . .] when the shards fall, that’s the shield cracking.

“If a DM wants to explore Eberron’s relationship to the rest of the D&D multiverse, you can ask what happens when the cracks in the Ring get big enough?

Greg Tito than riffs on this and suggests that adventurers from Krynn could arrive through a crack in the Ring of Siberys (crystal sphere) and discover Eberron.

From there, they go on to discuss Ravnica as part of the Prime Material Plane of the D&D multiverse also. Crawford says the “The Prime Material Plane of the D&D multiverse can gobble up anything [. . .] we only know some of the worlds [. . .] the Prime Material Plane is vast."

When discussing other means of accessing other worlds in addition to Spelljammer, Crawford goes out of his way to specify that, because the D&D worlds are on the same plane (i.e. the Prime Material Plane), that if a character knows where he or she is going, a teleport spell can take a character from one world like Eberron or Ravnica to Abeir-Toril or Krynn or what have you: “Can I use a spell like Teleport or Teleportation Circle to get to another D&D world? The answer is ‘yes’ because all the teleportation spells require is the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle and the destination has to be on the same plane of existence [. . .] Forgotten Realms & Greyhawk are both on the Prime Material Plane, they are on the same plane of existence.”

And so forth and so on. Hopefully this is interesting food for thought.
 

It's just not going to be in the public domain anytime soon. And WotC doesn't need it. They've long since abandoned using the terms Hobbit and Balrog, after all.
Copyright is still life of the author plus 70 years in the US, right? Tolkien died in 1973...so by 2043 it’s all public domain. But copyright is only half of it. Trademark is where the real trouble is. Robert E. Howard shot himself in 1936. In 2006 everything he wrote was in the public domain. But we don’t see endless Conan or Kull or Solomon Kane material. Reason being: trademark laws.
 

From there, they go on to discuss Ravnica as part of the Prime Material Plane of the D&D multiverse also. Crawford says the “The Prime Material Plane of the D&D multiverse can gobble up anything [. . .] we only know some of the worlds [. . .] the Prime Material Plane is vast."

When discussing other means of accessing other worlds in addition to Spelljammer, Crawford goes out of his way to specify that, because the D&D worlds are on the same plane (i.e. the Prime Material Plane), that if a character knows where he or she is going, a teleport spell can take a character from one world like Eberron or Ravnica to Abeir-Toril or Krynn or what have you: “Can I use a spell like Teleport or Teleportation Circle to get to another D&D world? The answer is ‘yes’ because all the teleportation spells require is the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle and the destination has to be on the same plane of existence [. . .] Forgotten Realms & Greyhawk are both on the Prime Material Plane, they are on the same plane of existence.”
Thanks for the broad benchmark, I found the relevant section (starting around 33:45). When asked about how Ravnica fits in:

34:07: He says the D&D multiverse "can gobble up anything. Basically, if it's a fantasy world it can be somewhere in the D&D multiverse." The interviewer (Greg Tito) then asks if Cybertron (from Transformers) could be part of the D&D multiverse and Crawford quips "Sure!"

34:50: "when a new setting to D&D like Ravnica shows up, it's like, oh, someone discovered it. Maybe it was somebody in Sigil, someone in a spelljamming ship. I'm not sure how the discovery took place, but clearly it happened, and now suddenly this world is another one that you can visit."

36:05: Crawford: "So a DM could say, oh, in an adventure this group was wandering in the Ethereal Plane, and ended up popping out in another world in the Prime Material Plane. Tito: "Into Ravnica, perfect example, right." Crawford: "Exactly." (Tito then goes on to explain that the Magic team doesn't see their planes like planets, and seems to suggest that Ravnica could be a bridge between multiverses. Crawford doesn't address this.)

There are more comments in this vein. In short, none of what Crawford said in the video is a definitive statement - it's just suggestions for how the MTG multiverse could be connected to the D&D multiverse, if a DM wanted to.

Mind, it's completely possible they've changed their mind now and it's all the same multiverse, after the D&D Magic set. But as of that video, nothing definitive.
 

Hi Paul. I am not sure where you are getting this information, but is is entirely not true. I own the original Spelljammer box set (I purchased it the week it was released) and I DMed many adventures in it over the decades, there is nothing in the Spelljammer cosmology that contradicts the D&D plane system. In fact, the Spelljammer cosmology entirely fits within the D&D planar system.
It depends on which planar system you are looking at. The one that is contradicted is the one in the 1st edition DMG*, which says that other game worlds, like Toril, Oerth, etc are parallel prime material planes, and are reached by plane shift magic. Spelljammer contradicts this by saying there is one prime material plane and other game worlds are crystal spheres in that plane. Hence they are reached by physical travel or long ranged teleportation, not plane shifting. It also contradicts the MtG cosmology, where you can travel from Theros to Ravnica by "planeswalking".

Although, looking further, the text of the Dream of the Blue Veil spell in Trasha's supports the Spelljammer cosmology: "another world on the Material Plane, such as Oerth, Toril, Krynn, or Eberron".


*Also Dragonlance, Weiss and Hickman where livid about the inclusion of Krynn gnomes in Spelljammer.
 
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