D&D 5E Seriously, why no setting support?

[doctorbadwolf]

Way back when, a little over a year ago, wotc gave us a survey asking us about settings.
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/july-survey

Turnout: "Last time, we asked you to tell us which classic D&D settings, character concepts, and character races you want to see updated. Not surprisingly, it turns out that a lot of people cared about these topics, and we had one of our biggest turnouts ever for a survey. So what did we learn?"

So, we can assume the info gleaned is good, right? Relatively large sample size, pointed questions, sounds good to me.

"The popularity of settings in the survey fell into three distinct clusters. Not surprisingly, our most popular settings from prior editions landed at the top of the rankings, with Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms all proving equally popular."

I mean, ok. I assume that "equally" is an overstatement, but even so, the fact that the results were close enough to group these together is significant. And these are settings which require new rules, right? I mean, Eberron isn't Eberron with just what's in the PHB. Even the UA article only gets Artificer and some of the races, but leaves out Dragonmarks, any guidelines for a different magic item economy than the core assumptions, etc. And from what I've seen, almost no one likes how they did the Artificer. And look, we're still playing Eberron in 4e right now, because I just don't have time to convert everything we are using to 5e, from Artificer, to Dragonmarks, to Kalashtar, to magewrights.

From the March '15 article:

The Eberron material, as you can expect for stuff that is in draft form, needs some more refinement. The changeling will likely have its ability scores and Shapechanger ability tweaked. The shifter scored well, so expect a few shifts there (pardon the pun) but nothing too dramatic.
The warforged had the most interesting feedback. I think we’re going to take a look at presenting a slightly different approach, one that ties back into the original race’s armored body options to make them feel more like innately equipped characters.
The artificer still needs a good amount of work, so that one will go back to the drawing board. I think the class needs a more unique, evocative feature that does a better job of capturing a character who crafts and uses custom items. We played it too conservatively in our initial design.
I expect that you’ll see some revisions to the Eberron material before the end of the year. Unearthed Arcana is proving a useful resource in giving new game content every month while giving us the chance to test drive mechanics.

So...no word on if that is ever going to happen?


The other settings need some love, too, even if I don't care to use them as settings, myself. I'll definitely use elements of Planescape and DS.

ANd some settings are just really easy to bridge the small remaining gap in coverage. Would it be that hard to update the mechanics of a Dragonlance campaign book with 5e versions of the mechanical options presented? Put it on the guild for 20 bucks, we'll buy it! Or if that is too much to ask, just give up a UA article with Kender, playable Draconians, High Sorcery Wizard traditions, and whatever other little bits are missing.


So, do we think they're going to give Eberron and Planescape and Dark Sun the Ravenloft treatment? Give us 1/4 of a setting guide built into an adventure storyline, and hope we're satisfied? Anyone think we'll get an actually setting book for one or more new setting next year?

Would it be rude to badger Mike on twitter about following up on that "expect an update by the end of this year" line?

 

[CapnZapp]

Seriously, why no setting support?

Because, IIRC, half of us don't play in an established setting, and most of the rest use the Realms. And many homebrewers are okay with the idea to consider Realms some kind of "default" that they can pilfer for their own worlds.

There's simply no economy in other settings. Based on the above I wouldn't be surprised if the total market share is 50% Realms and Realmsish, and then nothing (the next most popular setting having perhaps 5%). And the current team have been quite ruthless in not publishing the usual flood of stuff that most don't use.

It's quite evident they're trying hard to make sure the most people find something in each of their books.

Apart from adventures (a necessary evil) all books to date have stuff for players (and not just DMs) and are set in the Realms (to attract everybody except the minority that can't stand FR).

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Inchoroi]

Well, I'd take the survey results with the knowledge that they're not going to release books that quickly--intentionally so. My gut feeling is that Eberron would be next, at some point towards the end of next year; I'd not be surprised to see a bit of it come up in the Unearthed Arcana articles over the next few months, either. I'd personally rather they stick with the schedule as they are, as it seems to be working and its something my bank account can keep up with, something I could not do with 3.5 or 4e.

I'd also be surprised if we get a setting book devoid of an adventure path for Eberron, as well; also, I think, intentionally so. A small gazetteer to let the fans of the setting know what's changed (i.e. what's been ignored from 4e's incarnation, if anything) and then a longish adventure; that'll get my money. Simply a setting book, unfortunately, will not (e.g. I only have SCAG because my players bought it for me for my birthday) mostly because no one in my groups are using Forgotten Realms as their setting.

My predictions:
Next AP: Undermountain + Waterdeep sandbox, April 2017.
Rules Expansion, August 2017.
AP: ? November 2017.

 

[Parmandur]

So, talking a bit about this in the UA thread, but... [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] has mentioned on Twitter just yesterday that he is doing...something with Torog, a 4E Dawn War deity.



My suspicion, which had been a popular hypothesis here on the boards, is that the Big Book of Crunch will actually lend crunch support, for DMs and players, for all these settings: the Mystic, the Artificer (maybe including Runecaster, Alchemist and Shaman subclasses...), Warforged, Dragonmarks, Kender, Wizards of High Sorcery, spelljammimg vessels, Defilers...



Something along those lines, so that players who like those settings can use the fluff they already have, and homebrewers can sample from the buffet.



I further hypothesize that we may eventually see books from D&D like the "Art of Magic the Gathering" series, which James Wyatt has described as system neutral campaign guides: so an "Art of Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron" book without rules, that anybody who plays in Eberron would like: 3.x, 4E, 5E, GURPS, Savage World...and reference the Big Book of Crunch for the 5E rules.



Something more like that than previous ed support, anyways...

 

[akr71]

I love Greyhawk & Krynn, but I would prefer WotC did not release anything for other settings until they are finished with the Realms. Pretty much everything has dealt with the Sword Coast and the rest has been ignored. I don't stick to canon, but I do like SCAG & other setting info so I don't have to come up with maps & political systems and such. The broad strokes are done for me, I just have to fill in the finer details.

Other than an updated map/atlas all I'd really want for other settings is a conversion guide. Unique races, unique monsters, how some classes would different in that setting, that sort of thing... Shove all all the orphaned settings into one book and charge $50. I'd buy it. I'd get to explore all those settings I missed out on during the 90's, 00's & 10's

 

[Sacrosanct]

There are two things I see. One, we are seeing settings. We got Undermountain and Ravenloft so far, in addition to the basic FR. It seems pretty clear that instead of doing a campaign setting book and another campaign adventure book (with the higher costs of two books), they are combining them into the same book.

Secondly, I don't think there's a huge rush because 90% of setting material is fluff. and you really don't need a new book for that. All the older existing setting material is perfectly viable. Maybe not for the mechanical parts, but that's what something like UA is for until something like a PHB2 comes out.

so the material is there, it's just not packaged all nice and tidy for you. From a business perspective, why recreate something at significant cost if you're not going to recoup a nice profit?

 

[Irennan]

There are two things I see. One, we are seeing settings. We got Undermountain and Ravenloft so far, in addition to the basic FR. It seems pretty clear that instead of doing a campaign setting book and another campaign adventure book (with the higher costs of two books), they are combining them into the same book.

When did we get Undermountain? Besides, UM is part of the basic Realms.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, talking a bit about this in the UA thread, but... @mearls has mentioned on Twitter just yesterday that he is doing...something with Torog, a 4E Dawn War deity.



My suspicion, which had been a popular hypothesis here on the boards, is that the Big Book of Crunch will actually lend crunch support, for DMs and players, for all these settings: the Mystic, the Artificer (maybe including Runecaster, Alchemist and Shaman subclasses...), Warforged, Dragonmarks, Kender, Wizards of High Sorcery, spelljammimg vessels, Defilers...



Something along those lines, so that players who like those settings can use the fluff they already have, and homebrewers can sample from the buffet.



I further hypothesize that we may eventually see books from D&D like the "Art of Magic the Gathering" series, which James Wyatt has described as system neutral campaign guides: so an "Art of Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron" book without rules, that anybody who plays in Eberron would like: 3.x, 4E, 5E, GURPS, Savage World...and reference the Big Book of Crunch for the 5E rules.



Something more like that than previous ed support, anyways...

I definitely think that the Ravenloft approach combined with UA articles and a multi-setting book with a framework of travelling between worlds, is a great way to do it. I don't need a new Eberron Campaign/Player's guide. I've got my 4e copies, and pdfs of most of the 3.5 stuff.

What I need is 5e versions of all the mechanical parts of the setting, which in the cases of Eberron, Dark Sun, Planescape, at least, are a pretty big part of the setting. I can convert pretty well from 3.5 or 4e to 5e, but I'm not 15 anymore. I don't have that kind of time.

I really hope that the "big book of crunch" is a collection of player options, DM guidelines, enemies, items, etc for the tier 1 settings, and even the others if there is room. Like Volo's, but more broad in scope.

Heck, a framework of worldbuilding wouldn't be a bad idea, frankly, considering how many groups use their own worlds.

 

[Sacrosanct]

When did we get Undermountain? Besides, UM is part of the basic Realms.

Someone earlier mentioned wanting the underdark. And we got the underdark in Out of the Abyss. There's a ton of generic Underdark setting material in that campaign. Which is how I think they're going. rather than republish all old material that's perfectly compatible with 5e again, they're combing the changes into a campaign path adventure