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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 7469003" data-attributes="member: 59082">So let's talk about the future of D&D. The context is that we're more than midway through 2018, with D&D thriving and allegedly as popular as ever, or at least since the boom of the early 80s. We've also just seen a new setting announced for the first time in over a decade, and a new Eberron "living" PDF released. This fall will see the release of three hardcover books, all heavily setting related: Waterdeep, Undermountain, and Ravnica. This is also the first year since 2014 that we have seen more than three hardcovers published (5 in 2014, 3 each in 2015-17, and 4 in 2018). So what lies ahead? What do you think we'll see in 2019 and beyond? How are Mearls and company changing their publishing plan if at all? Are we going to see 4 or even 5 hardcovers next year or will they go back to 3? Where do you think the focus will shift to in terms of adventures, themes, and worlds?(By the way, I'm not talking about eSports or a possible film franchise--except as those IP branch-offs pertain to and influence the TTRPG.)My own speculations....I do think that Eberron sets a new precendent for "classic settings" that they are at least strongly considering continuing, depending upon how Eberron does. Presumably the Wayfinder's book didn't take a lot of resources to create: it was mostly one author and as far as I can tell, includes mostly recycled art. The document itself will continue to evolve as they playtest and finetune rules, and eventually it will be offered for POD (once its "finished"). Who knows, maybe they'll eventually spiff it up with new art and produce an actual hardcover book in a couple years.There really seems no downside to continuing with further PDF-to-POD classic settings, even one or more per year. The obvious candidates, in rough order of likelihood, would be: Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara. After that you get into the "hmm, maybe" territory of settings with less of a following: Birthright, Rokugan, Nentir Vale/Nerath, etc. As I said in another thread, the Forgotten Realms is kind of in its own category. Will they follow a similar approach or will they go full in and produce a hardcover setting book, or maybe even just leave it as a kind of nebulous default setting for story arcs?I didn't mention Planescape or Spelljammer because I think one of next year's hardcovers is going to cover one or both in some kind of 5E version of Manual of the Planes (I know they don't want to recycle old titles, so it won't be that). If I were to guess, next year we'll see something like the following:*D&D Multiverse book - 5E version of MotP covering Planescape (and Sigil), Spelljammer (and Rock of Bral), and brief summaries of some of the major worlds.*D&D Muliverse story arc - maybe something like the Blood War, against the githyanki, etc. *Dark Sun book - either a dedicated story arc that overviews the setting, covers psionics, and has a sandbox-style adventure set-up; or a setting PDF ala Eberron with a story arc hardcover*A fourth hardcover? Maybe they split PS and SJ, or maybe one multiverse book with two separate story arc books; or maybe a FR setting book, or a Dalelands setting/story arc? I also think we'll see some kind of desert story arc at some point soon, either Anauroch (which could fold in Dalelands) or Raurin.I don't think they'll go beyond 3-5 hardcovers, probably 4. We'll see at least one classic setting covered per year via at least PDF/POD going forward, but some may be covered via hardcover setting sandbox/story arc combos, or possibly even in a two-book fashion.But my main prediction is that 2019 will be the "year of the D&D multiverse" and that the next classic setting (other than meta-settings) that we'll see covered will be Dark Sun.Long-term I don't think we'll see anything resembling 6E for quite some time, if ever. We might see a "5.1" revised version of the core rulebooks, but maybe not until the 50th anniversary in 2024, and those will likely be backwards compatible. We'll also probably see more cross-pollination with Magic, at least if Ravnica proves fruitful. Don't have a sense yet how a movie franchise will impact the game; I suppose it depends how successful (and good) it is. Still hoping for a Dragonlance trilogy with high production value. But Mr. Manganiello, you look nothing like Tanis and you're probably going to be too old for Caramon. Sturm maybe?What do you think?</blockquote>

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