D&D 5E The D&D Next books I'd like to see after the Core

[Klaus]

- A few great, standalone adventures, akin to Sunless Citadel, The Forge of Fury, or Against the Cult of the Reptile God.
- A couple of great setting/adventures, akin to Red Hand of Doom, Reavers of Harkenwold or Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle.
- Eberron, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Red Steel, Ravenloft, MotRD, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Top Secret...

 

[DEFCON 1]

Maybe you've gotten them, but what about the new people just starting the game? You could make an argument for starting small and expanding, but not that they should have bought the FR hardback 13 years ago (Yeah. Long time.)

Oh, I don't have any problems with them *eventually* re-doing full campaign setting books. But we're talking the next set of books after the Core three. Full campaign books are huge, and for most DMs (especially the ones starting out, like you mention), the books will be filled with information about areas of the world that will not get used anytime soon because DMs can't have their games hit every single area in the world at once. They'll choose one area of the map and start their games there. So why not help them out by writing a book that just focuses on that one single area, goes into detail about that area narratively, and provides a series of modules and character options to let players adventure there for like 10 levels or so?

On top of that... the resources needed to write and publish a full campaign setting book are so great that they really can't work on multiple campaign settings at once. So if they put all their time and effort into re-writing the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide again (after they did it for 3E and then 4E too)... that pushes settings like Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Planescape and Birthright further and further back in the queue. But if they instead can write smaller softcover adventure/setting guides for small areas of each setting... they can work on several at once. And because a large amount of the information in those guides will be three or four adventure modules that take PCs from 1-10, players who wouldn't ordinarily pick up a Greyhawk campaign setting book for example, might still pick this smaller adventure/setting softcover in order to get the character options included, plus the adventure modules (since those can be adapted to any campaign setting.)

The whole point is to produce products that will get the most bang for ALL player's bucks. And if you can write a single book that covers adventures, setting, and character options all at once... plus brings all of your established settings (at least in one area of their worlds) up to 5E standards... you are more likely to hit targets that you might not otherwise if all you did was just hammer 'Forgotten Realms Forgotten Realms Forgotten Realms' in every product for the first two years of 5E's existence.

 

[Blackwarder]

I would like a book that is about running old school sandbox games, preferably with some predrawn hex maps. I want it to basically be the BD&D/1e module in terms of campaign flavor.

Warder

 

[Nellisir]

Oh, I don't have any problems with them *eventually* re-doing full campaign setting books. But we're talking the next set of books after the Core three.

Mea culpa. I misunderstood this part of your post:

At this point I don't know if any of us really need full campaign setting books covering the entire world of these settings (since we've gotten them several times before)

I took "at this point" as a reference to at this point in the lifespan of D&D, and we don't need them because "we've gotten them several times before" in the lifespan of D&D. I forgot the original context of the thread and should have read "at this point" in the lifespan of 5e.

I think I've said that I like the idea of smaller campaign settings.

 

[bhandelman]

Personally, I like the mini campaign setting/large adventure idea. Something in the 96-128 pages area that gives you a decent overview of each world, what makes it different, and a good sized adventure to experience it. Make it softcover and release it for a decent price (less than $20 I would hope), and come out with one every couple of months. They could cover all the major settings (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Eberron, Darksun, Ravenloft) and give everyone some new and updated content while attracting new players that may be intimidated by something the size of a standard Forgotten Realms setting book.

Of course, they should still release the gigantic Forgotten Realms book, and others, but they can do that later since their dedicate audience are already very familiar with them, and these smaller books can serve as a good introduction for new players while still providing an adventure for those who are already dedicated fans.

 

[Jester David]

5e should focus on "campaign" expansions rather than just more options. Books should be released that provide content DMs can use to expand and customize their game.

The obvious book is the Manual of the Planes and the Psionic Handbook. Both should be larger with a mix of DM and player options, with the former being more DM focused and the latter more player focused. They allow the DM to make a planar centric game (Planescape) or make the cosmology a part of their setting or just give advice for a trip to the planes. And psionics is a good expansion with potential monsters, new classes, options for existing classes, and generally different magic and tone than other campaigns.

After that I'd like to see environment/location books. I can divide these into three easy topics: wilds, dungeons, and cities. Wilderness Adventures and Dungeon Adventures and Urban Adventures. Because there's topics enough in those for builds for multiple classes, and there's room to give the DM advice for campaigns focusing on one or just featuring one of the locales in an adventure. Dungeons could also overlap with the Underdark and wilderness could give all kinds of overland travel, exploration content.

Paired with a Monster Manual 2 and a campaign setting that's easily enough books for a year and a half, if not longer.