Two New Settings For D&D This Year

if it comes out this year i would agree with you. Possibly published by a third party company that has a good reputation (Green Ronin etc)

However if it’s coming next year I would stake all the money in my pockets that it will be a Curse of Strahd style book. Campaign with background and new monsters etc. Curse of Strahd was too successful not to repeat!

 

[robus]

I am baffled by what people would want from a "new setting" for Dungeons & Dragons. D&D has some obvious boxes they have to tick; elves, dragons, wizards, swords, etc. Any setting they are going to make is going to be compatible with the Core Rulebooks at the bare minimum; and probably as many supplements as possible in order to maximize profits. They aren't going to make settings that severely limits the material available to it, nor are they going to radically change classes, mechanics, and the like. At best, you'll get flavored D&D; heroic (Dragonlance), pulp-noir (Eberron), gothic horror (Ravenloft) or pulp (Dark Sun). You're not getting a human-only world, or a world with radically different magic, or set in the modern or far future, as a D&D setting.

That’s why i like the Magic planes as they offer thematic subsets that can evoke a particular flavor. I pluck from the corebooks (and supplements) what i need to support the plane.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.

Speaking as a Jew, I don't see this at all. It's not the real world. It's a 100% fantasy culture modeled after a (very broad, non-historical) view of a real world setting. If they were claiming even remote historical accuracy, I might agree with you. As it is? That's like saying Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms is anti-Christian because it's loosely modeled after Middle Ages Europe but doesn't include the Catholic Church.

 

[Ancalagon]

‘But Planescape is also the 5e Forgotten Realms. Its cosmology now becomes regional settings within the Forgotten Realms setting. Arborea is a regional setting, like Kara Tur. The gods that populate the great wheel, are the same gods that populate the clerics. To me it feels like the same setting. Being in the material plane or in the great wheel is like being outside looking at the castle versus being inside the castle. It is the same setting.

Eberron is a truly different setting. Its design is to use all official mechanics but with significantly different flavor. It has a different cosmology and feels different

Vanilla ice-cream and cocaine are very similar, you can see they both have white color, they are soft. Chocolate ice-cream though is entirely different! Look at the color!

Eberron is FAR MORE SIMILAR to FR than planescape. They are both prime material planes, dominated by humans and similar races (dwarves, elves, orcs etc). Most people farm for a living. There are seas, mountains, a sun, bedbugs, wolves. People want wealth - gold - some more than others. In Planescape, *anything goes*.

The religious beliefs of Eberron are also contained within Planescape. All beliefs are contained within it - and the absence of belief too. It's the essence of the setting.

 

[Yaarel]

Speaking as a Jew, I don't see this at all. It's not the real world. It's a 100% fantasy culture modeled after a (very broad, non-historical) view of a real world setting. If they were claiming even remote historical accuracy, I might agree with you. As it is? That's like saying Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms is anti-Christian because it's loosely modeled after Middle Ages Europe but doesn't include the Catholic Church.

The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.

As you know, many names, from David to Adam to Gabriel, are Jewish names. Plus, the actual names in Hebrew sound cool, and like Gavriél can connote angelic flavor.

 

[kenmarable]

The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.

As you know, many names, from David to Adam to Gabriel, are Jewish names. Plus, the actual names in Hebrew sound cool, and like Gavriél can connote angelic flavor.

He was clearly talking about Al Qadim, not Xanathar’s.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.

Okay, you might have a point with the names in XG--I honestly haven't even looked at them--but I was talking about Al-Qadim as a setting.

 

[Yaarel]

Okay, you might have a point with the names in XG--I honestly haven't even looked at them--but I was talking about Al-Qadim as a setting.

We all know that ‘Al Qadim’ is Arabia. Just like we know Maztica is Mexico-Aztec.

This is anything but politically neutral.

 

[Yaarel]

The name ‘Al Qadim’ is an Arabic word, meaning ‘the ancient one’.

(Tho it seems to me to be influenced by the Hebrew cognate, Qedem, which likewise means ‘ancient’, but can also mean the ‘East’, both meanings deriving from the sense of being ‘in front’.)

 

[Mouseferatu]

We all know that ‘Al Qadim’ is Arabia. Just like we know Maztica is Mexico-Aztec.

This is anything but politically neutral.

And we all know that almost the entirety of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, as settings, are Middle Ages Europe.

I refuse to accept the notion that entire swathes of mythology and related cultures are forbidden to modern fantasy due to the regions they come from having real-world conflicts.

It would be awesome to see a fantasy setting based on ancient Judaic legends and stories. It would be awesome to see a different Middle Eastern setting that included fictionalized variants of multiple cultures. But those are separate things, and I do not consider Arabian fantasy--especially when it bears a greater resemblance to A Thousand and One Nights than anything even vaguely historical--to be remotely problematic. In fact, given the modern political climate, it might even be helpful.

 

[Yaarel]

And we all know that almost the entirety of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, as settings, are Middle Ages Europe.

I refuse to accept the notion that entire swathes of mythology and related cultures are forbidden to modern fantasy due to the regions they come from having real-world conflicts.

It would be awesome to see a fantasy setting based on ancient Judaic legends and stories. It would be awesome to see a different Middle Eastern setting that included fictionalized variants of multiple cultures. But those are separate things, and I do not consider Arabian fantasy--especially when it bears a greater resemblance to A Thousand and One Nights than anything even vaguely historical--to be remotely problematic. In fact, given the modern political climate, it might even be helpful.

I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.