D&D 5E Urban Arcana 5e thoughts

[JPL]

Just looking at Urban Arcana, which is somehow 17 years old. That right there, 100%, should be a priority project for WotC, as a D&D campaign sourcebook.

And as a D&D sourcebook, it should be 100% compatible with the existing system. My current thinking is that real world "mundanes" could just be modeled along the lines of the Expert class from Tasha's. From either the class or some new backgrounds, they get general knowledge of the modern world, proficiency in modern land vehicles and computers, etc.

Once they get into the crossover fantasy stuff, they can multiclass into any standard D&D class, or continue to progress as "Moderns" or whatever you want to call that class. Heroes who make the opposite journey --- Faeruninian adventurers stuck in modern NYC, for example --- might instead take a level in Modern as they adjust to the modern tech.

There are already some Unearthed Arcana spells for techno-wizards. Plenty of design room for similar ideas --- urban druids, Internet bards, and probably a number of classes specifically oriented towards the phenomenon of crossovers.

The fluff from Urban Arcana is excellent stuff, and could be used almost as-is, but alternate campaigns from Harry Potter to Percy Jackson to 80s cartoon D&D are all possible.

 

[jgsugden]

I'm betting this would not be a priority for WotC. They might get to it someday, but they have a number of beloved settings that have not been attended to in 5E that people want to see. I'd put higher odds on an Athas/Darksun, Greyhawk/Oerth, Dragonlance/Krynn (even with the lawsuit), Spelljammer, Planescape and brand new setting above a modern / urban arcana official supplement. I usually prefer to focus on the WotC product (and was disappointed that it took so long to get any real psionics rules at all), but in this case, if I wanted to run a modern setting, I'd turn to 3rd party products.

 

[JPL]

You may be right, but I look at the vast new audience of D&D players in the past ten years and see this as something very accessible to them. By comparison, something like Dragonlance is not going to be easily approached by the casual or newbie gamer.

 

[Oofta]

I'd personally like to see an Urban Arcana since I'm a fan of magic in the modern world fiction. However, I'm not sure how big of a draw there is, or if there's enough demand. It seems like people want a fantasy game because it's relatively "safe" and lends itself more to escapism.

I think the biggest issue with anything official is that to do it right it would be fairly costly and corporations are risk averse. Modern fantasy could be fun, but for better or worse it's a niche product in a niche market. D&D may seem big, but that's just compared to other niche companies.

 

[humble minion]

Modern fantasy could be fun, but for better or worse it's a niche product in a niche market.

Not exactly niche - the modern paranormal mystery/romance literary genre is something that sells in truly vast amounts, and rivals 'conventional' scifi/fantasy in volume. Any RPG company would luuuurve to get their claws into that market. Not sure something as tactically focused as the D&D ruleset is a good fit though.

 

[Oofta]

Not exactly niche - the modern paranormal mystery/romance literary genre is something that sells in truly vast amounts, and rivals 'conventional' scifi/fantasy in volume. Any RPG company would luuuurve to get their claws into that market. Not sure something as tactically focused as the D&D ruleset is a good fit though.

Novels and what-not sure. But for games? Not so much. As far as ttrpg's being a niche market I'll refer you to this: How big's the RPG market?

In any case, I might be interested but I wouldn't hold your breath.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Given how big the things like Stranger Things, Kids on Bikes, Tales from the X, Urban Shadow, Monster Heart, City of Mist etc are, I think a Urban Arcana would be a good sell for WotC, but probably not before things like Darksun and such.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Novels and what-not sure. But for games? Not so much.

Oof. That is...not a thing you actually know. It's a guess, based on...honestly nothing, so far as I can tell.

There's a lot of games that put the supernatural in the modern world, that sell very well. It's been a long time since any of the big names in TTRPGs tried to sell a major product based on that premise, so we have no way to know how well it would sell if DnD, Pathfinder, etc, did so, but Vampire is modern fantasy as much as it is horror, and it's one of the most important franchises in TTRPGs, and supports several twitch streams, and has a huge following amongst the cosplay community as well as the general table top gamer community.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Given how big the things like Stranger Things, Kids on Bikes, Tales from the X, Urban Shadow, Monster Heart, City of Mist etc are, I think a Urban Arcana would be a good sell for WotC, but probably not before things like Darksun and such.

It'd sell better than Darksun, IMO. By a lot. Comperable to the best selling secondary products of 5e thus far. Dark Sun would sell...okay.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

It'd sell better than Darksun, IMO. By a lot. Comperable to the best selling secondary products of 5e thus far. Dark Sun would sell...okay.

I dont know, I still think that Darksun is pretty spot on with the zeitgeist. I dont know why people insist that ''its so dark blablabla''. Sure, the setting is grimm and unforgiving, but to me that just means the light of the Heroes shines brighter.

A world drained from its lifeforce by greedy leaders, forcing the rest of the worlds to serve as slave or as pawns to the authority, in which the PC are rebellings against this statu quo is pretty a la mode.

To me its like a fantasy version of the trendy cyberpunk dystopia num.674

Sure you can play a self serving mercenary, but to me the more dark is the world, the easier it is to play big shiny heroes (of the complete opposite!)

But yeah, selling Darksun as it was first presented 200-ish years ago would probably bomb outside of the hardcore fans seen on this forum