WotC What classic setting SHOULD WotC publish and why?

[Ath-kethin]

Spelljammer, because the only better thing than murder hoboing is murder hoboing iiiiiin spaaaaaaaceee.

Agreed 1,000%. As long as they keep their Planescape peanut butter out of my Spelljammer chocolate, we're cool.

And to judge from the spelljamming helm in Dungeon of the Mad Mage, they are planning to do just that. So I'm in!

Similarly, I have no interest in new material from more distinctive worlds like Dragonlance if they choose to genericize them by making them additional kitchen sink settings. People claim DL is cut from the same cloth as the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, but DL actually had a lot of important differences, mostly in what WASN'T there - like orcs and halflings, for starters.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

The Nentir Vale!

Why?

• Tieflings and Dragonborns are part of the setting, not tacked on.

I'll admit that it kind of drives me up a wall that they kept tieflings and dragonborn around without really doing much to establish what their deals are, as opposed to how the Nentir Vale made ancient tiefling and dragonborn civilizations a fairly important part of the setting background. As far as I'm aware both races are popular, but 5E hasn't really capitalized on it in any way.

Tieflings and dragonborn aren't even prominent in the Nentir Vale's spiritual successor, Exandria (from Critical Role). The origin of tieflings in the setting apparently happened so long ago that nobody thinks its a big deal why there are devil people around, and the most we know about dragonborn is that an ancient flying dragonborn city crashed in a ravine that just so happened to have the only other major dragonborn population in the world.

 

[Mecheon]

Now, hear me out here...

Dark Sun. But not for the reasons you think.

Thus far we have seen, fairly clearly, that stuff with player options and DM stuff sells good. New races and new class options for the players

Greyhawk doesn't really have many options that haven't been picked up elsewhere
Dragonlance has a few class options but limited to one or two areas, generally the magic side
Planescape and Spelljammer are wildcards as they definitely have race options, but new class options haven't really been a thing for them

Dark Sun has both race and class option variations for absolute days, Therefore, per this historic grab bag, it will clearly sell the best per these historic selling points

or, y'know, Council of Wyrms for the same reason of "What player options could be more hype than dragons?"

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'll admit that it kind of drives me up a wall that they kept tieflings and dragonborn around without really doing much to establish what their deals are, as opposed to how the Nentir Vale made ancient tiefling and dragonborn civilizations a fairly important part of the setting background. As far as I'm aware both races are popular, but 5E hasn't really capitalized on it in any way.

Tieflings and dragonborn aren't even prominent in the Nentir Vale's spiritual successor, Exandria (from Critical Role). The origin of tieflings in the setting apparently happened so long ago that nobody thinks its a big deal why there are devil people around, and the most we know about dragonborn is that an ancient flying dragonborn city crashed in a ravine that just so happened to have the only other major dragonborn population in the world.

Agreed.

In my games, I use the PHB tieflings for my games in the Nentir Vale. In FR, I use the ''feral'' ones (worst name ever, though) from the SCAG and the Dragonborns from Abeir are no longer there. There are Dragonborns which are a special kind of lizardfolk said to be born with the blood of dragons in their veins.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

All of them.

Also, the two runners up in the contest that Eberron won and that they kept the rights to. If you're gonna hold the rights you should publish it.

If you DON'T feel like Spelljammer, Mystara, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, etc., are financially worth publishing then you should release them into the wilds of fandom, at least to the extent of making them legal subjects for DMGuild supplements and releasing PDF versions of the old books. Or you know, just Public Domain them.

But in a more likely vein, I would like to see SpellJammer get a book. But I have always liked to splash my Sci-Fi into my Fantasy and Vis Versa.

 

[darjr]

Wait, aren’t most of not all the old settings available on Drivethru?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Some setting that some super popular streamer has, tbh. Or some random mtg setting

Ah, you said "classic" setting. Well, that's a bit different. I'm not even sure Nentir Vale qualifies, but I'll let that slide for now.

So "should publish" is a fraught phrase (say "fraught phrase" 10 times fast). Ie, from a business standpoint? From a fan-service standpoint? From a "creative" standpoint? Maybe I'll try to answer all 3, in reverse order.

From a creative standpoint, I think a Planescape/Spelljammer mashup provides the biggest canvas area for expansion. It can expand beyond just Sigil and also allow both a "default" multiverse setting as well as provide rules to DMs who want to create their own. The full breakdown of the inner and outer and demi planes can be explored in depth. There's all kinds of places, beings, factions etc to delve into.

From a fan-service standpoint, if I was to only go off of ENWorld, it feels like there are top level desired settings like Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Planescape, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer; and then other less popular settings like Ghostwalk or Birthright. So for maximum fan-service, go for one of those 5. Someone up thread said that having settings like FR should probably take them out of the running, and I agree that probably crosses off Greyhawk and DL. If you mashup Planescape and Spelljammer, you cover 2 fan-desired properties at once!

Finally, from a business standpoint. As you can see I'm angling for a PS/SJ mashup. BUT, I believe PS intellectual property is partially owned by Tony Diterlizzi? Maybe not, that might be fake news - happy to be steered right on that. But if he partially owns the IP, that could be a hurdle for any sort of PS setting or adventure book.

However Planescape and Spelljammer also fit into the overall MTG Planeswalker concepts; and could potentially provide an in-canon link to the MTG planes. Which could result in the greatest thing no one expected back in 1995, a Blood Wars/Magic the Gathering release. Wow.

 

[Kodiak3D]

Wait, aren’t most of not all the old settings available on Drivethru?

They are, but I believe the question is referring to which ones should be updated to 5e and published.

 

[Parmandur]

Also, the two runners up in the contest that Eberron won and that they kept the rights to. If you're gonna hold the rights you should publish it.

Both of the other Finalist submissions were cannibalized for Eberron material, and the authors have confirmed over the years that there is nothing significant to publish that WotC didn't already repurpose somewhere.

 

[Rikka66]

However Planescape and Spelljammer also fit into the overall MTG Planeswalker concepts

That depends on how married to the status quo of "only those with the Spark can planeswalk" the MtG creative team are. Right now linking Planescape/Spelljammer officially with Magic would be a nightmare for them.