D&D 5E What is WotC actually working on?

[Wrathamon]

They release the source books for the major campaign settings (FR, DL, Eberron, Dark Sun) NEXT before much of anything else that hasn't been announced yet.

I guess I dont really understand this. We already have tons of campaign material for these settings ... bucket loads.

I can see a couple online conversion documents ... like how to handle Psionics for Eberron and Darksun, and maybe a dragonmarks article. Races of webpost for any new player races for each of the campaign settings. Maybe a small pdf of Enemies of FR with monster stats for the campaign?

The only way I see it being remotely useful is if it was like the Darksun 4e book that was more a bestiary then a campaign book.

But, full on campaign book? What will it have that we dont already have story wise? It will just be reprinting (rewording) past work. I dont need an advancement on the timeline ... or a new map.

 

[sunshadow21]

Personally I would like to see is a basic gazzatteer for each world/IP. Provide a basic map and history of the world, and do the same for the key regions. If they wanted to make it fancy, provide maps and histories from different eras. This would be useful for players, DMs, and people looking for inspiration to build their own world, regardless of the system they use, and fairly easy to make.They could include a few special mechanics for those worlds that require them, like dragonmarks in Eberron, but ultimately, mechanics should be a very small part of these books. Also, this setup could complement pre-existing material by providing a single in print product that highlights the key points of geography and history while providing references to existing product for further details. They could later do a full campaign book if the demand was high enough, but a basic gazzatteer would be a be a solid product that provides concise and up to date info on the world, would not invalidate and could support existing material, and wouldn't require a large development team to do.