D&D 5E What player options do you think classic settings can bring to 5e?

[Lycurgon]

There has been a lot of speculation about what classic settings might make a comeback soon or later for 5e.

It is a fact that player content sells books. So any setting that gets brought back will likely have to have some player options to sell well. So I thought a more focused discuss on just what settings have to offer in this regard.

So what do you think the player options might be for any particular setting you want to see or think is likely to be seen again in 5e? Most Setting books we have seen so far have at least 2 subclasses and some race options. Some have other options like Dark Gifts or Supernatural Gifts.

Dark Sun has a fair number of obvious additions of races and potential subclasses. But what about other classic settings? What player options could Greyhawk bring to a 5e table? If you were in charge of producing Dragonlance what subclasses and races would you add? How about Spelljammer? What can you imagine the player content would be for any setting you wish to speculate about?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

New PC races, of course, and if it is possible, some new base class. I have said some times Kara-Tur would be perfect for the "martial adepts", the classes about (ki) martial maneuvers (Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords), powers in the middle between at-will and once-encounter, because they are perfect for a wuxia/xuanhuan(Chinese fantasy) or manganime setting.

Red Steel/Savage Coast could give rules about mutations and superpowers.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Dark Sun could (but probably won't) introduce the "no, you can't just play whatever you want; learn how to make characters instead of spreadsheets" option to 5e. However, it's more likely that will will introduce additional race options and psionics, neither of which will show any real difference from options that already exist in the game. It could also introduce the idea of magic-at-a-cost (defliling) that most DMs and groups would just ignore anyway. Dark Sun could also provide rules for high-level play and interesting options for high-level characters (becoming a dragon king, becoming an avangion, becoming an elemental, continuing to hit things with sticks, just like, harder, etc.).

Dark Sun could ALSO introduce serious mass combat rules to the game, based on the setting's origin, but I think WotC is also unlikely to include such rules in that specific setting. After all, that part of the concept was dropped pretty quickly back in 2e. I agree with not including those in Dark Sun, because they make much more sense in

Birthright (as unlikely as I think it is we will see it) is a much better fit for mass combat rules, domain and territory management rules, and real/revised item construction rules. IIRC that's more of Birthright's hook, though the setting's focus on, well, power gained by right of parentage and not by experience and development might not sit well these days. So another decent place for mass combat rules might be

Dragonlance (which seems to have its portfolio developing as we speak and has already had some of its unique offerings released as playtest material, both during 5e's NEXT phase and in Unearthed Arcana) could introduce rules for mass battles and international politics as well as more specialized wizard groups and limited spell lists as well as showing how limitations can work to develop a setting's feel (no orcs! no hobbits!). Of course, Dragonlance has always been built around the strong presence and understanding of cosmic Good, Evil, Neutrality, as well as sacrifice and redemption - concepts that seem very out of vogue these days - so maybe a better slot still would be

Greyhawk, which WotC seems to have largely abandoned post 3e, which also has a long history of massive land wars and would be a great place for mass combat rules In many ways, Greyhawk would be a really easy setting for WotC to produce because there's very little that varies at all from the basics of 5e - not even to the extent that Dragonlance swaps out hobbit-style halflings for the übersocialist kender.

Mystara could also be a great fit for the mass combat rules, maybe in the context of trying to repel an invading army, and has enough quirky races and magic specialties to allow some interesting options there, too, without upsetting the apple cart to the same extent as Dragonlance. Mystara provides enough terrain and conceptual variance to allow more or less anything very easily (basically every type of terrain you could imagine is found in its different developed countries, plus you get the Jules Verne style adventuring in the Hollow World) and also has a canon in-world basis for very high-level play and divine ascension. Mystara is also such a smorgasbord of cultural influences that it could provide WotC a great opportunity to employ designers actually belonging to the different cultures it represents.

There are other settings, of course, but I think they a) could be covered by the options included in the ones above or b) exist mainly as a way to move between different setting instead of being discrete in and of themselves. So a book on ways to get from world to world either through awesome/absurd ships (Spelljammer) or unnecessary angst and drama (Planescape) seems to me less a setting book than a concept book, though either could provide or integrate interesting character subclasses and ancestry options as well.

 

[Lycurgon]

New PC races, of course, and if it is possible, some new base class. I have said some times Kara-Tur would be perfect for the "martial adepts", the classes about (ki) martial maneuvers (Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords), powers in the middle between at-will and once-encounter, because they are perfect for a wuxia/xuanhuan(Chinese fantasy) or manganime setting.

Red Steel/Savage Coast could give rules about mutations and superpowers.

An updated "Oriental Adventures" would certainly have a lot of new options I would think. I would love a new version but it would need a lot of changes to make it acceptable these days. Starting with a name change. I don't have high hopes that WotC will touch it at this point.

 

[CleverNickName]

I would love to see the mass combat rules, siege rules, and strongholds make a comeback from Mystara and Greyhawk. I pretty much have everything else that I need.

 

[Mercurius]

Dragonlance has the Irda, which I've always liked. Plus, would love to see how they adapt the moon wizards and I've always liked their pantheon.

Dark Sun - for me the coolest part is the transformation to dragon or agathion. I'd like to see them really differentiate defilers and preservers, maybe even as new classes or, at least, highly modified wizards or sorcerers.

 

[Li Shenron]

Planescape has the most potential for player characters fluff and crunch.

The belief/factions system would be a shades-of-grey alternative to classic alignment, which is already largely de-emphasized in 5e but apparently many still think it matters and is too black-and-white.

In theory, they could make subclasses based on factions but considering the design costs, they would need to leave many factions out. They are more likely to make backgrounds for factions, which IMHO would be largely underwhelming but it would be cheap to design and players would still buy into them. If it were me, I would not design any crunch for factions at all, perhaps some new (small) system of allegiances but nothing more.

Then obvious Planescape has hundreds of possible folks, most of which could be turned into playable races.

Toss in a small bunch of planar-themed feats and spells (the design room is theoretically huge, so they can fit as many pages as they want).

Planar locations with special rules and as many magic items you still have room for, and you have the DM section of the book, together with the general setting chapters.