D&D (2024) What Should A New Core Setting Look Like?

[Tonguez]

Also DnD is lacking a real Chivalric Romance (Knights & Castles) setting, although Pendragon may have thoroughly cornered that niche.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My read is that the Radiant Citadel is supposed to have conflict within it in addition to without. It is a faux-utopia; a bundle of hope that is also slightly rotting. There is something eldritch about the ancestor spirits that run it and imo that is intentional.

Interesting. That sounds like a valid read, but I'd need to read it in more detail to see if I agreed. It certainly doesn't have the super-good vibes that WotC advertised it as having.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Also DnD is lacking a real Chivalric Romance (Knights & Castles) setting, although Pendragon may have thoroughly cornered that niche.

I don't think Pendragon has - I think Pendragon is doing something different and more true to Arthurian myth.

I think D&D could absolutely use and have used a really chivalric setting, one that's completely ahistorical and not strictly tied to Arthurian myth, but obviously heavily inspired by it, in the way that Odyssey of the Dragonlords is inspired by Greek Myth, but not really beholden to it, and interested in doing other things as well. Dragonlance isn't even close. I think you'd want something that centers sort of chivalric heroism in the way Eberron centers pulp action.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

WotC doesn't need Pendragon when they have created Eldraine.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Radiant Citadel gets such an unfairly bad rep. There is a lot of conflict in Radiant Citadel, and that's something I think a lot of people have trouble groking due to the marketing the project had. But the conflict is intense, and the adventures themselves often present things like totalitarian celestial governments abusing their powers, incredibly creepy hauntings that terrorize entire realms, and straight up arcano-natural disasters threatening civilizations, and so on.

Yeah the book was great, but the marketing was terrible.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

WotC doesn't need Pendragon when they have created Eldraine.

Or the Moonshae Isles of FR. Or Birthright.

 

[CreamCloud0]

While it’s important to ask what a new setting will provide that we haven’t had before I think it’s equally important for an impactful setting to consider what should be taken away, kitchen sink settings, while fun in the moment hardly tend to leave a lasting impression on their own merits.

Yes, I know people don’t like having their options taken away, but if you really want to create something with a strong distinctive flavour then you’re going to have to accept at the same time that you won’t be able to make something that will appeal to everyone’s tastes.

 

[Reynard]

While it’s important to ask what a new setting will provide that we haven’t had before I think it’s equally important for an impactful setting to consider what should be taken away, kitchen sink settings, while fun in the moment hardly tend to leave a lasting impression on their own merits.

Yes, I know people don’t like having their options taken away, but if you really want to create something with a strong distinctive flavour then you’re going to have to accept at the same time that you won’t be able to make something that will appeal to everyone’s tastes.

I am hoping that if they do use Greyhawk for the example setting in the DMG (which i neither want them to or think they should, to be clear, but lots of folks here think they should) I hope that they talk about limiting options to define the flavor of that setting.

 

[Stormonu]

I am hoping that if they do use Greyhawk for the example setting in the DMG (which i neither want them to or think they should, to be clear, but lots of folks here think they should) I hope that they talk about limiting options to define the flavor of that setting.

There may be a throwaway sentence to that effect, but quite literally limiting stuff works against their sales model.

If they weren’t so sparse on their release line, I’d like to see them have a couple specialty campaigns that were tightly themed like Dark Sun or Jakandor.

 

[Reynard]

There may be a throwaway sentence to that effect, but quite literally limiting stuff works against their sales model.

If they weren’t so sparse on their release line, I’d like to see them have a couple specialty campaigns that were tightly themed like Dark Sun or Jakandor.

Yeah, i think the potential for anything like that is long gone.