D&D 5E (2024) When are we getting announcements for 2026 books?

[DavyGreenwind]

I agree, I don't care if they reboot/retcon Dark Sun. I want something that speaks to our times, not weighed down by 90s baggage

(Of course, new settings would be nice, but hey, what're you gonna do)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Boy, I hope not. Smashing oligarchs who are destroying the planet for their selfish gain would be a great look for D&D in 2026.

It would be but on a "Corporate-ness/Rank Cowardice" level from 1-10, where "No effs given" is 1, and 10 is "We will never knowingly offend, disturb or cause any kind of thought to occur via content/art", I would say WotC overall is at a 7 (up a ton from say, 20 years ago) and D&D specifically from WotC has been even higher at like an 8 in recent years.

All IMHO, YMMV, disclaimer disclaimer of course.

So I would be genuinely astonished if the new and somehow more corporate-sounding way D&D is organised and managed were bolder and braver than WotC had been lately. Happily astonished for sure.

I really do expect that if we get Dark Sun in 2026 it will be absolutely not just "neutered" but basically genericized and actively un-DS-ish even on basic themes. People will defend it no matter how bad it is, let's be real. It could have insulting things written about every other version of Dark Sun as the entire foreword and say "You must read the entire book in light of how trash previous versions were" and people would be like "Well it's just the foreword, it's not really relevant! You can't judge the entire book based on that!"! And every change, no matter how awful, someone will be trying find precedent for and and defending or say "Well I prefer it this way! Not every book is for nostalgia-heads!" or the like. I hope I'm wrong. I suspect they just won't do Dark Sun even if they have it written, and instead we'll have a suspiciously long gap and then just a generic psionics-themed splatbook in like, the back half of 2026 or early 2027.

(I can't think of any company that is a 1 or 10 note, maybe the scale is too wide!)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I want something that speaks to our times, not weighed down by 90s baggage

What exactly, do you mean?

Dark Sun (1991) is far more relevant now than it ever was in 1991. Literally every single major theme and idea in it, is more relevant now than it was in 1991!

So the idea that it is "weighed down by 1990s baggage" is utterly untenable, I would suggest, unless you're talking purely about like minor and lose-able things like Mul-breeding or obsession with slavery.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

(I can't think of any company that is a 1 or 10 note, maybe the scale is too wide!)

I think Kids on Brooms sits comfortably* at a 10 on your scale and content from Lamentations of the Flame Princess where they're intentionally and proudly platforming widely cancelled creators is probably at a 1 or a 2.

* And Kids on Brooms apologizes for being so comfortable.

 

[ECMO3]

unless you're talking purely about like minor and lose-able things like Mul-breeding or obsession with slavery.

I would not say these are minor things in Dark Sun, slavery especially is central to the setting.

Also the number one theme overall in Dark Sun is that loss of religion causes regression and devolution of society into something without morals or ethics and is followed with extreme environmental destruction. I don't think that theme is especially relevant now. I actually think you could argue it is less relevant now than it was 30 years ago.

 

[ECMO3]

Boy, I hope not. Smashing oligarchs who are destroying the planet for their selfish gain would be a great look for D&D in 2026.

Isn't the Hasbro board and leaders of WOTC some of these very oligarchs?

I don't think they are going to do this, but if they did it would be a heck of an example of greenwashing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Isn't the Hasbro board and leaders of WOTC some of these very oligarchs?

I don't think the Hasbro board of directors have that level of interest or involvement in what's in a D&D setting book.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also the number one theme overall in Dark Sun is that loss of religion causes regression and devolution of society into something without morals or ethics and is followed with extreme environmental destruction.

That's not behind "hey, knock it off with all the arcane magic; you're making this planet uninhabitable?"

I have never heard "you need to be religious or you end up with an amoral hellhole" was a central concept of the setting. That feels like something an individual table may have pushed as the setting's central thesis, based on their own upbringing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Also the number one theme overall in Dark Sun is that loss of religion causes regression and devolution of society

I mean, absolutely that is not the #1 theme in Dark Sun. It's a largely irrelevant part of the backstory.

That's like saying the #1 theme in the Forgotten Realms is the Wall of Souls or something.

I don't think that theme is especially relevant now. I actually think you could argue it is less relevant now than it was 30 years ago.

I can't comment on this properly without commenting on current US politics (rather than neutral facts about the world) but I will say I don't think it was at all relevant in 1991 and I think this concept is slightly more relevant right now but not of top relevance. Which is fine, because it's like a distant part of the past that just is there to explain why the gods aren't present to sort things our or save everyone. It's not even a theme! It's backstory. If your table made it super-relevant and focused, cool, but it not even the #10 most important theme in Dark Sun, let alone #1.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm pretty much with @Ruin Explorer on this one.

If we see Dark Sun it'll be vaguely reminiscent of the original setting with all culpability erased. They'll try to write it from the "Rewritten history" perspective of the Sorcerer Kings where there was "Something Bad" which happened to the world that made it a desert and everything else is Bootstraps.

Just like 4e.

Hell. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw people literally bootstrapping it as a laudable and plausible goal. Where adventurers in the setting are specifically unique special snowflakes who got off their butts, spit in their hands, and yanked themselves up by their bootstraps in a world full of people who simply accept the bad lot they get.

It'll be the most tone-deaf release possible in the current political climate, striving to be blithely inoffensive to the shareholders by smoothing over anything that would reflect poorly upon them.

We've already seen them do it once. Why would we expect them to change anything at all?