D&D 5E Which Classic Settings do you think WotC will publish?

[Parmandur]

I was refering to traditional Greyhawk.

I'm referring to 5E Greyhawk, which has Tieflings and Dragonborn.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

They've done it before in past editions. and they can afford to give it a larger page count now with the larger audience. The key is to focus on the basic practical information for the current era and a good solid map (seriously this hugely important a good map of Faerun conveys so much information).

I know they can, I just think they won't. They seem happy with releasing gazetteers every year with each edition, and considering how little they've mentioned the SCAG (which is technically their first setting book) it seems they've decided that the gazetteer approach is the one they'll stick with. Their recent setting books all seem tailored to tackle a specific niche of fantasy that isn't explored in 5E, and Forgotten Realms reflects "the basic D&D experience" so much I highly doubt they'll ever give it another setting book in 5E.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I think a revamped Tal'Dorei makes a lot of sense, although Critical Role, which is publishing more of their own stuff now, doesn't need to go through Green Ronin or WotC to get it done.

Honestly, I think Critical Role probably won't do Tal'Dorei for exactly this reason; it's already available for purchase, so why remake it? I think they'd rather work on different stuff.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Honestly, I think Critical Role probably won't do Tal'Dorei for exactly this reason; it's already available for purchase, so why remake it? I think they'd rather work on different stuff.

We'll see. They're extremely savvy business people. I expect there's a limit on how many copies or how many years Green Ronin can keep it in print. Then they can Kickstart a second edition and break the Internet again and contract out most of the work of updating it to hired guns.

 

[Parmandur]

We'll see. They're extremely savvy business people. I expect there's a limit on how many copies or how many years Green Ronin can keep it in print. Then they can Kickstart a second edition and break the Internet again and contract out most of the work of updating it to hired guns.

It's already out of print.

 

[Parmandur]

I know they can, I just think they won't. They seem happy with releasing gazetteers every year with each edition, and considering how little they've mentioned the SCAG (which is technically their first setting book) it seems they've decided that the gazetteer approach is the one they'll stick with. Their recent setting books all seem tailored to tackle a specific niche of fantasy that isn't explored in 5E, and Forgotten Realms reflects "the basic D&D experience" so much I highly doubt they'll ever give it another setting book in 5E.

I mean, they don't need to mention SCAG, they just keep selling it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Stormonu]

Cleaning up the problematic elements of Dragonlance would make the freak-out over Ravenloft being updated to 2021 standards look mild in comparison. And I remain unconvinced there's a big modern audience for Dragonlance. Today's fantasy fans are reading Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and a thousand other things. Dragonlance isn't even in the conversation nowadays. Whom WotC would be chasing with this product, I have no idea. That said, both TSR and WotC (via a license) seem determined that there is an audience out there.

I think Dragonlance could be sold as the "young person's"/PG-13 Game of Thrones. If there were a reboot, I strongly suspect we'd see even younger Heroes of the Lance, in the 19-20's range - at the time DL originally came out, the characters were younger-looking than most other adventurer depictions, especially Raistlin, who wasn't some 50-year-old or so bearded wizard.

 

[fearsomepirate]

The same crowd that "discovers" that Rage Against the Machine is political every year or so would absolutely lose their minds when a 2021/2022 Dark Sun setting leans into the climate change and social justice themes that were there since the beginning and would almost certainly be doubled down upon now.

Which, of course, would also make it sell gangbusters to Gen Z gamers.

If you really want to go gangbusters with young people, bringing back Playboy tracings will do more for you than seeking the coveted Middle School Principal Seal of Approval. Bowlderization has more to do with corporate risk aversion than consumer demand.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I was refering to traditional Greyhawk.

Traditional Greyhawk had whatever races where in the core rules.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Traditional Greyhawk had whatever races where in the core rules.

Which at the time of traditional Greyhawk didn't include Dragonborn or Tieflings.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, they don't need to mention SCAG, they just keep selling it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Its broke, it needs to be fixed.

 

[Sithlord]

I’m so old I didn’t realize dark sun, planescape, birthright and some of those were classic settings. Lol. They are still new to me.

okay. I think jakandor is awesome beyond belief but will never see the light of day again. If it does they need to just update the mechanics and copy and paste the setting material.

ghostwalk was a complete waste and let down for me. Sorry I love the writing team, but it just didn’t work for me. Forgive me monte cook and Sean Reynolds in general I love your work.

i doubt we will ever see blackmoor again.

council of wyrms (I think) is too niche and narrow for mass appeal.

I would love to see birthright again. And I would love to see mystara again. Those would both be great settings for kingdom management and rules for mass warfare. God I wish that would come back to d&d. (I love you pathfinder for kingmaker and ultimate kingdom sourcebook)

So I voted as my fantasy list: mystara, dark sun, birthright, and planescape. And most likely dark sun and then planescape.

 

[Sithlord]

I don't think they'll ever publish a Greyhawk setting book again. Another Faerun book should happen sooner or later. Planescape is kind of legendary and has its own ethos, so that's my vote for what we'll see eventually.

I agree with you, but I would kill for a book detailing the suel and baklunish, especially their pantheons. What a masterpiece.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Which at the time of traditional Greyhawk didn't include Dragonborn or Tieflings.

Did traditional Grewhawk have a "time"? It it only possible to play traditional Greyhawk with 1st edition rules?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I’m so old I didn’t realize dark sun, planescape, birthright and some of those were classic settings. Lol. They are still new to me.

True Fact: Anything that is so-called "D&D" released after 1984 isn't canon.

Kids today and those darn 2e players! That's how they do, you know. Just drive around listening to the raps and shooting all the jobs.

 

[Parmandur]

Its broke, it needs to be fixed.

I'm talking about from WotC point of view. If it sells, it is by definition not broken.

 

[Parmandur]

If you really want to go gangbusters with young people, bringing back Playboy tracings will do more for you than seeking the coveted Middle School Principal Seal of Approval. Bowlderization has more to do with corporate risk aversion than consumer demand.

That's not actually true. Contrary to the old axiom, sex doesn't sell. That's why corporations don't do that sort of thing as much as they used to, better knowledge of what works in actual marketing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The same crowd that "discovers" that Rage Against the Machine is political every year or so would absolutely lose their minds when a 2021/2022 Dark Sun setting leans into the climate change and social justice themes that were there since the beginning and would almost certainly be doubled down upon now.

Which, of course, would also make it sell gangbusters to Gen Z gamers.

Yeah exactly lol. Some things only become more relevant, sad as that might be for the state of the world.

Cleaning up the problematic elements of Dragonlance would make the freak-out over Ravenloft being updated to 2021 standards look mild in comparison. And I remain unconvinced there's a big modern audience for Dragonlance. Today's fantasy fans are reading Game of Thrones, Harry Potter and a thousand other things. Dragonlance isn't even in the conversation nowadays. Whom WotC would be chasing with this product, I have no idea. That said, both TSR and WotC (via a license) seem determined that there is an audience out there.

I tend to agree re: freak-out, but maybe it wouldn't matter? Just don't think there's much of a modern audience either.

Having Panzar tanks and Lewis Carroll elements seems like a good argument for the distinctiveness of Greyhawk to me.

But... is anyone into that?

Especially people under 40. "LOL SO RANDOM!!!" is very... 2004. And sort of meme-y stuff where random elements are being brought in is also redolent of a dead or dying nerd culture, again which was around in the early '00s but is sort of moving on now (literally the same people who were part of that, when they create things now, it doesn't have that stuff in it).

I think realistically the only way GH or DL comes back with with reboots/rewrites which piss off the original fanbase but essentially set it aside as a percentage of a percentage. Like, I'm in the 40+ model, would a GH or DL reboot which drastically reworked things piss me off? Nah. Most people here? Nah. A percentage? Oh they'd be hella mad. But if we're talking say, 30% of the what, 12% of D&D players who are over 40, that's like 4% of the playerbase. Who cares? Because some of the old-skool fans would also welcome change, or just not care.

DL I just don't think there's a compelling angle. "Epic Fantasy" doesn't seem enough to provide rules people are actually going to want to pay money for. And the lineages/races and archetypes are unlikely to be broadly compelling. We'd be looking at what, Solamnic Knights, maybe Moon Wizards (or whatever they're called), maybe a "Wild Magic" Artificer called a Tinker or something. And race/lineage-wise we have - racist-trope halflings (the whole "doesn't believe in property so just takes stuff" was a racist trope applied particularly to the Roma and other nomadic groups, including some Native American groups), Irda - who seem hard to do w/o being OP, and maybe some Dragonborn sub-races. None of which really fit the "epic fantasy" theme (except maybe Solamnic Knights - who they'd probably give DIRE mechanics to lol - esp. as Fighter mechanics peaked at Battlemaster). Fellowship mechanics seem unlikely that they'd move books. And the setting itself is so goddamn vanilla that even a reboot that de-white-ifies it would leave it as utterly vanilla.

GH the only way I can see it not crashing and burning is if they went, as @Whizbang Dustyboots has suggested, for a very gritty/grim/metal take on it, and had a lot of "GIT GUD" sort of mechanics making for an official WotC-endorsed(C)(TM)(R) take on OSR-type gaming, with the rules aimed very much at that, and strong suggestions parties should be all alignments, and so on. Even then it's lacking obvious material for lineages/archetypes, especially thematically-appropriate ones. But I think it's much more likely some aging denizen of WotC HQ will authorize a very nostalgic take on the GH of his childhood for yet another irrational shot at making GH happen, with the gonzo/gritty stuff actually toned down, not turned up, as it would need to be.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's not actually true. Contrary to the old axiom, sex doesn't sell. That's why corporations don't do that sort of thing as much as they used to, better knowledge of what works in actual marketing.

It's not quite as simple as that. I mean, it's closer to what you're saying than what he's saying, but like, fake girlfriends and imaginary boyfriends absolutely do still do really, really well (the dreaded "waifu" among them). RE:Village got an insane amount of extra publicity because of thirsty people were for the 9'6" bad lady with a Christina Hendricks-esque bod and clothes which whilst appropriate, certainly accentuated it. Lot of people were really into that and the fact that they were drove countless articles about the game, which helped it to be as huge as it was (and some people definitely bought it because of her). They don't have to be nearly-naked and have perfect figures - in fact today, that can make them less effective, marketing-wise, more attainable standards can often work better.

I'm not sure there's any real angle for a tabletop RPG to do this stuff (unless perhaps they had some "default characters" in multiple books who were characterized enough to engage with this), but it's definitely still a think. It's not so much "sex sells" in some brute-force way (as the old approach was) as thirst and the desire for romance or an imaginary partner with certain characteristics sells.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That's not actually true. Contrary to the old axiom, sex doesn't sell. That's why corporations don't do that sort of thing as much as they used to, better knowledge of what works in actual marketing.

....I'm not sure that I would agree with that. Look, I certainly think that we have (thankfully) moved away from the approach that anything can be sold if you just put a scantily-clad woman next to it.

...but .... sex will always sell. It's a basic drive. Corporations are smarter about it now- they make sure that they don't turn off key demographics (like women, because women are consumers as well).

But look around you- look at the television and movies. Do they have a lot of unattractive people? Does the CW have a roster of people of superheroes and supporting characters that are remarkably unattractive? Or do they just have a young and diverse cast of attractive actors?

Heck- look at the internet. I mean... it was practically built on three things: Cats. Arguing. And, well, that other thing.