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

[Stormonu]

I think we can expect Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Spelljammer. Everything else is cake.

However, I'd really love to see Greyhawk and Mystara have something done for them the most. The other campaign worlds, I wouldn't say no to either, but don't expect we'll see them. I think the most troublesome would be Al-Qadim, Maztica, Horde and Kara-Tur as they attempted to hew too closely to real-world locations, if not the "fantasy earth" historical settings they put out in the green books back in 2E.

 

[teitan]

With Ravenloft we are actually down to 3 settings of the four mentioned. I said Greyhawk, a dedicated FR Faerun setting book and Planescape. The rest are very niche. Spelljammer could be a section in a supplment and part of a monster book. Dark Sun is, sad to say, problematic and seems to have been dropped as it was a Mearls pet project. Dragonlance might come depending on reception to the new novels and more than likely will come out after the trilogy is finished. Mystara very slim it will ever happen. The rest? not a chance. Well except Nentir Vale but it's not one of the four and has a LOT of overlap with Greyhawk because they appropriated a lot of classic Greyhawk materials for it.

 

[Parmandur]

This is really important; I'm fully convinced that the WotC team considers "all of Forgotten Realms" way to big to contain one setting book. I also don't think they're keen on pumping multiple setting books for one setting. But they do like pumping out "mini-settings" tied to their annual adventure books, and I expect they'll continue to release those.

They definitely have space in Faerûn to keep going with that strategy basically indefinitely.

 

[teitan]

This is really important; I'm fully convinced that the WotC team considers "all of Forgotten Realms" way to big to contain one setting book. I also don't think they're keen on pumping multiple setting books for one setting. But they do like pumping out "mini-settings" tied to their annual adventure books, and I expect they'll continue to release those.

But it has been done in way less pages than Eberron or Ravenloft (will have)and other settings in 5e. The OGB and Gold Box sets were about 80 pages less. So I doubt your rumination here. I think they focused on the Sword Coast as part of their strategy at the time and now that 5e has shifted to giving settings full treatments I think that we could very much see that change. Early on 5e had a very slow product schedule and emphasis on seasonal stories rather than settings and lasering in on the Sword Coast, where most of the classic video games were set as well as large swathes of the novels, made sense. Ravnica was the first full setting and it was 4 years after 5e was released.

 

[Parmandur]

But it has been done in way less pages than Eberron or Ravenloft (will have)and other settings in 5e. The OGB and Gold Box sets were about 80 pages less. So I doubt your rumination here. I think they focused on the Sword Coast as part of their strategy at the time and now that 5e has shifted to giving settings full treatments I think that we could very much see that change. Early on 5e had a very slow product schedule and emphasis on seasonal stories rather than settings and lasering in on the Sword Coast, where most of the classic video games were set as well as large swathes of the novels, made sense. Ravnica was the first full setting and it was 4 years after 5e was released.

Based on page count dedicated to Setting material in the Adventure books, none of the other Settings hold a candle to the Forgotten Realms in 5E, and that seems likely to continue through at least the timeframe of the OP. The other Settings are one and done affairs (except Ravenloft, sort of), the Forgotten Realms is getting big lore dumps small region by small region still.

 

[teitan]

Based on page count dedicated to Setting material in the Adventure books, none of the other Settings hold a candle to the Forgotten Realms in 5E, and that seems likely to continue through at least the timeframe of the OP. The other Settings are one and done affairs (except Ravenloft, sort of), the Forgotten Realms is getting big lore dumps small region by small region still.

You mean Chult and the Sword Coast, that's what's gotten lore dumps. We've discussed this before. We can't complain that FR is more than the Sword Coast and then use... Sword Coast adventure materials to complain that FR has more material. 1 it requires people to buy adventures. It's not cost effective to ask people to buy a 50 dollar books for 40 pages of material. Sure the maps and stuff are reusable but I can buy map packs off Paizo or Amazon for less and get more and they are more usable with my tokens or miniatures requiring less prep time on my end. Plus WOTC has Dungeon Tiles and Paizo has flip tiles so that's not a good selling point. Plus that's like comparing Shadowdale from the Avatar trilogy modules to the 3.5 Eberron book... not the same product or goal. One is a location to explore in an adventure, the other is an overview of a world that I can pick up and read to see what's available and the various flavors etc available in the setting. FR has the benefit that it is well known and has a lot of fans who might want more than... Waterdeep. So we can't argue out one side of our mouths for one thing and then the other side arguing for another. Personally I don't care about an FR book but I have an FRCS to use. I just find the arguments against it weak. I also find the constant posts from people who make these arguments against it pretty tiresome. For a while, when they were releasing the MTG pdfs for use with D&D people were essentially saying the same thing and now here I am running a Theros campaign that is balls to the wall crazy... ya know, a book that wouldn't happen 3 years ago when those pdfs first started coming out.

 

[Parmandur]

You mean Chult and the Sword Coast, that's what's gotten lore dumps. We've discussed this before. We can't complain that FR is more than the Sword Coast and then use... Sword Coast adventure materials to complain that FR has more material. 1 it requires people to buy adventures. It's not cost effective to ask people to buy a 50 dollar books for 40 pages of material. Sure the maps and stuff are reusable but I can buy map packs off Paizo or Amazon for less and get more and they are more usable with my tokens or miniatures requiring less prep time on my end. Plus WOTC has Dungeon Tiles and Paizo has flip tiles so that's not a good selling point. Plus that's like comparing Shadowdale from the Avatar trilogy modules to the 3.5 Eberron book... not the same product or goal. One is a location to explore in an adventure, the other is an overview of a world that I can pick up and read to see what's available and the various flavors etc available in the setting. FR has the benefit that it is well known and has a lot of fans who might want more than... Waterdeep. So we can't argue out one side of our mouths for one thing and then the other side arguing for another. Personally I don't care about an FR book but I have an FRCS to use. I just find the arguments against it weak. I also find the constant posts from people who make these arguments against it pretty tiresome. For a while, when they were releasing the MTG pdfs for use with D&D people were essentially saying the same thing and now here I am running a Theros campaign that is balls to the wall crazy... ya know, a book that wouldn't happen 3 years ago when those pdfs first started coming out.

They have only done Chult and the Sword Coast so far. They could keep this up for years, slowly chipping away at each region of Faerûn one Adventure at a time. In terms of being cost effective, if someone is only interested in one are, say Icewind Dale, the Time of the Frost Maiden is good bang for the buck. SCAG, again, is still a big seller after six years. It might not be what everyone might want, but it fills the commercial role for WotC of a FR Setting book. It sells well, and they show no signs of stopping their strategy: there is no "argument" to be weak or strong, merely observation and listening to what WotC has said.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't like the idea that there will only be four in the time period chosen. Why would they do 3 through 2022 and then only 1 in the next two years?

There will be new (to D&D) settings as well as classic settings. Probably about half and half, so one classic and one new per year would be a reasonable guess.

It's worth noting that the new Ravenloft is more of a "how to do D&D horror" book, rather than a gazetteer. I suspect that is the direction we will see for all future setting books. With a focus on rules and guidelines rather than lore. Which means they probably won't do anything that is generic-fantasy-core-rules (sorry Greyhawk). Not that those will be ignored, but they will be detailed through adventures rather than lore books.

 

[humble minion]

I think Planescape is the most likely next cab off the rank. Given the 5e model with a low number of release per year, WotC seems to want to make pretty much all releases (except the annual adventure...) applicable to as many groups as possible. So the Ravenloft book is also the more generic 'running a horror adventure' resource, and it's fairly obvious that a Planescape book could be a 'running a planar adventure' resource for games set in many different settings. Spelljammer is a bit in the same boat (hah, boat, geddit?) but really is the nichiest thing that ever niched nichily down Niche Street.

Much as I love Dark Sun, I don't think it's quite got that amount of crossover appeal or general utility. Though having said that, WotCs repeated attempts at a psion class/subclass/whatever in UA argues fairly strongly that they certainly intend to do Dark Sun at some point.

 

[Stormonu]

At the very least, I expect to see the Dalelands be the setting for the next major FR adventure book, with a mini-gazetteer along the lines that was given to Ten Towns for Rime.

There's been quite a bit of Spelljammer and Planescape bits thrown in the past few adventures and rulebooks, and suspect they've been "test the waters" for a bigger project involving the two. Whether they intend to combine the two or keep them seperate is anybody's guess. Just don't expect to see Scro.