D&D 5E Which three classic settings do you think WotC will publish in 2022-23? (Fixed)

[Lyxen]

I picked Planescape and Spelljammer with the idea that WotC will take what they did in 4e and make that canon for 5e, merging the two.

Heresy !

 

[DEFCON 1]

Planescape or Spelljammer... with the other one being the 'cameo' (either we get Sigil and there are Spelljammer ships flying in and out of it, or we get the journeys of Spelljammer with Sigil and the Outer Planes able to be reached via ship.)

Dragonlance... because they have authors who are invested in the setting at hand to work on it (and have been working on it via the new novels), the same way Eberron had Baker to spearhead things. I don't know if Dark Sun has any public-facing cheerleaders/authors for it the way Eberron has Baker and DL has Hickman/Weiss.

Then the third one in 2023 would be Mystara, since again... they had that dude who went through all the effort to write up the Mystara 5E update, thus making it very easy to bring that book in under the WotC umbrella just like they did with Mercer/Wildemount and PA/AcqInc. A new setting book they hadn't intended on, but figured why not go with it since it had an author/cheerleader and all the work was already done on it.

 

[Parmandur]

Just out of curiosity, how do you allocate a setting to a tier ?

Based on some WotC polling a few years back. Tier 1 was FR, Wberron, Ravenloft, Planescape, and Dark Sun. Tier 2 was Dragonlamce and Hreyhawk. Tier 3 they didn't bother to enumerate, but it was everything else.

 

[Parmandur]

Nope. It’s a popularity rating derived from a blog post made during the Next play text about the result of polling the playtest crowd about their most-used settings…8 years ago.

Wizards is probably going to surprise us in the next couple years.

No, that poll was well after the game was out, about 6 years ago. Forgotten Realma is probably still the most popular Setting, and in terms of judging what will excite the older crowd the results are probably still valid overall.

 

[The Glen]

Dragonlance. They are giving Weis and the Hickmans a lot of money to revamp the setting to not further support it.

Spelljammer. It's far more light hearted than Planescape and Wizards shies away from heavy content, Sigil's factions are a little deep for typical 5E fare.

Probably more Forgotten Realms. It's borged the characters and creatures from other settings as needed. Who needs Greyhawk when you can just relocate what you need to Faerun?

As much as I love Mystara, the best setting as confirmed by science, it's too problematic for 5e. WOTC shies away from real world analogies, especially non European ones. That's 1/3 of the Mystara nations from the start. The lack of several races for story reasons and class restrictions also goes against the design of 5E. Still, it would could be used as a retro style setting to appeal to the OSR crowd. The Mystara Player's Guide has like 13,000 downloads to its not unlikely WOTC hasn't seen it. The free part really helps that number though.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Dragonlance. They are giving Weis and the Hickmans a lot of money to revamp the setting to not further support it.

Spelljammer. It's far more light hearted than Planescape and Wizards shies away from heavy content, Sigil's factions are a little deep for typical 5E fare.

Probably more Forgotten Realms. It's borged the characters and creatures from other settings as needed. Who needs Greyhawk when you can just relocate what you need to Faerun?

As much as I love Mystara, the best setting as confirmed by science, it's too problematic for 5e. WOTC shies away from real world analogies, especially non European ones. That's 1/3 of the Mystara nations from the start. The lack of several races for story reasons and class restrictions also goes against the design of 5E. Still, it would could be used as a retro style setting to appeal to the OSR crowd. The Mystara Player's Guide has like 13,000 downloads to its not unlikely WOTC hasn't seen it. The free part really helps that number though.

WotC hasn't given a dime to Hickman and Weis for the new novels, their publisher is paying them and WotC.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, that poll was well after the game was out, about 6 years ago. Forgotten Realma is probably still the most popular Setting, and in terms of judging what will excite the older crowd the results are probably still valid overall.

Fair enough on the time, but I stand by the rest. 6 years is still quite long ago, and the game has brought in a huge number of new people since then. The demographics have shifted quite a lot since then.

Many players are young enough these days that they were little kids or preteens 6 years ago.

Wizards is considering the desires of a host of players that weren’t even playing when that survey was taken, and they seem to want to surprise the player base.

 

[Aldarc]

As much as I love Mystara, the best setting as confirmed by science, it's too problematic for 5e. WOTC shies away from real world analogies, especially non European ones. That's 1/3 of the Mystara nations from the start. The lack of several races for story reasons and class restrictions also goes against the design of 5E. Still, it would could be used as a retro style setting to appeal to the OSR crowd. The Mystara Player's Guide has like 13,000 downloads to its not unlikely WOTC hasn't seen it. The free part really helps that number though.

I have heard people make similar assertions before, but I'm not entirely sure why we should assume that all nations would or even should have to be covered for a Mystara setting anymore than needing Kara-Tur, Maztica, Zakhara, and such for a Forgotten Realms book.

SCAG didn't cover every nation of Forgotten Realms. Eberron: Rising from the Last War didn't cover every nation of Eberron with lavish detail. It glosses over Xen'drik and Sarlona.

Would it really be an issue if, for example, WotC only or primarily covered the area around Karameikos?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think Dark Sun and a bona fide Forgotten Realms core book are both fairly certain. I'd pick Spelljammer for the third, since there have been so many hints, but I'm still not convinced that hinting at Spelljammer isn't just a running joke for 5e.

Now, what I want to see is Dragonlance. And there is something to the idea that they're not just going to put out new Dragonlance fiction and not support it with a game product.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Fair enough on the time, but I stand by the rest. 6 years is still quite long ago, and the game has brought in a huge number of new people since then. The demographics have shifted quite a lot since then.

Many players are young enough these days that they were little kids or preteens 6 years ago.

Wizards is considering the desires of a host of players that weren’t even playing when that survey was taken, and they seem to want to surprise the player base.

If I remember right, one of the surveys, about a year or so ago if I remember correctly, had questions on settings. I would assume they would go off of those results. Unfortunately, unlike the previous one, we're not privy to the results...

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Your logic is sound, but I agree with @Urriak Uruk that Dragonlance is a strong spoiler contender.

of the Tier 2 settings the strongest spoilers are SJ and DL, but I don't think they will move onto T2 until T1, and I think the first T2 will be Greyhawk to tie into the anniversary, although DL might be the same year.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

The one thing that makes me think an FR CS is more likely now is the MtG tie-in sets. That gives them a lot of recyclable art assets, so they could do it somewhat on the cheap.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

If I remember right, one of the surveys, about a year or so ago if I remember correctly, had questions on settings. I would assume they would go off of those results. Unfortunately, unlike the previous one, we're not privy to the results...

I have no reason to expect major changes to popularity, if there were we'd have heard about it, although the one setting that has most likely gone up in popularity of classic settings is the Forgotten Realms, although maybe Ravenloft and Eberron too, as these are the classic settings, especially FR, that the new fans are actually familiar with, so that likely reinforces their T1 dominance.

One thing to also consider is alot of cool stuff that emerged from setting like Planescape, Nerath, and Spelljammer may now be more linked to the Forgotten Realms then their original settings. For example Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, Spelljammer, Nautiliods, Planes, etc... as the Forgotten Realms absorbed major elements of those settings and then eciplysed them, those setting laying dormant for decades in some cases while FR put their own sometimes deeper spin on then, and this is what alot of younger fans are familiar with.

 

[Scribe]

Planescape and Sigil are just too beautiful to waste. It's gotta happen.

 

[Charlaquin]

I still find it incredible that we never really got a serious one, it really was a brilliant setting to start a campaign.

There was a gazetteer planned, but then 4e’s financial performance was what it was and Essentials failed to turn it around.

 

[Lyxen]

There was a gazetteer planned, but then 4e’s financial performance was what it was and Essentials failed to turn it around.

Gazetteer format would have been great, especially for that setting !

 

[embee]

I think Dark Sun and a bona fide Forgotten Realms core book are both fairly certain. I'd pick Spelljammer for the third, since there have been so many hints, but I'm still not convinced that hinting at Spelljammer isn't just a running joke for 5e.

Now, what I want to see is Dragonlance. And there is something to the idea that they're not just going to put out new Dragonlance fiction and not support it with a game product.

"They" aren't putting out DL.

Weis & Hickman's still-unreleased books are being published by Del Rey Books, a subsidiary of Penguin. Of course, the release date of July 29th came and went two months ago and the first two books were purportedly finished at the beginning of the year.

 

[The Glen]

I have heard people make similar assertions before, but I'm not entirely sure why we should assume that all nations would or even should have to be covered for a Mystara setting anymore than needing Kara-Tur, Maztica, Zakhara, and such for a Forgotten Realms book.

SCAG didn't cover every nation of Forgotten Realms. Eberron: Rising from the Last War didn't cover every nation of Eberron with lavish detail. It glosses over Xen'drik and Sarlona.

Would it really be an issue if, for example, WotC only or primarily covered the area around Karameikos?

Mystara's main draw for a lot of people is the diversity of its cultures. Karameikos is Byzantium occupied Serbia. Classic setting but keeping up the adventures there might prove tricky in the long run.

Mystara is the exploration heavy setting, it kept adding new areas for players to settle, conquer and colonize. Cutting down the number of available nations hurts the overall theme.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

They don't do all of FR, just the traditional Faerun like they have in literally every other edition in 5e since FR was first released, except 5e where only the Swordcoast mattered.

And it's most likely the revisit that Ray mentioned so that means a classic setting that already got some kind of campaign setting book, but which was unsatisfactory enough to demand a new one.

Eh, I'll be honest, I find "traditional Faerun" beyond the Sword Coast unlikely, especially as how Ed Greenwood has been working with other creators to make books like the Border Kingdoms and the Zhentarim Keep book on the DMsGuild. The pattern with these new setting books has been to explore unique niches of D&D to push different themes and styles of play; I would say every book from Eberron onwards has been in that model. And Faerun is just "more traditional D&D." I don't think that's a bad thing (the primary game I DM is Forgotten Realms), but it doesn't match 5E's Setting design philosophy to publish the Faerun Setting Book.

Planescape, Dark Sun, and I believe Dragonlance do hit far more unique niches than Faerun does. Planescape/Dark Sun speak for themselves (you yourself think they're coming so I don't need to explain). But Dragonlance is more unique than Faerun due to it being a war story, akin to the War of the Ring; there are major forces on the move, and you the heroes need to save the day from the forces of evil taking over the world. A setting that is explicitly set in an epic conflict has not really been tackled in 5E, and is a better niche and more likely publish target than Faerun in my mind.

Additionally, the "setting revisit" that Ray mentioned was actually in 2020's "Future of D&D Panel." The revisit was not mentioned again this year. So I think whatever that was is actually shelved in development.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If I remember right, one of the surveys, about a year or so ago if I remember correctly, had questions on settings. I would assume they would go off of those results. Unfortunately, unlike the previous one, we're not privy to the results...

Yeah certainly, but I think it's a mistake to think that they're going to just publish things in order of established popularity.

For one thing, doing so means fewer guaranteed sales down the line, compared to taking some minor risks mixed in with established popular choices each year. Wizards is very much trying to focus long term and make sure that 2028 is DnD's best year ever, just like last year was, just like the year before was. Publishing everything that people are clamoring for the loudest as quickly as possible is not how you do that.

Second, we know they are down to take some risks with setting books, and that they are listening to more than just "what old settings are most used by current groups". They put out a Feywild book because they know people want to use the Fey more. If they decide that Nentir Vale or Mystara or Ghostwalk will serve some desire in the community that they keep hearing about, they aren't going to care where that setting sits on the heirarchy of most played existing settings, they're going to focus on how Nentir Vale or Mystara serve the desire to play in a world that is mostly figured out but has a ton of space to explore and to plop down published adventures without any real worry about how it fits, or a world that has a core to build off of to more easily create a homebrew setting that feels like core dnd without being beholden to a bunch of canon, or to have a world that evokes that old (very ahistorical) pop media idea of The Dark Ages as a time just after the light of Rome had winked out and left Europe in the midst of a terrible darkness. Or whatever.

They know that one thing they need to do is provide things that will make people say, "I didn't know I needed this until I saw it".

Remember, they want 5e to be evergreen. They want to avoid ever making a full new edition. They have a strong history at this point of not pushing out everything people are asking for as quickly as possible, but staggering it out and mixing in new things that they think the community will like or that new playerss see as a lack in DnD, as well.