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

[Lyxen]

Just for fun, if WOTC is coincidentally following the current result of the poll up until 2024, we would get:

2022:
Planescape campaign (100 votes, first place)
Dark Sun campaign (82 votes, second place)
Spelljammer cameo (49 votes, fourth place)

2023:
Dragonlance (74 votes, third place)

Exactly my preferences !

 

[Yaarel]

To put it mildly. Once the Tier one and most popular Tier 2 settings are done and few more MtG settings and some new settings are done you MIGHT see Mystara again because there was a time when it could be called a Tier 1 setting (if they categorized settings like that back then) rivaling FR at the time for novels, but it would have to be massively reworked and update, not only be colonism issues, reason, but because it's cosmology was radically different. But that is like 6-10 years from now most likely, if at all.

So yeah snowballs chance right now.

Blackmoor as a classical D&D setting, relating to the home games of Arneson, one of the inventors of D&D, can come sooner.

Arneson seems perfect for a 2024 D&D anniversary.

Mystara evolved as a kind of "world of Blackmoor", around the regional setting of Blackmoor.



5e designers could focus on the region, and just lightly touch on the surrounding world while ironing out any potential cultural sensitivity issues.



With the recent TSR zombie risings, it seems useful to avoid Greyhawk specifically, for the near future.



But Blackmoor is equally "proto" D&D, and a great way to revisit the roots of D&D for the great anniversary of D&D.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Blackmoor as a classical D&D setting, relating to the home games of Arneson, one of the inventors of D&D, can come sooner.

Arneson seems perfect for a 2024 D&D anniversary.

Mystara evolved as a kind of "world of Blackmoor", around the regional setting of Blackmoor.



5e designers could focus on the region, and just lightly touch on the surrounding world while ironing out any potential cultural sensitivity issues.



With the recent TSR zombie risings, it seems useful to avoid Greyhawk specifically, for the near future.



But Blackmoor is equally "proto" D&D, and a great way to revisit the roots of D&D for the great anniversary of D&D.

How much of a market is there for Blackmoor? It's T3 isn't it?

 

[Yaarel]

How much of a market is there for Blackmoor? It's T3 isn't it?

Probably, most people are more familiar with Gygax than Arneson, because Gygax was allowed to remove the name of Arneson from the D&D 1e books, as part of a wider legal settlement.

But Arneson is central to the existence of D&D.

When people become more familiar with who Arneson is and what Blackmoor is, people will appreciate its historical importance.

And Blackmoor is a fun classical setting − about as "old school" as D&D can be.



Moreover, because it is a local regional setting, it is a way to present the wider Mystara world setting in a more culturally sensitive way. Mystara is popular and widely known because it is the world of Basic D&D.

So the setting should focus on Blackmoor for the pioneering work of Arneson. But it can also flash around the name "Mystara" and enjoy the recognizability of its corporate branding.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

But in the oldest settings is more difficult to explain how can be added the new elements from the last editions, but PC races, monsters and classes. Here there is a conflict between crunch and fluff.

 

[overgeeked]

Those are not "murder modules", they're "heroic adventures".

Your heroes are my villains and my heroes are your villains.

 

[Yaarel]

But in the oldest settings is more difficult to explain how can be added the new elements from the last editions, but PC races, monsters and classes. Here there is a conflict between crunch and fluff.

To some extent, Mystara, and Blackmoor specifically, have been hibernating. This lack of official use "protects" them from including the later evolutions of D&D. WotC can publish a 5e Blackmoor setting that is old school and "pristine".



I agree with you, old school texts can have glaring conflicts between crunch and fluff. Hopefully, the process of updating the old school setting narrative into todays 5e mechanics will fix this.

Focus on the story only, and then figure out how best to make this story happen mechanically using 5e mechanics.

 

[Yaarel]

With regard to the Mystara world of Basic D&D, there can be glaring conflicts between the fluff of one text and the fluff of an other text.

For example, one of the Basic premises of Basic D&D is there are "no gods". Instead, player characters can become powerful beings called "immortals". Yet, Mystara rife with "gods", including culturally insensitive misrepresentations of the Norse aesir as if gods, and having little to do with reallife Norse textual traditions describing these aesir nature beings.

In any case, player characters can become cosmically powerful immortals − at epic tier − without being "gods". This is a salient aspect that makes Mystara setting distinctive. A 5e version can focus on this, and either recharacterize or remove the parts of Mystara that contradict this central theme.

 

[overgeeked]

With regard to the Mystara world of Basic D&D, there can be glaring conflicts between the fluff of one text and the fluff of an other text.

For example, one of the Basic premises of Basic D&D is there are "no gods". Instead, player characters can become powerful beings called "immortals". Yet, Mystara rife with "gods", including culturally insensitive misrepresentations of the Norse aesir as if gods, and having little to do with reallife Norse textual traditions describing these aesir nature beings.

In any case, player characters can become cosmically powerful immortals − at epic tier − without being "gods". This is a salient aspect that makes Mystara setting distinctive. A 5e version can focus on this, and either recharacterize or remove the parts of Mystara that contradict this central theme.

Mystara didn’t have much of a theme outside whatever the designers wanted to include at the time. It was the original kitchen sink and it didn’t shy away from the goofier aspects of early D&D nor did it shy away from including sci-fi elements at times.

A second, invisible moon with samurai cat people living on it. An ancient crashed spaceship. A buried nuclear reactor. An ancient Blackmoor device exploded, tilting the world. The Hollow World. The spell of preserving. Kalaktatla, the Amber Serpent...aka Ka the Preserver...an Immortal T-Rex who preserves ancient civilizations by moving them to the hollow world, including faux Romans and faux Aztecs. Flying continents. Flying cities. Crashed flying cities. Flying ships. Flying gnomes. A city of Immortals on the moon. Vast galactic empires. Time travel. Aliens. Genetic manipulation. Alternate dimensions. Thar. All the unique races and monsters. Immortals. Slowly dying magic. Shadow elves. The denial of the Hin. Bargle. Threshold. The Isle of Dread. The modules. I could almost swoon just thinking about it all.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Mystara didn’t have much of a theme outside whatever the designers wanted to include at the time. It was the original kitchen sink and it didn’t shy away from the goofier aspects of early D&D nor did it shy away from including sci-fi elements at times.

A second, invisible moon with samurai cat people living on it. An ancient crashed spaceship. A buried nuclear reactor. An ancient Blackmoor device exploded, tilting the world. The Hollow World. The spell of preserving. Kalaktatla, the Amber Serpent...aka Ka the Preserver...an Immortal T-Rex who preserves ancient civilizations by moving them to the hollow world, including faux Romans and faux Aztecs. Flying continents. Flying cities. Crashed flying cities. Flying ships. Flying gnomes. A city of Immortals on the moon. Vast galactic empires. Time travel. Aliens. Genetic manipulation. Alternate dimensions. Thar. All the unique races and monsters. Immortals. Slowly dying magic. Shadow elves. The denial of the Hin. Bargle. Threshold. The Isle of Dread. The modules. I could almost swoon just thinking about it all.

Actually sounds pretty fun when it's written like that. Feels like Jack Vance fantasy.

 

[The Glen]

Actually sounds pretty fun when it's written like that. Feels like Jack Vance fantasy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

View attachment 144693

Whilst amusing, that does kind of demonstrate the problem with Mystara, which is that an awful lot of the places in it are basically nonhuman race + human culture (not always even a particularly historical culture - some of them are quite recent/extant), which can not only seem kind of lazy, but it can also seem kind of inappropriate/dehumanizing. It's obviously not the intention, but the optics at the very least, are not great.

And whilst there is some explanation for this, the basic setup doesn't really allow it to have much in the way of worldbuilding or depth, just a lot of variety and stuff that often borders on "LOL so random!". It's got more in common with Spelljammer, as a result, than, say, the Forgotten Realms (there's some similarity to Planescape too but not really, because it doesn't have the same kind of central conceit to work things around).

It's certainly very redolent of a certain era of RPGs, but perhaps not entirely in a good way. I think we've seen "kitchen-sink" fantasy done an awful lot of times now, and whilst I have a certain fondness for Mystara, I don't think it has much to say in, y'know, 2021, let alone 2022 or later.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Your heroes are my villains and my heroes are your villains.

. . . Is that meant to rebut anything I said?

Also, are your PCs evil gods/demigods that are trying to destroy the world?

 

[glass]

I am reasonably confident that they will not do classic setting in strict order of popularity. Both because it would make them predictable, and because someone mentioned upthread it leads to severely-diminishing returns. Therefore, I do not find the "Tiers" are peruasive.

OTOH, I do not really have anything else solid to base my guesses on, so they are kinda finger-in-the-air. Although I do think Greyhawk is the most likely for 2024, hence not voting for it for 2022-23.

EDIT: I was forgetting about the latest Unearthed Arcana, which strongly implies Spelljammer is one of the three.

BTW, is "Ghostlight" a typo for "Ghostwalk"? Also, not that I think it is likely, but Channath Chanak should probably be on the list too.

_
glass.