WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[Reynard]

This is in response to @SlyFlourish new video. Here is a link with a time stamp of 31:14 where the discussion starts:
Since I am one of the voices here constantly asking for WotC to make a new setting, I thought I would explain why.

First off, I acknowledge that there are lots of great setting made by 3rd parties in the D&D ecosystem. That's awesome. I love some of those settings. But this issue is not actually about "not enough settings" or "no good settings" at all. it has nothing to do with the existence of or quality of other, 3rd party settings.

The issue is simply this: I know that WotC is full of extremely talented and creative folks, and that they have vast resources for quality production. I want them to leverage those things in order to create a setting that is as fresh, as cool, and interesting, as playable, and as frankly awesome as Eberron was when it debuted. The long and short of it is that I want to be excited for a new, official D&D setting.

I get Mike's arguments for why the legacy settings have value (although in the 3.x era, WotC showed that indeed 3rd parties could do great things with official D&D settings if given licenses and creative freedom). That is neither here nor there: creating a new setting does not mean they have to abandon the others. I have said many times and will die on this hill: the D&D player and therefore customer base is probably something like an order of magnitude bigger than it was in 2014. They have room to expand their output and try new things, because with that many customers, not every book has to sell like the PHB.

Anyway, that's my argument why WotC should make a new setting.

How do you feel?

 

[darjr]

I think they should do new settings and gear the creative crew towards that. I think sometimes in the history of the game creators at WotC and TSR want to design games and that’s understandable but I think currently it’s be better if there were more of a setting designer mindset. I think the longevity of 5e helped the growth of the hobby and 5.5 should get the same.

Focus on new settings might help.

 

[Tigris]

I think there is more money if they just do crossovers like they do in Magic the Gathering. Why do a lot of work to create your own setting no one knows (and loves yet), when you can just use an existing setting? This way you dont need to make your fans like the new setting, but you get fans from the setting into your product.


This has literally worked for the 2 most successfull kickstarter RPGs, and at least one of them was a system people dont care about at all in average.

Like do a

• (world of) warcraft setting. (Although this may be too late)
• Final Fantasy Setting
• A Disney/Kingdom hearts setting

here might be some other ones fitting I am forgetting.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

If they did decide to work on a new setting, what would most people actually want to see?

I kind of want a new base setting at this point, as Forgotten Realms has got so crowded with contradicting lore and retcons over the years.

 

[Nobleshield]

The last new setting they had, they dumped despite it actually being quite good, because 4e wasn't well-received. I will die on the hill that Nentir Vale was a great setting, actually had Dragonborn and Tieflings that fit in seamlessly (unlike how Tieflings kept their 4e look in 5e instead of going back to the 3.x style), had a pantheon that was so interesting Matt Mercer took it whole cloth for his own world, and had a nice traditional sword & sorcery feel to it ("points of light").

They should 100% IMHO have done a brand new setting for 5e and kept Forgotten Realms the classic style that people knew and loved, instead of making it the default and shoehorning in almost everything there.

 

[ZeshinX]

Having lived through the settings glut of 2e, I'm generally very much against new settings from WotC. The biggest argument being, you factionalize the player (consumer) base, such that they will only buy product geared toward their preferred setting and not buy the stuff that isn't. I mean even now, you see a lot of desire for updates to Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, Eberron (a 3.x era addition). There's still Birthright, Red Steel, Mystara, and parts of established settings that can be independent like Kara-Tur, Al Qadim...and so on (there are more lol).

It seems to me, WotC is trying to have its cake and eat it to. They're trying to strike a balance and not fall into that factionalized pit like TSR did. "Here's a little of one setting, move on. Here's a little of another, move on, etc." So far it seems to be working (though I have no idea whatsoever if it actually is or not), but I can tell you, at least for me, the setting-specific stuff they have put out in the 5.x era has been a pale and disappointing comparison of what came before (though I still have a lot of product from that era to compare to...so...there is that).

Generally, let the 3PPs create the new settings and let WotC stick to their current approach. That's how I feel about it anyway.

 

[sevenbastard]

In my opinion D&D has moved away from medieval fantasy and settings like Greyhawk, Dragonlance, ect no longer reflect what the game is.

Build a setting from the ground up that embraces the new ancestries, class, technologies, and prevalence of magic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I feel that a new setting is one of the most time and labor-intensive design projects there is. Having to design an entirely new world and make it a cohesive whole is not something you can just pass off casually to a bunch of other freelance writers like you can an adventure anthology. You need to create it, design it, come up with original art and artistic styles for it, figure out what is unique about it and what is standard about it. And all without any previous design work ever having been done previously that you can adapt or draw from (like you can with classic D&D or MtG settings).

All of that work merely in the hopes that people like or care about it. And also for just the one or two singular products they invariably produce for it-- a setting book and maybe an adventure. To me... there is just not enough bang for the buck. Sure they could do it... but why would they? Far easier to just adapt another MtG setting where the world-building and tons of art assets have already been made. And for a whole heap of the player base might as well be a completely new setting.

To me, Theros and Strixhaven WERE completely new D&D settings. Because I don't play or concern myself with MtG. And if those could get made easier and quicker by the D&D team because most of the heavy lifting had already been done by the Magic team... that's perfectly fine with me.

 

[Nobleshield]

In my opinion D&D has moved away from medieval fantasy and settings like Greyhawk, Dragonlance, ect no longer reflect what the game is.

Build a setting from the ground up that embraces the new ancestries, class, technologies, and prevalence of magic.

That's technically Eberron, but yeah, while I like medieval fantasy settings, I agree. Keep those settings for people who like that, and build a setting from scratch to embrace the normal things (and then, for example, like Greyhawk/FR/etc, could pick and choose what's allowed. Greyhawk might not allow Goliath as a PC race, for instance, if it doesn't fit.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, I would probably buy a new setting (and I haven't bought a WotC product myself in 6 years). I like new stuff!

But I think 5e, as a system, would be better off making campaign frames, like Daggerheart. A few maps, maybe a new race or two, and a bunch of character-building concepts all in like 20-30 pages, max.