WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

during my d20 phase (3e/3.5/Pathfinder) I created one of those for my home campaign.

Too little juice for the squeeze, even though it was fun. Did give me an idea of who's ruins were where....

Given how few pages Gygax was working with, it definitely feels like the kind of thing that should have been kept in a file cabinet in Lake Geneva and used as a reference for publishing adventures, rather than taking up whatever percentage of the booklet that could have been used for, frankly, almost anything else for DMs.

In a big, Ed Greenwood's Guide to the Forgotten Realms book, though? It would have been perfect.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Classifying Ravnica as "lotr but its a fantasy megacity" makes me question how long it has been since you read about Ravnica? Because it is as much lotr as the Dresden Files, thst is, it aint.

"LotR" is the poster child for high fantasy. I know that in close reading it's got only a tenuous relationship with such a thing (e.g. the hobbits' lives are pretty damned mundane), but in the grand scope it has some extraordinarily powerful beings. No surprise given it's directly inspired by Norse myth, but still.

Ravnica has literal DEMONS who arrange effectively Ren faires. It has a creepy (and debatably evil) hive mind entity that cleans out the drains. It has contracts literally enforced by magic. It has a very clearly medieval-style republic (hereditary? Not sure how seats in the Azorius Senate are obtained.) It has an official church deeply interwoven with things.

If you want urban fantasy, New Capenna is the thing you're looking for, not Ravnica. New Capenna has literal actual mobsters and police and back-alley dealings and drugs. It has flappers and radio and all the other trappings of modernity, especially in that heady combo of post-WWI excess and teetering on the brink of financial and economic ruin, massive corporate interests, and even guns and flamethrowers. (Which we know exist because some of them could be powered up by Halo, making them capable of permanently killing Phyrexians.)

Ravnica is ultra ultra high-magic, which the authors chose to express through a distinctly medieval or renaissance city. I'm aware that that makes it a fantasy in an urban environment, and a story where the urban environment is an essential part of the concept, but the fact that it is rooted so strongly in pre-modern experiences pulls it away from what the vast majority of folks think of when they think of "urban fantasy". There is, to some extent, an expectation of modernity--not necessarily that it is contemporary fantasy, mind, just that it be no further back in history than, say, the 19th century.

 

[Remathilis]

Which settings would you choose to remain as core settings? Which would you axe?

Good question. I wish I could say I have a well detailed and thought out plan for this, but I don't. This is 100% hot take. This is also separating my head from my heart abit (some of my favoirtes aren't gonna make the cut).

The Core Setting of D&D should be a single world. It should be a fairly generic kitchen sink able to be used in a variety of ways. Obviously, D&D is lousy with kitchen sinks (Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Exandria, Mystara, and Nerath). And each has something interesting to give. So here's what I'd do. I'd probably pick Nerath. (What? Blasphemy!) Nerath is a modern take on Greyhawk. It did what Forgotten Realms was accused of: absorbed the best of D&D and put it in one place. And so that's what I would do again: take all the best of D&D and put it in one place. Dragon Armies. The Tomb of Horrors. Castle Ravenloft. Baldur's Gate. All of it in one setting.

Dragonlance as as setting offers almost no value beyond the novels. I'd keep it only for letting Weiss and Hickman write stories for it. Exandria is only on loan from Mercer, so he could have it back. I'd also work out a deal with Greenwood and Baker to let them do third party Realms and Eberron, but understanding we're taking the choices cuts from them to add to New Nerath. Greyhawk and Mystara retire into historical significance.

Then I treat the Domains of Dread like the Domains of Delight: incidental realms in the planes surrounding a particular personality, but ancillary to New Nerath. The Great Wheel is coming but Planescape itself isn't separated out. Likewise, Wildspace surrounds New Nerath and allows for travel, but its not fleshed out as separate setting. These "transitive" settings become part of the D&D core, but not separated out settings.

I'd ditch the MTG crossovers unless you're adding Strixhaven to New Nerath or Lorwyn to the Feywild. That only leaves Athas, who probably would be better served by a 3pp who would do a setting like that justice. Psionics is going into New Nerath.

Thus, D&D has a single oversetting it primarily focuses on, and everything in D&D is in it. From Aasimar to Warforged. Much like Golarion, its huge and hold whole regions themed to particular styles of play. Western, Asian myth, gothic horror, war, intrigue, pulp. The top three popular settings (Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance) go on loan to their creators for a cut of the profits. The transitives serve the Core setting rather than being their own thing. And D&D has a massive playground to put everything into it.

Alternatively, if that's too hard to stomach, Keep Realms and Eberron, still do the transitive stuff, and forget the rest. 3e did well with just those two.

 

[Remathilis]

If you want urban fantasy, New Capenna is the thing you're looking for, not Ravnica.

A similar comparison could be made with Innistrad being gothic horror fantasy in the vein of Ravenloft, but Duskmourn being being an urban fantasy horror setting. It HAS TVs and stuff!

 

[Mecheon]

Which settings would you choose to remain as core settings? Which would you axe?

Greyhawk's on the chopping block. Sorry Greyhawk fans, but FR kind of does its job better, and FR has more star power. The setting that gave us Baldurs Gate 3 is not going anywhere