WotC Why WotC SHOULD Make A New Setting

[Tigris]

What do you mean by Urban Fantasy if Ptolus does not fit that definition?

Urban Fantasy in general is used for: "We have a big city in which normal people dont know about magic etc even though it exists." So vampire the masqerade. Or Buffy (although that plays not in a big town) and harry potter world (when you go more to new york).

 

[Argyle King]

I think a new setting that is built with 5.5 mechanics and design mentality in mind would seem more coherent than trying to jam together incongruous fluff and crunch.

 

[Reynard]

What do you mean by Urban Fantasy if Ptolus does not fit that definition?

I find it very strange that folks don't know what urban fantasy is in 2026.

Urban fantasy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SlyFlourish]

I find it very strange that folks don't know what urban fantasy is in 2026.

Urban fantasy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I guess I took the definition of urban fantasy as the definitions of the two terms that make up the phrase. They take place in cities and they have fantasy. If contemporary is part of it, have you seen Blades 68? Would that count?

 

[Tigris]

I think a new setting that is built with 5.5 mechanics and design mentality in mind would seem more coherent than trying to jam together incongruous fluff and crunch.

But 5e is already kind of a mishmash of past D&Ds.

How would you adapt a setting to 5e mechanics?

I find it very strange that folks don't know what urban fantasy is in 2026.

Urban fantasy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Everyone learns at aome point something for the first time. And because of the name people might think they know and then are confused. I also only learned the because vampire the masquerade.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm not saying other companies cannot create something great, obviously they can, on a fraction of the Wizards budget (hi Arcane Library!). Nobody however HAS the potential budget in the traditional TTRPG space, to create something huge and sprawling and epic.

At least I dont think so?

I don't know what the budgets are. I know some sourcebooks by other publishers had large budgets that may have been higher than the budgets of a given WOTC book but its hard to know for sure. I doubt the budgets scale up given the size of Hasbro compared to an independent publisher.

But the budgets don't matter as much as the quality of the material and, as a customer of lots of RPG products, I'm seeing lots of fantastic sourcebooks from lots of publishers. Dolmenwood, Aethereal Expanse, Broken Weave, and many others.

 

[Artamo]

I find it very strange that folks don't know what urban fantasy is in 2026.

Urban fantasy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I wasn’t aware that urban fantasy was primarily dictated by a narrow band of city based fantasy that required the setting to be based in the real world. When books like Perdido Street Station and Mortal Engines can’t qualify as urban fantasy because they don’t tick very specific boxes, I doubt the value of using categories in such a way.

Frankly, I think that speaks to Mike’s point - what you envision as new is not what others consider to be new.

 

[Parmandur]

I find it very strange that folks don't know what urban fantasy is in 2026.

Urban fantasy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here's the thing: WotC could do Urban Fantasy without doing a new Setting, just revive Urban Arcana.

 

[Reynard]

I guess I took the definition of urban fantasy as the definitions of the two terms that make up the phrase. They take place in cities and they have fantasy. If contemporary is part of it, have you seen Blades 68? Would that count?

I have not looked deeply into it, but based on the campaign page, it seems so.

I think D&D could have a setting like that. I personally wouldn't do 2026 modern, but maybe 1926 modern.

 

[Parmandur]

I wasn’t aware that urban fantasy was primarily dictated by a narrow band of city based fantasy that required the setting to be based in the real world. When books like Perdido Street Station and Mortal Engines can’t qualify as urban fantasy because they don’t tick very specific boxes, I doubt the value of using categories in such a way.

Frankly, I think that speaks to Mike’s point - what you envision as new is not what others consider to be new.

In literature, this is what Urban Fantasy refers to, it is a popular and diverse sub-genre of it's own.