D&D 5E WotC: 5 D&D Settings In Development?

WotC's Ray Winninger spoke a little about some upcoming D&D settings -- two classic settings are coming in 2022 in formats we haven't seen before, and two brand new (not Magic: the Gathering) settings are also in development, as well as return to a setting they've already covered in 5E. He does note, however, that of the last three, there's a chance of one or more not making it to release, as they develop more than they use.

Two classic settings? What could they be?​

So that's:

• 2 classic settings in 2022 (in a brand new format)
• 2 brand new settings
• 1 returning setting

So the big questions -- what are the two classic settings, and what do they mean by a format we haven't seen before? Winninger has clarified on Twitter that "Each of these products is pursuing a different format you've never seen before. And neither is "digital only;" these are new print formats."

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions, there are two more products that revive "classic" settings in production right now.

The manuscript for the first, overseen by [Chris Perkins], is nearly complete. Work on the second, led by [F. Wesley Schneider] with an assist from [Ari Levitch], is just ramping up in earnest. Both are targeting 2022 and formats you've never seen before.

In addition to these two titles, we have two brand new [D&D] settings in early development, as well as a return to a setting we've already covered. (No, these are not M:tG worlds.)

As I mentioned in the dev blog, we develop more material than we publish, so it's possible one or more of these last three won't reach production. But as of right now, they're all looking great.

Of course the phrase "two more products that revive 'classic' settings" could be interpreted in different ways. It might not be two individual setting books.

 

[Parmandur]

There's only no room if you're hell bent on beating the lore drum really loudly. Sigil is a city, no matter how cool (and it is really cool!) but I really don't think a setting book on Sigil alone is going to be a huge draw for new players. You add in the planes stuff and it gets better, but a lot of that content suffers from it being a far better platform for high tier gaming, which is the least played bit.

The fact of the matter is that the book could easily include rules for ships and navigation in there. That fact that some might prefer a Sigil deep dive instead isn't the same as it not being possible to include that content, which is obviously is. I also think it better indexes WotC's current focus on getting more gameable content into their books. Anyway, I've had just about as much as fun as I think I'm going to here. Opine away gents...

Sharn is much more "just a city" than Sigil, and it got 60 pages of dedicated material in a 320 page book. I do expect that a Planescape Settnig book would involve a much deeper dive into the Outer Planes, doubling or tripling the DMG material, at least, and a loaded bestiary. The Outlands require attention, as well, and the Fations...well, ai would expect the Factions to be huge. But I don't see any room to.force another Setting in there sideways, with a different genre.

 

[Parmandur]

@Steampunkette There's a little known NPC from AD&D named Captain Soot with a magical ship called Ebony Queen who sails the Inner Planes. He's first mentioned in ALQ4 Secrets of the Lamp (Wolfgang Baur, 1993) - a quick quote from that book: He commands a ship made of ebony and set with an orrery of the inner planes that he uses to trade with the genie realms, the mamluks of Qudra, and the Pearl Cities. Later the same NPC appears in TSR2634 The Inner Planes (Monte Cook & William Connors, 1998) - a quick quote: An interesting example of potential assistance is a blood named Captain Soot (Pl/male human/F12/N), who pilots a magical ship, the Ebony Queen. Soot sails the Inner Planes like [sic] eighteen individual seas and knows each like a well-seasoned sailor on the Prime knows the waters of his world.

I'll add that the premise of the Astromundi Cluster (1993) was a crystal sphere composed of free-floating satellites asteroids, where weak barriers allowed free passage between the Inner Planes and Material Plane. So in theory Captain Soot could pilot his ship from the Plane of Fire and into the Astromundi Cluster.

There's definitely ways to get your desired effect of "planar traveling ships", and there's at least one enshrined in AD&D across 2-3 campaign settings.

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Speaking personally – I've DMed a lot of Planescape (years and years) and played a little Spelljammer (a brief campaign) – my sense is both settings have plenty of material to stand on their own legs.

For instance, the treatment of Sigil didn't end in the ~45 pages on Sigil in the Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set, but continued in portions of Factol's Manifesto, the 130 page In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil, and in adventures like Harbinger House and even Faction War. New locations were introduced in 4th edition and even 5e's Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, under the "marut" entry mentions a new location in Sigil – The Hall of Concordance. And that's not even getting into the presentation of Sigil in the CRPG Planescape: Torment (which may be relevant to D&D as there was a 2017 Dragon+ article where they converted the PS:T monsters to 5e & Wizkids put out a miniature of the Nameless One). I know less about the Rock of Bral, but there's at least one eponymous book covering 96 pages on that space port. Basically, the lore (for both settings) cuts deep. It may not fit their current publication strategy and some of it may not be the greatest writing or need heavy revision, but to claim there's not enough material seems inaccurate.

From what I recall, the two settings occupied different different themes / motifs / feels.

At least for me, Spelljammer is Treasure Planet with more in common with pirate and maritime stories than anything else. The wacky/weird moments were offset by emotional moments of crew interaction, betrayal, heists, and diplomacy gone horribly wrong. The focus was on the heroic action and on the journey. That was my "player's eye view."

Whereas Planescape is a China Mieville novel (e.g. City and the City) mashed together with Casa Blanca, Babylon 5, and Dante's Inferno. The wacky/weird moments were offset by reflective moments & philosophical questions. The focus was on the "why" and what the answer said about character identity. At least that's where I took it as DM.

I could see selectively bridging these themes at the adventure scale – the example of Captain Soot suggests what one implementation of that could look like – but I wouldn't be in favor of merging these themes at the setting scale. For the same reason I wouldn't want to merge Ravenloft with Dragonlance. I'm buying in for a particular feel. Yeah, if we're playing Dragonlance, we can have the session where we get pulled into Lord Soth's domain and have to make him feel remorse to escape, but overall I want it to feel like Dragonlance, not Ravenloft. If I've bought into the Treasure Planet of Spelljammer, I don't really want to get lost in trying to redeem an erinyes – I want action in space. Conversely, if I've bought into the philosophical fantasy of Planescape, I'm less interested in the "getting loot, doing transport job" hook that might work for a Spelljammer crew, and more interested in how my faction figures into this adventure.

Now, see, this gets across what I was trying to say much better, thank you. I personally would live to mix the flavors, too, but as distinct flavors is hownI see WotC going about this, if at all.

 

[Fenris-77]

Sharn is much more "just a city" than Sigil, and it got 60 pages of dedicated material in a 320 page book. I do expect that a Planescape Settnig book would involve a much deeper dive into the Outer Planes, doubling or tripling the DMG material, at least, and a loaded bestiary. The Outlands require attention, as well, and the Fations...well, ai would expect the Factions to be huge. But I don't see any room to.force another Setting in there sideways, with a different genre.

And we disagree about that, so there we are. Cool.

 

[Parmandur]

And we disagree about that, so there we are. Cool.

Let the record reflect.

Sorry if that all came off a bit aggressive, just reading it that way now: not my intention.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Plus, 2E's settings reinvented the wheel and constantly competed against one another. 5E's settings tend to compliment each other and include a bunch of suggestions on how to re-use things for other settings. "Don't care about Greyhawk? Buy Saltmarsh anyway for the boat rules and the setpieces to slot into whatever coastal cities you want. Don't care about the Realms? Frostmaiden's still got a bunch of wintery setpieces!"

I use ideas from Ravnica when running my Eberron game, for instance. I’m gonna give a PC a supernatural gift a la Theros, soon, as well.

 

[Fenris-77]

Let the record reflect.

Sorry if that all came off a bit aggressive, just reading it that way now: not my intention.

Nah, not at all. It's a very natural thing to disagree about really. I completely get your side too, for what that's worth.

 

[Parmandur]

I use ideas from Ravnica when running my Eberron game, for instance. I’m gonna give a PC a supernatural gift a la Theros, soon, as well.

For sure, I'm all for genre mixing: but I don't expect WotC to premix Ravenloft with Birthright, or something. They've really hit on something with "Setting as genre" bpoks.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that's probably where we differ, I don't see Planejammer as much in the way of genre mixing, and in fact think the ideas a stronger mixed than they are separately. Opinions, right? What WotC actually decides to do there is in the hands of the gaming gods.

 

[Parmandur]

I think that's probably where we differ, I don't see Planejammer as much in the way of genre mixing, and in fact think the ideas a stronger mixed than they are separately. Opinions, right? What WotC actually decides to do there is in the hands of the gaming gods.

I mean, for me and mine, I'm all about the thematic gumbo, throw it all in and stew.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I think Sigil would be at least 60 pages to cover. There's 17 Outer Planes, so that could be at least 30-40 pages. The Inner planes maybe around at least 10-15 pages (I don't think Para and Quasi Elements are getting full-fledged planes). The other planes might be around 20, but probably mostly focused around Feywild and Shadowfell which weren't in 2e, but would get expanded on. If it's a "New Print Format", maybe just means a book that's more than standard 256 pages.