D&D 5E WotC Announces An Impending Announcement: New Setting, Storyline

Early this week, WotC announced on Twitter that today there would be some kind of announcement on their Twitch channel. Those who heard that announcement and tuned in were treated to an announcement that the new storyline will be announced at a live event in June.

The press release announcing the impending announcement also mentions a new setting, as well as the storyline, so it sounds like it might not be set in the Forgotten Realms (or maybe is in a new region - to 5E - of the Realms, such as Icewind Dale). The adventure and the setting might be the same thing, or they might be completely different things. Recently, WotC has released a bunch of settings: Eberron, Ravnica, Wildemount, and the upcoming Theros.

Fans of D&D will learn all about the new setting and storyline

The new storyline specifically will be revealed at 12pm PST (8pm GMT) on Thursday, June 18th.

The June event will raise money for Comic Relief, and will feature celebrities including Brandon Routh (Superman), and will preview the brand new storyline. It takes place June 18th-20th. Other names involved include Felicia Day, Deborah Ann Woll, Amy Acker, David Harbour, Matthew Lillard, and more.

​

 PRESS RELEASE

---

RENTON, WA – May 21, 2020 – People all over the world continue to stay safe by staying home, but that doesn’t mean the adventuring has to stop. Dungeons & Dragons is more popular than ever because it allows people to weave compelling stories together even when they’re physically apart through online videoconferencing. Now, Wizards of the Coast brings the stars to this virtual table with D&D Live 2020: Roll w/ Advantage. An amazing cast of characters led by expert storytellers preview the latest D&D storyline with live gaming sessions, all while raising money for Red Nose Day to help the most vulnerable children across the US and around the world, who have been so affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.The adventure begins 10:00am PT on June 18, 2020 and will run through June 20, 2020 at dungeonsanddragons.com.

D&D Live 2020: Roll w/ Advantage features big personalities playing elves, wizards and fighters to accomplish quests using their imaginations. Funny people like Brian Posehn, Kevin Sussman and Thomas Middleditch will work together to solve problems or, more likely, cause some hilarious new ones. WWE ® Superstars Xavier Woods ®, Tyler Breeze ®, Ember Moon ®, Alexa Bliss ® and Dio Maddin ® will contend with beefcake destroyer Jeremy Crawford, a.k.a. Principal Rules Designer for D&D. Deborah Ann Woll will lead a group of actors in improvising a way to help people in a fantasy world not that different from ours. And principal D&D writer Chris Perkins takes players

Fans of D&D will learn all about the new setting and storyline as well as accompanying new products plus tons of unique gameplay available on June 18, 2020. D&D Adventurers League has four new short adventures everyone can enjoy. By donating a small amount to Red Nose Day, fans will have access to sign up for D&D sessions with players around the world! During #DnDLive2020, fans will also be able to choose the character best suited to help the region through Reality RP, a mashup of fantasy storytelling, community engagement, and reality television.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Can you imagine the charges of "cultural appropriation" that would be levied by the Twatterati if WotC did that?

That's not the real reason that no-one would do an OA today, though.

The real reason is that it would be considered boring, and wouldn't sell well. This is 2020, not 1985. Japanese, Chinese and even to some extent Korean and other culture and mythology is no longer "exotic" and "fantastical", no more so than Western mythology. The same applies to other cultural regions. Those cultures are so much more accessible, so much easier to communicate with, so much a part of the same world now that a book that tried to do "culture-fantasy" is not likely to find a large audience.

Ed Greenwood also pointed out a major issue, long, long ago, back in the 1980s, which is part of why these sort of settings have largely faded. That is, they don't fit well with D&D, because they're too focused on emulating specific perceived characteristics of real-world culture, and specific interpretations of real-world mythology, and fail to become part of D&D properly. He was critical of Maztica, because it was so beholden to real-world cultures, in a way that the rest of the FR was not, and that it was focused very much on emulating these specific aspects of their mythologies and so on. I suspect he wasn't the biggest fan of the Moonshaes for similar reasons (it was originally not an FR setting), and I can't think he liked OA much either, because it has the same flaws.

What he preferred was very loose inspiration (like Calimshan has from both Spain and the Middle-East, for example), which is actually quite superficial and covering more typical D&D mythology. I'd argue this is actually less like to cause problems re: appropriation, too, oddly enough. Because people can immediately see "Oh well that's the FR, even if they're wearing hats from culture X".

Combine these two factors and I think there's no chance we're going to ever see a "culture-fantasy" book from WotC again. We might well see a setting book which has cultures in it which take ideas from various cultures, but in the way OA focused on Japan (specifically, it was very Japan-centric), or Maztica focused on elements of Maya and Aztec cultures? No. Even Al-Qadim might be too narrow/specific. I don't think there's any particular hunger for such settings, either.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've been away from Exalted for a long time, but I don't remember it having any science-fantasy elements. It was basically over-the-top Wuxia with a dash of Mythic Fantasy, as best I recall.

It had tons of magi-tech. Arguably more than Eberron, say. Albeit it was more national/local rather than international. This was true even in 1st edition.

It sounds like you're referring to how the earlier press releases and articles about Exalted, before it came out, represented it, which was very much Wuxia + Fist of the North Star + The Illiad + Elric.

There was some magic-tech elements introduced - more heavily in the 2nd edition and the 'book of five directions' gazetteer books from memory. All relic stuff from way back in the history of the setting. Magic powered armour, magic kinda-mecha, flying ships with magic not-laser-cannons etc etc.

There was tons and tons in 1st editon, too. You're understating it. It's in right from the corebook, albeit mentioned rather than given game stats (but the same is true for most thing). Also they weren't "kinda-mecha", they were outright magi-tech mecha, and covered in a lot of detail in one of the books.

 

[Umbran]

Can you imagine the charges of "cultural appropriation" that would be levied by the ******* if WotC did that?

Mod Note:

Aside from the anti-inclusiveness messaging, your language use is unacceptable here.

 

[TwoSix]

There are several homebrew campaigns from WotC employees that I would have almost loved as published campaigns or even MtG style conversion articles: James Wyatt's Aquela and Chris Perkins's Iomandra. Both are incidentally about most aquatic worlds that heavily feature archipelagos.

Iomandra basically involved this idea that a world Io and the dragon gods created became covered in vast oceans dotted with millions of islands due to Io not being pleased with their creations. Every island was lorded over by a dragon, who are regarded as divine exarchs of Io. Dragons would fight over islands as they grew in size. Also, there was a Dragonborn empire of Arkhosia that butted heads against the humans (and later tieflings) of Bael Turath. So you can see a bit how 4e flavored this world.

I would have loved a setting like Iomandra because you can have the characters island-hop to different locations. Give them a ship. Each island becomes a point of light. Maybe an island looks normal and nothing out of the ordinary, but the real adventure is happening in that island's equivalent space in the Feywild or Shadowfell. And the dragons make excellent set pieces on each island. Are the PCs working for or against the local dragon? Are they the lesser of two evils? Are they conspiring to help their island's dragon move up the ladder?

Archipelago hexcrawl is a woefully underdone style of campaign. You have rational reasons to have weird, isolated stuff all over the place, and you don't have to worry about how they would have interacted.

 

[Fenris-77]

Archipelago hexcrawl is a woefully underdone style of campaign. You have rational reasons to have weird, isolated stuff all over the place, and you don't have to worry about how they would have interacted.

If I was going to do a Chult-ish campaign I'd much rather do it archipelago style that straight jungle crawl. Big islands, small islands, pirate islands, giant ape islands. Did I mention Pirates? Yeah baby.

 

[TwoSix]

If I was going to do a Chult-ish campaign I'd much rather do it archipelago style that straight jungle crawl. Big islands, small islands, pirate islands, giant ape islands. Did I mention Pirates? Yeah baby.

"I'M ON A BOAT!
I'M ON A BOAT!
EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME CAUSE I'M SAILING ON A BOAT!"

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Mod Note:

Aside from the anti-inclusiveness messaging, your language use is unacceptable here.

Noted on the language but anti-inclusive? I pointed out that WotC might get tarred with that brush; I did not make an anti-inclusive statement.

 

[Marandahir]

There's a reason Pokémon's succeeded at that genre not once, not twice, nor three, not even four, but FIVE TIMES.
Orange Islands, Whirl Islands, Hoenn, Delacore Islands, Alola…

The genre of sailing from island to island for new adventures is just rife with storytelling.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Ed Greenwood also pointed out a major issue, long, long ago, back in the 1980s, which is part of why these sort of settings have largely faded. That is, they don't fit well with D&D, because they're too focused on emulating specific perceived characteristics of real-world culture, and specific interpretations of real-world mythology, and fail to become part of D&D properly. He was critical of Maztica, because it was so beholden to real-world cultures, in a way that the rest of the FR was not, and that it was focused very much on emulating these specific aspects of their mythologies and so on. I suspect he wasn't the biggest fan of the Moonshaes for similar reasons (it was originally not an FR setting), and I can't think he liked OA much either, because it has the same flaws.

What he preferred was very loose inspiration (like Calimshan has from both Spain and the Middle-East, for example), which is actually quite superficial and covering more typical D&D mythology. I'd argue this is actually less like to cause problems re: appropriation, too, oddly enough. Because people can immediately see "Oh well that's the FR, even if they're wearing hats from culture X".

This is absolutely bang-on. If the team ever returns to Kara-tur or even Zakhara, you'll likely see heavy redesigns so that the OA material looks very different from what people remember.

 

[Minigiant]

That's not the real reason that no-one would do an OA today, though.

The real reason is that it would be considered boring, and wouldn't sell well. This is 2020, not 1985. Japanese, Chinese and even to some extent Korean and other culture and mythology is no longer "exotic" and "fantastical", no more so than Western mythology. The same applies to other cultural regions. Those cultures are so much more accessible, so much easier to communicate with, so much a part of the same world now that a book that tried to do "culture-fantasy" is not likely to find a large audience.

Ed Greenwood also pointed out a major issue, long, long ago, back in the 1980s, which is part of why these sort of settings have largely faded. That is, they don't fit well with D&D, because they're too focused on emulating specific perceived characteristics of real-world culture, and specific interpretations of real-world mythology, and fail to become part of D&D properly. He was critical of Maztica, because it was so beholden to real-world cultures, in a way that the rest of the FR was not, and that it was focused very much on emulating these specific aspects of their mythologies and so on. I suspect he wasn't the biggest fan of the Moonshaes for similar reasons (it was originally not an FR setting), and I can't think he liked OA much either, because it has the same flaws.

What he preferred was very loose inspiration (like Calimshan has from both Spain and the Middle-East, for example), which is actually quite superficial and covering more typical D&D mythology. I'd argue this is actually less like to cause problems re: appropriation, too, oddly enough. Because people can immediately see "Oh well that's the FR, even if they're wearing hats from culture X".

Combine these two factors and I think there's no chance we're going to ever see a "culture-fantasy" book from WotC again. We might well see a setting book which has cultures in it which take ideas from various cultures, but in the way OA focused on Japan (specifically, it was very Japan-centric), or Maztica focused on elements of Maya and Aztec cultures? No. Even Al-Qadim might be too narrow/specific. I don't think there's any particular hunger for such settings, either.

I don't see an OA book. But doing a continent that "looks like Mesoamerica" and a "continent that looks like Medieval Japan" in a new setting? Sure.

Halfling in my home game come from a island with no iron but plenty of copper, tin, and zinc. Therefore they still look like Bronze Age Assyria but with halfling hoplites. Where as there were humaniods from an island chain with no iron, horses, and copper and look like Aztecs as they sacrificed captured victims and turned themselves into tiefling jaguar warriors. Some new books like Sandstorm, Stormwrack, and Frostburn that can hint to new worlds and cultures without being nonsenical transplants of real cultures wound be completely safe. Especially if made into a full setting.

But I don't see it in this anouncement. This gives me ASOIAF vibes.