D&D 5E (2024) WotC Should Make 5.5E Specific Setting

[Basic Expert]

A published campaign setting:
1. Serves as a backdrop to play in, hopefully adding verisimilitude and texture.
2. Helps create a shared understanding for the DM and players (i.e. helps get everyone on the same page). A DM saying: "You are in Waterdeep" or "a Red Wizard stands before you" can do a lot of the heavy-descriptive-lifting.
3. Can help imply adventure content or campaign focus. Adventurers stuck in Ravenloft likely have different intrinsic goals than those that a wandering around Icewind Dale.
4. Can emphasize a style of play. For example, a world without dungeons might not need extensive exploration mechanics.
5. Can save a DM a lot of their own time and effort.

Most of these can purposes can be filled by a well-written adventure scenario or adventure path. These also have the advantage of selling better than campaign world specific material, which has long had a habit of siloing purchasers: "Oh, this book is for Eberron? I'm running FR so I guess I don't need it." The more settings they have, the more settings they need to support.

That being said, I think a 5.5e specific campaign world could be effective to help DMs and players set expectations for play. The game works tolerably well out of the box for many groups, at least until mid-levels. A well-designed campaign world can:

1. Help groups integrate character concepts effectively in the fixtion. Why are tieflings or devil-pact warlocks accepted in society? How does X character concept fit into the world? The current edition has its own set of character options that were inspired by past editions but is, in the end, uniquely its own.

2. Emphasize some of 5.5e's system-choices and help the DM and players understand them better. The tiers of play would be baked into the setting, as would be the strong PC power-level and resilience. A setting could help DMs create suitable challenges for PCs of any level through story, environmental and mechanical content.

3. Essentially help show off the strengths of the system while mitigating its weaknesses.

 

[Charlaquin]

Aren't all official setting informed by the mechanics of the game?

Not according to @Parmandur , who’s comment I brought Eberron up as a counter-example to.

Mechanics express Setting, not the other way around.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

100%. Much as I love the classic settings, it's time for something new -- or take something original from a third party and slap a D&D logo on it.

 

[...m...]

Between Realms threads and Dark.Sun speculation, I am more and more convinced that every edition of D&D needs a(t least one) bespoke setting. 5E never really got one -- it experimented with MtG settings, but there was no Dragonlance or Eberron if you understand my meaning.

Instead of shoehorning all the 5.5 mechanics and species and vibes into old settings, WotC should design a setting especially FOR 5.5E and it's target market.

...the radiant citadel flares in your general direction...
(in my opinion ravnica and theros should count, too, but to your point, they weren't bespoke creations for fifth-edition D+D)

 

[Parmandur]

I certainly wouldn’t say it was merely an expression of 3e’s mechanics! But it is highly informed by 3e’s mechanics, and that is to its credit.

Yes, but there hasn't been any barrier to the Setting expressed outside that mechanical context.

 

[...m...]

Here is an interesting question I had not thought of: does either LevelUp or ToV have a bespoke setting mae for those 5E games? I know Kobold has their Midgard setting, but I believe that setting was originally created for Pathfinder or 3.5 (I think).

...the labyrinth was created expressly to serve as a default setting for tales of the valiant...

 

[Remathilis]

Honestly, D&D has too many settings as it stands. Adding more will make that worse. Because fans want their favorite settings "in print" and not replaced by a new setting that is similar (case in point, Ravnica and Radiant Citadel were both supposed to mean we weren't getting Planescape because they were giant planar cities). Fans don't want another Gothic horror setting, they want Ravenloft. Of course t some want the Ravenloft of 2nd edition, not 5th, so we get stuck at the premise: do you want WotC to make Ravenloft match 5e or do you want it shelved so they can make a new gothic horror setting? And in a setting like Forgotten Realms or Eberron, where 95% of the lore is fine, so want want to jettison the setting for the remaining 5%? Does adding dragon born or changing orc lore require us to abandon all of the Forgotten Realms lore? And if no, we're back to where we were except now we have another setting on the pile that people will want ported over to 6e when that day comes.

 

[Parmandur]

Not according to @Parmandur , who’s comment I brought Eberron up as a counter-example to.

How many similar counterexamples can be supplied, however? Tailoring mechanics for a given Setting is as old as RPGs, but Eberron is kind of an odd duck in being derived from the mechanics...and it has survived well beyond that original mechanical context.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes, but there hasn't been any barrier to the Setting expressed outside that mechanical context.

I don’t know what this means…

How many similar counterexamples can be supplied, however?

I’d say Nentir Vale is another. And it’s another beloved setting, at least by fans of the system it was made for.

Tailoring mechanics for a given Setting is as old as RPGs, but Eberron is kind of an odd duck in being derived from the mechanics...and it has survived well beyond that original mechanical context.

I don’t think anyone is advocating for a setting that couldn’t survive outside its mechanical context. But 5e does have some peculiarities that I can understand the desire for a setting built with those peculiarities in mind from the start, rather than retrofitting them into settings that were not initially designed to account for them. And, I don’t think it’s always true that setting informs mechanics and not vice-versa. I think it’s pretty much always a two-way street.

 

[Reynard]

...the labyrinth was created expressly to serve as a default setting for tales of the valiant...

That is their out planes setting?