D&D 5E WotC's Nathan Stewart Teases New D&D Setting Book in 2019

No real details, other than denying that it will be Spelljammer, but in the latest Spoilers & Swag episode Stewart stated straight up that another hardcover setting book is coming in 2019:

"Nathan Stewart, the senior director of Dungeons & Dragons and Avalon Hill, made the announcement on his monthly "Spoilers & Swag" Twitchcast yesterday. 'Next year for our annual releases I can confirm there will be a setting book,' he said. 'A new setting book. A book that we have not created that is for a D&D setting.'"

I'd speculate, given the Settings mentioned in the recent marketing survey and what is listed in the DMsGuild, that the likely options are from the following, given we got Magic this year and Stewart has previously said they are not working on a new setting right now:

- Dark Sun
- Dragonlance
- Eberron
- Greyhawk
- Planescape
- Ravenloft

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/11/03/dungeons-and-dragons-new-campaign-setting-book-2019/

 

[jgsugden]

I think he means the book has yet to be written, but it is on the scheule and that they know what it will be.

 

[Parmandur]

From zero settings to a flood? What happened to cannabilization? It is such a weird 180 and contradicts what we were told about the business.

And yes, I use to complain about the lack of setting. I'm not complaining about their sudden increase in number in setting books. I'm wondering why the change in strategy. I do complain about the lack of campain setting info in the setting books though.

They've said for a couple years that they wanted to do settings, and we're working on new ways to do them in a product

I think with Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica and Way finder's Guide to Eberron, we can triangulate what new setting products moving forwards might look like: genre books that can be mined by homebrewers, as much a deep dive like old school settings.

 

[AmerginLiath]

As for the Spelljammer comment, I’ve maintained (and others as well) that it’s appeared for some time that spelljamming seems to be working into 5e as part of the broader planar mythology, rather than as a separate system/mythology. Whenever the equivalent of a Manual of the Planes (which I suspect will be a broader high-level campaigning book which includes heavy planar aspects) comes out, travel through and exploration of the Astral by ship will just be given as an alternative to portal-hopping (especially given descriptions of late of the 5e Multiverse that newly integrate Crystal Spheres into the classic Prime Material).

 

[gyor]

No real details, other than denying that it will be Spelljammer, but in the latest Spoilers & Swag episode Stewart stated straight up that another hardcover setting book is coming in 2019:

"Nathan Stewart, the senior director of Dungeons & Dragons and Avalon Hill, made the announcement on his monthly "Spoilers & Swag" Twitchcast yesterday. 'Next year for our annual releases I can confirm there will be a setting book,' he said. 'A new setting book. A book that we have not created that is for a D&D setting.'"

I'd speculate, given the Settings mentioned in the recent marketing survey and what is listed in the DMsGuild, that the likely options are from the following, given we got Magic this year and Stewart has previously said they are not working on a new setting right now:

- Dark Sun
- Dragonlance
- Eberron
- Greyhawk
- Planescape
- Ravenloft

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/11/03/dungeons-and-dragons-new-campaign-setting-book-2019/

Darksun has so many races, the psion, and special mechanics that I belief that one will get an PDF release like Eberron to heavily playtest it first.

I did a process of elimination on reddit and what I came with for a list is Mystara, Dragonlance, Vyrnn, Alara, Theros, Tarkir. The last four of these are MtG setting due for a card set.

Still thing about it I might drop Mystara because it's not popular enough to be so soon, and add Plan escape back, which I tossed originally because it's very metasetting and I thought other books might absorb it.

And Vyrnn is too like Krynn so I'll drop that guess too.

My instincts say it won't be Alara or Tarkir so I've decided to drop those as guesses as well.

That leaves Planescape, Dragonlance, and Theros. I think Theros will get a hard cover eventually, but I don't think it will be this year, but rather in 2020, as of the popular MtG settings that they are likely to revisit it's gone the longest without a visit.

So I guess that just leaves Planescape and Dragonlance. If we get a Dragonlance movie it will be Dragonlance and if we don't get that movie this year, it will be Planescape.

As for MtG stuff in 2019, I think it will be some MtG races and monsters making appearance in none setting books, like maybe some reprints of Ravnica races, undead, and celestials in the up coming Volo's Guide to Spirits and Specters. And later maybe proper Eldrazi will make an appearance in a monster section of another book. Maybe Azra will be added to Planescape to fill in the Demonic Tiefling niche now the Tiefling seem to be mostly Infernal now.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm guessing it's probably an Eberron setting book, as we already know that's in the works. If not, perhaps a FR setting book that covers the remainder of the setting outside of what was in SCAG (which only covered a fairly small portion of the setting).

I doubt it will be another Magic setting book - they will want to have some solid, long-term sales numbers on GGtR before determining whether that's something they are wanting to repeat. And doing Magic books two years in a row might be too quick of a turnaround time...

 

[Parmandur]

As for the Spelljammer comment, I’ve maintained (and others as well) that it’s appeared for some time that spelljamming seems to be working into 5e as part of the broader planar mythology, rather than as a separate system/mythology. Whenever the equivalent of a Manual of the Planes (which I suspect will be a broader high-level campaigning book which includes heavy planar aspects) comes out, travel through and exploration of the Astral by ship will just be given as an alternative to portal-hopping (especially given descriptions of late of the 5e Multiverse that newly integrate Crystal Spheres into the classic Prime Material).

I think it is significant that he mentions that Chris Perkins has written and playtested Spelljamming rules. Suggests that we will see those in an adventure path.

 

[gyor]

I'm guessing it's probably an Eberron setting book, as we already know that's in the works. If not, perhaps a FR setting book that covers the remainder of the setting outside of what was in SCAG (which only covered a fairly small portion of the setting).

I doubt it will be another Magic setting book - they will want to have some solid, long-term sales numbers on GGtR before determining whether that's something they are wanting to repeat. And doing Magic books two years in a row might be too quick of a turnaround time...

I know I will get sooooo much hate for this, but I would love a book that covers the rest of the Forgotten Realms Setting, the SCAG just wasn't big enough.

 

[Parmandur]

I know I will get sooooo much hate for this, but I would love a book that covers the rest of the Forgotten Realms Setting, the SCAG just wasn't big enough.

No hate here, but it won't happen anytime soon. The Realms is getting deep dives through Adventure/Gazeeter combos, way more than other settings in aggregate. Given the new comic coming out in Spring, I'm thinking the next AP will likely be seafaring along the Sword Coast.

As to the new setting, I think we can safely eliminate any setting that is under the "search settings" section of the DMsGuild. The setting not in that "other bucket" are the ones I listed above, along with Forgotten Realms and an all-inclusive "Planeshift" covering all of the M;TG PDFs. The D&D Setting listed are also what WotC asked us about in the marketing survey.

The prospective Paramount movie project is set for 2021, and we know pretty much nothing about it, including setting.

Planescape and Dragonlance are open possibilities, but given the Unearthed Arcana activity for this year (one third, minimum, of this year has gone to Eberron crunch), and Mearls told us they were looking to reprint the Eberron crunch in a hardcover, I'm laying my wager on Eberron getting a GGtR style book.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Kara Tur, Maztica, Al Quadam. Sorry I don't know how to spell the last, you know that Arabian setting on Toril.

 

[Morrus]

Kara Tur, Maztica, Al Quadam.

What about them?