# Two New Settings For D&D This Year



## Morrus (Jun 4, 2018)

According to ComicBook.com, WotC's Brand Director, Nathan Stewart, told them that WotC plans to open up a couple more D&D settings for play later this year. He said "It's going to be more like at the level of how Barovia [introduced in the Curse of Strahd adventure storyline] is in terms of stuff. Here's a thing that's going to give you a taste of the setting, but we're not going to that setting yet, we're just letting you get in there and start doing it."





​
Stewart didn't say which settings would be revealed, but did say that it would appeal to "hardcore" fans. Could it be _Spelljammer_ (from recent clues at GAMA and in _Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes_), or_ Dark Sun_ (from Mike Mearls' psionics previews on his video series)? It should be noted that Chris Perkins said that Dungeon of the Mad Mage would include a spelljammer helm. _Spelljammer_ and _Dark Sun_ don't sound like bad guesses, and _Planescape_ seems like a strong contender. But these are just guesses.

There are no vacant "placeholder" slots for WotC at Amazon and the like, so it's a reasonable guess that these offerings will be digital in nature. It could be anything from an _Unearthed Arcana_ article to a full PDF like the _Magic: the Gathering_ crossovers WoTC has released. Time will tell!

And when will this happen? Stewart says "We have two surprises that I think hardcore D&D fans are really going to love coming this summer, and then I think we got one surprise that's going to release later this year that we've not told anyone about. We're going to announce it in July."



			
				kbrakke said:
			
		

> I didn't see this anywhere else, but it looks like we might be getting official support for other settings soon. My guess would be open up DMs guild support and a SACG style book but with a multitude of settings (Or at least, that's what I want. Small primer on the plane, discussions on how the races and classes fit in there, a new race or archetype. Repeat for 200 pages, add 50 pages of monsters). If the announcement is coming in July and we get an extra 4th book this year it could be a big year for 5e.



[FONT=&amp]*Save*[/FONT][FONT=&amp]*Save*[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]*Save*[/FONT][FONT=&amp]*Save*[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]*Save*[/FONT][FONT=&quot]*Save*[/FONT]​


----------



## xanstin (Jun 4, 2018)

This is very exciting, was this brought up at all on the SOME?


----------



## xanstin (Jun 4, 2018)

It feels like their newer books are like this and I love it. OotA 1/2 Underdark Setting , CoS 1/2 Barovia, SKT 1/2 Savage Frontier Guide, ToA 1/2 chult guide. I think its all we will get as far as full fledged settings go. I don't see them doing a full size Underdark book for example when they can combine it with a pre-made story/module and sell 1 book to various audiences.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 4, 2018)

So what settings and associated campaign "guides" do you think we will get? 

Planescape/Sigil (1/2 Planar Guide) seems like an obvious one.


----------



## akr71 (Jun 4, 2018)

[MENTION=6879661]TheSword[/MENTION] 







> "It's going to be more like at the level of how Barovia [introduced in the Curse of Strahd adventure storyline] is in terms of stuff. Here's a thing that's going to give you a taste of the setting, but we're not going to that setting yet, we're just letting you get in there and start doing it."




They've been dancing around Planescape and for a while now.  As Astral Sea primer would be my guess - from there all other settings are just destinations in the Astral Sea.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 4, 2018)

kbrakke said:


> http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/06/04/dungeons-and-dragons-fifth-edition-campaign-settings/
> 
> I didn't see this anywhere else, but it looks like we might be getting official support for other settings soon. My guess would be open up DMs guild support and a SACG style book but with a multitude of settings (Or at least, that's what I want. Small primer on the plane, discussions on how the races and classes fit in there, a new race or archetype. Repeat for 200 pages, add 50 pages of monsters). If the announcement is coming in July and we get an extra 4th book this year it could be a big year for 5e.




Awesome!

Mearls did say a few months ago that they were planning to release a fourth book this year . . .

My guess?  They'll probably start with Spelljammer or Planescape.


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jun 4, 2018)

I really really hope Eberron is among the settings to be supported soon


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Awesome!
> 
> Mearls did say a few months ago that they were planning to release a fourth book this year . . .
> 
> My guess?  They'll probably start with Spelljammer or Planescape.




 Makes sense, maybe they will combine the two, Planejammer ;p

 Still it does make sense, easiest transition for parties already in FR.

 Then next year maybe Greyhawk, Darksun, Dragonlance, and Eberron. 2020 Mystara and Birthright.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 4, 2018)

nicolas.carrillos said:


> I really really hope Eberron is among the settings to be supported soon




Me too.  Eberron is an awesome setting.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

xanstin said:


> It feels like their newer books are like this and I love it. OotA 1/2 Underdark Setting , CoS 1/2 Barovia, SKT 1/2 Savage Frontier Guide, ToA 1/2 chult guide. I think its all we will get as far as full fledged settings go. I don't see them doing a full size Underdark book for example when they can combine it with a pre-made story/module and sell 1 book to various audiences.




 And Waterdeep Books 1 and 2, 1/2 Waterdeep/Skullport Urban adventure guide and half Megadungeon. This is really the first WotC adventure I've been excited about.

 And I'm excited about the new Setting whatever it is (I too am betting its Planescape/Spelljammer).


----------



## xanstin (Jun 4, 2018)

I'm leaning towards a planar travel guide which folds in basics of planescape and spelljammer as the method of transportation for planar travels. Maybe the location will be sigil as a crossover point from Faerun to a port city.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 4, 2018)

My money is on either Dark Sun or Planescape. As being the two most unique and different to Forgotten Realms. I will be disappointed if it’s Greyhawk or Mystara. I can live with Eberron.

If it’s Birthright, I will fall off my chair, do a little cartwheel, sing a hosanna and then sacrifice my first born child to the gods of Olympus for the joy of it!


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 4, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Me too.  Eberron is an awesome setting.



While I would love that too, I think they'll go for settings that are more thematically different than Eberron is from FR.  Eberron is obviously different from FR, but it's still a large, relatively generic fantasy world.  

My guess would be Dark Sun and either Planescape or Spelljammer (or maybe something that ties them together into an overarching world-transit setting).


----------



## Ralif Redhammer (Jun 4, 2018)

Nothing directly, at least that I saw. But in Mearls’ Jocks Machina session, Paul (the Big Show) Wight was playing a half-giant from Athas, so there’s that.



xanstin said:


> This is very exciting, was this brought up at all on the SOME?


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

Thought maybe its Dragonlance first, they did just playtest Minotaurs. If we see Kinder as the next UA we will know.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

I wonder how AL plans on handling the new settings and any player material within.


----------



## TDarien (Jun 4, 2018)

Personally I would love an Omnibus-type book, ~600pp, that includes several different settings. It would be expensive, but I think it would be the best way to put all the most wanted sections in DMs' hands.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 4, 2018)

Hmm, either a single hardcover covering several settings in light detail (with a few races and such to round them out) or a series of Planeshift like Pdfs that do the same thing.


----------



## Dire Bare (Jun 4, 2018)

TDarien said:


> Personally I would love an Omnibus-type book, ~600pp, that includes several different settings. It would be expensive, but I think it would be the best way to put all the most wanted sections in DMs' hands.




I think they could do the idea justice in 256 pages, if they skip less popular settings like Birthright and Mystara. Focus on Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and Eberron, it would fit. We're definitely not getting a 600 page monster.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 4, 2018)

I suspect it will be a merged Spelljammer/Planescape setting, with ties to Skullport.

My personal preferences would have been Dark Sum or Star Frontiers 5e, but I will be happy with that. But anything different is welcome.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

xanstin said:


> I'm leaning towards a planar travel guide which folds in basics of planescape and spelljammer as the method of transportation for planar travels. Maybe the location will be sigil as a crossover point from Faerun to a port city.




 This makes the most sense to me too, it'd be the easiest to add to AL and yet more distinct setting too.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

Morrus said:


> According to ComicBook.com, WotC's Brand Director, Nathan Stewart, told them that WotC plans to open up a couple more D&D settings for play later this year. He said "It's going to be more like at the level of how Barovia [introduced in the Curse of Strahd adventure storyline] is in terms of stuff. Here's a thing that's going to give you a taste of the setting, but we're not going to that setting yet, we're just letting you get in there and start doing it."
> 
> View attachment 98137
> ​




What?

Why did you add images of Spelljammer and Dark Sun directly below Stewart's statement? That just creates the implication those two images was the "thing" he was talking about. He was not. From comicbook.com: 



> Here's a thing that's going to give you a taste of the setting, but we're not going to that setting yet, we're just letting you get in there and start doing it."
> 
> Stewart compared the unrevealed product to Waterdeep: Dungeon Heist



Note - no pictures between these two paragraphs.

Neither Waterdeep nor Barovia can in any way be compared to a full-blown setting like those pictured.​


----------



## Von Ether (Jun 4, 2018)

I'm curious if they plan to stick to their earlier comments that the developers see the different settings as different genres.

That would make the books even cooler. You get a mini-setting, some classic monsters/adventure and some tips on how to run a certain genre in D&D.

That's a nice way to keep things fresh for a while.

UPDATE


> Stewart compared the unrevealed product to Waterdeep: Dungeon Heist




DH is an urban spaces/heist toolkit. So the genre idea could still float.


----------



## Morrus (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> What?
> 
> Why did you add images of Spelljammer and Dark Sun directly below Stewart's statement?




And Planescape. Those are my three guesses.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

A Planescape/Spelljammer setting book would make the smoothest transition from FR to all the other settings too, because you usually have to tranverse Planescape or Spelljammer to get from FR to other settings unlike you find a rare portal directly between them.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

nicolas.carrillos said:


> I really really hope Eberron is among the settings to be supported soon




I think Planescape is more likely - more directly compatible with and insertable in regular Realms adventures.

Note how nothing so far points towards a publication that cannot be used with all existing content. 

WotC has indeed learnt TSR's lesson. I think they will do everything they can to support legacy gamer interests short of actually splitting the player base.


----------



## Jer (Jun 4, 2018)

I suspect that what we'll be getting are digital exclusive releases from DM's Guild.  "Two surprises coming this summer" are things that would have to be announced and ready to ship by now if they were physical products.  I'll put a marker down to say my guess is that those will be two lightweight setting guides that are maybe beefier than a Plane Shift setting book but not a full scale Curse of Strahd adventure/setting combo either.  They might be free like the Plane Shift books or they might be available for a nominal charge on DM's Guild - possibly with a POD option. 

The third one is the one that I think could be a physical product given what we've seen so far.  Announcing in July to have on the shelves for fall/Christmas sounds about right.  I suspect that if it is it's either going to be Planescape or Dark Sun.  Planescape allows for a more "generic" adventure that fits their current model as it could be used like Curse of Strahd where characters from the Realms get swept up into some kind of planar adventure.  Dark Sun would be the opposite - it's a world that is so different from standard D&D that trying it as a standalone book separate from the rest of the line makes a degree of sense.  I suppose it could be Spelljammer as that fits the same model as Planescape, but my gut says Planescape would be less niche and more likely to be picked up by players only interested in playing in the Realms.

(I strongly doubt that we'll be getting any hardcover Greyhawk, Birthright or Mystara anytime soon.  Would be nice to see them opened up on DM's Guild though.)


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

Morrus said:


> And Planescape. Those are my three guesses.



The way the news item is formatted it looks as if those are Nathan Stewart's words (or images as it were).


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

Do we have any indication psionics is ready for prime-time? I would have thought there would be at least one full year's worth of a new UA pass still ahead?

If so, guessing Dark Sun is wishful thinking - they won't open up that setting without psionics being ready for publication.


----------



## Irda Ranger (Jun 4, 2018)

akr71 said:


> They've been dancing around Planescape and for a while now.  As Astral Sea primer would be my guess - from there all other settings are just destinations in the Astral Sea.



To my mind, it would be cool if the Astral Sea replaced the Phlogiston in Spelljammer. So you get a combination Spelljammer/Astral Sea setting.


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 4, 2018)

> Stewart compared the unrevealed product to Waterdeep: Dungeon Heist, which doubles as a low-level adventure and an explanation for how to run campaigns in a large urban setting.




I think the Spelljammer idea is an apt one, in that I could see an expansion into the planes, especially through the Astral. MToF has Giff, Githyanki, Tu’narath, and other astral threats, so I could imagine an adventure that casts off from Skullport into the Astral Plane and includes tools on how to build other routes and adventures there — following the Waterdeep model, that could be paired with a second adventure based in the Outer Planes and containing tool sets for higher level plane-hopping campaigning. You could effectively have Spelljammer and Planescape within campaign toolsets on astral/planar adventuring (while opening up the DMs Guild for those properties and/or having an AL season which expands the use of those properties’ materials).


----------



## Jester David (Jun 4, 2018)

We haven’t seen any codename leaks or release dates & prices. And given two are coming this summer and one is coming in the fall, I expect digital products.

Short introductory adventures that give you the basics of the setting and can hook unfamiliar DMs. And then a brief gazetteer like the Magic Planewalker books. Followed by opening those settings for fan expansion on the Guild.


----------



## Morrus (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> The way the news item is formatted it looks as if those are Nathan Stewart's words (or images as it were).




OK.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Jun 4, 2018)

My own theory is Greyhawk and Eberron because they are the easiest settings, without special rules like the defiler magic from Athas, with easter eggs about Planescape and Spelljammer. Dragonlance is in the way, because Warner would want it to be a new fantasy blockbuster as "Lord of the Rings".


----------



## ShadoWWW (Jun 4, 2018)

Mike Mearls said Greyhawk would be the most difficult to release for 5E to be distinct enough comparing to FR. He said Greyhawk would be at the end of the series of settings.


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 4, 2018)

In one of Nathan Stewart's more recent Fireside Chats on twitch/youtube, he stated quite authoritatively to a chat question that Spelljammer was not coming this year (question asked because of all the planar foes in MToF).  Which could mean a couple things-- 1) he was outright lying/misleading, or 2) it's not Spelljammer but rather Planescape that is the setting book that is the more likely planar setting book.

The way he and Mike et. al. have been talking all along, they've made it sound like game mechanical additions would not arrive officially until the was a product they could be connected to.  So they wouldn't release the mystic until the released an official Dark Sun book, they wouldn't release the Artificer until they released an Eberron book etc.  So we can take what we've been seeing in like Mike Maerls' Happy Fun Hour two different ways-- 1) even though he's been making UAs of ways to play spell-like psionics in the mean time until the official psionic products are released, Dark Sun is not one of the soon-to-be feature settings BECAUSE there is not official psionics at this point in time... or 2) the Mystic as a class with its full mechanical suite of psionics won't be released until an official Dark Sun setting tome is completed, but the Fighter/Monk/Wizard UA subclasses are being made specifically because they ARE making Dark Sun one of their first setting "openings" and want players to have something to use with them in the mean time.

Which way it goes is probably dependent on just how large and official-like the new openings are going to be.  If they are being released as a full book with the intention that _this is it _for that particular setting, then my guess would be Dark Sun wouldn't be one of them.  Mainly because they aren't far enough along with the Mystic to release it is this was to be the one and only DS book they were going to make.  Whereas they could release Greyhawk right now with a one-and-done without needing any major mechanical work requiring playtesting.

Whereas if these "openings" are just digital info and DMsGuild releases for the time being, and there's still big setting books to come in years future... then opening Dark Sun (with the UA psionics to help out) seems more likely.


----------



## Zarithar (Jun 4, 2018)

I agree with the consensus that Spelljammer, Planescape, and Dark Sun are all good guesses based on some things we've seen over the past few months. I'd also say that Dragonlance may be a contender as well because Joe Manganiello seems to have a fair amount of influence with WotC and he is known to love that setting (mysterious meetings with Weiss & Hickman etc).


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 4, 2018)

I can say, you might be surprised in what's coming out.  I'm not going to say anything more, except it's probably not going to be what you're thinking.


----------



## lkj (Jun 4, 2018)

It's possible that they are just being misleading, but Stewart and Mearls have both made oblique comments that hint at Eberron. For example, he suggested to someone on twitter that he/she wait a bit before developing a homebrew Artificer.

Mind you, Stewart, I think, deliberately tries to mislead. And Mike might just have been talking about an upcoming UA. 

AD


----------



## Jester David (Jun 4, 2018)

My Guesses:

Okay, as I mentioned above, I'm wildly guessing these are smaller PDF products like the _Plane Shift_ PDFs for the Magic the Gathering settings. An adventure plus a brief setting overview with a few races and maybe a couple monsters. Perhaps a subclass. 

This is an untested release method. They'd want to try it out with a few softballs before going all in. Classics. But maybe one weirder variant to give people *something* different that isn't generic fantasy. 

I'm guessing *Greyhawk* or *Mystara* for one. A good old school option. Likely the former. It can be well served with a brief folio product, as was demonstrated in the early '80s. 
The continued success of the novels make *Dragonlance* an appealing choice as well. 
But *Eberron* is also a good choice and would pair well with the artificer. So I think that's a lock for the second option. 

The limitations rules out something like *Dark Sun* that has a bajillion setting monsters, and likely too many new mechanics to easily update. 
As such, I think the weird option is *Planescape*. It's safer than *Spelljammer* and is a subsetting that makes it easy to add to existing campaigns. And it's easily covered by focusing on Sigil. 

But, these are wild guesses and WotC could surprise us...


----------



## Eltab (Jun 4, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> I can say, you might be surprised in what's coming out.  I'm not going to say anything more, except it's probably not going to be what you're thinking.



 
A Nerath / Points-of-Light adventure & gazetteer?


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 4, 2018)

So, our legendary fourth book will be appearing, and announced in July.

But as for the two settings, ive just realized a possibility that hasn't been brought up here. As has been mentioned by others, its awfully late for two previously unannounced products to be released and playable by the end of the year. Now some are assuming that this means PDFs or DMs Guild versions of setting guides. But... what about extensive UAs for these settings? That will get them released and playable by the end of the year, without physical products, but with likely physical products in the future, like next year.

I would assume that these would contain things that would need some playtesting, so I'm guessing Eberron and Dark Sun, leaving our soon-to-be-announced physical product something less difficult, like Planescape and/or Spelljammer. Heck, it might even be a full Forgotten Realms setting book, although I can only imagine the storm that would cause...


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I think Planescape is more likely - more directly compatible with and insertable in regular Realms adventures.
> 
> Note how nothing so far points towards a publication that cannot be used with all existing content.
> 
> WotC has indeed learnt TSR's lesson. I think they will do everything they can to support legacy gamer interests short of actually splitting the player base.





I respectfully disagree -artificer and psionics being worked on, and hints on Twittwr about Keith Baker and Mearls’s Eberron campaign make me think otherwise. Eberron has specific flavors, classes, races, rules that can complement traditional settings, and they insist it is part of the Multiverse. New or unheard of links with other settings can be explained


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 4, 2018)

Jester David said:


> My Guesses:
> 
> Okay, as I mentioned above, I'm wildly guessing these are smaller PDF products like the _Plane Shift_ PDFs for the Magic the Gathering settings. An adventure plus a brief setting overview with a few races and maybe a couple monsters. Perhaps a subclass.
> 
> ...



So the way it seems to work is, a lot of times, classes and races will go to UA for play test, but the campaigns get shipped to the play-testers. Seeing that they announced both new books coming out, they must've shipped the modules at the same time to different groups (probably to weed out the leakers).  In the last couple books, they have been putting out some spelljammer monsters, and this last book had a lot of outer planes stuff, so those could be hints, but like someone said, they like to be misleading.  Darksun isn't even possible until they bring psionics into the game, so you can count that out.


----------



## Ghost2020 (Jun 4, 2018)

Greyhawk and Mystara won't be on the list anytime soon. Greyhawk and Mystara aren't different enough, at this point, to make it worth the effort from the Realms. 

A Planescape/Spelljammer hybrid would make the most sense in that regard. They can be blended well enough to exist in one book. A second book might be an adventure and additional sourcebook for that setting.

Eberron and Dark Sun not sure where they would drop those. Possibly Dark Sun before Eberron, but those would most likely come next year or later.

So for 2018 - Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and the last would be D&D Planescape (or something like Tenser's Guide to the Planes) (which would include Sigil, Spelljamming, new backgrounds, a few new monsters, a chapter on the planes, etc.)


----------



## thebakeriscomingforu (Jun 4, 2018)

Has anyone else seen this from twitter? Greg Tito retweeted this just a short time ago from an account made in may and this is the only tweet from it.
[video]https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1003669561768599552[/video]


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 4, 2018)

You can cross Greyhawk out.  They've moved so much stuff from GH to the Realms already, I don't see them putting them back.


----------



## ccs (Jun 4, 2018)

I wonder if one of them will be related to this:View attachment 98140


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jun 4, 2018)

thebakeriscomingforu said:


> Has anyone else seen this from twitter? Greg Tito retweeted this just a short time ago from an account made in may and this is the only tweet from it.
> [video]https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1003669561768599552[/video]





Intriguing. If so... which setting does each glyph represent?


----------



## Tiles (Jun 4, 2018)

One glyph was on mad mage cover ??


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 4, 2018)

Has there been any news regarding Mass Combat rules? We’ve heard discussion on progression (or lack thereof) of the Mystic/Psion and Artificer rules that would tie into any Dark Sun or Eberron product, and we’ve seen the bits of astral and planar material coming out in books that could support a Spelljammer or Planescape book. But I’ve thought from Day One that they’re likely to approach Dragonlance as a unique product from the war angle and so tie any release into a finalized Mass Combat system (especially one that includes support for air combat).


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 4, 2018)

thebakeriscomingforu said:


> Has anyone else seen this from twitter? Greg Tito retweeted this just a short time ago from an account made in may and this is the only tweet from it.
> [video]https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1003669561768599552[/video]



Account was made in May, but first tweet was today, and immediately retweeted by Greg.  Definitely seems to be some intent here.

Hell's Belles is interesting...the tweet references a sound across the planes, but the spelling itself indicates women.


----------



## EonTrinity (Jun 4, 2018)

I wish WOTC would just get over it and create a FRCS guidebook.  I get their approach...  don't need a million splats to follow-up.  But a really good meaty FRCS - the 5e version of the 3e version...  I don't think they arre aware of how well that puppy would sell.  The Sword coast guide was such a disappointment.  Maybe after that sells well, they might consider selling some other CS as well.  I like adventures and the adventure paths, but enough is enough!  Get to it already!

ET


----------



## Jer (Jun 4, 2018)

Eltab said:


> A Nerath / Points-of-Light adventure / gazetteer?




Ooh - I forgot about Nerath.

If we want to think out of the box, the summer releases could be "plane shift" style documents for Star Frontiers and Gamma World both done under 5e rules.

Or maybe they don't do a Mystara update but do give us a Hollow World adventure for 5e.  And the second summer release set on the Savage Coast of the Red Steel setting.

(Disclaimer - I'm totally not serious, though I would purchase all of that myself.)


----------



## Jester David (Jun 4, 2018)

thebakeriscomingforu said:


> Has anyone else seen this from twitter? Greg Tito retweeted this just a short time ago from an account made in may and this is the only tweet from it.
> [video]https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1003669561768599552[/video]



Based on the spelling of “belles” I’m guessing a new streaming group, like Sirens of the Realms.

edit

After 30 seconds I thought... $5 says this is a Holly Condrad DMed Planescape game.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

EonTrinity said:


> I wish WOTC would just get over it and create a FRCS guidebook.  I get their approach...  don't need a million splats to follow-up.  But a really good meaty FRCS - the 5e version of the 3e version...  I don't think they arre aware of how well that puppy would sell.  The Sword coast guide was such a disappointment.  Maybe after that sells well, they might consider selling some other CS as well.  I like adventures and the adventure paths, but enough is enough!  Get to it already!
> 
> ET




 I agree so much with this.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 4, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> You can cross Greyhawk out.  They've moved so much stuff from GH to the Realms already, I don't see them putting them back.




Such as?
They had some multiplanar threats also affecting the Realms rather than just affecting Greyhawk. But I don’t think they moved anything.


----------



## Pauper (Jun 4, 2018)

My guess:

No sourcebook. Perhaps an adventure, containing elements from two beloved former settings, hodge-podged together in a way that no one who is actually a fan of one of those settings could love, plus some other extraneous stuff salted in for 'rule of cool' purposes.

In parallel, an announcement that the two former settings are being opened up for community development via the DMs Guild, along with a flurry of Adept material that relates to the Adepts having been given the heads' up in advance. "Go play in Sigil, and be AL legal!" The Adept material will be of varying quality, with horrible editing, and be focused on Tier 1 and Tier 2 adventuring, with Tier 3 and 4 promised 'any time now'.

There will be some people who will like this, but as an announcement that's 'worth the hype' being generated right now, it'll fall well short.

Just my $0.02US.

--
Pauper


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 4, 2018)

Without psionics up and running (and thuroly playtested), Dark Sun and Eberron are impossible this year.

Appealing to ‘hardcore’ group of fans ...

It has to be Planescape.

Mordenkainens Tomb is already the Planescape setting.



5e imposes the Forgotten Realms setting, but it is a modified Forgotten Realms. It instead uses Greyhawk races (high elf replaces Forgotten Realms moon elf, and there is no sun elf). It also adds some Nentir Vale races (tiefling and dragonborn − and the distinctive 4e wood elf that lacks Strength thus resembling the flavor of the Forgotten Realms wood elf but using the mechanics of the Forgotten Realms wild elf).

The 5e Forgotten Realms instead uses the Planescape cosmology (great wheel) but adds to it Nentir Vale cosmology (feywild and shadowfell). 



The point is, the 5e Planescape setting is already here, including player races and monsters, and lore, now in Mordenkainens Tome.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 4, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Based on the spelling of “belles” I’m guessing a new streaming group, like Sirens of the Realms.
> 
> edit
> 
> After 30 seconds I thought... $5 says this is a Holly Condrad DMed Planescape game.



There are 8 symbols shown, and the Twitter account is following 8 personal accounts, all of which are women who seem to be involved with streaming and D&D, including Holly Conrad.  I think you've hit the nail on the head.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Account was made in May, but first tweet was today, and immediately retweeted by Greg.  Definitely seems to be some intent here.
> 
> Hell's Belles is interesting...the tweet references a sound across the planes, but the spelling itself indicates women.




 I wonder if its Planescape as the first setting if it will have Planetouched that Mearls was talking about before as a seperste race from Tieflings and the like. Or other Planescape races.


----------



## DM Howard (Jun 4, 2018)

gyor said:


> I agree so much with this.




I agree with your agreement!


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 4, 2018)

thebakeriscomingforu said:


> Has anyone else seen this from twitter? Greg Tito retweeted this just a short time ago from an account made in may and this is the only tweet from it.
> [video]https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1003669561768599552[/video]




Interesting.  Assuming that each glyph represents a different D&D setting of sorts (and not something else), I would guess the following.

Top Left -- lower planes . . . Planescape?
Top Right -- _no idea_
Right -- Grayhawk
Lower Right -- Eberron?
Bottom -- Dark Sun
Lower Left -- Dragonlance?  If I squint, it kinda looks like a flag attached to a pole, fluttering in the breeze.
Left -- Mystara/Hollow World
Center -- Spelljammer?


----------



## Staffan (Jun 4, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Without psionics up and running (and thuroly playtested), Dark Sun and Eberron are impossible this year.



Eberron can work fine without psionics. The main source of psionics in the setting is a villain faction that's primarily located on another continent, and their foes, and you can easily run a dozen campaigns in Eberron without using them.

Eberron is friendly to psionics: it provides a place where they fit in, and it's a cool place. But it doesn't require them - the place is out of the way unless you actively involve it.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 4, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Based on the spelling of “belles” I’m guessing a new streaming group, like Sirens of the Realms.
> 
> edit
> 
> After 30 seconds I thought... $5 says this is a Holly Condrad DMed Planescape game.




There's already a Holly Conrad DMed Planescape game but a 2nd one would be fun! 

Trapped in the Birdcage started back in February. I'm way behind, but I started trying to annotate the canonical Planescape references on my Rule of 3 intro to Planescape blog. Hoping to get caught up over the next few weeks. (Been swamped with my oldest kid's high school graduation and subsequent college planning).


----------



## Lord Mhoram (Jun 4, 2018)

yeah - I am really thinking a Planescape/Spelljammer combo - lots of groundwork for Planescape as has been mentioned; and for spelljammer Neogi and Giff are in books, and mention of a spelljamming helm in the upcoming books.  Themetically a ships sailing astral seas fits within Planescape (I know others have mentioned that too). And that would open up for DMGuild, and both those setting have a lot of devoted fans which would drive lots of material there. It also just expands the 5E FR based setting rather than being a competitor for it.  And as others have mentioned once that is in place, you have a mechanism for PCs to get to other classic D&D settings, which ties them back to the FR centered approach.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

DM Howard said:


> I agree with your agreement!




 And I agree with your agreement with my agreement.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 4, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> There are 8 symbols shown, and the Twitter account is following 8 personal accounts, all of which are women who seem to be involved with streaming and D&D, including Holly Conrad.  I think you've hit the nail on the head.



That sounds great. Holly has great charisma and presence, is a long time gamer, and is a nut about PlaceScape. That sounds very watchable.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 4, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Eberron can work fine without psionics. The main source of psionics in the setting is a villain faction that's primarily located on another continent, and their foes, and you can easily run a dozen campaigns in Eberron without using them.
> 
> Eberron is friendly to psionics: it provides a place where they fit in, and it's a cool place. But it doesn't require them - the place is out of the way unless you actively involve it.




One of the Eberron races is a psionic race. The flavor of psionics is part of what makes the setting work.

I doubt it will be Eberron this year.



Also, the artificer is coming out no time soon.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 4, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Without psionics up and running (and thuroly playtested), Dark Sun and Eberron are impossible this year.
> 
> Appealing to ‘hardcore’ group of fans ...
> 
> ...




Moon Elf and Sun Elf are stated to be the same thing as a High Elf, Wild Elf is a Wood Elf. This was spelled out in a few books.


----------



## Mark Craddock (Jun 4, 2018)

If I had to guess, gun to my head, I would go with Dark Sun and Eberron because of the Mystic and Artificer being available for playtest.


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 4, 2018)

View attachment 98143


----------



## Staffan (Jun 4, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> One of the Eberron races is a psionic race. The flavor of psionics is part of what makes the setting work.




And that race (Kalashtar) is connected to the psionic villain faction (the Dreaming Dark).

Look, I would *like* an Eberron with psionics. But I'll *take* one where psionics are reduced to a sidebar.


----------



## generic (Jun 4, 2018)

I would assume that the new settings are going to be either Oerth and Athas or Planescape and Spelljammer, I doubt that Eberron could make an appearance, and (although it would be awesome) Aebrynis will never, NEVER be revived.


----------



## generic (Jun 4, 2018)

I need to know what this "Hell's Belles" thing is.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Interesting.  Assuming that each glyph represents a different D&D setting of sorts (and not something else), I would guess the following.
> 
> Top Left -- lower planes . . . Planescape?
> Top Right -- _no idea_
> ...




 Do we have symbols for particular settings?


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 4, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Based on the spelling of “belles” I’m guessing a new streaming group, like Sirens of the Realms.
> 
> edit
> 
> After 30 seconds I thought... $5 says this is a Holly Condrad DMed Planescape game.




That already is a thing. Trapped in the Brid Cage. Unless you think she is doing 2.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 4, 2018)

MonsterEnvy said:


> Moon Elf and Sun Elf are stated to be the same thing as a High Elf. This was spelled out in a few books.




The as-if ‘support’ for the Forgotten Realms sun elf is mentioned in the 5e Players Handbook. That 5e version that changes the sun elf (+2 Intelligence, +0 Dexterity, −2 Constitution) into the same thing as a high elf (+2 Dexterity, +1 Intelligence) feels wrong for the Forgotten Realms setting.





MonsterEnvy said:


> Wild Elf is a Wood Elf.




The wood elf is more complicated.

The 5e wood elf (+2 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom) represents well the Forgotten Realms wild elf (+2 Dexterity, −2 Intelligence).

But there is no Forgotten Realms wood elf (with +2 Strength), nor Greyhawk wood elf (with +1 Strength), for that matter.



In any case, the point here is, the 5e Forgotten Realms is a modification of the previous Forgotten Realms settings. And just like the races are different, the cosmology is different too.

The 5e Forgotten Realms cosmology is now the Planescape cosmology but also adds to it feywild and shadowfell.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 4, 2018)

I've heard multiple people online say this would "surprise people." I am starting to think it is an all-new setting.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 4, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> I've heard multiple people online say this would "surprise people." I am starting to think it is an all-new setting.




If it would ‘surprise’ people, how could it appeal to ‘hardcore’ D&D players?

Obviously, the setting has to be one of the more prominent settings.

So, ruling out the unlikely ones leaves one or few possibilities.


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 4, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> If it would ‘surprise’ people, how could it appeal to ‘hardcore’ D&D players?
> 
> Obviously, the setting has to be one of the more prominent settings.
> 
> So, ruling out the unlikely ones leaves one or few possibilities.




You show your "hardcore" gamer credentials by liking a setting that has almost been forgotten:  any johnnie-come-lately fan can like FR or Eberron, but it takes a real fan to appreciate [insert name of obscure setting].  Since it is an obscure setting, it is surprising.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 4, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The as-if ‘support’ for the Forgotten Realms sun elf is mentioned in the 5e Players Handbook. That 5e version that changes the sun elf (+2 Intelligence, +0 Dexterity, −1 Constitution) into the same thing as a high elf (+2 Dexterity, +1 Intelligence) feels wrong for the Forgotten Realms setting.
> The wood elf is more complicated.
> 
> The 5e wood elf (+2 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom) represents well the Forgotten Realms wild elf (+2 Dexterity, −2 Intelligence).
> ...




It does not feel wrong at all. There really only needs to be two types of the default elf. This is easier and simpler to adapt. High Elves 5e represent stuff like the High Elf, Grey Elf, Sun Elf and Moon Elf. As they all fall into similar culture and appearance. Wood Elves 5e represent the fairly simple wild and wood elf types. 

Then Eladrin represent the Feywild Elves.
Sea Elves the Underwater Elves.
Shadar Kai the Shadowfell Elves.
Avariel the Sky Elves.
Drow the Underground Elves.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 4, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> If it would ‘surprise’ people, how could it appeal to ‘hardcore’ D&D players?
> 
> Obviously, the setting has to be one of the more prominent settings.
> 
> So, ruling out the unlikely ones leaves one or few possibilities.




The article said the 2 summer releases would be for hardcore fans. Not the final one at the end of the year.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 4, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> That already is a thing. Trapped in the Brid Cage. Unless you think she is doing 2.



Maybe. She could be running two. Or she could just be a player.
But, as mentioned, the Hell’s Belles account is follows the D&D twitter account and eight female streamers. So almost certainly a new live game.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 4, 2018)

gyor said:


> Do we have symbols for particular settings?




Not exactly.  At least, so far as I am aware, there aren't.

However, there are the old logos for the different settings.
The old Dark Sun logo really does look similar to the bottom logo in the video.
If you rotated the lower left one to be horizontal, it would look even more like the old Dragonlance logo.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 4, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Maybe. She could be running two. Or she could just be a player.
> But, as mentioned, the Hell’s Belles account is follows the D&D twitter account and eight female streamers. So almost certainly a new live game.




Sure. I don't think it connects to these setting products or whatever they are. Just was of note.


----------



## robus (Jun 4, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> I've heard multiple people online say this would "surprise people." I am starting to think it is an all-new setting.




Perhaps they're finally going to officially "cross the streams" and connect D&D to M:tG through some planar travel???! (I'm joking, but not entirely...)


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 4, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> The article said the 2 summer releases would be for hardcore fans. Not the final one at the end of the year.




The wording is all a little vague - especially broken into separate quotes in the article. For one thing, the number of things is a bit vague from "a couple settings" and "two surprises this summer" but possibly a (third?) different surprise they are announcing in July??

Also, nowhere does he state that any of these will be hardcover releases or physical products of any sort. Given the way the publishing industry works, I'd say a hardcover, or even any printed book, this summer has Zero chance of coming out. Another hardcover at the end of the year also seems unlikely at this point but that's still being debated to death elsewhere so I won't get into that. 

Since no retailers or distributors are showing signs of other physical releases especially this summer, I'd presume Planeshift/EEPC style PDF releases. Not to mention that earlier this year Nathan Stewart said they had exciting plans for DMs Guild this year. So some PDF releases on DMs Guild as introductions to the settings in 5e (and hopefully opening up DMs Guild to 3pp products for this settings!) seems to be a lower cost and less risky way to satisfy a lot fans without competing too directly with their hardcover sales. I would be incredibly amazed if they were another hardcover(s) rather than DMs Guild PDF releases.


----------



## silentdante (Jun 4, 2018)

i agree with most everyone that Hell's Belle's is probly a planescape or spelljammer campaign with Holly in it because of how much she loves Sigil and planescape.

i would ALSO guess and have no authority on this, but since they brought in Matt Mercer for help on the Waterdeep book, they got Holly Conrad in to help with a planescape book, on other video's of hers she has shown she owns every planescape book ever put out, and is knowledgeable about the setting. i think the stream will have to do with a plane war, and incorporate moving between planes by the use of planescape/spelljammer. i also have it on no authority that the book will be a small spelljammer book in that it is not a "setting" anymore but a means of transportation and the multi=plane setting will all morph into Planescape itself. a joining of the spelljammer themes with the many doors of planescape idea.

as for the 2 summer things, i suspect it will be like the MTG world UA's but also open things for DMsGuild which i have never looked at and i suspect most players dont even know about, but will make hardcore fans happy because, as i have seen on here, people just want to write about those other settings.


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 4, 2018)

If they really were going to hit the "hardcore" fans, they could do so *and* really piss a lot of people off at the same time by giving us _Al-Qadim_ and _Kara-Tur_.

An Arabian styled setting and an Asian styled setting... and yet both of them are still Forgotten Realms.  LOL!  We'd get a whole morass of people freaking out that we when we get all new campaign settings we still aren't leaving Abeir-Toril.


----------



## silentdante (Jun 4, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If they really were going to hit the "hardcore" fans, they could do so *and* really piss a lot of people off at the same time by giving us _Al-Qadim_ and _Kara-Tur_.
> 
> An Arabian styled setting and an Asian styled setting... and yet both of them are still Forgotten Realms.  LOL!  We'd get a whole morass of people freaking out that we when we get all new campaign settings we still aren't leaving Abeir-Toril.




this made me giggle much to much...


----------



## Osgood (Jun 4, 2018)

I'll bet the 2 summer surprises with be DM Guild or UA releases of the Artificer and Mystic, which was hinted at earlier in the year, but the surprise will be that these 2 docs include treatments of the Eberron and Dark Sun settings.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

MonsterEnvy said:


> It does not feel wrong at all. There really only needs to be two types of the default elf. This is easier and simpler to adapt. High Elves 5e represent stuff like the High Elf, Grey Elf, Sun Elf and Moon Elf. As they all fall into similar culture and appearance. Wood Elves 5e represent the fairly simple wild and wood elf types.
> 
> Then Eladrin represent the Feywild Elves.
> Sea Elves the Underwater Elves.
> ...




 Which of those represents Lythari Elves? And Fey'ri Elves (Elf Tieflings).


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 4, 2018)

Why can't we have a new setting?


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> The wording is all a little vague - especially broken into separate quotes in the article. For one thing, the number of things is a bit vague from "a couple settings" and "two surprises this summer" but possibly a (third?) different surprise they are announcing in July??
> 
> Also, nowhere does he state that any of these will be hardcover releases or physical products of any sort. Given the way the publishing industry works, I'd say a hardcover, or even any printed book, this summer has Zero chance of coming out. Another hardcover at the end of the year also seems unlikely at this point but that's still being debated to death elsewhere so I won't get into that.
> 
> Since no retailers or distributors are showing signs of other physical releases especially this summer, I'd presume Planeshift/EEPC style PDF releases. Not to mention that earlier this year Nathan Stewart said they had exciting plans for DMs Guild this year. So some PDF releases on DMs Guild as introductions to the settings in 5e (and hopefully opening up DMs Guild to 3pp products for this settings!) seems to be a lower cost and less risky way to satisfy a lot fans without competing too directly with their hardcover sales. I would be incredibly amazed if they were another hardcover(s) rather than DMs Guild PDF releases.




 This is possible, and it makes sense, because in next year you can follow it up with proper Setting books.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If they really were going to hit the "hardcore" fans, they could do so *and* really piss a lot of people off at the same time by giving us _Al-Qadim_ and _Kara-Tur_.
> 
> An Arabian styled setting and an Asian styled setting... and yet both of them are still Forgotten Realms.  LOL!  We'd get a whole morass of people freaking out that we when we get all new campaign settings we still aren't leaving Abeir-Toril.




 Sounds fun.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 4, 2018)

gyor said:


> Which of those represents Lythari Elves? And Fey'ri Elves (Elf Tieflings).




Werewolves without Hybrid form, and Tieflings. Done.


----------



## gyor (Jun 4, 2018)

MonsterEnvy said:


> Werewolves without Hybrid form, and Tieflings. Done.




 Werewolves aren't playable and just using Tieflings gives no Elven traits at all.


----------



## Doctor Futurity (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> What?
> 
> Why did you add images of Spelljammer and Dark Sun directly below Stewart's statement? That just creates the implication those two images was the "thing" he was talking about. He was not. From comicbook.com:
> 
> ...




But Rock of Bral and Sigil would both count for the scale we're talking about.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 4, 2018)

I have a crazy prediction for this "new setting."

Based on some peoples responses I think it is entirely new. And based on the fact that a lot of AL Admins seem involved in the new books I think this new setting is a plain ass generic setting that is meant to be shaped as the AL players play through it. Think the Red War but on a world wide scale. AL players can become lords of towns and cities and shape the world as they play in it. 

This is probably logistically impossible but it is fun to imagine this stuff up XD


----------



## R_Chance (Jun 4, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If they really were going to hit the "hardcore" fans, they could do so *and* really piss a lot of people off at the same time by giving us _Al-Qadim_ and _Kara-Tur_.
> 
> An Arabian styled setting and an Asian styled setting... and yet both of them are still Forgotten Realms.  LOL!  We'd get a whole morass of people freaking out that we when we get all new campaign settings we still aren't leaving Abeir-Toril.




Thank you for my soda spitting belly laugh of the day!  I can just imagine the posts...


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 4, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> I've heard multiple people online say this would "surprise people." I am starting to think it is an all-new setting.




Dominaria.  

You heard it here first....


----------



## OB1 (Jun 5, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Top Right -- _no idea_




Looks like a ship in a sea of stars to me, so spelljammer?

My guess for this release is a planescape/spelljammer combo that also serves as a guide to everywhere . Planescape for traveling the outer planes and Spelljammer for traveling the alt prime materials. 

Could easily do a 2-4 page write up on a dozen alt primes (similar to the outer plane write ups in 3.5 manual of he planes), enough to officially open them up to DMs guild. Same for the outer planes. Not sure if it would try to fit the elemental planes, shadowfell and feywild in here too, my guess would be no. 

If we are really lucky, we get the Artificer and Mystic in it as well.


----------



## Zarithar (Jun 5, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Dominaria.
> 
> You heard it here first....




I would actually love it if they would take all of the Magic/D&D conversions they've done over the past couple of years and compile those into a hardcover (and add some new material). We have new races, monsters, builds, backgrounds, etc. I'd be happy with that!


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 5, 2018)

gyor said:


> Werewolves aren't playable and just using Tieflings gives no Elven traits at all.




To which I say, don't care much for wolf elves. And the Fiendish traits replaced the Elven Traits.


----------



## Darrius_Adler (Jun 5, 2018)

Since they don't want to do setting books, seems like they could do a Worlds of the Multiverse book and have each chapter devoted to the unique items of a specific world. Class options, feats, special metals/materials, etc.  Leaving prior published material to flesh out the world but giving people the offical versions of items they need for those worlds.  And then maybe a companion monster book with signature creatures detailed along with a paragraph about where they fit in their home world and how they have reached out into others.


----------



## Eltab (Jun 5, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> AL players can become lords of towns and cities and shape the world as they play in it.



I have an AL-legal character who wants to become a Merchant Prince.


----------



## vecna00 (Jun 5, 2018)

I am beyond ready.  Hell, I won't even be mad if they announce a setting I don't like.

Unless they announce Greyhawk and Lankhmar as the first two.  Then I would be a sad panda.


----------



## guachi (Jun 5, 2018)

I think we'd be more likely to get something that doesn't compete with Forgotten Realms. So Planescape and Spelljammer, for example.

The Realms won't get direct competition.


----------



## thebakeriscomingforu (Jun 5, 2018)

Well Joe Manganiello is a huge fan of Dragonlance and is working on the developing the D&D  movie, so my guess is Dragonlance for the "normal" offering. Planescape would be my guess for setting book #2 with maybe DarkSun next year.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jun 5, 2018)

While I love both Spelljammer and Planescape, unfortunately, I don't see this as anything to get excited about.

It's clear we're not getting setting books.  They make it pretty clear with the CoS comparison that any fleshing out of the setting will be minimal in nature, and that it'll be rooted in FR.

Also, Spelljammer (and any seafaring D&D game in general) needs good ship-to-ship combat rules.  The closest thing we've gotten so far to a battlesystem that layers over the existing D&D game is the mass combat rules, and those are nothing to write home about.


Also, I have no love at all for Dark Sun.  I tried it once, and I really didn't care for it (the only reason I bought the 4e dark sun book was for the character themes and the inherent bonuses to replace magic item bonuses).  Dark Sun's just not my cup of tea, but I'm glad it exists for people who like it.  That said, if Dark Sun is one of the things they're going to let us lick off their fingers then I truly hope 5e's psionics aren't the "it's like magic, but magic will always be superior" system of 3e style psionics.  And nothing I've seen so far really gives me any incentive to believe it'll be anything other than that.


I'd love to see Eberron get some love, though I suspect that won't happen (even in such a limited capacity as this).  If they're talking about appeal to "hardcore" fans, they may well do Greyhawk and Birthright, neither of which catch my fancy.


I mean, I hope I'm wrong.  I hope we get great books that really give us what we need to play in and to run these settings (which is to say mechanical updates to things like Dragonmarks, the races of the various settings, the moon-based magic of DL, artificers, solid ship-to-ship combat rules, the domain rulership stuff I've heard about from Birthright, etc).  But, you won't catch me holding my breath.


----------



## Elf_flambe (Jun 5, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Dominaria.
> 
> You heard it here first....




BLACKMOOR.

For the _real_ old-time grognards...


----------



## guachi (Jun 5, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If they really were going to hit the "hardcore" fans, they could do so *and* really piss a lot of people off at the same time by giving us _Al-Qadim_ and _Kara-Tur_.
> 
> An Arabian styled setting and an Asian styled setting... and yet both of them are still Forgotten Realms.  LOL!  We'd get a whole morass of people freaking out that we when we get all new campaign settings we still aren't leaving Abeir-Toril.




I'd love al-Qadim and I don't like the Forgotten Realms. I never got the books when they were new but I did get everything a few years ago cheap (relatively) online. One boxed set was still shrink wrapped! 

The only setting that had long term support that I'd be surprised to see would be Mystara. I don't consider al-Qadim or Birthright as settings with long term support (intentional in al-Qadim's case and maybe Birthright but I can't say for certain).

Though after 20 years Mystara, despite being a generic setting, has more and more differences, though Tortles aren't one of them any longer. Hollow World would be a great setting for and adventure and could plausibly have anything in it.


----------



## DM Howard (Jun 5, 2018)

I'm up for anything, but I can't say I get the draw of Planescape or Spelljammer.


----------



## R_Chance (Jun 5, 2018)

DM Howard said:


> I'm up for anything, but I can't say I get the draw of Planescape or Spelljammer.




Aside from the city of Sigil, the draw is travel to other planes (settings) as well as the traditional visits to the Hells, the Abyss and every other unlivable local that adventurers want to go to. And die on. Which, with an adventure book could open up a number of other settings. Minimal page investment to give the flavor of several other setting, and (probably) open them to Guild use. All imho, of course.


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 5, 2018)

Aebir-Toril said:


> I would assume that the new settings are going to be either Oerth and Athas or Planescape and Spelljammer, I doubt that Eberron could make an appearance, and (although it would be awesome) Aebrynis will never, NEVER be revived.




I would love to see Birthright revived as another of the D&D “board games,” perhaps using two boards (a domain board and an adventure board) with an option to continue the same Domain Game across multiple games of the Adventure Game.


----------



## Knightfall (Jun 5, 2018)

*Hell's Belles (My Guesses)*

Hmm... Interesting. 

View attachment 98150

I guess the one that I've marked as Ravenloft could also be Birthright, but I don't think it would come second in the video. Also, the Greyhawk/Nerath and Eberron guesses could be switched. The third one that appears looks a lot like the Eberron logo from the 3E era books.


----------



## bedir than (Jun 5, 2018)

One of my favorite thing about settings rumors is that I get to read a little bit about a lot of settings I never encountered as my playtime stretches from 84ish-98ish and 15 to present. We did Realms, DragonLance, Spelljammer, Ravenloft and knew of Greyhawk. I think that's it.


----------



## vpuigdoller (Jun 5, 2018)

I would love Mystara/Hollow World, Greyhawk or Eberron.  I think we will get Planescape and Spelljammer. I could care less about Dark Sun or Dragonlance now that I think about it.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 5, 2018)

How about this: The Rod of Seven Parts, which each part in a different campaign world. The central glyph is Sigil, and the seven surrounding glyphs are different settings and locations of parts.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 5, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Why can't we have a new setting?




Because the Well of Ideas is completely dry and all that's left to do is rehash the old. Haven't you been paying attention to the movies? 



DM Howard said:


> I'm up for anything, but I can't say I get the draw of Planescape or Spelljammer.




So what you're _really_ saying is that you're _sorta_ up for anything...or maybe that you're up for some things...but not PS or SJ.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

Heh, the designers are pretty much like, you can have as many new settings as you want, as long as they are all exactly like Forgotten Realms.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 5, 2018)

*You heard it here first*

You heard it here first! The upcoming WotC book may very well feature...



The Dream World of Symslvch...the setting of the Hebrew-language Basic D&D modules.
Pelinore...the setting of D&D UK's Imagine magazine.
The Empire of Izmer...the setting of the first two D&D Movies (the third was set in Nerath).
The Realm of the Kids...the setting of the D&D Animated Series.
The Kingdom of Ghyr...the setting of the LJN AD&D action figures.
Thunder Rift...the setting of the Classic D&D black box set and module line.
The Vale...the setting of the 1999 D&D Starter Set and modules.
Nerath...the setting of 4E.
The unnamed setting of the D&D Endless Quest and HeartQuest gamebooks.
Council of Wyrms...a setting for dragon PCs from 2e.
Jakandor...a setting of barbarians versus wizards from 2e.
Land of Arir...quasi-Arabian setting from I9: Day of Al-Akbar for 2e.
Ghostwalk…setting for ghost PCS for 3e.
Kolhapur...quasi-Asian Indian setting from The Star of Kolhapur for 1e.
Kingdom of Karawenn...setting of the First Quest D&D novels.
Islandia...vaporware setting announced for Classic D&D.
Pharagos, Aquela, Imperium Romanum, Night, Petroyeska, Mahasarpa…settings designed by James Wyatt which were featured in DRAGON and POLYHEDRON magazines, or in a WotC web enhancment (Mahasarpa).
Alusia…the setting of TSR's DragonQuest RPG
Greyhawk 2000.
Wonderland…from the 1e crossovers with Alice in Wonderland.
The settings of the standalone TSR novels, such as Jewels of the Elvish.
Urt...the setting of the BECMI D&D boxed sets, which was drastically revised to become the new (different) setting of Mystara. (Urt is said to be the Jurassic past of Earth. In contrast, Mystara is said to be in a different dimension than Earth. Urt's geography matches the Master Set map vs. Mystara's geography discounted that map in the Voyage of Princess Ark series. They have different cosmologies: Gold Box Immortals rules for Urt versus Wrath of the Immortals for Mystara).
Aerth, Uerth, and Yarth: alternate Oerths.
D&D Earth….the setting of various D&D crossovers (e.g. Wizards Three) and the location of various TSR RPGS (Boot Hill, Gangbusters, Top Secret), Masque of the Red Death, and d20 Modern Campaign Models.
Yep, you heard it hear first. ;-)

Sources:
Logos of the D&D worlds
Atlas of the D&D Worlds
Genre Books


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 5, 2018)

Wow, so you're saying it will essentially be the Book of Forgotten Settings? That's a step away from the Forgotten Realms, I suppose.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 5, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Wow, so you're saying it will essentially be the Book of Forgotten Settings? That's a step away from the Forgotten Realms, I suppose.




haha...yes...sources close to some D&D staffers* suggest as much...you heard it here first.

*(Okay, well, the source of this leak lives on the same planet as several D&D staffers.)


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 5, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Because the Well of Ideas is completely dry and all that's left to do is rehash the old. Haven't you been paying attention to the movies?




I urge you to look up Yoon-Suin, it will give you faith


----------



## Staffan (Jun 5, 2018)

Knightfall said:


> Hmm... Interesting.
> 
> View attachment 98150
> 
> I guess the one that I've marked as Ravenloft could also be Birthright, but I don't think it would come second in the video. Also, the Greyhawk/Nerath and Eberron guesses could be switched. The third one that appears looks a lot like the Eberron logo from the 3E era books.




I associated the one you've marked as Mystara with Eberron, because of its many moons and "orrery-style" cosmology.


----------



## Knightfall (Jun 5, 2018)

Staffan said:


> I associated the one you've marked as Mystara with Eberron, because of its many moons and "orrery-style" cosmology.



And when I first looked at it, I thought maybe Dragonlance because of the 3 circles that look like they could be the three moons of magic.

The reason I think that one is Mystara is that it has two axis. One from the time of Blackmoor and then the axial tilt after the Blackmoorian explosion that shifted the world. The two opening are the entries into the Hollow World and the 'inner planet' is actually the 'interior star' of the Hollow World.

I'm definitely thinking the one marked as Greyhawk or Nerath is for Eberron. This means it appears 3rd during the video, which makes sense if the 'sigils' are appearing in order of prominence for the settings (FR and Ravenloft are one, two, and Eberron is third). I had originally thought it was meant to represent the Outlands and Sigil but not I'm fairly certain that that central spire is meant to be Sharn.

That would mean that the one I listed as Eberron is likely Greyhawk. The four planets represent the four axis of alignment and the triangles might represent the Inner Planes. I dunno. I'm just guessing.

The central sigil has to be Planescape and/or Spelljammer. The three lines represent the Rule of Three and the single line where they meet is the Spire of the Outlands. The line that crosses them might refer to the Outlands or the Outer Planes, in general, or perhaps it is the Astral Sea.

The Dark Sun one is obvious.

I think the one i marked as Dragonlance is meant to be a banner, as someone already noted. However, I originally saw it as a stylized spelljamming Mind Flayer nautiloid or perhaps the Spelljammer itself. But I think the flowing banner is more likely.

And I now think the second one is definitely Ravenloft. It's a stylized version of the part of the classic Ravenloft logo that points down. It doesn't seem very Birthright to me. If so, that means Birthright is left out in the cold.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 5, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If they really were going to hit the "hardcore" fans, they could do so *and* really piss a lot of people off at the same time by giving us _Al-Qadim_ and _Kara-Tur_.
> 
> An Arabian styled setting and an Asian styled setting... and yet both of them are still Forgotten Realms.  LOL!  We'd get a whole morass of people freaking out that we when we get all new campaign settings we still aren't leaving Abeir-Toril.



Those people that get pissed off by the Realms do get pissed off a lot lately


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 5, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Heh, the designers are pretty much like, you can have as many new settings as you want, as long as they are all exactly like Forgotten Realms.



Learn 

To

Love it


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 5, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Wow, so you're saying it will essentially be the Book of Forgotten Settings? That's a step away from the Forgotten Realms, I suppose.



They could literally call it "The Forgotten Realms"


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 5, 2018)

Knightfall said:


> Hmm... Interesting.
> 
> View attachment 98150
> 
> I guess the one that I've marked as Ravenloft could also be Birthright, but I don't think it would come second in the video. Also, the Greyhawk/Nerath and Eberron guesses could be switched. The third one that appears looks a lot like the Eberron logo from the 3E era books.




Just checked out the Eberron Logo.  You're right.  The far right glyph looks very similar to the dragon symbol on the old Eberron logo, and so might be Eberron instead of Grayhawk.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Those people that get pissed off by the Realms do get pissed off a lot lately




I would be perfectly happy with Al-Qadim and Kara-Tur. It's generic pseudo-medieval in general I am bored with, not the Forgotten Realms.

Greyhawk would be a disappointment, as that is just as generically pseudo-medieval as the Sword Coast.


----------



## gyor (Jun 5, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I would be perfectly happy with Al-Qadim and Kara-Tur. It's generic pseudo-medieval in general I am bored with, not the Forgotten Realms.
> 
> Greyhawk would be a disappointment, as that is just as generically pseudo-medieval as the Sword Coast.




 There are some very none midevil themed areas of Faerun, like the Old Empires region, Thay, the Shining South, Hoardlands for example.


----------



## hbarsquared (Jun 5, 2018)

My guess is combo Planescape/Spelljammer.

Keith Baker become much more "busy" about 6-8mo ago.  If he had begun working with WotC on Eberron, this summer is way too soon for Eberron (unless it's just a quick pdf and opening DMs Guild...).  My guess is Eberron, with the artificer, next year.

My other guess is they'll release Dark Sun brfore Eberron, with psionics.  Dark Sun is more appealing to hardcore and longtime gamers, and it would be easier to release paionics in advance of Eberron, as oppossed to after.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 5, 2018)

Polyhedral Columbia said:


> Thunder Rift...the setting of the Classic D&D black box set and module line.




...


----------



## Jester David (Jun 5, 2018)

Knightfall said:


> Hmm... Interesting.
> 
> View attachment 98150
> 
> I guess the one that I've marked as Ravenloft could also be Birthright, but I don't think it would come second in the video. Also, the Greyhawk/Nerath and Eberron guesses could be switched. The third one that appears looks a lot like the Eberron logo from the 3E era books.




Maybe....
But likely unrelated and just coincidentally teased on the same day.

After all, they’re not going to lock themselves into eight settings until the know people care about the first few. Or limit themselves if the project is a huge smash.


----------



## DM Howard (Jun 5, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Because the Well of Ideas is completely dry and all that's left to do is rehash the old. Haven't you been paying attention to the movies?
> 
> 
> 
> So what you're _really_ saying is that you're _sorta_ up for anything...or maybe that you're up for some things...but not PS or SJ.




No, I'm totally up for seeing 5E Planescape or Spelljammer.  I, personally, just don't see the draw and why so many people apparently want them.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 5, 2018)

Planescape and Spelljammer have similar points of appeal. They are both high magic, high fantasy, and about as far from grounded, mud and blood Game-of-Thronesism as it is possible to get. If the point is to have something different, this is as different as it gets.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 5, 2018)

It's been suggested we might hear more about the Planetouched PC race they mentioned that Tieflings from Planescape are supposedly of now rather than being Tieflings.

Those symbols I haven't seen before, even if they have elements of a few others, like the triangle with a line in one of the symbols does represent Celestia/7 Heavens except it's inverted...

I'd definitely want Planescape back as it's my favourite setting, one they could release in different books here and there, though if they already have 2 adventures based in a big city set to be released this year, it might not be a book featuring Sigil.

Maybe there will be some completely unexpected surprises like it's actually Spelljammer, but they decided to have the Fraal (aka Greys) from Alternity as a PC race...


----------



## SirGrotius (Jun 5, 2018)

There's so much talk here about Spelljammer and Planescape that I'm starting to assume that it'll be one or both of these settings! I personally would prefer a Dragonlance, since I loved the novels, richness of the world, and could do with some Epic fantasy these days. The minotaur discussion got the creative juices flowing.

Either way, the quality and comprehensive of the latest 5th edition materials leave me feeling very optimistic which future treatments of these settings. I would devour almost any of them.


----------



## Jer (Jun 5, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Why can't we have a new setting?




I could answer this with sarcastic jokes, but it's worth thinking about why almost all of our pop culture right now is remixes and adaptations of older material.  Partly it's nostalgia - the people with disposable income right now are the Gen-Xers who are now in their 40s/50s.  There's also crossover with the late boomers who are in their 50s as well.  So we see a lot of movies, TV shows, games, etc. all kind of revamping older properties.

But a lot of it is the risk-averse nature of large companies.  Movie studios and TV studios spend a lot of money on their products and the guys in charge want something "safe" that will return their money to them at a profit.  Big companies in general are unlikely to do much that is "new" - there's a reason that they heyday of character creation in Marvel comics was when it was a young company perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy and new characters have come out in a trickle ever since.  TSR burned through one idea after another and taking lots of risks when they were a young upstart company (and make no mistake - even at its heyday TSR was always a tiny upstart compared to the Parker Bros and Milton-Bradleys of the gaming industry), but Wizards is one of the largest and most profitable gaming companies in the world - even though they have more capital at hand, their success makes them less likely to take risks on crazy ideas.  (And of course TSR went bankrupt, as do many companies that take a lot of risks, which is why successful companies generally become more and more risk averse as time passes - they have more to lose).

And then there's Wizards own recent history - they had a big bomb of an edition a few years ago and they had to invest a lot of time and effort (and money) to rebuild their cred.  The perception is that the edition bombed because it went too far outside the box for D&D, so the risk-averse move is to try to be the most D&D-like game that you can be.  And that means putting out a setting that is new and different is a risk.

Also too - and this is all just my opinion - I'm not sure the hunger is there for new D&D settings like there was back in the 90s and during the d20 explosion of the early 2000s.  There are so many options available now setting wise that a new one really would need to bring something truly different to the mix.  The 90s was a big experimental time for D&D when it came to settings - how far can we push this game engine designed for vaguely Dark Ages fantasy game play.  Can we do fantasy space?  Can we do fantasy horror?  What about fantasy Victorian horror?  Does it have to be European - we had an Asian supplement in the 80s, what about Arabian Nights style?  What about different kinds of fantasy - can we push the game engine to handle a pseudo-Renaissance level of tech?  Can we do weird other-dimensional fantasy?  Can we dial it back to its roots and still do John Carter of Mars style fantasy?

At this point a new setting would need to bring something new to the table and not be a rehash of what's already out there to be worth doing.  I think there's a reason that we only really got one major new D&D setting in 3rd edition - Eberron - and it's because Eberron brought something new to the table (investigative pulp fantasy).  And even there as much as I love Eberron I'm not sure if it were released today it would be seen as "different enough" to be a successful new setting.  I think any new setting would need to fill a niche that isn't already being filled, and it's tough to see an empty niche that would be large enough to justify coming up with a totally new setting.

And finally - I also think that when TSR was exploding settings left and right they were also book publishers and had an eye towards putting out novels in those settings.  Also most of those settings generated tie-in video games through TSR's partnership with SSI.  I think Wizards was still thinking the same way when they developed Eberron.  The setting was more than just a place to play games - it was a brand in and of itself that could generate a lot of revenue for the company.  Wizards doesn't publish books anymore, and to be fair the market for tie-in novels isn't what it was in the 90s either.  And Hasbro's always had problems with their video game licensing.  Now the setting has to stand by itself as a game setting without thinking of it as a "brand" and that makes it harder to justify the investment.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 5, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Planescape and Spelljammer have similar points of appeal. They are both high magic, high fantasy, and about as far from grounded, mud and blood Game-of-Thronesism as it is possible to get. If the point is to have something different, this is as different as it gets.




As someone who LOVES Planescape and although having never played Spelljammer is fascinated by it, this sums it up quite well. Plus "grounded, mud and blood Game-of-Thronesism" sounds utterly unappealing to me, personally. Of course, I was the weird kid growing up who was far more likely to play monster PCs than something as "boring" (my subjective opinion only!) as a human. To me, if you want to play fantasy, then play *FANTASY!!* but that is absolutely 100% the way *my* brain is wired, and I'm glad there is plenty of room in this industry for all sorts of tastes. So I can entirely understand someone having no interest in Planescape and Spelljammer. Personally, I don't see the draw of Greyhawk other than nostalgia, but that is *my* limitation, not Greyhawk's. 

So I guess this underlines why fans really need more than one setting, because tastes vary so much. Hopefully WotC can find a middle ground between "All Forgotten Realms All the Time" and late 2e's "Publish as many settings as we possibly can! Not enough! I mean MOAR SETTINGS!!!" It is tricky, but I'm glad they are hopefully moving more towards that middle ground now.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 5, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Why can't we have a new setting?




Jer answers it very well on why a new setting might not be coming any time soon.

With that being said, as well as the fact that there are several settings I would really really love new material for, I would also really love to see a new setting. Not because I know there's some niche that isn't being filled or anything, but it's because the 5e products have been such high quality and even though I have disagreed with some creative decisions, it's clear that the current D&D team are remarkably skilled and imaginative. So if they were do create a new setting, I have no doubt it would be incredible. It might not be my style, but I would be fascinated to see what the current D&D team would do for a new setting. That's also one of the reasons I would love to see old settings come back - not just because I'm greedy for new content for them (which I am, of course),  but I would love to see what _this team_ does with that setting. 

I guess it's a testament to their skill that I really want to see what they would do with some of the older settings I enjoyed as well as what they would do when building an entirely new setting that I would never expect. I would love to be surprised and amazed at a new setting from this team, but I also realize there are many reasons why that is unlikely any time soon. *shrug*


----------



## mrpopstar (Jun 5, 2018)

I'm dying for Planescape-focused material! Dyinggg.


----------



## hbarsquared (Jun 5, 2018)

What Jar said, with regards to a new setting.

With that said, there are still so many stories to tell, within the established settings.  We don't need a new setting, not because "everything has already been done," but _expressly because because every story has *not *been told_.  There is still so much room for creativity, imagination, and inspiration within all the established settings, even Forgotten Realms and "generic D&D," as shown by the highest of quality products for 5E WotC has been putting out.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 5, 2018)

Some time to kill. I think I'll just rank the settings by how much I'd like to see them, and comment on the chances I think we'll get them.

*1) Ravenloft. *It's cool and we only saw Barovia. There's a whole world beyond that I'd like them to acknowledge, and there's room for new mechanics such as races, fear, subclasses, etc. _Odds:_ Super low. It's been done. 

*2) Dragonlance. *This got me into D&D. And the novels keep it popular. It's well known and not entirely generic. _Odds:_ Medium, and tricky to boot. It's generic, but slightly different than the norm and the novels keep it popular. But the setting has really been hit hard by constant changes and tweaks from the shifting editions and game lines, and even the DL fans are divided on what they want to see.

*3) Planescape.* Simple setting of Sigil and ties into every other setting, making it something you can use without restarting a campaign. And its just neat. _Odds:_ High.

*Eberron.* The new kid on the block at *just* fifteen years old. The anniversary makes it appealing, and easily updated with the fewer new variant rules. _Odds:_ Fairly high.

*5) Dark Sun.* D&D for people who hate D&D. It's distinct and can really engage with fans who are tired of the generic and know what to expect from the world. _Odds:_ Low. Popular but you *need* psionics and new races and a lot more room to expand on how each race is different and how the world works. Plus alternate rules like bone weapons, defiling, wild talents, elemental priests, etc. To say nothing about an entire bestiary of new creatures...

*6) Al Qadim. *Arabic Adventures. Tales of 1001 Nights, the world. Technically already open and available on the Guild, but might be neat to give it a signal boost. It's traditional fantasy, but very different. _Odds:_ Low, as it's technically already available. And has some cultural appropriation elements now.

*7) Spelljammer.* I love the quirkiness of this setting, but the funky rules and limitations placed on things made it awkward at low levels. You *needed* a high level caster. And not everyone likes the idea of space in their campaign setting being, well, space. Reimagining this setting as on the Astral Sea might work better, with the "crystal spheres" being portals to worlds in the Material Plane. _Odds:_ Lower. This feels like a good option for the second or third set of settings. 

*8) Greyhawk. *The classic but very similar to the Realms. I find the world bland and lacking in good story hooks personally. But it's also more open to DM customisation. _Odds:_ Medium. I think they might go for more different and odd settings first before providing more generic settings. 

*9) Kara Tur.* I think there's room for some fun Wuxia campaigns and the reminder to new players that you don't *have* to play Western fantasy. _Odds:_ Low, as already on the Guild.

*10. Maztica.* A neat idea of colonial South America mixed with fantasy. I don't know much about it. _Odds:_ Super low. Never really popular, and technically part of the Guild already as it's in the Realms. And the colonial aspect and real world analogies have some nasty cultural appropriation implications. 

*11) Mystara. *I know very little about this world. The Hollow World aspect is neat, but this feels like a separate sub-setting. _Odds:_ See "Greyhawk". Different but not different enough. I imagine the "no gods" thing might be interesting for some. It's probably easier to do than Greyhawk, honestly. 

*12) Birthright.* Another setting I only know tangentially. It's neat, but would require some Mass Combat rules and kingdom management to play properly. _Odds:_ Low at this time, since we haven't seen any of the content in UA to playtest.

*13) Council of Wyrms.* Less a setting and more a hook for playing dragons. _Odds:_ Super low. Not a good choice since balancing dragons would be hard and we haven't seen a dragon class in UA.

*14) Blackmoore.* The first campaign setting. _Odds:_ Zero. The rights were retained by Arneson who used them with Zeitgeist Games and published by Goodman Games. I doubt WotC can touch them.
(Similar things can be said about *Dragon Fist* (sold to Green Ronin), *Lankhman*, and *Kalamar*.) 

*15) Nentir Vale.* Originally, this was supposed to be in the Realms. They just changed the proper names when they decided not to make FR the default setting of 4e. This setting is bland. It's a mishmash of ideas created randomly by dozens of different people as books were written without planning or real forethought. The whole point was a generic world people could build into their own setting or place into whatever existing setting they're using. There's no hook, and nothing to distinguish it from every other generic fantasy world WotC does. _Odds:_ Medium. Really, because it's so simple, they could repeat the lore pretty quickly. And it's hook of being a simple setting people can make their own still works.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 5, 2018)

Doubtful they'd even consider it, but couldn't Masque of the Red Death which is 19th century Earth but sort of a spin-off of Ravenloft and Urban Arcana a D20 Modern campaign setting for bringing hidden Fantasy into modern day count as potential settings.  For the later they did after all have the UA which introduced a 1st level spell that could charge your phone...


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Some time to kill. I think I'll just rank the settings by how much I'd like to see them, and comment on the chances I think we'll get them.
> 
> *1) Ravenloft. *It's cool and we only saw Barovia. There's a whole world beyond that I'd like them to acknowledge, and there's room for new mechanics such as races, fear, subclasses, etc. _Odds:_ Super low. It's been done.
> 
> ...




Except for Eberron and Dark Sun, in my eyes all the other settings are the same thing as Forgotten Realms.

Essentially, they are Forgotten Realms 1, Forgotten Realms 2, Forgotten Realms 3, ...

Planescape too is just an other region of Forgotten Realms.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

The impression that I get is, for some players, a ‘new setting’ is the same as the old setting but all the characters wear a wig.



Personally, I want a *new* setting. Or at least make it easier to build my own setting.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 5, 2018)

Jer said:


> Also too - and this is all just my opinion - I'm not sure the hunger is there for new D&D settings like there was back in the 90s and during the d20 explosion of the early 2000s.  There are so many options available now setting wise that a new one really would need to bring something truly different to the mix.  The 90s was a big experimental time for D&D when it came to settings - how far can we push this game engine designed for vaguely Dark Ages fantasy game play.  Can we do fantasy space?  Can we do fantasy horror?  What about fantasy Victorian horror?  Does it have to be European - we had an Asian supplement in the 80s, what about Arabian Nights style?  What about different kinds of fantasy - can we push the game engine to handle a pseudo-Renaissance level of tech?  Can we do weird other-dimensional fantasy?  Can we dial it back to its roots and still do John Carter of Mars style fantasy?
> 
> At this point a new setting would need to bring something new to the table and not be a rehash of what's already out there to be worth doing.  I think there's a reason that we only really got one major new D&D setting in 3rd edition - Eberron - and it's because Eberron brought something new to the table (investigative pulp fantasy).  And even there as much as I love Eberron I'm not sure if it were released today it would be seen as "different enough" to be a successful new setting.  I think any new setting would need to fill a niche that isn't already being filled, and it's tough to see an empty niche that would be large enough to justify coming up with a totally new setting.



I agree with most of your points and want to offer a couple others. 

First, WotC already has a dozen settings they're not touching. Adding another new setting just makes it harder to support all the settings they own. And makes it harder to retain those trademarks that aren't being used.

Second, back in the 2e days, _only_ TSR could make D&D settings. But that hasn't been true for almost twenty years. There's so many amazing settings out there that range from traditional fantasy to science fantasy to grim realism that I don't think WotC really *needs* to make a new world.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 5, 2018)

When it comes to Birthright, there's two draws that isn't featured anywhere else, which makes Cerilia nothing like "Forgotten Realms 12"...

a) the domain layer on the map, inviting you to look at adventures not only from a individual perspective. Instead your rogue runs the Thieves Guild, your Cleric runs your State Church, and your Wizard runs your Magic College. Each player character gets an economic resource to govern; essentially "thief" points, "divine" points, and so on. The fighter - the King - gets "coin points". All is used to influence your neighbors, recruit and send out armies and envoys, ...
b) the idea that you play one kingdom, and iconic monsters - the Gorgon, the Hydra or the Manticore - runs others. Imagine, if you will, some Druid casting "awaken" on one particular specimen of each of the coolest and most classic Monster Manual monsters. And that this guy then gets lots of class levels to become a high-level antagonist.

The other bits, like dragon (scion?) blood, is mostly just powergaming and can be ignored or brought down to 5E standards. But what makes Birthright its own thing is this playing Risk with your most fearsome monster opponents.

The actual world is generic enough. Actually, I could see a domain layer being produced for Forgotten Realms. An alternate time line as it were. I could even accept that there are regular Gorgons, Hydras and Manticores... and then there's the monster rulers. 

But no,


----------



## Gradine (Jun 5, 2018)

If they hadn't already just done so in 4e, I'd say we'd be more likely to see a new setting that captures some of the feel of Greyhawk without it actually being Greyhawk; ie: few bastions of safety and civilization, a lot of the world is ill-defined, in other words, Points of Light. At this point I don't see either Greyhawk/Blackmoor/Mystara or Nentir Vale to see a 5e revival beyond opening up on DM's Guild, and I also don't really see a _new_ setting in the works either (if anything, I'd more likely expect to a expect a total genre shift, ala D20 Modern or Starfinder, not that I consider that very likely either).

We're not gonna see Dark Sun without Psionics and we're not gonna see Eberron with the Artificer, so until those two drop in final form it's very unlikely we'll here anything about them. Planescape & Spelljammer seem the most likely, and I'm expecting that they'll try to find some way to merge or otherwise connect the two (if we've learned anything WotC's business model for 5e, they'll try to make the product as broad as possible to increase the market). I'd expect it to drop in one of two forms:
1): Primus's Primer to the Planes (seems unlikely given Tome of Foes' content, but could still be possible)
2): The Great March (adventure that kicks off in <insert Sword Coast city here> but swiftly sends adventures to Sigil and has them either fiddling around with portals and/or gives them a spelljammer).


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 5, 2018)

> few bastions of safety and civilization, a lot of the world is ill-defined, in other words, Points of Light.




That's even more a feature of Spelljammer.


> 2): The Great March (adventure that kicks off in <Skullport> but swiftly sends adventures to Sigil and has them either fiddling around with portals and/or gives them a spelljammer).​


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 5, 2018)

Jester David said:


> *15) Nentir Vale.* Originally, this was supposed to be in the Realms. They just changed the proper names when they decided not to make FR the default setting of 4e. This setting is bland. It's a mishmash of ideas created randomly by dozens of different people as books were written without planning or real forethought. The whole point was a generic world people could build into their own setting or place into whatever existing setting they're using. There's no hook, and *nothing to distinguish it from every other generic fantasy world WotC does.* _Odds:_ Medium. Really, because it's so simple, they could repeat the lore pretty quickly. And it's hook of being a simple setting people can make their own still works.




I have to say that this is not enterily true. The world of the Nentir Vale assumes there is no Superpower and that the Armaggedon is coming. Unlike generic fantasy worlds, the Nentir Vale is a world in a pretty dark age.

To elaborate, the generic settings of D&D assume that humans are the dominant race in the world, that there is the Kingdom that protects the world (think of FR's Cormyr or the Lords' Alliance) and that the evil forces are keep at bay by the good guys (Elminster, Dritzz and other super powered npc), and that the gods keep at bay the supernatural Evils mortals can only fathom.

In the Nentir Vale, the Kingdom and the super powered NPCs all got wiped out in the last war, and while the evil forces didn't fared well either, they survived and are mustering forces to wipe out what remains of civilization. As a result, humans are not the dominant race. In fact, there is no dominant race, just scattered survivors that band together to survive the next orc horde. 

Heck, even the gods got wiped out by the elder evils, and the current pantheon is composed of just the survivors of the Dawn War. You can see evil gods going along with good gods, because is the only way they can survive the next attack from their enemies. So, this is way different to the Realms, where Bane, Shar and Lolth can plot to conquer the world without fear of reprisal.

My point is that this setting is different to and have its unique hooks, when compared with the more vanilla depictions of the more common D&D settings, like Greyhawk or the Realms. 

But, I agree with your opinion about the odds of this setting being in the next product. And those of the other settings, as well.


----------



## generic (Jun 5, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> I would love to see Birthright revived as another of the D&D “board games,” perhaps using two boards (a domain board and an adventure board) with an option to continue the same Domain Game across multiple games of the Adventure Game.




That would be interesting.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 5, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> I have to say that this is not enterily true. The world of the Nentir Vale assumes there is no Superpower and that the Armaggedon is coming. Unlike generic fantasy worlds, the Nentir Vale is a world in a pretty dark age.
> 
> To elaborate, the generic settings of D&D assume that humans are the dominant race in the world, that there is the Kingdom that protects the world (think of FR's Cormyr or the Lords' Alliance) and that the evil forces are keep at bay by the good guys (Elminster, Dritzz and other super powered npc), and that the gods keep at bay the supernatural Evils mortals can only fathom.
> 
> ...




Cormyr is a pretty typical "good guy nation", but it hardly protects the world. It's one small nation. And it can even play the role of the "imperialistic bad guy" in a Dales campaign. 
And most of the high level NPCs in the Realms seldom get involved, because that brings in their evil counterparts. They tend to work through smaller adventurers and proxies. 

I also don't recall a singular kingdom that "protects the world" in Greyhawk or Mystara or Birthright. The Greyhawk has a lot of the same tropes as Nentir Vale; they could easily have set theVale in the Duchy of Geoff. 


The catch is, there was no "big kingdom" in the Nerath/ Nentir Vale setting because it was never really expanded beyond the small valley. Except in the _Conquest of Nerath_ board game that suggested there were several large "empires" still around, such as the Iron Circle, Karkoth, and Vailin. It implied the kingdom had fallen, but never really too deep into how large that kingdom was or what was around it. 

The gloom and looming apocalypse in a world without heroes wasn't really "the hook" of the setting. Because there was none. Those were just some themes that slowly evolved as people added to the setting. It was purposely generic AF so DMs could make it their own. If a GM wanted the shining nation of Brighthome to the north, then the Shining Knights of that nation existed and held back the night. But if the DM instead wanted a bleak magical archipelago filled with undead corsairs and vampirates to the north, then that was also a thing. 
The absence of name characters wasn't a hook or plan so much as the result of not having novels set in the world and avoiding having to many organisations and large groups that would lock DMs into certain concepts.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 5, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Cormyr is a pretty typical "good guy nation", but it hardly protects the world. It's one small nation. And it can even play the role of the "imperialistic bad guy" in a Dales campaign.
> And most of the high level NPCs in the Realms seldom get involved, because that brings in their evil counterparts. They tend to work through smaller adventurers and proxies.
> 
> I also don't recall a singular kingdom that "protects the world" in Greyhawk or Mystara or Birthright. The Greyhawk has a lot of the same tropes as Nentir Vale; they could easily have set theVale in the Duchy of Geoff.
> ...



Yet Cormyr stopped the Tuigan Horde in earlier editions, when no other kingdom could; and then led the coalition to stop the Netherese in the more resent war (that takes place within the timeline of 5e).

And yes, the Nentir Vale may have started simple, but by the end of 4e was well defined. Bringing Nentir Vale to 5e will be more than just bring the Vale. It will also include the whole Nerath background.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 5, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> Yet Cormyr stopped the Tuigan Horde in earlier editions, when no other kingdom could; and then led the coalition to stop the Netherese in the more resent war (that takes place within the timeline of 5e).



Yeah, they've won every enemy that threatens them. But what have they done against Thay? The Pirate Isles? The Zhentarim? 
Did they do anything to stop dragons raging across the Sword Coast or giants rampaging in the North? 

So long as you don't pick a fight with them, Cormyr'll stay out of whatever evil scheme is occurring. 



Zeromaru X said:


> And yes, the Nentir Vale may have started simple, but by the end of 4e was well defined. Bringing Nentir Vale to 5e will be more than just bring the Vale. It will also include the whole Nerath background.



Which defeats the whole purpose of Nentir Vale and makes it interesting and special. Because the Nentir Vale most people care about is the one in _their_ game. 

And for all the detail and expansion the Vale region received, most of that was vague backstory and very little expansion of the world beyond. It wasn't a world so much as a shotgun blast of random lore.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> When it comes to Birthright, there's two draws that isn't featured anywhere else, which makes Cerilia nothing like "Forgotten Realms 12"...
> 
> a) inviting you to look at adventures not only from a individual perspective. Instead your rogue runs the Thieves Guild, your Cleric runs your State Church, and your Wizard runs your Magic College.
> 
> Each player character gets an economic resource to govern.




Wait. Are you saying, that running a thieves guild in the Forgotten Realms setting constitutes a setting that is different from the Forgotten Realms setting?

Obviously. It is Forgotten Realms 12.

Indeed, this is Forgotten Realms, Basic.



In my games, *all* player characters start focusing on leading an institution (mayor of a prominent town, wizard academy, religious community, military school, criminal network, etcetera), when they reach the ‘leadership tier’, namely levels 13-16. Running an economy is an important part of this leadership.

Becoming leaders at high level has been true in generic D&D since 1e.


----------



## lordstimpy (Jun 5, 2018)

I'm wondering if its like a "Shemeshka's guide to the Planes" that covers Sigil and all the different worlds it could tie into, like Darksun, Ebberon, Grayhawk. Also could tie into Some Spelljammer stuff.

The reason I say Shemeshka, it's a name Chris Perkins pulled out for DCA.  If its on his mind for that game...


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

Exactly what is missing from Planescape that isnt already in the official 5e books published so far?


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 5, 2018)

Jester David said:


> So long as you don't pick a fight with them, Cormyr'll stay out of whatever evil scheme is occurring.




That it's sufficient enough to avert the "end of the world as we know it", that is one of the main hooks of a Nentir Vale campaign. 



Jester David said:


> Which defeats the Nentir Vale and makes it interesting and special. Because the Nentir Vale most people care about is the one in _their_ game.




This apply to any and all settings. I've known people that only care for the Forgotten Realms of the 3e era and care nothing for the current Realms. Regardless, WotC have their own story for the Realms, as seen in all the published adventure paths so far.

If we go by what some DM wants for its setting, then WotC will have only to release a book on how to create your homebrew world instead of bringing back old settings. 

Even if they opt for only bringing back the Nentir Vale and not the whole setting of Conquest of Nerath, the Nentir Vale has enough fluff on its own that still preserves the hooks of the whole setting.

For instance, the Vale is about to be wiped out either by a three-headed red Dragon or by an orc horde (as per the Threats to the Nentir Vale sourcebook), and besides the players, there are no other heroes or The Kingdom to save it.

Bringing back a setting includes bringing back it's whole flavor and history. I don't see a point to bring back something just to houserule. They already did that in the section on the DMG about how to create your own setting.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 5, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Exactly what is missing from Planescape that isnt already in the official 5e books published so far?



A detailed summary of Sigil.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> A detailed summary of Sigil.




Sigil can easily be a regional setting, designed as an adventure arc.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 5, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Sigil can easily be a regional setting, designed as an adventure arc.




Yeah, I'm definitely predicting an adventure/source book with both Sigil *and* Spelljammers in it.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 5, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Wait. Are you saying, that running a thieves guild in the Forgotten Realms setting constitutes a setting that is different from the Forgotten Realms setting?
> 
> Obviously. It is Forgotten Realms 12.
> 
> ...



You must be confusing your own game for Forgotten Realms. 

If you think Birthright is exactly like FR you a) don't know anything about Birthright, and you b) ignored everything I said.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> You must be confusing your own game for Forgotten Realms.
> 
> If you think Birthright is exactly like FR you a) don't know anything about Birthright, and you b) ignored everything I said.




I am saying the designers have already mentioned the possibility of a ‘social campaign’ that focuses more on politics and intrigue.

In the Forgotten Realms setting.



When using the Forgotten Realms setting − and focusing on mechanics for institutions, or organizations, or mass combat for that matter − it is still Forgotten Realms.


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 5, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Such as?
> They had some multiplanar threats also affecting the Realms rather than just affecting Greyhawk. But I don’t think they moved anything.



I already know what's coming out.  I can't tell you because of legal reasons, and I'd like to continue being able to know things and play them.  But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, it's not Greyhawk.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 5, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Except for Eberron and Dark Sun, in my eyes all the other settings are the same thing as Forgotten Realms.
> 
> Essentially, they are Forgotten Realms 1, Forgotten Realms 2, Forgotten Realms 3, ...
> 
> Planescape too is just an other region of Forgotten Realms.



As someone who is rather familiar with FR (2e and 3.x) as well as Planescape, your comment completely baffles me.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 5, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Wait. Are you saying, that running a thieves guild in the Forgotten Realms setting constitutes a setting that is different from the Forgotten Realms setting?
> 
> Obviously. It is Forgotten Realms 12.
> 
> ...



I kind of agree. 
Birthright is a fairly generic fantasy world buoyed with a unique campaign mechanic. You could easily port the unique elements of Birthright (kingdom rulership, conquest, mass combat, a divine mandate, etc) and throw them into any other setting. 

If you only tell one kind of story with a setting, it’s not a campaign setting, it’s just a campaign...


----------



## TheSword (Jun 5, 2018)

Jester David said:


> I kind of agree.
> Birthright is a fairly generic fantasy world buoyed with a unique campaign mechanic. You could easily port the unique elements of Birthright (kingdom rulership, conquest, mass combat, a divine mandate, etc) and throw them into any other setting.
> 
> If you only tell one kind of story with a setting, it’s not a campaign setting, it’s just a campaign...




Hmm, not quite. It’s a highly politicized society, Elves are openly hostile to humanity, large swathes of land are ruled by monsters, warfare is common, magic is tied to the land, arcane magic is highly restricted (elves and blooded only), evil humanoids have culture and kingdoms, magical bloodlines abound and convey supernatural abilities. The setting is hardly generic. It’s set in a medieval fantasy but it’s definitely not generic.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> Hmm, not quite. It’s a highly politicized society, Elves are openly hostile to humanity, large swathes of land are ruled by monsters, warfare is common, magic is tied to the land, arcane magic is highly restricted (elves and blooded only), evil humanoids have culture and kingdoms, magical bloodlines abound and convey supernatural abilities. The setting is hardly generic. It’s set in a medieval fantasy but it’s definitely not generic.




• warfare is common
• magic is tied to the land ... rituals and mythals
• evil humanoids have culture and kingdoms ... drow, many-arrows, et al
• magical bloodlines ... tiefling, sorcerer, feats, background (!), etc



 ... ‘arcane magic is highly restricted (elves and blooded only)’. Heh, you got me here. The 5e elf sucks at wizard! If only the elf got +2 to Intelligence/Charisma to excel at arcane magic!



Despite the unsatisfactory elf magic, all these features are Forgotten Realms.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> • magic is tied to the land ... rituals and mythals
> • evil humanoids have culture and kingdoms ... drow, many-arrows, et al
> • magical bloodlines ... tiefling, sorcerer, feats, background (!), etc
> 
> ...




In the Birthright setting, the land is the source of arcane magical power, as nature is destroyed it reduces the magical energy of the land. The setting has far more in common with Athas in that regard. There is a distintive battle between civilization and magical power which the elves are able to circumvent.

Yes Many Arrows is a good example. However one swallow doesn’t make a spring. Drow cities in the Realms don’t generally border and interact with surface kingdoms. Whereas there are 20 or so monstrous kingdoms bordering and interacting with regularly kingdoms. Birthright resembles Eberron in this regard.

The magical bloodlines are not just a few scattered and rare races. They are the political elite that form the decision making and ruling class for the entire continent. It resembles Eberron in this regard as well.

You’re also missing the big difference that Birthright is low magic, low power NPCs that has a totally different dynamic feel to the high magic realms.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 6, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> As someone who is rather familiar with FR (2e and 3.x) as well as Planescape, your comment completely baffles me.



Dark Sun doesn't have gods.  In Eberron, the polytheistic religion is merely one religious belief among many.  See the theme?


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> In the Birthright setting, the land is the source of arcane magical power, as nature is destroyed it reduces the magical energy of the land. The setting has far more in common with Athas in that regard. There is a distintive battle between civilization and magical power which the elves are able to circumvent.
> 
> Yes Many Arrows is a good example. However one swallow doesn’t make a spring. Drow cities in the Realms don’t generally border and interact with surface kingdoms. Whereas there are 20 or so monstrous kingdoms bordering and interacting with regularly kingdoms. Birthright resembles Eberron in this regard.
> 
> The magical bloodlines are not just a few scattered and rare races. They are the political elite that form the decision making and ruling class for the entire continent. It resembles Eberron in this regard as well.




‘The land is the source of arcane magical power.’

In Forgotten Realms, an elf ‘mythal’ is an epic-tier magic ritual that can make the land magic. I think, drow also did something like this, to levitate around in their city. There are all kinds of examples, of deriving magic from some terrain feature.

For the political elite, they could easily be half elves. Hence the ‘bloodline’, and they would be good at Charisma politics and Charisma bard and sorcerer arcane magic.

Write up a custom background.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 6, 2018)

I am baffled by what people would want from a "new setting" for Dungeons & Dragons. D&D has some obvious boxes they have to tick; elves, dragons, wizards, swords, etc. Any setting they are going to make is going to be compatible with the Core Rulebooks at the bare minimum; and probably as many supplements as possible in order to maximize profits. They aren't going to make settings that severely limits the material available to it, nor are they going to radically change classes, mechanics, and the like. At best, you'll get flavored D&D; heroic (Dragonlance), pulp-noir (Eberron), gothic horror (Ravenloft) or pulp (Dark Sun). You're not getting a human-only world, or a world with radically different magic, or set in the modern or far future, as a D&D setting.


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Exactly what is missing from Planescape that isnt already in the official 5e books published so far?




Insufferable cant?


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

For a setting to *feel* different, its cosmology − its ‘canopy’ − also needs to differ.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 6, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Dark Sun doesn't have gods.  In Eberron, the polytheistic religion is merely one religious belief among many.  See the theme?




All of these, AND FR's belief system, are a subset of Planescape' belief system.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> ‘The land is the source of arcane magical power.’
> 
> In Forgotten Realms, an elf ‘mythal’ is an epic-tier magic ritual that can make the land magic. I think, drow also did something like this, to levitate around in their city. There are all kinds of examples, of deriving magic from some terrain feature.
> 
> ...




Sorry I’m confused. Are you saying that the Forgotten Realms could be altered to have the feel of the Birthright Setting? Of course it could if you took a undiscovered, low magic, hostile elven, monster kingdom, section off the map, placed it all under one mythall, made every inch politically dominated and then killed all the gods and gave their powers to its rulers. Though that wouldn’t fit the style or tone of the rest of Realms... which is high magic, pantheon of gods, sparse wilderlands, for the most part


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> Sorry I’m confused. Are you saying that the Forgotten Realms could be altered to have the feel of the Birthright Setting? Of course it could if you took a undiscovered, low magic, hostile elven, monster kingdom, section off the map, placed it all under one mythall, made every inch politically dominated and then killed all the gods and gave their powers to its rulers. Though that wouldn’t fit the style or tone of the rest of Realms... which is high magic, pantheon of gods, sparse wilderlands, for the most part




I am saying, the Forgotten Realms setting is already sufficiently political and sufficiently bellicose, for player characters to focus on leadership mechanics and regional conflict. (Especially, high level characters.)

Monster kingdoms need not be ancient. They can be contemporary developments. Pirates could band together under a pirate monarch, drow could organize clans of giants, the wizards of Thay could decide to have a new leader that is set on expansionism, etcetera. Forgotten Realms has plenty, plenty, plenty opportunities for hostiles to organize. Almost anything is possible.

Instead of magic elves, make it magic half elves.

Rather than kill Forgotten Realms gods, the gods operate thru puppet rulers. The gods might even be part of the problem that needs fixing.

One of the features of Forgotten Realms is, virtually every inch of the planet is politically dominated and well mapped out. The points-of-light setting design philosophy was an attempt to make areas that were still ‘dark’ no-mans-lands. But for a political focus, the Forgotten Realms political maps work great.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 6, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> All of these, AND FR's belief system, are a subset of Planescape' belief system.



I don't disagree with you, I'm not the one that needs convincing.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I am saying, the Forgotten Realms setting is already sufficiently political and sufficiently bellicose, for player characters to focus on leadership mechanics and regional conflict. (Especially, high level characters.)
> 
> Monster kingdoms need not be ancient. They can be contemporary developments. Pirates could band together under a pirate monarch, drow could organize clans of giants, the wizards of Thay could decide to have a new leader that is set on expansionism, etcetera. Forgotten Realms has plenty, plenty, plenty opportunities for hostiles to organize. Almost anything is possible.
> 
> ...




Ah I see. Yes you could do that and explore those elements. It wouldn’t be like the Birthright setting though. You are equating a Political Campaign with the setting of Cerilia (home of Birthright).  I agree that Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Mystara all are generic fantasy. However Cerilia stands on its own as having a very different feel to the Realms.

Im a big fan of the Realms but I just can’t agree that they are similar in the fundamentals.

Birthright is not generic and has a very different aesthetic. Probably as a result of being released at the end of AD&D following Darksun and immediately predating Eberron.

Your characterization of the Realms as being politically dominated is just wrong. Most villages, towns and cities stand on their own merits (with a few exceptions) The Silver Marches, the Sword coast, The Dale lands, The Moonsea for instance all consist of independents. It’s nothing like Birthright.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> Ah I see. Yes you could do that and explore those elements. It wouldn’t be like the Birthright setting though. You are equating a Political Campaign with the setting of Cerilia (home of Birthright).  I agree that Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Mystara all are generic fantasy. However Cerilia stands on its own as having a very different feel to the Realms.
> 
> Im a big fan of the Realms but I just can’t agree that they are similar in the fundamentals.
> 
> ...




I get the sense you understand what I am trying to say.

But I still dont understand what you are trying to say.

So far, your examples seem to parallel features of Forgotten Realms.



Maybe explain what makes Birthright ‘feel’ different from Forgotten Realms, assuming Forgotten Realms is also emphasizing regional conflicts and leadership?


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> Your characterization of the Realms as being politically dominated is just wrong. Most villages, towns and cities stand on their own merits (with a few exceptions) The Silver Marches, the Sword coast, The Dale lands, The Moonsea for instance all consist of independents. It’s nothing like Birthright.




Ah. Being dominated by local kingdoms (where the monarchs are more like mayors), is still territory being politically dominated.

If talking about vast empires, these could be alliances and federations, where kingdoms are banding together against each other. (This would be truly medieval-esque, and renaissance-esque!) Or more likely, one region suddenly, successfully, invaded and conquered swaths of other regions, while independent regions are now banding together against it.

Besides, there are times in the timeline when there were empires, including elf empires in the Forgotten Realms setting.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> Ah I see. Yes you could do that and explore those elements. It wouldn’t be like the Birthright setting though. You are equating a Political Campaign with the setting of Cerilia (home of Birthright).



Would you do a Birthright campaign that _wasn't_ focused on taking control of a kingdom and playing a character giving a divine seed of power?


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I get the sense you understand what I am trying to say.
> 
> But I still dont understand what you are trying to say.
> 
> ...




Okay in detail.

- The world is made up of kingdoms ruled for the most part by monarchies. Sole rulers that form a kind of club of regents or an elite amongst elites. Vs the forgotten Realms being made up of a mix of everytype of system and plenty of areas with no system of government at all.

- The kingdoms are all vying for a finite amount of power in competition for shared resources with each other and for the most part in highly developed kingdoms. Vs forgotten Realms settlements largely being surrounded by wilderness and not in competition with each other (sword coast, silver marches, dalelands etc)

- Birthright is largely ethnocentric, races do not mix easily and dwarves keep with dwarves, elves with elves etc. there are some exceptions but they are rare. Humans are divided in ethnic groups that are geographically bound. Vs forgotten Realms where almost every settlement is a mix.

- The elven race was at war with the human race for hundreds of years and this defines both their division in the world and their various specialisation (elves have no gods, normal humans can’t cast arcane magic above lvl 2). These races are still at odds and interaction is rare. Vs forgotten Realms where there are no major race divides.

- Society in Birthright is made up of blooded individuals which form an elite which covers the entire continent. Blooded characters are fundamentally different in so much as only they have the right to rule. Vs forgotten Realms where there is no unified elite sharing a single characteristic.

- The setting is low magic. Blooded Wizards able to use true magic are very rare vs Forgotten Realms where every other innkeeper is an archmage (read Volos Guide to the North)

- The setting is low power. Most regents are levels 3-7 with a few exceptions vs Forgotten Realms where every other blacksmith is a retired adventurer.

- There are a small number of extremely powerful monsters - the Awnsheighlien which can rule their own kingdoms as regents do. There is no analogy to this in the forgotten Realms that I’m aware of.

- Alongside the war between elves and men there is a parallel conflict between the natural world and civilization. This effects the strength of magic in the area and is tied up with the fairytale like nature of fey creatures, unicorns, sprites etc. vs Realms where magic is totally independent of the land and this conflict isn’t relevant.

- Anuire which occupies the main, most detailed part of the setting, represents a single empire fractured under a single throne. The individual kingdoms seek to regain that power vs Forgotten Realms where individual lands weren’t united and where they were there is no drive to unite once again.

- Birthright is largely feudal and Arthurian in feel and tone. It also draws on real world tropes and mythology with scandinavian, Germanic, Rus and Arabic themed cultures Vs the forgotten Realms distinctly renaissance, high fantasy, progressive feel.

These are just some of the main differences I say. As I said I am fan of both and have been for many years. Saying the settings are analogous is just plain wrong though. No doubt you could amend the existing Forgotten Realms canon to create something, like what I have described above. However if you did that it would be out of keeping with the existing 5e products and previous incarnations of the Realms. It would cease to be the forgotten realms.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Would you do a Birthright campaign that _wasn't_ focused on taking control of a kingdom and playing a character giving a divine seed of power?




Yes, I see the setting as being something very different to the campaign/kingdom building rules. The setting had an Arthurian/fairytale theme to it which is attractive as a setting in its own right. The play style in the original setting was definitely geared towards a wide range of campaign types. The following on Birthright.net demonstrates this.


----------



## Beleriphon (Jun 6, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> Insufferable cant?




There's more than that. One of the ideas that suffuses Planescape is that belief has real, genuine, plane-shaking power. Get enough people to believe something and it becomes true. Its one of the reason I recommend Planescape: Torment so much, it does a really, really good job of showing Planescape as a setting.

The other thing Planescape does is subvert expectations, although that's more of a Sigil thing. Also, Factions in the setting. They have a huge role in Planescape and make up a tremendous amount of the material for the setting. Plus, the whole thing from the ground up was designed as a way for even low level characters to participate in planar adventures.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

It’s easy to see why Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms all feel very similar. They all grew organically out of home games over a period of time. It is ever likely they are all a mishmash of fantasy tropes, retired adventurers, city states, ancient empires and their dungeons.

Athas, Planescape, Birthright and Ravenloft are all far more coherent in the vision of that particular setting.

Eberron is unusual in that it was designed and had unique theme, but also has that mish mash feel. Probably because a design goal was to be a one size fits all campaign setting for 3rd edition.


----------



## gyor (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> • warfare is common
> • magic is tied to the land ... rituals and mythals
> • evil humanoids have culture and kingdoms ... drow, many-arrows, et al
> • magical bloodlines ... tiefling, sorcerer, feats, background (!), etc
> ...




 The 5e Elf doesn't suck at Wizardry and in fact the High Elf is along with Gnomes and certain types of Tiefling, the best Wizards. A Cantrip, +1 Intel, +2 Dex, an Elf only Wizard Subclass (Bladesinger), and a Feat that gives them Misty step as a spell known that can be used slotless once per short/long rest and give a +1 to Intelligence or Charisma, and the Sylvan language (which ironically Eladarin don't get themselves anymore). They can also take Elven accuracy.

 Honestly even the other Elves make good wizards, just not as good as the high Elf.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

TheSword said:


> It’s easy to see why Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms all feel very similar. They all grew organically out of home games over a period of time. It is ever likely they are all a mishmash of fantasy tropes, retired adventurers, city states, ancient empires and their dungeons.
> 
> Athas, Planescape, Birthright and Ravenloft are all far more coherent in the vision of that particular setting.
> 
> Eberron is unusual in that it was designed and had unique theme, but also has that mish mash feel. Probably because a design goal was to be a one size fits all campaign setting for 3rd edition.




‘Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms all feel very similar.’ To me they are identical and interchangeable.

Indeed, the 5e Forgotten Realms eliminated the sun elf, replaced the moon elf with the Greyhawk high elf, and few seem to even notice.

The settings are identical.



But Planescape is also the 5e Forgotten Realms. Its cosmology now becomes regional settings within the Forgotten Realms setting. Arborea is a regional setting, like Kara Tur. The gods that populate the great wheel, are the same gods that populate the clerics. To me it feels like the same setting. Being in the material plane or in the great wheel is like being outside looking at the castle versus being inside the castle. It is the same setting.



Eberron is a truly different setting. Its design is to use all official mechanics but with significantly different flavor. It has a different cosmology and feels different.



Dark Sun feels different. Again because its cosmology feels different. It has much that I like, psionics, nontheistic clerics, and so on. Unfortunately, I dont get into the post-apocalyptic genre. To me it feels oppressive and ... luddite. Maybe if Dark Sun was more like points of light, where there are ‘oases’ with positive influence and high magic, I could get more into it. Or at least give me the tools to create these oases. If Dark Sun is strictly unrelated to the Forgotten Realms multiverse, then the undesirable polytheism lacks existence anywhere.

Regardless of my complex feelings about Dark Sun, it is a setting that feels different from Forgotten Realms.

Significantly, it is the cosmological backdrop that makes Dark Sun ‘feel’ different.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 6, 2018)

Obviously, I have my own preferences for which settings I'd like to see and which I could do without. I definitely want to encourage more expansion into other settings, so I'll probably buy these no matter what settings they choose to go with.

(Except possibly Krynn. No offense to those who want it, but there's just nothing in Dragonlance that appeals to me as a game setting that I can't already accomplish with what we have.)

I'm personally very interested in domain rules and very curious about Birthright, but I think the current real-world climate is ill-suited to a new setting in which the different races are all at each other's throats and the world is ruled by an elite class with superior abilities. 

I'd personally be thrilled with Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Al-Qadim, Eberron, Nentir Vale, or more Ravenloft (though I know the latter is exceedingly unlikely). But as I said, I'll be at least somewhat satisfied with most of the others.

In terms of a new setting? I don't expect we'll be seeing one any time soon, but I do think there are a few things D&D hasn't yet tackled that it could work really well for. What comes most immediately to mind is science-fantasy. Athas has some of the pulp overlap and aesthetics, and Eberron is sort of the reverse--more of a fantasy-science--but I'd love to see a full-fledged sci-fan setting. But I wouldn't be surprised if it would be too much of a niche for the modern market.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.

I noticed this already in Xanathars, where Christian (Greek, Roman, Celtic) names and Muslim (Arabic) names are present, while Jewish (Hebrew) names were noticeably absent.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Exactly what is missing from Planescape that isnt already in the official 5e books published so far?




Flavor and story are major things missing. 

That’s like asking what is missing from Strahd and Ravenloft that isn’t already in the vampire write up in the 5e MM? I mean, castles are a dime a dozen, why do we need a special one for Ravenloft?

Obviously, this is absurd, but it’s just as absurd as thinking the DMG list of planes is Planescape. No flavor and no story means no setting. 

Not to mention it leaves out Factions which are a fundamental aspect of Planescape. And the NPCs. And the other organizations and major races. And on and on.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> ‘Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms all feel very similar.’ To me they are identical and interchangeable.
> 
> Indeed, the 5e Forgotten Realms eliminated the sun elf, replaced the moon elf with the Greyhawk high elf, and few seem to even notice.
> 
> The settings are identical.



Adolf Hitler and Abraham Lincoln are the same person.  They both have two arms, two legs, 99.9% of the same DNA, and were both national leaders who led their country during wartime.

These people are identical.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> But Planescape is also the 5e Forgotten Realms. Its cosmology now becomes regional settings within the Forgotten Realms setting. Arborea is a regional setting, like Kara Tur. The gods that populate the great wheel, are the same gods that populate the clerics. To me it feels like the same setting. Being in the material plane or in the great wheel is like being outside looking at the castle versus being inside the castle. It is the same setting.




So if you change all of the Planes to no longer be Planes, and add things to the Forgotten Realms that were not parts of the Forgotten Realms, then... they are the same setting? Uh... I guess? But what’s the point?

I can take apart a car and a boat, then build them into something new, but that doesn’t mean my boat was already a car. 

Combine settings if you want, but that has zero relevance on what the original settings actually are and why people like them or what they feel like to all the rest of us.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.
> 
> I noticed this already in Xanathars, where Christian (Greek, Roman, Celtic) names and Muslim (Arabic) names are present, while Jewish (Hebrew) names were noticeably absent.




Are you talking about the real world region that was used as part inspiration for the Al Qadim setting?


----------



## robus (Jun 6, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> I am baffled by what people would want from a "new setting" for Dungeons & Dragons. D&D has some obvious boxes they have to tick; elves, dragons, wizards, swords, etc. Any setting they are going to make is going to be compatible with the Core Rulebooks at the bare minimum; and probably as many supplements as possible in order to maximize profits. They aren't going to make settings that severely limits the material available to it, nor are they going to radically change classes, mechanics, and the like. At best, you'll get flavored D&D; heroic (Dragonlance), pulp-noir (Eberron), gothic horror (Ravenloft) or pulp (Dark Sun). You're not getting a human-only world, or a world with radically different magic, or set in the modern or far future, as a D&D setting.




That’s why i like the Magic planes as they offer thematic subsets that can evoke a particular flavor. I pluck from the corebooks (and supplements) what i need to support the plane.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.




Speaking as a Jew, I don't see this at all. It's not the real world. It's a 100% fantasy culture modeled after a (very broad, non-historical) view of a real world setting. If they were claiming even remote historical accuracy, I might agree with you. As it is? That's like saying Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms is anti-Christian because it's loosely modeled after Middle Ages Europe but doesn't include the Catholic Church.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> ‘But Planescape is also the 5e Forgotten Realms. Its cosmology now becomes regional settings within the Forgotten Realms setting. Arborea is a regional setting, like Kara Tur. The gods that populate the great wheel, are the same gods that populate the clerics. To me it feels like the same setting. Being in the material plane or in the great wheel is like being outside looking at the castle versus being inside the castle. It is the same setting.
> 
> Eberron is a truly different setting. Its design is to use all official mechanics but with significantly different flavor. It has a different cosmology and feels different




Vanilla ice-cream and cocaine are very similar, you can see they both have white color, they are soft.  Chocolate ice-cream though is entirely different!  Look at the color!

Eberron is FAR MORE SIMILAR to FR than planescape.  They are both prime material planes, dominated by humans and similar races (dwarves, elves, orcs etc).  Most people farm for a living.  There are seas, mountains, a sun, bedbugs, wolves.  People want wealth - gold - some more than others.   In Planescape, *anything goes*.  

The religious beliefs of Eberron are also contained within Planescape.   All beliefs are contained within it - and the absence of belief too.  It's the essence of the setting.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> Speaking as a Jew, I don't see this at all. It's not the real world. It's a 100% fantasy culture modeled after a (very broad, non-historical) view of a real world setting. If they were claiming even remote historical accuracy, I might agree with you. As it is? That's like saying Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms is anti-Christian because it's loosely modeled after Middle Ages Europe but doesn't include the Catholic Church.




The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.

As you know, many names, from David to Adam to Gabriel, are Jewish names. Plus, the actual names in Hebrew sound cool, and like Gavriél can connote angelic flavor.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.
> 
> As you know, many names, from David to Adam to Gabriel, are Jewish names. Plus, the actual names in Hebrew sound cool, and like Gavriél can connote angelic flavor.




He was clearly talking about Al Qadim, not Xanathar’s.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.




Okay, you might have a point with the names in XG--I honestly haven't even looked at them--but I was talking about Al-Qadim as a setting.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> Okay, you might have a point with the names in XG--I honestly haven't even looked at them--but I was talking about Al-Qadim as a setting.




We all know that ‘Al Qadim’ is Arabia. Just like we know Maztica is Mexico-Aztec.

This is anything but politically neutral.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

The name ‘Al Qadim’ is an Arabic word, meaning ‘the ancient one’.

(Tho it seems to me to be influenced by the Hebrew cognate, Qedem, which likewise means ‘ancient’, but can also mean the ‘East’, both meanings deriving from the sense of being ‘in front’.)


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> We all know that ‘Al Qadim’ is Arabia. Just like we know Maztica is Mexico-Aztec.
> 
> This is anything but politically neutral.




And we all know that almost the entirety of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, as settings, are Middle Ages Europe.

I refuse to accept the notion that entire swathes of mythology and related cultures are forbidden to modern fantasy due to the regions they come from having real-world conflicts.

It would be awesome to see a fantasy setting based on ancient Judaic legends and stories. It would be awesome to see a different Middle Eastern setting that included fictionalized variants of multiple cultures. But those are separate things, and I do not consider Arabian fantasy--especially when it bears a greater resemblance to _A Thousand and One Nights_ than anything even vaguely historical--to be remotely problematic. In fact, given the modern political climate, it might even be _helpful_.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> And we all know that almost the entirety of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, as settings, are Middle Ages Europe.
> 
> I refuse to accept the notion that entire swathes of mythology and related cultures are forbidden to modern fantasy due to the regions they come from having real-world conflicts.
> 
> It would be awesome to see a fantasy setting based on ancient Judaic legends and stories. It would be awesome to see a different Middle Eastern setting that included fictionalized variants of multiple cultures. But those are separate things, and I do not consider Arabian fantasy--especially when it bears a greater resemblance to _A Thousand and One Nights_ than anything even vaguely historical--to be remotely problematic. In fact, given the modern political climate, it might even be _helpful_.




I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> It would be awesome to see a fantasy setting based on ancient Judaic legends and stories. It would be awesome to see a different Middle Eastern setting that included fictionalized variants of multiple cultures.




Yeah, if WotC is going to wade into those controversial waters of Arabian culture, I want to see a Mideast cultural ethnic diversity, including Israel.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.




Good thing they're doing no such thing, then. I mean, given that the real world conflict is a conflict between nations--nations that happen to be linked to, but _do not represent the entirety of_, two particular religions and two particular ethnic groups--it would be silly to say that any use of one or both of those cultures was automatically taking sides in the conflict.

I mean, I do hope you're not suggesting that any portrayals of Arabs or Arabic mythology or culture is automatically taking a side. (Just as I would hope you wouldn't suggest that any portrayal of Middle Eastern Jewry would be taking a side.)


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.
> 
> I noticed this already in Xanathars, where Christian (Greek, Roman, Celtic) names and Muslim (Arabic) names are present, while Jewish (Hebrew) names were noticeably absent.






Yaarel said:


> I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.




No. Just, no.


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Jun 6, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> I already know what's coming out.  I can't tell you because of legal reasons, and I'd like to continue being able to know things and play them.  But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, it's not Greyhawk.




That's nice and all, but to me you are just some random, anonymous person on a message board bragging about things they cannot possibly prove because they are supposedly not allowed to. So what is your name in the real world and is your name in the credits of any published WotC books? If you cannot even tell us that, then please stop posting about what you supposedly secretly do or do not know.


----------



## Sadras (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:
			
		

> I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.





Yaarel said:


> Yeah, if WotC is going to wade into those controversial waters of Arabian culture, I want to see a Mideast cultural ethnic diversity, including Israel.




Wong. Arabian Culture started after the Kingdom of Israel and before the State of Israel.
Stop making this political when it was not meant to be - the goal was to inject cultural stories myths and legends of a people in a fantastical setting not an attempt to represent a RL political landscape in D&D.


----------



## dwayne (Jun 6, 2018)

I remember them saying that spelljammer would be about the astral sea and sailing on it, but could see that then be a connection to planescape two with one stone. And the Darksun would be cool as it is so differant from other settings, but also a modernsetting/sci fi ish one would be cool to as starfinder is doing well would be a way to catch some of that fire.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 6, 2018)

I guess that, with all this emphasis about D&D being a multiverse, maybe we are going to get some sort of Spelljammer/Planescape crossover, like in 4e, but with Great Wheel instead of World Axis. I mean, I remember Mike Mearls saying that spelljammers can travel not only in space, but also across the planes (pretty much, as it was in 4e).

And I know Planescape and Spelljammer are different settings with different hooks and flavor. I'm talking here about the concept of traveling between worlds. 

Now, I dunno if those two settings are really that irreconcilable and cannot be fused as some sort of Planejammer hybrid.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 6, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> All of these, AND FR's belief system, are a subset of Planescape' belief system.



I can't say that I agree with that, and it's also one of THE THINGS that I hate most about Planescape, namely its desire to subsume its ethos onto all other settings as an omni-setting. Destroy that disease of a thought with fire. Yuck. This is one of the biggest things that keeps me from liking this setting. (That and the sophist nihilism.) 



Remathilis said:


> I am baffled by what people would want from a "new setting" for Dungeons & Dragons. D&D has some obvious boxes they have to tick; elves, dragons, wizards, swords, etc. Any setting they are going to make is going to be compatible with the Core Rulebooks at the bare minimum; and probably as many supplements as possible in order to maximize profits. They aren't going to make settings that severely limits the material available to it, nor are they going to radically change classes, mechanics, and the like. At best, you'll get flavored D&D; heroic (Dragonlance), pulp-noir (Eberron), gothic horror (Ravenloft) or pulp (Dark Sun). You're not getting a human-only world, or a world with radically different magic, or set in the modern or far future, as a D&D setting.



Perhaps if it went further back in time rather than forward from the presumed pseudo-Renaissance level? Something more Ancient and Classical feeling? Maybe something more Greco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern (Egypto-Mesopotamian)? You get this to an extent with Dark Sun, but it represents a post-apocalyptic setting that has "regressed," and the focus is also on the harsh alien environment that will kill you. 

I kinda wish that we had something more akin to Dawnforge - one of the 3e contest settings and published by Fantasy Flight Games - that dealt with the sort of "era before" D&D's assumptions were born. When legends were being made. When kingdoms were born.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I am saying the designers have already mentioned the possibility of a ‘social campaign’ that focuses more on politics and intrigue.
> 
> In the Forgotten Realms setting.
> 
> ...



Now you make no sense whatsoever.

Who's talking about the Realms? That WotC likes to move everything over to the Realms is not up for debate; everyone realizes that.

Are you or are you not claiming Birthright is like a third, or seventh, Forgotten Realms setting?


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 6, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> As someone who is rather familiar with FR (2e and 3.x) as well as Planescape, your comment completely baffles me.




It seems likely we are all misinterpreting good Mr [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] 

Either that or he's retracting his wildly hyperbolic claims?


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Despite the unsatisfactory elf magic, all these features are Forgotten Realms.



I've already agreed the actual world of Cerilia is nothing to write home about. 

But a campaign setting is more than that. It's completely unfair to Birthright to only compare lands and elves, when Birthright is its completely own beast with its domain and monster ruler concepts.

I emphatically renounce the notion Birthright is like a Forgotten Realms copy.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 6, 2018)

It depends what you mean by "different". Birthright is still a genericfantasyland, all be it with some differences to FR.

The way it is designed to be played is what is actually different. In effect, its a kingdom level management sim.

But you could take the kingdom level management sim rules and port them to FR without much difficulty.


Consider what the Kingmaker adventure path is to Golarion.


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The names in Xanathars Guide are *reallife* names, referring to *reallife* nationalities by name: ‘Greek, Roman, Celtic, Arabic’, etcetera. Jews/Israelis/Israelites are absent.
> 
> As you know, many names, from David to Adam to Gabriel, are Jewish names. Plus, the actual names in Hebrew sound cool, and like Gavriél can connote angelic flavor.




But in that regard, names from many other cultures are absent too -mine included. I agree that Hebrew names sound cool, but so do others. If one interprets the book in good faith, given book space constraints, in my opinion there is nothing against any of those cultures, and it would be -with due respect- paranoid to claim otherwise absent specific evidence. Moreover,  everyone would be entitled to claim their names ought to be included, something not feasible.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 6, 2018)

Consider this. You can travel through a portal to Sigil from the Forgotten Realms. You can jump on a Spelljammer ship in Skullport.

Ergo, Planescape and Spelljammer are not separate settings to the Forgotten Realms, they are expansions of the FR setting.

Once you have Spelljammer, you could travel from the Forgotten Realms to Krynn, Arthas (I know, it's a retcon to canon), Eberonn etc. Thus, they also become a part of the Forgotten Realms setting.

Ergo, this is actually a plot for the Forgotten Realms to take over the multiverse.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 6, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> It depends what you mean by "different". Birthright is still a genericfantasyland, all be it with some differences to FR.
> 
> The way it is designed to be played is what is actually different. In effect, its a kingdom level management sim.
> 
> ...



Until you do, it is not FR.

And I wouldn't say "without much difficulty". Actual economic rules, yes.

But what about creating a domain overlay? That's a huge task. Don't say the individual DM can quickly whip something up just to delude yourself Birthright is a FR clone.

And what about monster rulers? You really can't just add that and pretend it doesn't massively mess up Realms history.

No, Birthright is not a FR clone, because you really can't do the things Birthright offered in FR.

WotC could take the ideas from Birthright and apply them to the Realms, of course. But until they do, there simply is zero merit to the idea.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 6, 2018)

The point is, Birthright is NOT a campaign setting. It's kingdom management minigame.


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jun 6, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> It depends what you mean by "different". Birthright is still a genericfantasyland, all be it with some differences to FR.
> 
> The way it is designed to be played is what is actually different. In effect, its a kingdom level management sim.
> 
> ...




I disagree -and my favorite setting is Eberron. Flavor-wise, Birthright is the only setting with an actual medieval feel in social -feudal-, religious and other terms, and elven culture is quite different and more mysterious. The Realms, encompassing so many flavors, lack its cohesion and are not truly medieval. Birthright is the only setting close enough to the feel of Game of Thrones in terms of both flavor and mechanics.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 6, 2018)

[MENTION=6906155]Paul Farquhar[/MENTION]   "...Arthas (I know, it's a retcon to canon),... "

I hope not. 

Although if i imagine some Drizzt entering Athas by crashing his spelljammer within the cannibal halfling jungle .....


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 6, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> The point is, Birthright is NOT a campaign setting. It's kingdom management minigame.



The fact that the kingdom management minigame could be ported (with effort) into another campaign world doesn't change the fact that Cerilia is an independent setting specifically built to support the assumptions and flavor of that minigame.  Cerilia <> Faerun <> Golarian <> Greyhawk <> Mystara, despite them all being generic medieval campaign settings with a mish-mash of kingdoms.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 6, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Consider this. You can travel through a portal to Sigil from the Forgotten Realms. You can jump on a Spelljammer ship in Skullport.
> 
> Ergo, Planescape and Spelljammer are not separate settings to the Forgotten Realms, they are expansions of the FR setting.
> 
> ...



Sorta, but where I will defend the Realms is that its cosmology (from what I recall) did not initially uphold the Great Wheel - the sort of sacred cosmology of Planescape - but, instead, it had its own World Tree Cosmology. 



Paul Farquhar said:


> The point is, Birthright is NOT a campaign setting. It's kingdom management minigame.



Sure, but only in as much as D&D is not a roleplaying game but just a miniatures wargame.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 6, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> I can't say that I agree with that, and it's also one of THE THINGS that I hate most about Planescape, namely its desire to subsume its ethos onto all other settings as an omni-setting. Destroy that disease of a thought with fire. Yuck. This is one of the biggest things that keeps me from liking this setting. (That and the sophist nihilism.)




But that's such an easy thing to fix.  "Currently there is little to no travel between Sigil and material plane X".  Tada.  Done.  Case closed.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Yeah, if WotC is going to wade into those controversial waters of Arabian culture, I want to see a Mideast cultural ethnic diversity, including Israel.




I have one!  

It had Jews, the orthodox Greeks, the Seljuks (and many of their divisions), the Arabs, the Armenians, the Crusaders states (and the roman church), the church of the east, the Persians, the Ismaili, the Yazidi....

If I published that, it would be the last thing I ever got to publish... can you imagine the pushback?  There is no way to do this "right" (it's been discussed before).


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 6, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> But that's such an easy thing to fix.  "Currently there is little to no travel between Sigil and material plane X".  Tada.  Done.  Case closed.



It's less about the travel and more about the ethos that "Planescape is always right" in how it presents itself as an omni-setting that subsumes all other settings within itself.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 6, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> The fact that the kingdom management minigame could be ported (with effort) into another campaign world doesn't change the fact that Cerilia is an independent setting specifically built to support the assumptions and flavor of that minigame.  Cerilia <> Faerun <> Golarian <> Greyhawk <> Mystara, despite them all being generic medieval campaign settings with a mish-mash of kingdoms.




That's the thing. Generic medieval.

That's what is stale and boring: Pseudo-medieval and pseudo-European. It doesn't matter how you try to make the elves mysterious or add more blood and mud, it's all been done to death. It's always been recognised that D&D doesn't need to be pseudo-medieval or pseudo-European, even before Dark Sun was first published we had adventures set in Hyperboria, Atlantis, Wonderland and Blackmoor (post apocalypse with remains of advanced tech). But in the last few years we have been served and endless diet of pseudo-medievalism.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 6, 2018)

Coroc said:


> @_*Paul Farquhar*_   "...Arthas (I know, it's a retcon to canon),... "
> 
> I hope not.
> 
> Although if i imagine some Drizzt entering Athas by crashing his spelljammer within the cannibal halfling jungle .....




Baldur's Gate II has Cannibal Halfings from Arthas and Solamanic knights from Krynn in a planer sphere in Athkatla (Forgotten Realms) so it wouldn't be the first time that has been violated...

Not to mention a tiefling bard from Sigil.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 6, 2018)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Nothing directly, at least that I saw. But in Mearls’ Jocks Machina session, Paul (the Big Show) Wight was playing a half-giant from Athas, so there’s that.






Paul Farquhar said:


> That's the thing. Generic medieval.
> 
> That's what is stale and boring: Pseudo-medieval and pseudo-European. It doesn't matter how you try to make the elves mysterious or add more blood and mud, it's all been done to death. It's always been recognised that D&D doesn't need to be pseudo-medieval or pseudo-European, even before Dark Sun was first published we had adventures set in Hyperboria, Atlantis, Wonderland and Blackmoor (post apocalypse with remains of advanced tech). But in the last few years we have been served and endless diet of pseudo-medievalism.




It may not be a setting you like, but it is a setting... for all the reasons I gave earlier.

For the reference, a game of politics and kingdom building vying for power has a lot of merit. Kingmaker fits into a similar setting and is one of Paizo’s best received Adventure Paths. Game of Thrones is said to be fairly popular I’m told. Birthright had an Iron Throne over a year before Game of Thrones was first published.

If you don’t like that cool. However lots of us do.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Sorta, but where I will defend the Realms is that its cosmology (from what I recall) did not initially uphold the Great Wheel - the sort of sacred cosmology of Planescape - but, instead, it had its own World Tree Cosmology.




Just for sake of accuracy, I'm pretty sure the World Tree Cosmology was introduced in 3e. Prior to that it was assumed the Great Wheel was the only cosmology. (So all campaign settings are really Planescape!  Ha! There is no Forgotten Realms - only Planescape, berk!) Of course, many of us just see it as one big metaphysical soup that different people divide up differently. In fact, when it comes to the Great Wheel arrangement of that metaphysical soup, I blame the modrons.



Aldarc said:


> Sure, but only in as much as D&D is not a roleplaying game but just a miniatures wargame.




Yeah, there seems to be a growing theme in this thread of "If I ignore a lot of details and only pay attention to what I'm interested in, these settings look the same." Seems kinda silly to me.

As I said earlier, I personally don't see what makes Greyhawk unique, but I also willingly admit that's MY limitation, not Greyhawk's. I'm sure a Greyhawk fan could talk my ear off for hours on all of the fun and interesting aspects of Greyhawk that they are passionate about and I'm certainly not going to be a jerk and tell them they are wrong just because I didn't see it before. (If anything, that sort of excitement is usually contagious and would likely make me more of a Greyhawk fan.)


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> It's less about the travel and more about the ethos that "Planescape is always right" in how it presents itself as an omni-setting that subsumes all other settings within itself.




Originally that was because Gary Gygax only invented one cosmology and didn't think you needed more. It had nothing to do with Planescape.

Planescape actually started the shift away from that and was more about a theme that was equal parts "Everyone is right!" and "No one really knows!" The _Manual of the Planes_ was clear that this was the one true way and Planescape followed that mechanically because there simply wasn't any other options until 3e. But thematically, in the flavor of the setting, the entire point of Planescape was about those equal parts "Everyone is right!" and "No one really knows!" Sure, it liked to joke around with the term "clueless prime," but if you pay attention, a lot of the time it's used ironically to show how clueless the planar NPC actually is.

Sure, Planescape unified all the settings, but so did Spelljammer - both with very different styles, and both entirely preserving the original settings. Being the connective tissue doesn't mean it's suddenly everything and subsumes it all. Highways unify cities, but that doesn't make every city suddenly just a highway. Each city still has it's own character, and the highways themselves can even have their own character as well. 

Planescape was always presented as a unique setting that occurred in the Planes rather than just any adventures in the Planes (just set any version of the Manual of the Planes next to any Planescape product, and the differences can be pretty clear if you look). Spelljammer was also presented as a unique setting that occurred in space. Both can touch other settings and are easily accessible back and forth, but saying that just because Spelljammer linked all settings, it subsumes them and all settings are just Spelljammer completely misses everything that makes Spelljammer unique (as well as all of those settings unique). It's the same with Planescape. Both were presented as ways to _unite_ the settings, not replace them.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 6, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> Just for sake of accuracy, I'm pretty sure the World Tree Cosmology was introduced in 3e. Prior to that it was assumed the Great Wheel was the only cosmology.



Not too familiar with FR prior to 3e, so that may be the case. 



> (So all campaign settings are really Planescape!  Ha! There is no Forgotten Realms - only Planescape, berk!) Of course, many of us just see it as one big metaphysical soup that different people divide up differently. In fact, when it comes to the Great Wheel arrangement of that metaphysical soup, I blame the modrons.



Your Planescape-slanted explanation kinda rubs me the wrong way, especially when it comes to Eberron's cosmology. We don't need some sort of grand unifying explanation as to why the cosmologies are different anymore than trying to explain Star Wars' concept of the Force into Star Trek. It strips a lot of the individual charm out of settings, again imposing Planescape norms on other settings. 



> As I said earlier, I personally don't see what makes Greyhawk unique, but I also willingly admit that's MY limitation, not Greyhawk's. I'm sure a Greyhawk fan could talk my ear off for hours on all of the fun and interesting aspects of Greyhawk that they are passionate about and I'm certainly not going to be a jerk and tell them they are wrong just because I didn't see it before. (If anything, that sort of excitement is usually contagious and would likely make me more of a Greyhawk fan.)



I would suggest that Greyhawk's idiosyncratic value is more about tone and focus rather than content. It was the world of '60s-'70s fantasy pulp and sword-and-sorcery murderhobos. Less about the world-saving heroic epic fantasy of Forgotten Realms and more about schmucks the likes of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser looking for their next score. It's also the setting of the most iconic dungeons and adventures. It's a Points of Light setting where towns, heroes, and dungeons can just be dropped almost effortlessly into the map. So in some respects, Greyhawk is a DM's paradise as it exists less as a storied "setting" - though I am sure someone more knowledgeable will debate that point - and more as a sandbox and GM toolkit. The more that I GM, the more that I appreciate Greyhawk-style settings.


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 6, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> That's the thing. Generic medieval.
> 
> That's what is stale and boring: Pseudo-medieval and pseudo-European. It doesn't matter how you try to make the elves mysterious or add more blood and mud, it's all been done to death. It's always been recognised that D&D doesn't need to be pseudo-medieval or pseudo-European, even before Dark Sun was first published we had adventures set in Hyperboria, Atlantis, Wonderland and Blackmoor (post apocalypse with remains of advanced tech). But in the last few years we have been served and endless diet of pseudo-medievalism.




That's fine, but being in the same general genre doesn't make two things the same.  I understanding you're being intentionally hyperbolic, but you're watering down your point by doing so, in the same way that [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] is by saying every polytheistic setting is Forgotten Realms.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 6, 2018)

Here is what I think will happen (based on rereading the article as well as some others arguments on here):

We get 3 products. 2 small Summer ones and 1 big Winter one. 

The 2 Summer products will be Darksun and Ebberon PDFs, primers like the first chapter of Curse of Strahd but presented like the Elemental Evil Players Companion (as in a free PDF). It will include some races they have playtested before (Warforged, Shifter, and so on) as well as any rules that are needed to run the setting (Dragon Marks, General info on how Races from the PHB fit into the settings, and so on). Don't expect major rules drop like Psion, but they may release the new playtest versions of the Psion and Artificer to coincide with this. These will be only a primer and will hold people over until Artificer and Psion are finished in time for official hardcovers in these settings, likely next year. 

The big Winter product is the heavily hinted at 4th Hardcover. It will hit in December and either be a Planescape Adventurer's Guide touching on Sigil and other planes, or it will be an entirely new publication and surprise us (my guess would be either Perkins or Crawfords homeworlds).

This will open up all those settings to the DMs Guild, and I chose these specifically because they are the highest asked for settings based on last years setting survey!


----------



## Coroc (Jun 6, 2018)

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] #239  "especially when it comes to Eberron's cosmology"  Agreed and not. Eberron has different names for the planes and a bit different flavor. Eberron has also more Abstract gods. One of the factions in planescape afaik has the Motto "there are no gods"


" Greyhawk's idiosyncratic value is more about tone and focus rather than Content"

Again yes and no, It depends on the playstyle of the DM. It is more easy to display  a rough more "neutral-aligned" Society whereas in FR  this would be the good side, e.g. in many official greyhawk adventures dwarves are of neutral alignment rather than the mostly LN / LG / NG FR dwarves. Which, depending on the Players Actions, could as easy put them up as oponents - aka mobs to slay - than as allies. Whereas in FR they most sincerely would be potential allies "the good guys" of most good or neutral aligned Groups.

Kudos to your opinion that GH is DMs paradise - to the partial homebrew adding DM it really is. Because of the open Framework, things never feel shoehorned.

Personally i would never Combine Eberron as a DM with planescape. It does not add anything to any of the Settings. 
Same goes for Athas, being unreachable (almost) adds to ist flavor, making it an easy trip would be like altering Portals in Sigil so that no Portal key is needed anymore!


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 6, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Until you do, it is not FR.
> 
> And I wouldn't say "without much difficulty". Actual economic rules, yes.
> 
> ...




Transporting the domain rules over to my homebrew world was such a huge (not difficult) task that I only did one section of the world.

A wilderness style DMZ between two major power that they could carve their own kingdoms out of.

Even that took a very long time.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 6, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> The point is, Birthright is NOT a campaign setting. It's kingdom management minigame.




I feel its both.  We played several campaigns in it as a regular world without the domain management.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 6, 2018)

Athas is definitely connected to Planescape, not only are some Athasian monsters reprinted in the PS Monstrous Compendiums like the Psurlons and Ruvkova, but there's a ghetto for Athasian Halflings in Sigil, the rumour that Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power, the fact that Orcus retrieved a Rhulisti life-shaped construct body of the Blue Age while he was Tenebrous and there's the fact that various Planewalkers themselves know of the existence of that world.  

Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Your Planescape-slanted explanation kinda rubs me the wrong way, especially when it comes to Eberron's cosmology. We don't need some sort of grand unifying explanation as to why the cosmologies are different anymore than trying to explain Star Wars' concept of the Force into Star Trek. It strips a lot of the individual charm out of settings, again imposing Planescape norms on other settings.




I'm still failing to see where anything is being _imposed_. I tried to be pretty clear that it's _my_ theory that I use in my campaigns. When someone plays Eberron, if they don't want Sigil or any of the Great Wheel to exist, they just snap their fingers Thanos-style and they are gone! Nothing imposed.

Take your adding the Force to Star Trek example. If someone published a book specifically about how to combine Star Wars and Star Trek, then I would expect an explanation of how Vulcan mind melds are really Jedi powers or some such. For some fans that could be really interesting. But for Star Trek fans that don't want them mixed, nothing has been imposed on them. Vulcans aren't suddenly ruined. They can just ignore that book and go on happily enjoying their Force-free Star Trek as long as they like. 

If my explanation rubs you the wrong way, don't use it. *shrug* I'm not imposing anything at all. When I play Eberron, I very well might not use it either. 

Prior to 3e, TSR never really considered alternatives. In 3e and 5e*, WotC has been very clear that you can do whatever you want, and some settings will be very different. 3e Manual of the Planes, FR, and Eberron were very clear in discussing entirely different cosmologies. But prior to those, the concept simply wasn't really there yet. Prior to 3e, they also didn't have sorcerers. To say that the 2e PHB imposed wizards rather than sorcerers onto players would be a really weird use of "imposing." Same thing with the Great Wheel prior to 3e. The lack of alternatives has nothing to do with Planescape and is simply because they focused their creative efforts elsewhere.

The existence of Planescape imposes nothing on Eberron or any other setting. Just ignore it. All current 5e books have tried to be open about alternatives. In the DMG, they even specifically call that chapter "Creating a Multiverse" for good reason. Unless Spock talks to Yoda in the next movie, some people geeking out about mashing up Star Wars and Star Trek or even the existence of any books detailing that, imposes nothing on either of those two properties. Even if a book was published bizarrely mashing up Star Trek and a rather mismatched property, it's easy to enjoy or ignore it on its own without it imposing anything on the rest of Star Trek. 

So I guess I'm just confused on how Planescape having it's own explanations and ideas imposes anything on any other setting.


* I'm not familiar with 4e very much, so I can't speak to that. I certainly got the feeling that 4e did have much of the problem you worry about with imposing it's World Axis cosmology and history onto all D&D and trying to erase the alternative, but that could just be from my unfamiliarity rather than what 4e actually was.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

Kobold Avenger said:


> Athas is definitely connected to Planescape, not only are some Athasian monsters reprinted in the PS Monstrous Compendiums like the Psurlons and Ruvkova, but there's a ghetto for Athasian Halflings in Sigil, the rumour that Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power, the fact that Orcus retrieved a Rhulisti life-shaped construct body of the Blue Age while he was Tenebrous and there's the fact that various Planewalkers themselves know of the existence of that world.
> 
> Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.




Yes and no.

If you are playing a Planescape campaign - absolutely they are connected. Very remotely and with difficulty, but still definitely connected. My first bit of fan fiction when I was young had the main villain be a Dark Sun sorcerer-king living in Sigil. In fact, I could see a Planescape adventure about trying to get to Athas and (even more challenging - back again) being very interesting.

However, if you are playing a Dark Sun campaign, when I asked my Magic 8-Ball if it is connected to Planescape, all it said was "Reply hazy, try again." 

In Planescape products, they are very clear about the connection. In Dark Sun products, the connection is much less clear. There's certainly clear signs of past connections. There's mutated descendants of githyanki, for example. Also, there's hand waving in the direction of a possible but tenuous current connection in the way that writers say "Hey, here's a big set of adventure hooks if you want!" but nothing definitive.

Assuming one set of conflicting products is correct is the wrong way to approach it. It all depends on what you are looking for with your game. A Dark Sun game that has no current connections to Planescape would be as correct canonically as a Planescape campaign that accepted those rumors you mention as true. (Personally, even if I was going to have a Planescape/Dark Sun campaign, things like "Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power" would probably be treated as false by me. The general trend of "Your villain was secretly manipulated by MY villain! Ha!" in any sort of merging of properties strikes me as lame writing. Glad even in Planescape that's only a rumor.)

Edit to add: Just went back and double checked the reference about Jemorille and that makes more sense now. Haven't read Faces of Sigil in a while. It's an in-character statement made by someone who claims to single-handedly be behind most every major event in all the worlds including the Temple of Elemental Evil (creation and destruction) and the Tuigan Horde, as well as being personally responsible for the entire Blood War, and don't forget - completely controlling Sigil itself with the Lady of Pain as just a useful illusion. So, yeah, even canonically in Planescape that claim of influence in Athas is extreeeeemely dubious. Either Jemorille is the greatest antagonist in the history of the multiverse (which could be an interesting campaign) or he's full of [redacted for Eric's Grandma]. I'm pretty sure in Planescape canon, it's the second option.)


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 6, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> When someone plays Eberron, if they don't want Sigil or any of the Great Wheel to exist, *they just snap their fingers Thanos-style and they are gone!* Nothing imposed.



That's part of the problem. You are implicitly presuming here that they are there - you snap them gone and not snap them into existence - whereas I operate from the opposite perspective. That's what leaves me again thinking immediately "nope!" as my gut reaction. If you assume them as the default that must be erased from Eberron, then yes that is imposing Planescape on Eberron, at least from my perspective. It was also my gut reaction when I read Mordenkainen offering his commentary on Eberron: "nope!" 



> * I'm not familiar with 4e very much, so I can't speak to that. I certainly got the feeling that 4e did have much of the problem you worry about with imposing it's World Axis cosmology and history onto all D&D and trying to erase the alternative, but that could just be from my unfamiliarity rather than what 4e actually was.



Yes, and while I did like the World Axis, I hated the imposition of the World Axis onto other settings such as Dark Sun and Eberron. 



Kobold Avenger said:


> Athas is definitely connected to Planescape, not only are some Athasian monsters reprinted in the PS Monstrous Compendiums like the Psurlons and Ruvkova, but there's a ghetto for Athasian Halflings in Sigil, the rumour that Jemorille the Exile had something to do with Rajaat's rise to power, the fact that Orcus retrieved a Rhulisti life-shaped construct body of the Blue Age while he was Tenebrous and there's the fact that various Planewalkers themselves know of the existence of that world.
> 
> Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.



Yuck.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 6, 2018)

Planescape is quite different from Forgotten Realms, but because Forgotten Realms is the go to campaign setting for D&D, it does rip off a lot of things from every other D&D campaign setting as time goes on.

Mechanically there isn't much that makes Planescape different other than it's mechanics about the different planes, and faction or sect abilities which would probably be downplayed as those sort of things might break 5e's sense of game balance.

What matters in everything for Planescape is tone, Planescape is very much a post-modern setting in tone.  It takes many ideas from the 19th century and eras from beyond the medieval age.  A lot of the factions philosophies are parts of that as many of them certainly have ideas inspired by certain 19th century schools of thought, while others are outright based off of Taoism or Buddhism.  Sigil is partially in the Industrial Age with the various factories that exist in the Lower Ward, though certain technology like firearms is as rare as it is in other D&D worlds.  

The cant itself is inspired by Cockney Rhyming Slang which first came to be around London in the 19th century, with words like _Berk_ which is short of _Berkshire Hunt_ which rhymes with something that begins with the letter C.  One could easily compare 19th century London to Sigil as it's the main influence on Sigil.

Monte Cook was one of the main minds behind Planescape and he continued to introduce more and more weird elements (including sci-fi ones) to Planescape while it was being published, as one could certainly spot similarities between Planescape and his current work in Numenera.  In many ways while standard D&D is of the High Fantasy genre, Planescape is of the New Weird genre genre though the term for that genre came into being after Planescape was published.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 6, 2018)

@ Kobold Avenger Psurlons are from the far realms, and lo and behold you got humans and elves on athas as on other worlds. 

Does not make them automatically connected or even have a common ancestor neither by D&D logic nor by RL logic. That is an indicator, but no proof.

Still, what gains could be made by connecting Athas and PS?

So for Athas the thing is clear: Everyone and his mother (including maybe even Sorcerer Kings) would want to escape to Sigil or a nice plane connected to it.


For PS? Yea you see berks, you come to this desert place, it is like hell and some nightmarish mob attacks you (and in the distance you see some halflings barbecuing Drizzt over an open fire).

So does sound like Abyss layer number x already reachable pretty easy from Sigil doesn't it?

So what do you add? Right, nothing. Absolutely nothing.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 6, 2018)

This was not an argument that I was expecting to go full-bore on Godwin's Law, but here we are.



Coroc said:


> [MENTION=6906155]Paul Farquhar[/MENTION]   "...Arthas (I know, it's a retcon to canon),... "
> 
> I hope not.
> 
> Although if i imagine some Drizzt entering Athas by crashing his spelljammer within the cannibal halfling jungle .....




Not gonna lie, I would read that book.

I might have to replace the cover with something a bit less embarrassing though.

Like _50 Shades of Gray_ or _Atlas Shrugged._


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

No one gets to decide whether or not any worlds are connected to each other, via Planespace or whatever.  They already are.  In the meta of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Sun things have appeared elsewhere in other games.  Greyhawk things have appeared elsewhere in other games.  All the terminology of all the facets of D&D have appeared back and forth across all the settings.  It's already happened.  It's been written.  It's been produced.  It's been published.  And just because you as a specific DM do not want your specific table to be "connected" to any of it doesn't matter.  You are a part of the D&D multiverse _because_ you are playing D&D.

The best you can do is say that for _your_ table and _your_ game and _your_ little pocket of the D&D multiverse, it isn't "connected" to anything else.  It is it's own little area where never the twain shall meet.  Which is great!  Go right ahead!  You can SAY whatever you'd like.  Every DM's prime material plane for each game they run may or may not have any connections to any other game being run in terms of that DM's narrative.  I mean usually there *is* a connection even if you don't mean it to... seeing as how you usually are using the exact same monsters that happen to have the exact same stats as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and you use the exact same magic items that have the exact same names and abilities as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane,  and the physics of your world involve their exact same representation via the exact same game rules as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane... but sure, yours is it's own thing.  You can say whatever you'd like. 

But because you are playing D&D, on the meta level you _are_ part of D&D.  Whether or not you want to admit it.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 6, 2018)

Just because I mentioned there actually are canonical connections between Planescape and Dark Sun, doesn't mean the Athas is swarming with Planewalkers either.

Athas as a destination in the multiverse is sort of like countries that exist in our world like Moldova or Chad, you could go there if you wanted to, but you probably wouldn't because you'd rather be in other places like France or Mexico.


----------



## Mercule (Jun 6, 2018)

nicolas.carrillos said:


> I really really hope Eberron is among the settings to be supported soon



Agreed. I'm not sure how to read the various comments, though. There was some buzz around Eberron, a few months back. But, the comments about doing it like Ravenloft and "hard core fans" being happy don't sound much like Eberron, to me. I don't see Eberron as being a "go for a visit" setting and, while it has some pretty loyal fans, I'm not sure I'd have used the words "hard core".

My money is on Planescape, with Dark Sun being a possibility. If we're getting two, I'd be happy to see either of the above as the first, with Eberron for the second. Even though I don't make huge use of things like the Kalashtar, Dreaming Dark, etc. I want psionics included in the setting update. Since Mearls has said that psionics will come with Dark Sun, I'm hoping it's Dark Sun + Eberron. Not holding my breath, though.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 6, 2018)

Kobold Avenger said:


> Athas as a destination in the multiverse is sort of like countries that exist in our world like Moldova or Chad, you could go there if you wanted to, but you probably wouldn't because you'd rather be in other places like France or Mexico.



As for what Toril is as a multiversal destination, well there's Undermountain that has many portals to other places so it's a lot like this place I once went to called the Atlanta International Airport while trying to get to somewhere else.  I heard there's this mythical city that exists outside the airport, but I never bothered seeing if there was such a place...


----------



## R_Chance (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.




Borrowing elements from one historical culture without mentioning their possible enemies / opponents or other cultures extant in a given historical period is not "propaganda". These settings are not intended to present a historical reality or alternative.  They are simply borrowing certain ideas for a kind of creative shorthand. The rabbit hole you're trying to go down has no end. Should settings be completely divorced from any connection to the real world? The use of language or other cultural elements to describe a setting is not derogative of any other real culture. Of course, you could create a setting which purposefully did so, but that is not what we are talking about here.

*edit* To avoid confusion, this reply is to a post that's pages back in the thread...


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 6, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> No one gets to decide whether or not any worlds are connected to each other, via Planespace or whatever.  They already are.  In the meta of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Sun things have appeared elsewhere in other games.  Greyhawk things have appeared elsewhere in other games.  All the terminology of all the facets of D&D have appeared back and forth across all the settings.  It's already happened.  It's been written.  It's been produced.  It's been published.  And just because you as a specific DM do not want your specific table to be "connected" to any of it doesn't matter.  You are a part of the D&D multiverse _because_ you are playing D&D.
> 
> The best you can do is say that for _your_ table and _your_ game and _your_ little pocket of the D&D multiverse, it isn't "connected" to anything else.  It is it's own little area where never the twain shall meet.  Which is great!  Go right ahead!  You can SAY whatever you'd like.  Every DM's prime material plane for each game they run may or may not have any connections to any other game being run in terms of that DM's narrative.  I mean usually there *is* a connection even if you don't mean it to... seeing as how you usually are using the exact same monsters that happen to have the exact same stats as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and you use the exact same magic items that have the exact same names and abilities as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane,  and the physics of your world involve their exact same representation via the exact same game rules as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane... but sure, yours is it's own thing.  You can say whatever you'd like.
> 
> But because you are playing D&D, on the meta level you _are_ part of D&D.  Whether or not you want to admit it.




I fundamentally disagree with this take. Every DM is, or can be, the author and creator not only of their own prime material plane, but the entire multiverse. If I want to say "there is no Greyhawk in my multiverse," I can say that. It is absolutely true for my own campaign and nt only the prime material plane it is set in, but the multiverse. In a similar sense that an Eberron DM fully has the right to make their cosmology absolutely true.

Now most DMs don't play that way and instead willingly fit their prime material plane into the shared D&D multiverse. But each DM has the right to form the basic cosmological assumptions of their own game, without "actually" being part of some over-arching canonical multiverse.


----------



## DM Howard (Jun 6, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Now most DMs don't play that way and instead willingly fit their prime material plane into the shared D&D multiverse. But each DM has the right to form the basic cosmological assumptions of their own game, without "actually" being part of some over-arching canonical multiverse.




I think that is why the "multiverse" language that has been used so often already in 5th Edition has me on edge.  I can appreciate things being connected, if the need is there, but I don't care for it as an assumption of the system as a whole.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 6, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Why can't we have a new setting?






DM Howard said:


> I'm up for anything, but I can't say I get the draw of Planescape or Spelljammer.






Yaarel said:


> Al Qadim can easily come across as Antisemitic. Jews and Samaritans are aborigines of the region (as are Phoenicians, Coptics, Chaldeans, and others), but the ‘Arabic’ flavor effectively genocides and erases all of them.
> 
> I noticed this already in Xanathars, where Christian (Greek, Roman, Celtic) names and Muslim (Arabic) names are present, while Jewish (Hebrew) names were noticeably absent.






Yaarel said:


> I am saying mentioning one group of the reallife conflict while erasing the other group. Is politics, verging on propaganda.






DM Howard said:


> I think that is why the "multiverse" language that has been used so often already in 5th Edition has me on edge.  I can appreciate things being connected, if the need is there, but I don't care for it as an assumption of the system as a whole.




I hear you. I think it is important to remember that no matter what WotC publishes, they cannot control your home game in any way. They can publish "every D&D campaign setting ever played is part of the multiverse," and for their version of things it could be true in an abstract sense, but for all practical purposes you can do whatever you want at your own table. 

Anyhow, I thnk they would only ever publish something like that as a way of being inclusive - not as a some attempt to control.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 6, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> I would suggest that Greyhawk's idiosyncratic value is more about tone and focus rather than content. It was the world of '60s-'70s fantasy pulp and sword-and-sorcery murderhobos. Less about the world-saving heroic epic fantasy of Forgotten Realms and more about schmucks the likes of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser looking for their next score. It's also the setting of the most iconic dungeons and adventures. It's a Points of Light setting where towns, heroes, and dungeons can just be dropped almost effortlessly into the map. So in some respects, Greyhawk is a DM's paradise as it exists less as a storied "setting" - though I am sure someone more knowledgeable will debate that point - and more as a sandbox and GM toolkit. The more that I GM, the more that I appreciate Greyhawk-style settings.




See, this is where perception means everything; I find Greyhawk, bland, painfully generic, and barely a setting as a collection of proper nouns and references that is unique and memorable only due to their constant inclusion in the core rulebooks and repeated retreads if nostalgic modules. It's never been more than the default assumptions given a proper name.

But that is the assumptions I have from the end of 2e and 3e era; when that's what they sold it mostly as. You see a pulpy world mercenaries, I see genericland. It's the same problem people are having with Planescape or Birthright in this thread; peoples preconceived notions are coloring whether a setting should get published.


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 6, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> The fact that the kingdom management minigame could be ported (with effort) into another campaign world doesn't change the fact that Cerilia is an independent setting specifically built to support the assumptions and flavor of that minigame.  Cerilia <> Faerun <> Golarian <> Greyhawk <> Mystara, despite them all being generic medieval campaign settings with a mish-mash of kingdoms.




Suspecting that Cerilia is unlikely to be reintroduced as a setting, I reintroduce my suggestion of doing Birthright as the next of the WotC D&D board games, having a “Domain Board” with shifting resources and other control elements along the line of both the classic setting and various conquest games. Meanwhile, the game itself would come with an “Adventure Board” with party-level scenarios played out in Cerilia between characters and monsters (which, as in the classic setting, act to affect the Domain Turn).

A group could play a combination of a single Adventure Scenario and Domain Scenario together or choose to keep the same Domain Game going across multiple games of Adventure play. Likewise, it could be designed so that — instead of using the Adventure Scenarios in the box or otherwise released for the game — a group could play 5e adventures along with the Domain Board and have the microcosm of character actions in the campaign affect global Domain Rounds. Per the question of setting vs. mechanics, while the game would be designed around the assumptions of Cerilia, it would include notes on how to play the Domain Board in other settings/campaigns (such as how to add it to an FR campaign and work the Weave into the assumptions of the game).

I think that’s a product that could sell both on its own face (as a game that doesn’t require D&D and appeals to conquest game players) and as an expandable campaign accessory for folks looking to shake things up.


----------



## colinbuckler (Jun 6, 2018)

From a business sense WOTC might want to capture and capitalise in areas where a 5E product currently doesn't go.  

With that in mind I think they may release 2 small books?  (more likely PDF's) to cover Spelljammer and Planescape.  This would give something in the area of Starfinder (not quite the same I know) as well as tie in nicely with the Spelljammer helm thats reportedly included with the two new Waterdeep products.  This in turn opens the door for other realms via other Crystal Spheres or planes.  (would love to have more on Spelljammer personally).

There is also a possibility of some form of campaign management - think on the success of the Pathfinder products and especially the success of Strongholds kickstarter earlier on this year.  I don't think it will go full Birthright (which is a shame in my opinion).

And a final thought which everybody appears to missed - what about a surprise "Modern 5E" version?


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> I fundamentally disagree with this take. Every DM is, or can be, the author and creator not only of their own prime material plane, but the entire multiverse.




And your multiverse is a part of the D&D multiverse.  Because you're playing D&D.  That's why the goblins that appear in your world when you use the stats from the Monster Manual are the exact same goblins that appear in mine.  Is that just the most unlikely of coincidences?  Nope.  Cause our individual worlds are connected at a meta level to D&D.

Now there might be no way for any character in your world or planar structure to use magic to GET to any other plane in some other person's world or indeed even believe some other DM's world might even exist.  Sure.  You can say that, and indeed you might make it a point to never have that happen in the context of your own stories.  But have you ever had a player bring a PC into your game world that they've played in a different world at a different table?  Or have any of your players ever taken a character they've played in your game and then played it at a game store or in Adventurer's League at some point?  

If it has, how is it possible?  The "same" character showing up in two different worlds?  It's possible because in the multiverse there are infinite numbers of everyone and everything.  And even if one of me will never ever meet another one of me, that doesn't mean that the other me doesn't exist.

And it's the same way with D&D.  No one in your world might believe in the world of Eberron that Keith Baker plays or have any way to get there (because the magic or physics of your world doesn't allow for it.)  But if you both happen to have Holy Avengers, and your orogs all have the same stats, and you both reference the Elemental Planes with a creature in one of them by the name of Yan-C-Bin... it's because you are a part of the D&D narrative.  And no amount of denial on your part can make it not true.

How do you not be a part of the D&D multiverse?  You don't play D&D.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 6, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> No one gets to decide whether or not any worlds are connected to each other, via Planespace or whatever.  They already are.  In the meta of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Sun things have appeared elsewhere in other games.  Greyhawk things have appeared elsewhere in other games.  All the terminology of all the facets of D&D have appeared back and forth across all the settings.  It's already happened.  It's been written.  It's been produced.  It's been published.  And just because you as a specific DM do not want your specific table to be "connected" to any of it doesn't matter.  You are a part of the D&D multiverse _because_ you are playing D&D.
> 
> The best you can do is say that for _your_ table and _your_ game and _your_ little pocket of the D&D multiverse, it isn't "connected" to anything else.  It is it's own little area where never the twain shall meet.  Which is great!  Go right ahead!  You can SAY whatever you'd like.  Every DM's prime material plane for each game they run may or may not have any connections to any other game being run in terms of that DM's narrative.  I mean usually there *is* a connection even if you don't mean it to... seeing as how you usually are using the exact same monsters that happen to have the exact same stats as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane, and you use the exact same magic items that have the exact same names and abilities as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane,  and the physics of your world involve their exact same representation via the exact same game rules as the multitude of every other DM's pocket plane... but sure, yours is it's own thing.  You can say whatever you'd like.
> 
> But because you are playing D&D, on the meta level you _are_ part of D&D.  Whether or not you want to admit it.




I feel the above assessment is correct. The ‘multiverse’ is canon. All official settings interconnect. 5e emphasizes this. There is only one supersetting, and all other settings assimilate into it.

Unfortunately, this is what makes the D&D products less and less appealing to me.

All settings are homogenizing.

The D&D 1e spirit of create your own worlds is dead.




If the Star Trek Borg was ever a setting, Planescape is it. ‘We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.’

The polytheism is totalitarian. The sun elf is dead − only Borg elves roam existence now.

The world builder swims against a stronger current of unwanted flavor.




The damage seems to have been. Everything has been assimilated.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 6, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> See, this is where perception means everything; I find Greyhawk, bland, painfully generic, and barely a setting as a collection of proper nouns and references that is unique and memorable only due to their constant inclusion in the core rulebooks and repeated retreads if nostalgic modules. It's never been more than the default assumptions given a proper name.
> 
> But that is the assumptions I have from the end of 2e and 3e era; when that's what they sold it mostly as. You see a pulpy world mercenaries, I see genericland. It's the same problem people are having with Planescape or Birthright in this thread; peoples preconceived notions are coloring whether a setting should get published.



I have never played Greyhawk. I also came in when 3e was released. Sure, the 3e PHB had a barebones Greyhawk (mostly just a handful of deities), but my GM used his own homebrew. I also thought that Greyhawk seemed kinda bland and generic. I was curious as to why people remembered Generichawk so fondly. I even remember being wide-eyed about the release of this pretty new book called Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. But then came Eberron... 

It was not until much later, within the past four or so years, that I looked back at Greyhawk, spurred by grognards here talking about what makes Greyhawk unique. A lot of responses recounted something akin to the above, and I know that I am not doing their responses justice. It was not until I gained more experience GMing that I started seeing the appeal of Greyhawk from the GM-side of things. It was something akin to an "Oh " epiphany moment. I still haven't played it, but when imagining "What would it be like to run Greyhawk," it seemed to click. 

Any thoughts on my earlier reply to you about what other settings D&D could do? Or did I miss that?


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The D&D 1e spirit of create your own worlds is dead.




Unfortunately, you just never realized back then that even 1E was part of the D&D multiverse.  It was just never referenced.  So any belief in individuality or uniqueness was just an illusion because you didn't know any better.  

Why did ever single player have red dragons in their worlds that did the same amount of damage and had the same number of attacks, and had the same baseline personality?  Because we all used the Monster Manual as our guide.  Our red dragons were all virtually identical.  Because they were all just "alternate universe" red dragons that were all part of the D&D multiverse.

Or why were there tens of thousands of 'Acererak's out there?  All who had the exact same tomb, all of whom did the exact same thing of pulling adventurers into his tomb to kill them?  All of whom had the exact same traps and abilities to do so?   Because they were all just "alternate universe" Acereraks that were all part of the D&D multiverse.

And that's really the point.  If you play D&D, and use the tools of D&D, you are a part of D&D.  It's just the way it is.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> If the Star Trek Borg was ever a setting, Planescape is it. ‘We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.’
> 
> The sun elf is dead − only Borg elves roam existence now.




Off topic, but this is brilliant.  I need to go homebrew a nanotech Sorcerous origin.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 6, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> And your multiverse is a part of the D&D multiverse.  Because you're playing D&D.  That's why the goblins that appear in your world when you use the stats from the Monster Manual are the exact same goblins that appear in mine.  Is that just the most unlikely of coincidences?  Nope.  Cause our individual worlds are connected at a meta level to D&D.
> 
> Now there might be no way for any character in your world or planar structure to use magic to GET to any other plane in some other person's world or indeed even believe some other DM's world might even exist.  Sure.  You can say that, and indeed you might make it a point to never have that happen in the context of your own stories.  But have you ever had a player bring a PC into your game world that they've played in a different world at a different table?  Or have any of your players ever taken a character they've played in your game and then played it at a game store or in Adventurer's League at some point?
> 
> ...




Yes, my game draws upon the well of D&D. If that is what you mean, sure. No doubt. But whether or not Eberron exists in my multiverse is entirely up to me. Not you, not Keith Baker, not the lich of E Gary Gygax (RIP). It isn't a matter of what I believe, as DM, but what I decide to be so. 

Canon is just the default that individual games _can_ follow if they choose, but don't have to. This is _entirely_ up to individual DMs and/or groups. It is a toolbox, not hard-written rules that Everyone Must Follow Or Forever Be Cast Out of the D&D Family.

So if you're saying that every D&D campaign is part of the overall D&D "well of ideas," then yeah, of course that is true. But if you are saying that every campaign world is part of D&D's multiverse whether the campaign world's designer wants it or not, that is absurd. Every campaign world and game table is its own "absolute multiverse," and it is entirely up to individual DMs and groups how they choose to interact with the D&D multiverse - if at all.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> If it has, how is it possible?  The "same" character showing up in two different worlds?




Um... because it's all make believe? Look, I'm a big fan of Planescape, Spelljammer, and linking settings, and you've lost me.

Or maybe you are onto something... maybe none of this is real and we are all just inside Tommy Westphall's head!


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> So if you're saying that every D&D campaign is part of the overall D&D "well of ideas," then yeah, of course that is true. But if you are saying that every campaign world is part of D&D's multiverse whether the campaign world's designer wants it or not, that is absurd. Every campaign world and game table is its own "absolute multiverse," and it is entirely up to individual DMs and groups how they choose to interact with the D&D multiverse - if at all.




I'm saying that the "well of ideas" and "multiverse" are exactly the same thing.  At a meta level there is no difference.  Which means there's absolutely no point in trying to split hairs.   And whether someone says "My table is part of the D&D Multiverse." or "My table is not a part of the D&D multiverse" really means absolutely nothing at the hand-on level of actually playing at the table.  At the table, neither answer matters.

Which is exactly why I point it out because so many people get so hung on it.  At your table, what WotC says about everything in D&D being a part of the "D&D multiverse" means jack squat _at your table_.  So why let yourself get so bent out of shape over it when they say it?


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> Or maybe you are onto something... maybe none of this is real and we are all just inside Tommy Westphall's head!




DING!  Perfect example.  Hundreds of shows are part of the 'Tommy Westphall Universe".  But do any of us CARE that some people say that The Simpsons is "not real" but just in the mind of an autistic kid in Boston?  Nope.  If someone says to you "You know, 'Cheers' isn't an actual TV show but is really just something Tommy Westphall created in his mind"... and you actually let that bother you?  That someone _said_ that and you actually got defensive about it?  You need to lighten up.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.  You will watch 'Cheers' and suspend disbelief and never think about the possibility that the world of 'Cheers' doesn't exist.  The same way that Mike Mearls can say that everything D&D is part of the D&D multiverse.  At your own table, _it doesn't matter_.  So why get bent out of shape over it when he says it?


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 6, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> I'm saying that the "well of ideas" and "multiverse" are exactly the same thing.  At a meta level there is no difference.  Which means there's absolutely no point in trying to split hairs.   And whether someone says "My table is part of the D&D Multiverse." or "My table is not a part of the D&D multiverse" really means absolutely nothing at the hand-on level of actually playing at the table.  At the table, neither answer matters.
> 
> Which is exactly why I point it out because so many people get so hung on it.  At your table, what WotC says about everything in D&D being a part of the "D&D multiverse" means jack squat _at your table_.  So why let yourself get so bent out of shape over it when they say it?




Haha...I’m not at all getting bent out of shape and I think we’re in agreement. In fact, part of what we’re in agreement about is that there’s no need to get bent out of shape!


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 6, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> If the Star Trek Borg was ever a setting, Planescape is it. ‘We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.’



If Planescape was the setting of all D&D everyone would be a jaded part-time mercenary seeing existence through the lens of philosophies such as Nihilism/Objectivism/Solipsism/Agnosticism/etc, and would barely care about the saving the world as they are too interested in their own idea of the truth.  "Adventuring" would be a common profession but no one would try to be a big hero unless it had to do with their agenda because of the potential futility of it all.  The Gods are nothing more than other players in the game that can be openly defied without any consequences.  And every answer to every question about reality will just produce more questions.

That's not how most D&D campaign settings work.

WotC is committed to the non-committal D&D multiverse which is not Planescape.  The default assumptions about heroism and saving the world are generally thrown out of the window in Planescape, in the non-committal D&D multiverse though those assumptions still hold.

That's not to say one couldn't try to be a heroic in Planescape or be something else in a more heroic campaign, but they generally aren't the same things.


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Haha...I’m not at all getting bent out of shape and I think we’re in agreement. In fact, part of what we’re in agreement about is that there’s no need to get bent out of shape!




Which I'm glad about!  But when I read stories about like what happened to Kelly Tran and how so many Star Wars supposed fans _were_ "hung up on it" and made her life a living hell... inspires me to keep pointing out to our D&D community here on EN World that none of us should ever reach that level of "special snowflake" syndrome about anything we do involving the game.  

Hopefully none of us EVER get that "hung up" on the game that we lose all sense of morality and good behavior.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 6, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> DING!  Perfect example.  Hundreds of shows are part of the 'Tommy Westphall Universe".  But do any of us CARE that some people say that The Simpsons is "not real" but just in the mind of an autistic kid in Boston?  Nope.  If someone says to you "You know, 'Cheers' isn't an actual TV show but is really just something Tommy Westphall created in his mind"... and you actually let that bother you?  That someone _said_ that and you actually got defensive about it?  You need to lighten up.
> 
> At the end of the day, it doesn't matter.  You will watch 'Cheers' and suspend disbelief and never think about the possibility that the world of 'Cheers' doesn't exist.  The same way that Mike Mearls can say that everything D&D is part of the D&D multiverse.  At your own table, _it doesn't matter_.  So why get bent out of shape over it when he says it?




Yes, but the Tommy Westphall Theory supporters don't usually go around telling everyone that if you think Cheers is a real TV show you are absolutely wrong, and that "no one gets to decide whether or not any [TV shows] are connected to each other" and "no amount of denial on your part can make it not true." 

Not sure the person who is just waiting for Cheers re-runs is the one who needs to lighten up and not get bent out of shape. 

Edit to add: I agree that it's nothing to get worked up over, which is why I found those quotes I included above kinda odd and sounding like they should be spoken while pounding a fist on a podium. All I know is I'm gaming tonight, so it's all good.


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 6, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> Yes, but the Tommy Westphall Theory supporters don't usually go around telling everyone that if you think Cheers is a real TV show you are absolutely wrong, and that "no one gets to decide whether or not any [TV shows] are connected to each other" and "no amount of denial on your part can make it not true."




Well, we do... but usually people just respond with "Who the F is 'Tommy Westphall?"


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 6, 2018)

Well, the concept of a shared multiverse is a necessity for new players, to avoid confusion. Not everyone playing 5e is a veteran that comes all the way from 1e or even from before. 

Myself, I remember I couldn't tell the difference between Planescape and Spelljammer when I started to DM. To me, both were one and the same.

So, I understand why they are connecting all worlds. Whether we use or even like such concept is another beast altogether.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 6, 2018)

Coroc said:


> Personally i would never Combine Eberron as a DM with planescape. It does not add anything to any of the Settings.
> Same goes for Athas, being unreachable (almost) adds to ist flavor, making it an easy trip would be like altering Portals in Sigil so that no Portal key is needed anymore!



The way I see it, it's a matter of perspective.

If I'm running a Planescape campaign, I would have no qualms whatsoever about having a portal between Sigil and Sharn or the Eldeen Reaches or whatever, if that's what served the adventure. You might meet some primes there who talk about places like Fernia or Mabar, but those are probably just aspects of the Elemental plane of Fire and the Gray Wastes.

But if I'm running an Eberron campaign, I care about the distinct Eberron cosmology, and I'll likely not have any portals between Sharn and Sigil, and if someone goes to Fernia they are going to Fernia, not to the Elemental Plane of Fire.

The same goes for Dark Sun, of course, though to a lesser degree because Dark Sun is already involved in the larger Multiverse.



Kobold Avenger said:


> Not only that but while the Outer Planes are mostly cutoff from Athas because of the Grey, the Inner Planes are still connected, Athas is still a place that's reachable to any experienced Planewalker.




The Grey was a late invention. It was mentioned a few times in the Prism Pentad novels as a Realm of the Dead (I think originally in The Obsidian Oracle), but nothing was made there of any ability to block planar travel. Adventures and sourcebooks referred to planar travel and to various fiends and stuff showing up. It wasn't until Defilers & Preservers, one of the last books published for the setting, that they said that the Grey blocks planar travel beyond it, both to the Outer and the Inner planes.



AmerginLiath said:


> Suspecting that Cerilia is unlikely to be reintroduced as a setting, I reintroduce my suggestion of doing Birthright as the next of the WotC D&D board games, having a “Domain Board” with shifting resources and other control elements along the line of both the classic setting and various conquest games. Meanwhile, the game itself would come with an “Adventure Board” with party-level scenarios played out in Cerilia between characters and monsters (which, as in the classic setting, act to affect the Domain Turn).



This reminds me of something Mike Mearls said which might actually indicate that Birthright would be high on their list of worlds to release for 5e: for a setting to be worthwhile, it has to offer something new beyond having a different map. For Eberron, that's the pulp/noir angle. Dark Sun is easy - psionics and survival. Greyhawk... that's tough. I think he said he eventually came up with the idea that Greyhawk could be the gritty world, which would also include things like slower healing and such - but that's putting the cart before the horse, IMO ("We'll only release settings that do something FR doesn't. I want to release Greyhawk, so I'll make something up to distinguish it.")

Under that scheme, Birthright definitely has a strong identity as the Ruler/Domain world. It is the world where the PCs are in charge because of the literally Divine Right of Kings. That is unlike a world like FR where high-level PCs might semi-retire to become lords somewhere - this is a setting where rulership is the main focus.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 7, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> And whether someone says "My table is part of the D&D Multiverse." or "My table is not a part of the D&D multiverse" really means absolutely nothing at the hand-on level of actually playing at the table.  At the table, neither answer matters.




I understand your overarching point.

However, saying my table is or is not a part of the D&D multiverse does have meaning at the table.

As a minimum, saying it's not part of the multiverse give the players a heads up that this may be a unique setting and to be careful of assumptions.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> The D&D 1e spirit of create your own worlds is dead.




1:  plenty of people are still creating their own worlds.  But it's a lot of work, and some people don't have the time.  It's ok!

2:  you really should check out the OSR, you seem in a bit of a creative funk and I think it would cheer you up.

I, predictably, recommend Yoon-Suin


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 7, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> It's less about the travel and more about the ethos that "Planescape is always right" in how it presents itself as an omni-setting that subsumes all other settings within itself.




"Planescape doesn't exist in my campaign."  Tada. Done. Case closed.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I feel the above assessment is correct. The ‘multiverse’ is canon. All official settings interconnect. 5e emphasizes this. There is only one supersetting, and all other settings assimilate into it.
> 
> Unfortunately, this is what makes the D&D products less and less appealing to me.
> 
> ...



Check your 1e DMG again.
It mentions the multiverse very clearly.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> 1:  plenty of people are still creating their own worlds.  But it's a lot of work, and some people don't have the time.  It's ok!
> 
> 2:  you really should check out the OSR, you seem in a bit of a creative funk and I think it would cheer you up.




Yeah, it really is a funk. I was just thinking about that. This unwanted baked-in flavor is really getting to me. I really did try to remove it, but it is too ubiquitous.

What is nice about D&D 1e is how freeform it is. Everything is an option that requires effort to *opt in*. The rules are all over the place, require effort to even piece together ones own version of the rules, and there is almost no flavor. Just a sentence with a suggestion here or there to spark the DMs creative juices.

By contrast, 5e bakes ‘official’ flavor into everything. It requires extreme effort to try *opt out*. There are no tools for DMs to world build. There are no resources with flavorless mechanics, to make it easy for the DM to author the flavor, to craft a new dedicated setting.

Relatedly, 1e requires effort to opt in to official flavor. All the references to polytheism were in a separate splatbook, Deities & Demigods. Any DM who wanted polytheism purchased the book, then figured out which of the options in the book to integrate into the setting. (I own this book, being curious about the less than accurate representation of the Norse spirituality − and curious about about Elric.) But this D&D polytheism requires an *opt in*. It doesnt happen by itself. When I as a DM say no, then the separate splatbook never happens. Then that is it. I never see polytheism again in the rest of rules that I do use. I never have to deal with it. I never have to fight against the unwanted flavor to *opt out*.

By contrast, 5e is the Borg. Everything is hardwired together, from top to bottom, from the fusion of mechanoflavor, from book to chapter to page to paragraph to sentence. Everything is entwined together. Even what were once utterly unrelated settings imagined by different authors are all assimilated into a single, homogeneous, totalitarian supersetting. The polytheism is everywhere, at every level. The uninspiring mundane elf is now the only one-size-fits-all option. It too is nothing but baked in polytheistic flavor. It is impossible to use any rules without the Borg contaminating and assimilating any effort to try use the rules for a different kind of setting.



On the other hand, 5e has reasonable mechanical balance. Which is also important to me. The frustration with wanton imbalance is why I dont use earlier editions of D&D. Also the 5e wizard is excellent, and 5e has the best bard of all editions. So there are aspects of 5e that I strongly value.

But this 5e baked in flavor − it is ruining the game for me. I get it that many players either like the flavor or can live with it. Honestly, I am happy that they have a game that they enjoy. At the same time, other editions of D&D had a design philosophy of opt in, rather than opt out. And even 3e made it easy to opt out, simply by switching to the comprehensive 3e SRD whose presentation of rules lacked flavor. But for 5e, this baked in flavor is killing my joy for D&D.



If WotC is set on baking flavor into D&D for the sake of corporate ‘branding’ of its legal trademarks, I dont even need the name ‘Dungeons & Dragons’. I just need the rules without someone elses setting baked into it. Call these rules some other name. All of D&D mechanics without the flavor. Heh, call this version of the game ‘Meka’. Or call it ‘Modern’. Or maybe call it ‘5e Soon’, soon in the sense of a near future setting, and soon in the sense of requiring the DM to assemble the setting oneself.

I need a way to play the game in a way that brings me joy.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 7, 2018)

There is a 5e SRD, you know?


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> There is a 5e SRD, you know?




The 5e SRD is also all baked-in flavor.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 7, 2018)

I'm reading right now, and don't see mentions to gods, or any background for races or classes.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 7, 2018)

This is... I don't get it.

The longest 5E campaign I ever ran had entirely unique outer planes, no differentiation between demons and devils, pseudo-psionic reptilian orcs, a unique pantheon, multiple distinct cultures...

The campaign I'm about to start playing in is a combination sci-fi/fantasy D&D Earth, where the dragons rule the world and AI "gods" grant divine magic and rule the space stations. I'm playing a tiefling monk from the solar power conglomerate based on Mercury.

It took effort to make up all the new details, because that's what making up new details is. But as far as removing the unwanted details and flavor?

None. Zero. Literally no effort beyond "Hey, guys, we're not using any of the flavor baseline assumptions in the PHB, so if you're not sure about something, ask."

I'm sorry if you're in a funk. (And that's not sarcasm. I have diagnosed depression; I get how bad it can be.) But I think that funk is _why_ you're having such a problem with this, because it really isn't difficult.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

For example, the 5e SRD mentions gods, deities, pantheons, various outer planes, etcetera, very many times.

But there is other unwanted baked-in flavor as well.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> This is... I don't get it.




When I write up a setting, it is unacceptable if its rules keeps on referring to someone elses unrelated setting.

It is sorta like the Far Realms keeps on murdering My Little Pony.

The 5e products so far are a killjoy.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> For example, the 5e SRD mentions gods, deities, pantheons, various outer planes, etcetera, very many times.
> 
> But there is other unwanted baked-in flavor as well.



In appendixes you can easily ignore. I don't see these gods ingrained in the racial backgrounds, unlike in the PHB, were Corellon is mentioned in the elves section, and Moradin in the dwarves section.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> In appendixes you can easily ignore. I don't see these gods ingrained in the racial backgrounds, unlike in the PHB, were Corellon is mentioned in the elves section, and Moradin in the dwarves section.




Everywhere, race, class, spell, etcetera.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Everywhere, race, class, spell, etcetera.




Rather than ‘ignore’ it.

I require it to be absent in the first place.

There is an important difference between opting in to something one wants, versus the effort to opt out of something one never wanted in the first place.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 7, 2018)

Then you may need another game. 

For 5e, there is a necessity for it to have a compelling and cohesive narrative with unique setting elements. This wasn't necessary for 1e because D&D wasn't competing with other franchises such as Warcraft. 

Now, people want detailed fantasy worlds, with unique traits and such. Myself, I won't have played D&D if I didn't like its background elements.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 7, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> Then you may need another game.
> 
> For 5e, there is a necessity for it to have a compelling and cohesive narrative with unique setting elements. This wasn't necessary for 1e because D&D wasn't competing with other franchises such as Warcraft.
> 
> Now, people want detailed fantasy worlds, with unique traits and such. Myself, I won't have played D&D if I didn't like its background elements.




If that is the case, that market forces make it financially impossible for WotC to support the D&D tradition of world building, then that would be a deep loss. Even a profound one.

The tools to teach a person how to create a different reality − a better one − is an existential insight, gained in a context of playfulness, that is difficult to learn elsewhere.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel we already saw you admit the reason for this is because you are mad the Sun Elf is the same thing as a High Elf.

Also did you not look at the DMG which has an entire section on creating your own world. 

Also I vastly prefer that D&D has default Lore rather then nothing. It makes it it's own thing that has inspired other stuff. And I prefer that to a blank canvas, were you might as well be playing a different game or making your own game up. A complete canvas that you can modify in any areas you want rather then a Blank one is much more appealing to me.



Yaarel said:


> Rather than ‘ignore’ it.
> 
> 
> I require it to be absent in the first place.
> ...



Then that is being mean to the people that wanted it in. It's far easier to ignore something you don't like in a book, then to put it in after for the people that want it.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 7, 2018)

[MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION], it seems you are offended by polytheism in particular, yes? Or at least dislike WotC using it as the default theological assumption, and feel that it overly flavors the rulebook for you? In that regard, you are a very small minority (afaik), and from a publishing perspective I think the benefits of "hard-baking" flavor--which I see less as hard-baking and more as offering examples as possible defaults--as far out-weighing the cons. 

The main benefit is that it brings the rules to life and provides those folks who don't want to or have the time to flesh out a new setting and flavor for their game with something pre-made; the only con that I can think of is for the 1 in 100 (or less) such as yourself that finds it distasteful for personal, perhaps religious, reasons. If that is the case, I don't understand why you are so bummed out that WotC is not serving your particular and rather rare proclivities.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 7, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> @_*Yaarel*_, it seems you are offended by polytheism in particular, yes? Or at least dislike WotC using it as the default theological assumption, and feel that it overly flavors the rulebook for you? In that regard, you are a very small minority (afaik), and from a publishing perspective I think the benefits of "hard-baking" flavor--which I see less as hard-baking and more as offering examples as possible defaults--as far out-weighing the cons.
> 
> The main benefit is that it brings the rules to life and provides those folks who don't want to or have the time to flesh out a new setting and flavor for their game with something pre-made; the only con that I can think of is for the 1 in 100 (or less) such as yourself that finds it distasteful for personal, perhaps religious, reasons. If that is the case, I don't understand why you are so bummed out that WotC is not serving your particular and rather rare proclivities.




Also @_*Yaarel*_ is overly obsessed with Elves and won't be happy with them if they are not completely broken.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> If that is the case, that market forces make it financially impossible for WotC to support the D&D tradition of world building, then that would be a deep loss. Even a profound one.




Look, man, I don't want to seem like I'm piling on you, but this is simply untrue.

WotC research shows that, by _far_, the majority of campaigns are still homebrew. D&D has always had some built-in flavor--even 1E and BECMI; and 5E certainly doesn't have any more than 3E had. And yet most DMs are quite comfortable making up their own world if that's something they want to do.

I'm not going to say you're the only one--I'm sure there are others who share your view--but the idea that it's not enough to ignore flavor you don't like? That it must be absent from the get-go? Is an _extreme_ minority, a statistical outlier. The problems and objections you're citing simply _aren't issues_ in the minds--or the creative processes--of most D&D players.

If 5E isn't the game for you, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But the idea that 5E is somehow killing the ability for us to create our own settings is simply inaccurate on the face of it.


----------



## R_Chance (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Rather than ‘ignore’ it.
> 
> I require it to be absent in the first place.





Sorry to tell you; there were always assumptions built into D&D. There were fewer of them in the beginning. I've played since 1974 and my campaign setting started a couple of years before that as an excuse for fantasy battles using the Chainmail fantasy appendix. We were tired of point buy armies and didn't want to redo battles from fiction, so I built a war game campaign setting to generate battles for us. Campaigns were popular for anything from medieval to Napoleonic miniatures.  When D&D came along in 1974 it was natural to port it into the setting I had built for Chainmail fantasy miniatures. Anyway, "baked in" flavor included Tolkien inspired Hobbits, Orcs and Goblins, Trolls from Poul Anderson, Law and Chaos from Michael Moorcock and so on. It wasn't always specifically mentioned, but it was obvious to us. And those books were d@mned thin. Space for every word was precious  The only thing about the early game that required creativity and "home brewing" was the large gaps in the rules. So we built the settings we wanted (but pretty much everybody had Hobbitts, Orcs, Trolls, and so on). Some people created based on whole cloth, others borrowed heavily from history and others from mythology and various fantasy books. Mostly a bit of "all of the above". You still can walk that path. The "filler" in the newer edition probably makes it more difficult, but if you like the system and want to change / add / subtract elements you have to do the spade work. I was in high school when I started with a fascination for fantasy (and science fiction), mythology and history. I've added 4 college degrees since then and never stopped reading  It's all added into my game. It will continue to do so. It's work, but it's still fun. And my setting rules; not the rules. I've home brewed and bent the rules to fit my setting with each edition, and, occasionally, bent my setting a bit when I liked what the rules offered.  




Yaarel said:


> There is an important difference between opting in to something one wants, versus the effort to opt out of something one never wanted in the first place.




See the above   It always required some "opt in", if nothing else in choosing to use the rules.

So, craft the world you want. Be prepared for it to take time (a lot of it), and be prepared for it to be a permanent work in progress. I'd say it is worth it.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 7, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> "Planescape doesn't exist in my campaign."  Tada. Done. Case closed.



Nope. Because you are still implicitly assuming that it otherwise would be. You are just restating the Thanos Problem that was floated earlier. You are suggesting that one should "snap it out of existence" rather than "snap it into existence."

Edit: To be clear. I do not mind the existence of Planescape. I mind when certain settings touch, particularly when they try to touch Eberron. I mind because I would never want to read an adventure from WotC about characters from the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, or Planescape suddenly showing up in Khorvaire.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 7, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Nope. Because you are still implicitly assuming that it otherwise would be. You are just restating the Thanos Problem that was floated earlier. You are suggesting that one should "snap it out of existence" rather than "snap it into existence."




And that is a problem why. Snapping it out is easier then snapping it in. 

Does it matter if it is assumed to be the default if you plan to ignore it anyway? The second you say it does not exist in your campaign is the end.



Aldarc said:


> Edit: To be clear. I do not mind the existence of Planescape. I mind when certain settings touch, particularly when they try to touch Eberron. I mind because I would never want to read an adventure from WotC about characters from the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, or Planescape suddenly showing up in Khorvaire.



Sadly for you they are part of the same cosmology and that already happened 6 years ago. D&D online the MMO featured an attack on Ebberron by Lolth worshiping drow and demons, Lolth having torn open a portal to try and draw Eberron into the Demonweb Pits.

Anyway the current explanation is that while they are part of the same cosmology, Eberron's sphere is very very far away to the point that most planer travlers consider the place a legend and next to no planeswalkers have gone there. (Mordenkainen did apparently in the recent book. Though just to make some observations about the world and it's species like Elves.)

Keith Baker even suggested a few years back that beyond Eberron's Astral Plane the Great Wheel cosmology existed. (Other suggestions were the Far Realm, and Nothing the Astral was the end of it.) Stating that Eberron and it's planes can be just another world existing in the greater whole's Cosmology. Which is more or less what the current situation seems to be.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 7, 2018)

All humans exist in one world - this one. And all campaign settings exist in the minds of humans. Ergo all campaign settings already exist within the same world.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 7, 2018)

MonsterEnvy said:


> Does it matter if it is assumed to be the default if you plan to ignore it anyway? The second you say it does not exist in your campaign is the end.



It matters when I sit at a table that claims to be running Eberron and then multidimensional travelers from Sigil or Forgotten Realms show up. It matters when I pick up any published Eberron adventure that has these things. 



> Sadly for you they are part of the same cosmology and that already happened 6 years ago. D&D online the MMO featured an attack on Ebberron by Lolth worshiping drow and demons, Lolth having torn open a portal to try and draw Eberron into the Demonweb Pits.



From my limited understanding and what I have heard from other Eberron fans, that game is Eberron in Name Only. 



> (Mordenkainen did apparently in the recent book. Though just to make some observations about the world and it's species like Elves.)



And I disliked that as well as I mentioned earlier. 



> Keith Baker even suggested a few years back that beyond Eberron's Astral Plane the Great Wheel cosmology existed. (Other suggestions were the Far Realm, and Nothing the Astral was the end of it.) Stating that Eberron and it's planes can be just another world existing in the greater whole's Cosmology. Which is more or less what the current situation seems to be.



Keith Baker tends to be diplomatic and willing to entertain open-ended possibilities for game masters. That's fine. My problem, however, is when those open-ended possibilities become hard-baked canon.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 7, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> It matters when I sit at a table that claims to be running Eberron and then multidimensional travelers from Sigil or Forgotten Realms show up. It matters when I pick up any published Eberron adventure that has these things.
> 
> From my limited understanding and what I have heard from other Eberron fans, that game is Eberron in Name Only.
> 
> ...




It may matter, but it doesn’t matter a lot does it. In the grand scheme of things it’s not high on the list of great tragedies.

We haven’t seen 5e Eberron or 5e Planescape so it’s a bit early to be saying what’s Cannon and what isn’t. It’s easy enough to the think that the only known conduits to Eberron might be through their coterminous planes... there problem solved. Several of those planes are almost identical to existing planes - the Beast Lands, Arcadia, The Far Realm etc.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 7, 2018)

TheSword said:


> It may matter, but it doesn’t matter a lot does it. In the grand scheme of things it’s not high on the list of great tragedies.



It would be a fairly significant red flag for me that WotC is out-of-touch with the Eberron fanbase. It would not bode well for any other potential changes to the setting.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 7, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> It would be a fairly significant red flag for me that WotC is out-of-touch with the Eberron fanbase. It would not bode well for any other potential changes to the setting.




The sad thing is, the more roadblocks fans of the setting throw up to specify precisely what incarnation they expect (despite the fact that every setting changes when new editions come round, including the realms), the more likely WOC are to think relaunching that setting is too risky.

That said you’re railing against changes that haven’t been made, just in case they get made. If WOC offered to remake Athas but it was going to be connected to the great wheel. I’d love the fact we were getting a remake and just alter the fluff for stuff I didn’t like. Simple.  I think the correct expression is “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” Except you’re describing the characteristics you expect from your gift.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 7, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> It matters when I sit at a table that claims to be running Eberron and then multidimensional travelers from Sigil or Forgotten Realms show up. It matters when I pick up any published Eberron adventure that has these things.




Err, it's entirely up to the DM what backstories to allow at your table. Tell them to go away and come back with a character whose backstory fits your setting.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 7, 2018)

TheSword said:


> That said you’re railing against changes that haven’t been made, just in case they get made. If WOC offered to remake Athas but it was going to be connected to the great wheel. I’d love the fact we were getting a remake and just alter the fluff for stuff I didn’t like. Simple.  I think the correct expression is “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” Except you’re describing the characteristics you expect from your gift.




Athas was never *not* connected to the Great Wheel.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 7, 2018)

TheSword said:


> The sad thing is, the more roadblocks fans of the setting throw up to specify precisely what incarnation they expect (despite the fact that every setting changes when new editions come round, including the realms), the more likely WOC are to think relaunching that setting is too risky.
> 
> *That said you’re railing against changes that haven’t been made, just in case they get made.*



Such railing incidentally saved Eberron's timeline from being advanced significantly in 4e - as per the Realms - as they were considering updating Eberron more radically. They did, however, force the Great Axis cosmology into Eberron a bit in 4e, which left a lot of Eberron fans somewhat sour including Keith Baker.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 7, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Athas was never *not* connected to the Great Wheel.




It wasn’t connected directly. The planar conduits led to the elemental planes not the great wheel. The adventure Dregoth Ascending published on Athas.org was all about reversing the position creating conduits to the great wheel and closing the elemental conduits. My understanding was that there weren’t direct links (not that they couldn’t be created, but that they weren’t known). Black spine accesses the multiverse through the astral plane. Dregoth’s mirror could allow planar travel but was an artifact so who knows.


----------



## Older Beholder (Jun 7, 2018)

I think Spelljammer or Planescape are the most likely as others have mentioned, both were umbrella settings in 2E designed to make it possible for people to link all the various other settings available at the time, so that anything you had already bought could be used together.  

Going with one of these two next in 5E seems a more logical way to build on what they've put out so far with the FRealms. Dark sun or Eberron (or even Dragonlance for that matter) feels like starting over a bit, creating a divide rather than building on what's come before it. 

Of course, I could be completely wrong, personally I'd love to see Taladas get a 5E reboot. ;-)


----------



## Staffan (Jun 7, 2018)

TheSword said:


> It wasn’t connected directly. The planar conduits led to the elemental planes not the great wheel. The adventure Dregoth Ascending published on Athas.org was all about reversing the position creating conduits to the great wheel and closing the elemental conduits. My understanding was that there weren’t direct links (not that they couldn’t be created, but that they weren’t known). Black spine accesses the multiverse through the astral plane. Dregoth’s mirror could allow planar travel but was an artifact so who knows.




Previous to the release of Defilers & Preservers, one of the last books of the line, there was nothing indicating that Athas didn't have the same access to the multiverse as any other setting. _Plane shift_ and _astral spell_ were available in the priestly sphere of Air. Wizards had _teleport without error_ and _astral spell_. The original boxed set called out some items and spells as being unsuitable for Dark Sun, but none of those had anything to do with planar travel. Dragon Kings had some discussion of cosmology (basically the standard AD&D one) - it de-emphasized the astral and outer planes, but didn't say anything about them being harder to access than was suggested by the regular rules. The revised & expanded box set even included various fiends from from the Monstrous Manual as appropriate monsters to use (original Dark Sun did not, because there were pretty much no planar monsters in the Monstrous Compendia released up until that point).


----------



## TheSword (Jun 7, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Previous to the release of Defilers & Preservers, one of the last books of the line, there was nothing indicating that Athas didn't have the same access to the multiverse as any other setting. _Plane shift_ and _astral spell_ were available in the priestly sphere of Air. Wizards had _teleport without error_ and _astral spell_. The original boxed set called out some items and spells as being unsuitable for Dark Sun, but none of those had anything to do with planar travel. Dragon Kings had some discussion of cosmology (basically the standard AD&D one) - it de-emphasized the astral and outer planes, but didn't say anything about them being harder to access than was suggested by the regular rules. The revised & expanded box set even included various fiends from from the Monstrous Manual as appropriate monsters to use (original Dark Sun did not, because there were pretty much no planar monsters in the Monstrous Compendia released up until that point).



 I can’t check my books now as I’m not at home but I’m pretty sure the isolation was Athas’ thing. Just checked the wiki on my phone and it’s pretty specific. Of course wikis can be wrong but I usually find for the main concepts they are pretty accurate. I’ll come back in more detail when I have access to my laptop.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 7, 2018)

I think there have always been inconsistencies, since there are no gods in the Athas setting, one has to assume that it is cut off from the planes where the gods live.

One also has to assume that the entropy afflicting the planet couldn't be reversed simply by opening a portal and drawing power from another dimension (see Doctor Who: Logopolis).

I think the implication with regards to planar spells where simply overlooked. However, if you assume that the Elemental and Astral planes that can be reached from Athas are not the same as those reachable from Greyhawk - I.e. it exists in a completely different multiverse - the conflict can be resolved.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 7, 2018)

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]  "From my limited understanding and what I have heard from other Eberron fans, that game is Eberron in Name Only. "

It is not. I am a Long time DDO Player and besides it being so much better than any other mmorpg available these days, it reflects eberron quite well although it leaves some classes out, as in it does not have shifters or kalashtar as playable races.

Artificers, warforged, dragonmarks, stemapunk magitech, Pulp Noir, are all realised very well. The dungeons got real riddles not like neverwinter where a sparkly path leads you to the next "hidden" Lever. The Thing with the rift between worlds aka Lolths demonweb, although i do not like it leading to a Connection to FR, is realized very well with great graphics and backstory.

I guess they did this for Marketing reasons. They also included ravenloft recently and they did this outstanding well. They also included some classic dungeons of which the ToEE really shines in how they realised it.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 7, 2018)

ModernApathy said:


> personally I'd love to see Taladas get a 5E reboot. ;-)




Um, isn't taladas a continent on Krynn?


----------



## Older Beholder (Jun 7, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Um, isn't taladas a continent on Krynn?





Yeah, it's the reverse side of the planet, It's probably one of the least likely things we'll see.


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 7, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> That's nice and all, but to me you are just some random, anonymous person on a message board bragging about things they cannot possibly prove because they are supposedly not allowed to. So what is your name in the real world and is your name in the credits of any published WotC books? If you cannot even tell us that, then please stop posting about what you supposedly secretly do or do not know.



You can believe what you want. I couldn't care less.  I don't have to lie to you, I don't know who you are either, and your approval isn't necessary.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 7, 2018)

I don't have any special insider knowledge, but I would still be willing to bet my life that it isn't Greyhawk...


----------



## Jester David (Jun 7, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> Yeah, it really is a funk. I was just thinking about that. This unwanted baked-in flavor is really getting to me. I really did try to remove it, but it is too ubiquitous.
> 
> What is nice about D&D 1e is how freeform it is. Everything is an option that requires effort to *opt in*. The rules are all over the place, require effort to even piece together ones own version of the rules, and there is almost no flavor. Just a sentence with a suggestion here or there to spark the DMs creative juices.
> 
> ...



1e was a little more flavour sparse, but a lot of it was still there. Elements like the great wheel were in the PHB, and it assumed things like Thieves' Guilds, Assassin's Guilds, clerics following gods, alignment languages, and more.
And when you branch out into the DMG, there's so much more lore. Deities are pretty clearly tied to clerics on page 38.

The difference is, if you were playing 1e and didn't have time time to make a campaign setting... well, you had no choice. There was no other option. You _had_ to make up the flavour. 
With 5e, there's a choice. You can choose to ignore the default fluff, or use it if you have no better idea. 

Look, it's easy for you as an experienced player, to homebrew D&D. You have an idea what gnolls are like. How goblins and kobolds are different. If you blank on an idea, you have years of experience to turn to. 

Plus... books of just rules are boooooring. I love my 5e _Monster Manual_ for all its lore and I hated my 4e _Monster Manual_ that was just a brief paragraph of lore. I need that story. Reading a Pathfinder splatbook doesn't fire my imagination; it's like reading a textbook. 

Based on surveys of the fans, only 45% use a published setting and 55% use a homebrew world. And I'm sure quite a few are only using the Realms because they're also using the published adventures. The majority of fans, many whom are very new to the hobby, are having zero problems stripping out the flavour.



Yaarel said:


> If WotC is set on baking flavor into D&D for the sake of corporate ‘branding’ of its legal trademarks, I dont even need the name ‘Dungeons & Dragons’. I just need the rules without someone elses setting baked into it. Call these rules some other name. All of D&D mechanics without the flavor. Heh, call this version of the game ‘Meka’. Or call it ‘Modern’. Or maybe call it ‘5e Soon’, soon in the sense of a near future setting, and soon in the sense of requiring the DM to assemble the setting oneself.
> 
> I need a way to play the game in a way that brings me joy.



Again, read the SRD. There is surprisingly little flavour. None of the classes have any lore. It's probably as devoid of flavour as 1e. It's at least as fluff independent as the 3e SRD.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 7, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> You can believe what you want. I couldn't care less.  I don't have to lie to you, I don't know who you are either, and your approval isn't necessary.



As the person making a claim, the burden of proof is on you. 

If you're part of the private playtest, you shouldn't be saying _anything_. You're under NDA. 
If you're not... then you probably need to explain the source of your explicable knowledge, or be prepared to be disbelieved. If you can't explain... you also probably shouldn't have said anything.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 7, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> Edit to add: Just went back and double checked the reference about Jemorille and that makes more sense now. Haven't read Faces of Sigil in a while. It's an in-character statement made by someone who claims to single-handedly be behind most every major event in all the worlds including the Temple of Elemental Evil (creation and destruction) and the Tuigan Horde, as well as being personally responsible for the entire Blood War, and don't forget - completely controlling Sigil itself with the Lady of Pain as just a useful illusion. So, yeah, even canonically in Planescape that claim of influence in Athas is extreeeeemely dubious. Either Jemorille is the greatest antagonist in the history of the multiverse (which could be an interesting campaign) or he's full of [redacted for Eric's Grandma]. I'm pretty sure in Planescape canon, it's the second option.)



I'm of the opinion that he might be right about some of his claims, it's just that they didn't happen the way he claimed.  Like perhaps he was in disguise as an unassuming assistant to Rajaat in the Green Age and stumbled spilling some really hot Gnomish Coffee all over Rajaat's crotch, who then made the sudden outburst of "That's it! No more Gnomish coffee again! We're exterminating the entire Gnomish race!"


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 7, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> If 5E isn't the game for you, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But the idea that 5E is somehow killing the ability for us to create our own settings is simply inaccurate on the face of it.




Quoted for truth...this line says it all.

Not piling either, other than the hope of helping...


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 7, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> *All humans exist in one world - this one*. And all campaign settings exist in the minds of humans. Ergo all campaign settings already exist within the same world.




(emphasis mine)

Your logic is based on an assumption you can neither prove nor disprove.


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 7, 2018)

Jester David said:


> As the person making a claim, the burden of proof is on you.
> 
> If you're part of the private playtest, you shouldn't be saying _anything_. You're under NDA.
> If you're not... then you probably need to explain the source of your explicable knowledge, or be prepared to be disbelieved. If you can't explain... you also probably shouldn't have said anything.



If I cared who believed me, you may be right.  But the thing is, in the past, wizards have all the playtest material to all the groups, and leaks happened.  They had no way of knowing where it came from.  Recently,  they stopped accepting new NDAs, started deleting current ones and started selecting which groups get which material in order to find out where leaks are coming from.  So pardon me if I decide to not say my name, which books I've actually played that haven't been released yet, or anything else that may compromise my group's ability to keep receiving material from Wizards to impress some faceless masses on a forum.  You're not important enough.


----------



## Prakriti (Jun 7, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> If I cared who believed me, you may be right.  But the thing is, in the past, wizards have all the playtest material to all the groups, and leaks happened.  They had no way of knowing where it came from.  Recently,  they stopped accepting new NDAs, started deleting current ones and started selecting which groups get which material in order to find out where leaks are coming from.  So pardon me if I decide to not say my name, which books I've actually played that haven't been released yet, or anything else that may compromise my group's ability to keep receiving material from Wizards to impress some faceless masses on a forum.  You're not important enough.



Jester David isn't trying to wheedle more information out of you. He's telling you that if you signed an NDA, then you have either breached it or come very close to breaching it. What's more, this isn't the first time you've done it; I recall you making similar comments in the past. Personally, I find it distasteful and think you should stop.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 7, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> If I cared who believed me, you may be right.  But the thing is, in the past, wizards have all the playtest material to all the groups, and leaks happened.  They had no way of knowing where it came from.  Recently,  they stopped accepting new NDAs, started deleting current ones and started selecting which groups get which material in order to find out where leaks are coming from.  So pardon me if I decide to not say my name, which books I've actually played that haven't been released yet, or anything else that may compromise my group's ability to keep receiving material from Wizards to impress some faceless masses on a forum.  You're not important enough.



_Then you shouldn’t have said *anything* in the first place._


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 7, 2018)

colinbuckler said:


> From a business sense WOTC might want to capture and capitalise in areas where a 5E product currently doesn't go



I fear their analysis is the opposite: 

The only books that consistently bring in enough profit are those almost every gamer needs and wants. 

In other words: subclasses, monsters and adventures nominally set in the Realms, but easily used in your home campaign world too.


----------



## Inglorin (Jun 7, 2018)

Jester David said:


> _Then you shouldn’t have said *anything* in the first place._



But then they wouldn't have that exhilarating sense of importance.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 7, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I don't have any special insider knowledge, but I would still be willing to bet my life that it isn't Greyhawk...




That seems like a rather unnecesary gamble. I mean, I agree that it won't be Greyhawk, but in the off chance that it is, it will be sad and weird to think of some dude on ENWorld who died because he chose poorly.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 7, 2018)

Prakriti said:


> Jester David isn't trying to wheedle more information out of you. He's telling you that if you signed an NDA, then you have either breached it or come very close to breaching it. What's more, this isn't the first time you've done it; I recall you making similar comments in the past. Personally, I find it distasteful and think you should stop.




I'm going to have to disagree here. Rather, I say _break_ the NDA and tell us what the hell is going on! Go out with a bang!


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 7, 2018)

I am continually baffled by Setting Puritanism. It goes something like this:

1) We want an update for our favorite setting, which is The Best Setting Ever.
2) But said material can only match what we want from that setting, which is...
3) Almost always just the original published material; and/or whatever we believe to be the true and pure Platonic Ideal of that setting.
4) Anything that veers from this kills the setting for us, and WotC will be forever dead to us.
5) Give it to me now!

I mean, come on folks - a little flexibility here! Canon is just the default suggestion. It is a toolbox that you can choose as you desire.

(I personally think it would be funny if WotC inserted Drizzt Do'Urden into every product just to piss purists and anti-Realmsians off...sort of like a mix of Where's Waldo/Drizzt and Drizzt Photobomb).


----------



## dwayne (Jun 7, 2018)

counsel of wyrms setting was an odd one where you played a dragon as a player, also gave us half dragons and was one of the main reasons for dragon born we have now. Hollow world would be cool as well but that is very big and doubt could be really covered in on book as this one. Jakandor, released in 1998, is a self-contained "campaign arena" conceived by Jeff Grubb. Jakandor is an island divided between the native Charonti, a civilization that makes heavy use of magic (especially necromancy), and the Knorr, barbarians who despise the vile practice of magic and have been driven from a far-away homeland to Jakandor. Also ghost chasers setting for modern and dark matter, Urban Arcana Campaign Setting,  Apocalypse which had no real setting to speak of as with past, future and cyberscape heck they could put them all into a gamma world like setting. But star fronters would may be be better for the future stuff and cyber things than gamma world. Ghostwalk was a cool one and could be done in one book but it is close to some they have done so not ure on that one. Kingdoms of Kalamar is one but again a fantisy setting so maybe not just like Lankhmar and Mahasarpa which is an asian setting but still in the fantisy vain.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 7, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> If I cared who believed me, you may be right.  But the thing is, in the past, wizards have all the playtest material to all the groups, and leaks happened.  They had no way of knowing where it came from.  Recently,  they stopped accepting new NDAs, started deleting current ones and started selecting which groups get which material in order to find out where leaks are coming from.  So pardon me if I decide to not say my name, which books I've actually played that haven't been released yet, or anything else that may compromise my group's ability to keep receiving material from Wizards to impress some faceless masses on a forum.  You're not important enough.




You could have done what several playtesters did on the sly this year in regards to the Waterdeep one-two punch, and just tell us what is coming but pretend that it is a guess.


----------



## Lidgar (Jun 7, 2018)

My super-secret intel points to a campaign centered on module N2: "The Forest Oracle"

It will include a new Wandering Pilgrim class and magic items, such as the _Sombrero of Expressionless_ and _Stilts of Jaunty Walking_


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 7, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> You could have done what several playtesters did on the sly this year in regards to the Waterdeep one-two punch, and just tell us what is coming but pretend that it is a guess.



That could've worked for the Waterdeep books, the other one... the one, is different.  Something new.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 7, 2018)

So, just to sum up, the general hope is that the two summer products will most likely be (in alphabetical order) some combination or another of Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Eberron, Planescape, or Spelljammer.

And assuming neogod22's information is accurate, the winter product will be something new and different.  Possibly that one 5e game designer's home setting (sadly, I can't remember it's name, but I think it started with "V")


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 7, 2018)

neogod22 said:


> That could've worked for the Waterdeep books, the other one... the one, is different.  Something new.




May be, maybe. Time will tell. Mearls has been talking like he has something pretty exciting up his sleeve.


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 8, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> So, just to sum up, the general hope is that the two summer products will most likely be (in alphabetical order) some combination or another of Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Eberron, Planescape, or Spelljammer.
> 
> And assuming neogod22's information is accurate, the winter product will be something new and different.  Possibly that one 5e game designer's home setting (sadly, I can't remember it's name, but I think it started with "V")



The 2 books they announced Dragon Hiest and DotMM will come out closer to the end of the year, maybe Sep and Nov. with the start of the new season.  The other book, I have no idea, it could come out this summer, it could come out next spring, but I doubt it's going to come out in the seasons timeframe.  If I had to guess I think it will be sooner rather than later.


----------



## vecna00 (Jun 8, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> I am continually baffled by Setting Puritanism. It goes something like this:
> 
> 1) We want an update for our favorite setting, which is The Best Setting Ever.
> 2) But said material can only match what we want from that setting, which is...
> ...




It must be something new, yet exactly the same, yet new, but the same....and it better not have "this very specific thing that would probably never be there anyway but oh god you gave them ideas and now it's there!"


----------



## neogod22 (Jun 8, 2018)

dwayne said:


> counsel of wyrms setting was an odd one where you played a dragon as a player, also gave us half dragons and was one of the main reasons for dragon born we have now. Hollow world would be cool as well but that is very big and doubt could be really covered in on book as this one. Jakandor, released in 1998, is a self-contained "campaign arena" conceived by Jeff Grubb. Jakandor is an island divided between the native Charonti, a civilization that makes heavy use of magic (especially necromancy), and the Knorr, barbarians who despise the vile practice of magic and have been driven from a far-away homeland to Jakandor. Also ghost chasers setting for modern and dark matter, Urban Arcana Campaign Setting,  Apocalypse which had no real setting to speak of as with past, future and cyberscape heck they could put them all into a gamma world like setting. But star fronters would may be be better for the future stuff and cyber things than gamma world. Ghostwalk was a cool one and could be done in one book but it is close to some they have done so not ure on that one. Kingdoms of Kalamar is one but again a fantisy setting so maybe not just like Lankhmar and Mahasarpa which is an asian setting but still in the fantisy vain.



Counsel of Wyrms was a pretty dope concept.   I used to have it and was preparing to run a campaign.  The only thing that I didn't like about it, was they did nothing to scale the dragons' powers, which would've made it hard to get people to play certain dragons.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 8, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> You could have done what several playtesters did on the sly this year in regards to the Waterdeep one-two punch, and just tell us what is coming but pretend that it is a guess.




I'd like to point out I am not a playtester but was one of the first to guess Waterdeep and Undermountain. Frankly, WotC doesn't need people to leak things, they are very heavy-handed in their hints and teases. Waterdeep and Undermountain were not hard guesses based on the codenames, content of live shows like DCA, and the monthly Nathan Stewart Fireside Chat. It is almost like WotC wanted people to know. 

With that said, I really do think Darksun and Eberron are the summer releases and that this "something new" book is coming at the end of the year and if I had to guess right now I would say it is a modern setting, maybe even futuristic. That is the only thing I think would feel truly new!


----------



## jmconyer (Jun 8, 2018)

Greyhawk and Dragonlance would be fun to run for my players, I would also like a Star Frontiers environment.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 8, 2018)

I like the concept that it will be a Greyhawk PDF that covers how to run the two Waterdeep books as if they're in Greyhawk.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 8, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> I'd like to point out I am not a playtester but was one of the first to guess Waterdeep and Undermountain. Frankly, WotC doesn't need people to leak things, they are very heavy-handed in their hints and teases. Waterdeep and Undermountain were not hard guesses based on the codenames, content of live shows like DCA, and the monthly Nathan Stewart Fireside Chat. It is almost like WotC wanted people to know.
> 
> With that said, I really do think Darksun and Eberron are the summer releases and that this "something new" book is coming at the end of the year and if I had to guess right now I would say it is a modern setting, maybe even futuristic. That is the only thing I think would feel truly new!




A likely story.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 8, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> A likely story.




I swear it on all my D&D products. I have no insight, tho I do wish I did. I’ve always been the kinda of person who enjoys logic puzzles and treasure hunts, and that’s what I think D&D has become. The devs intentionally let small things slip to keep fans guessing but this time they overstepped and let too much go. 

And it isn’t just this time really, remember someone here figured out Tomb of Annihilation before the announcement because a Acquisitions Inc game and Drizzt Novel both mentioned Acererak, Chult and the Soul Monger months in advance. WotC has been leaving clues for a while now. All you have to do is pay attention and you’ll find the pieces of the puzzles.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 8, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> That seems like a rather unnecesary gamble. I mean, I agree that it won't be Greyhawk, but in the off chance that it is, it will be sad and weird to think of some dude on ENWorld who died because *WotC* chose poorly.




I fixed that for you


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 8, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I fixed that for you




Don't agree I would like a Greyhawk update. Though I won't mind if other stuff comes first.


----------



## Hexmage-EN (Jun 8, 2018)

My wish: a 5E take on the default 4E setting (with an actual name for the setting) that goes beyond the Nentir Vale. I know Mearls made a 5E adaptation of Torog's wrackspawn and used the Moon Hills from the Nentir Vale (albeit a version with links to the Plane of Earth, which didn't exist in 4E) as an example area for a UA on exploration rules.

There was actually a ton of scattered details on the setting outside of the Vale, but it was never officially collected in one place. I'd also like to see the primordials and unique gods given more detail. My homebrew 5E setting primarily uses gods who were dead in the default 4E setting, like Haramathur (a god of protection), Sagawehn (a goddess of conquest and conformity whose holy symbol is ants marching in a circle), and Nesumnee (a goddess of redemption, especially for members of majority evil races, that is the child of the god of poison, darkness, and murder).

The only thing is that the World Axis cosmology was a pretty major aspect of the setting, and I don't think they want to deviate from the Great Wheel.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> I'd like to point out I am not a playtester but was one of the first to guess Waterdeep and Undermountain. Frankly, WotC doesn't need people to leak things, they are very heavy-handed in their hints and teases. Waterdeep and Undermountain were not hard guesses based on the codenames, content of live shows like DCA, and the monthly Nathan Stewart Fireside Chat. It is almost like WotC wanted people to know.
> 
> With that said, I really do think Darksun and Eberron are the summer releases and that this "something new" book is coming at the end of the year and if I had to guess right now I would say it is a modern setting, maybe even futuristic. That is the only thing I think would feel truly new!




I welcome Eberron and Darksun, and modern and near future.

I suspect none of these are this year, but I want you to be correct!



Heh, of course, when the designers bake polytheism into even these settings, I will be probably be despondent about D&D.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 8, 2018)

Hexmage-EN said:


> My wish: a 5E take on the default 4E setting (with an actual name for the setting) that goes beyond the Nentir Vale. I know Mearls made a 5E adaptation of the wrackspawn and used the Moon Hills from the Nentir Vale (albeit a version with links to the Plane of Earth, which didn't exist in 4E) as an example area for a UA on exploration rules.
> 
> There was actually a ton of scattered details on the setting outside of the Vale, but it was never officially collected in one place.




Well... Not officially, but they were collected 

http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=15210

About, the Plane of Earth... Well, I know people want their setting adaptations 100% faithful to the original (I personally have issues with any 5e Dark Sun fan conversion so far because of this), but that is not gonna happen. As much as the new rules need to adapt to earlier settings, those settings also need to adapt to the new rules. 

I will be happy with a Nentir Vale mention in that book or whatever, regardless such changes in cosmology or the nature of the eladrin, or the changes they did to the Raven Queen in MToF. 

But being honest, I feel Nentir Vale's odds to appear on this product are as big as Greyhawk's...


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I welcome Eberron and Darksun, and modern and near future.
> 
> I suspect none of these are this year, but I want you to be correct!
> 
> ...




Polytheism is already baked into Dark Sun and Eberron I believe.


----------



## Hexmage-EN (Jun 8, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> Well... Not officially, but they were collected
> 
> http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=15210
> 
> ...




Well, the Nentir Vale/Points of Light/World Axis setting was the most recent new setting, so I feel like it probably has more of a chance than Greyhawk. Plus its setting assumptions aren't quite as deviant as Eberron's are (for example, the World Axis is at least a bit closer to the Great Wheel than Eberron's cosmology is).


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> I welcome Eberron and Darksun, and modern and near future.
> 
> 
> I suspect none of these are this year, but I want you to be correct!
> ...





Uhhh Eberron is very polytheistic. The most notable religion in it worships a pantheon.


----------



## Yaarel (Jun 8, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> Polytheism is already baked into Dark Sun and Eberron I believe.




At least the version of the Eberron setting that I know, is *objectively* agnostic. So conflictive views are possible, subjective, and equally valid.

I hope Modern adopts multicultural cosmological possibilities as well.



Dark Sun works best when it is nontheistic, and survivors are left to their own devices. There is no deus-ex-machina that can swoop in to save Athas from the consequences of arcane defilement.

It is better if the 5e canon makes Dark Sun officially unrelated to the Forgotten Realms multiverse supersetting, even if giving variant options to subsume it into supersetting, for example, transporting characters from Forgotten Realms into Dark Sun, and visaversa. An other variant, might suggest how to make certain Forgotten Realms options as having always been part of Dark Sun, even if exceedingly rare.

The main problem with assimilating Dark Sun into the multiverse is, then the polytheism becomes *objectively* canonically true, while the Dark Sun setting, tone, and feel, becomes *objectively* canonically ignorant of the truth. The cosmology is the context, and context determines meaning, and the wrong contextual framework destroys the setting and what the setting means and implies.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> At least the version of the Eberron setting that I know, is *objectively* agnostic. So conflictive views are possible, subjective, and equally valid.
> 
> I hope Modern adopts multicultural cosmological possibilities as well.
> 
> ...




Dark Sun has always been part of the Multiverse. There are lots of references to it in planescape materiel.


----------



## gyor (Jun 8, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> At least the version of the Eberron setting that I know, is *objectively* agnostic. So conflictive views are possible, subjective, and equally valid.
> 
> I hope Modern adopts multicultural cosmological possibilities as well.
> 
> ...




 Even as part of the multiverse that is true, a biproduct of Athas' Primordials defeating the Gods of Athas according to 4e, so Athas is beyond the Gods ability to save it, its effectively up to the people of Athas to save it if they can.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 8, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> Polytheism is already baked into Dark Sun and Eberron I believe.




Eberron, sure -- though I'd agree with Yaarel that the official stance is more agnostic. A polytheistic religion is the most common one, but since the gods don't show up or respond to spells like _commune_ themselves, and people can cast divine magic through faith in other things.

But Dark Sun is explicitly atheistic. There are people who worship various things as gods, but those things are canonically non-divine. The most common ones are the Sorcerer-Monarchs (who can channel elemental power to their servants, but are very much mortal themselves), but you also have clerics leading tribes worshiping such things as "The God of the Volcano". That "god" is just their misinterpretation of various elemental spirits, though.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 8, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Eberron, sure -- though I'd agree with Yaarel that the official stance is more agnostic. A polytheistic religion is the most common one, but since the gods don't show up or respond to spells like _commune_ themselves, and people can cast divine magic through faith in other things.




It's also worth pointing out that of the other major religious institutions of Eberron:
1) Three ostensibly mirror monotheism in that they each primarily center around a singular divine _power_ (none of them are sentient individuals), at least one of which objectively exists in the world
2) One is explicitly _miso-_theist, in the sense that they think that if the gods do exist, that they hate us and must be our enemies.
3) Elves, who tend to engage in ancestor worship of some form or another.
4) And a particular subset of the Warforged, who are monotheistic in the sense that they have dedicated themselves to _building_ a god themselves.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 9, 2018)

MonsterEnvy said:


> Dark Sun has always been part of the Multiverse. There are lots of references to it in planescape materiel.




I rearched the links with Athas in AD&D. Trying to use magic to travel between planes required a wizard to roll Intelligence or under on a d100. Failure meant the wizard was lost in the Grey and would start to have Consititution drained. So magic existed but it was very risky. The grey surrounded the material plane of Athas and isolated it. So in the Athas multiverse gods exist but just can’t reach followers in Athas without great difficulty. Also the crystal sphere of Athas is completely impenetrable to Spelljammers. (Described in Preservers and Defilers of Athas.)


----------



## Jester David (Jun 9, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> It is better if the 5e canon makes Dark Sun officially unrelated to the Forgotten Realms multiverse supersetting, even if giving variant options to subsume it into supersetting, for example, transporting characters from Forgotten Realms into Dark Sun, and visaversa. An other variant, might suggest how to make certain Forgotten Realms options as having always been part of Dark Sun, even if exceedingly rare.



IIRC, Dark Sun was always part of the multiverse. In that the original boxed set stated that planar travel didn’t work, and that the world was cut off.
So you could travel in, but not out.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 9, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Eberron, sure -- though I'd agree with Yaarel that the official stance is more agnostic. A polytheistic religion is the most common one, but since the gods don't show up or respond to spells like _commune_ themselves, and people can cast divine magic through faith in other things.
> 
> But Dark Sun is explicitly atheistic. There are people who worship various things as gods, but those things are canonically non-divine. The most common ones are the Sorcerer-Monarchs (who can channel elemental power to their servants, but are very much mortal themselves), but you also have clerics leading tribes worshiping such things as "The God of the Volcano". That "god" is just their misinterpretation of various elemental spirits, though.




Even if they are not real gods that is still polytheism.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> I rearched the links with Athas in AD&D. Trying to use magic to travel between planes required a wizard to roll Intelligence or under on a d100. Failure meant the wizard was lost in the Grey and would start to have Consititution drained. So magic existed but it was very risky. The grey surrounded the material plane of Athas and isolated it. So in the Athas multiverse gods exist but just can’t reach followers in Athas without great difficulty. Also the crystal sphere of Athas is completely impenetrable to Spelljammers. (Described in Preservers and Defilers of Athas.)




Yes, so part of the same cosmos, just remote and usually hard to reach.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 9, 2018)

GarrettKP said:


> I swear it on all my D&D products. I have no insight, tho I do wish I did. I’ve always been the kinda of person who enjoys logic puzzles and treasure hunts, and that’s what I think D&D has become. The devs intentionally let small things slip to keep fans guessing but this time they overstepped and let too much go.
> 
> And it isn’t just this time really, remember someone here figured out Tomb of Annihilation before the announcement because a Acquisitions Inc game and Drizzt Novel both mentioned Acererak, Chult and the Soul Monger months in advance. WotC has been leaving clues for a while now. All you have to do is pay attention and you’ll find the pieces of the puzzles.



The clues are there, but they’re not always aparent except in retrospect. 

A heck of a lot of people guessed we’d be seeing a spring Planescape AP based on the UA, Dragon Talk topics, the presence of Modrons in _Tomb of Annihilation_, and the events in Dice, Camera, Action.
We have a lot of people making guesses. Some of them are bound to be right. And some of them are going to be wrong.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 9, 2018)

A lot of people's "guesses" are actually wishful thinking. If you filter those out, the guesswork is pretty accurate, no hindsight needed. I didn't WANT Waterdeep, but I'm not surprised to see it.

And I'm not saying I think the setting book is going to be "Planejammer" because that is what I most want (That would be Star Frontiers and Dark Sun). I'm saying that because it fits the pattern and makes business sense.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> I rearched the links with Athas in AD&D. Trying to use magic to travel between planes required a wizard to roll Intelligence or under on a d100. Failure meant the wizard was lost in the Grey and would start to have Consititution drained. So magic existed but it was very risky. The grey surrounded the material plane of Athas and isolated it. So in the Athas multiverse gods exist but just can’t reach followers in Athas without great difficulty. Also the crystal sphere of Athas is completely impenetrable to Spelljammers. (Described in Preservers and Defilers of Athas.)






Jester David said:


> IIRC, Dark Sun was always part of the multiverse. In that the original boxed set stated that planar travel didn’t work, and that the world was cut off.
> So you could travel in, but not out.




Defilers & Preservers was one of the last books made for Dark Sun, and it had plenty of questionable stuff in it (such as wizards that don't draw power from plant life, but from planar sources). Before that book, there was *nothing* indicating that Dark Sun was cut off from the planes, and plenty to indicate that it was part of the multiverse.

There was also a note in one of the Spelljammer books (I think it was the Complete Spacefarer's Handbook) which said that Athas was not found on any known charts of the Flow, and that no-one had ever traveled there by spelljamming. But nothing before D&P about planar isolation.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 9, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Defilers & Preservers was one of the last books made for Dark Sun, and it had plenty of questionable stuff in it (such as wizards that don't draw power from plant life, but from planar sources). Before that book, there was *nothing* indicating that Dark Sun was cut off from the planes, and plenty to indicate that it was part of the multiverse.
> 
> There was also a note in one of the Spelljammer books (I think it was the Complete Spacefarer's Handbook) which said that Athas was not found on any known charts of the Flow, and that no-one had ever traveled there by spelljamming. But nothing before D&P about planar isolation.




I don’t understand are you saying that Defilers and Preservers wasn’t a valid book? The whole range came out over 5 years for AD&D. The Grey and the Black were pretty well established in the lore - particularly the entrapment and blocking - Rikus is trapped in the grey, Rajaat was trapped in the black. The links with the inner planes and the remoteness of the outer planes all of these things were well established. The isolations seems to fit the setting extremely well so I really don’t understand your issues.

Back in 2nd edition, planescape wasn’t released until 1994 three years after Darksun so I’m not surprised that the planes weren’t a big deal in the Dark sun books. After Planescape there was a need to codify where Athas sat in the cosmology hence Preservers and Defilers coming out in 1996.

Regarding planar sources, Sadira drew her energy from the sun, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for necromancers to draw energy from the Grey. 

I really like the mechanic in D&P where it is difficult but not impossible to travel out. It fits the theme, and allows for isolated exceptions. At the same time it prevents a portals to the elemental plane of water solving all the worlds problems. There has to be an explanation for why supremely powerful wizard/psionicists couldn’t do that. D&P gave us that answer.

Incidentally Defilers and Preservers was released before Mindlords, Psionic Artefacts, all the 3rd ed Paizo conversions stuff and the two 4th edition books, so it’s hardly the end of the range. There is a lot more life in Dark Sun in my opinion.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> I don’t understand are you saying that Defilers and Preservers wasn’t a valid book? The whole range came out over 5 years for AD&D.




I am saying that for the first four years of those five, there was no problem whatsoever with using planar travel in Dark Sun. Dragon Kings had an introduction to the cosmology, which was the same as the regular D&D cosmology. Travel to the outer and astral planes was de-emphasized, because that description was written in the context of high-level clerics having to attend to duties on the elemental planes, but there was nothing about planar travel being more difficult. You also had adventures featuring planar foes (even when the planes weren't the main focus of the adventure - IIRC there's a random nalfeshnee running around in Dragon's Crown), and in the revised Dark Sun boxed set baatezu, tanar'ri, and yugoloth was on a rather short list of monsters from the Monstrous Manual that were considered appropriate for a Dark Sun campaign. They were not listed in the original box, because at that time the Outer Planes MC Appendix hadn't been released so they weren't around.



> The Grey and the Black were pretty well established in the lore - particularly the entrapment and blocking - Rikus is trapped in the grey, Rajaat was trapped in the black. The links with the inner planes and the remoteness of the outer planes all of these things were well established. The isolations seems to fit the setting extremely well so I really don’t understand your issues.




My issue is that I see a lot of people treating Athas's planar isolation as an integral part of the setting, when it wasn't established until fairly late in the original run, and at that time it was a retcon of what had gone before. I don't see it that way at all. Dark Sun should certainly not have trade routes established with Sigil or anything like that, but if some cleric wants to _plane shift_ out of there there shouldn't be anything preventing that.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 9, 2018)

Yaarel said:


> It is better if the 5e canon makes Dark Sun officially unrelated to the Forgotten Realms multiverse supersetting, even if giving variant options to subsume it into supersetting, for example, transporting characters from Forgotten Realms into Dark Sun, and visaversa. An other variant, might suggest how to make certain Forgotten Realms options as having always been part of Dark Sun, even if exceedingly rare.




I'll do you one better: Dark Sun should be made officially unrelated to Dungeons & Dragons and be its own stand-alone fantasy game that shares mechanical compatibility with 5e the same way Star Wars d20 shared compatibility with 3e. That way, its unshackled from ALL D&D assumptions and tropes and can really get wild and do things correctly. There would be no need to rely on a PHB that is more than half invalid in both mechanics and fluff, it could have its own rulebook that doesn't waste space on paladins, plate armor, gnomes, or other non-cannon entities. It can re-write classes to fit, such as non-caster bards or putting preserving and defiling right into the wizard class. It can re-work the spell lists as it needs to ("whose Melf?") and redo races to fit. On the DM side, a GM guide with appropriate monsters (no orcs, gold dragons, or frost giants here) and world info (proper planar layout, appropriate magical items) would help tremendously. If a DM WANTS to use such things in thier D&D games, the mechanics could convert over with a little work, but otherwise DS and D&D remain separate games with different assumptions and options. 

I mean, otherwise Athas is just another D&D setting, abet with a post-apocalypse /desert world vibe, that needs to accommodate most of the mechanics and assumptions in the core rulebooks like every other official setting for D&D does...


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 9, 2018)

Jester David said:


> The clues are there, but they’re not always aparent except in retrospect.
> 
> A heck of a lot of people guessed we’d be seeing a spring Planescape AP based on the UA, Dragon Talk topics, the presence of Modrons in _Tomb of Annihilation_, and the events in Dice, Camera, Action.
> We have a lot of people making guesses. Some of them are bound to be right. And some of them are going to be wrong.




Sure, and some aren't guessing at all because they have inside knowledge.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 9, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> otherwise Athas is just another D&D setting



Sorry to break it to you, but Dark Sun IS a D&D setting.

In a world where D&D is, dunno, 90% of the entire ttrpg market, full D&D compatibility is _everything_.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 9, 2018)

I'm in favour of Athas remaining a D&D setting. It has content that can be backported or used in homebrew settings, it has story and creature lore overlaps with other settings, historically it has always been a D&D setting, and commercially the D&D brand is a huge advantage.

On the other hand: nothing.

I'm quite happy with it being considered part of the D&D multiverse, but hard to reach and, with magic dying, even harder to leave.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> I don’t understand are you saying that Defilers and Preservers wasn’t a valid book? The whole range came out over 5 years for AD&D. The Grey and the Black were pretty well established in the lore - particularly the entrapment and blocking - Rikus is trapped in the grey, Rajaat was trapped in the black. The links with the inner planes and the remoteness of the outer planes all of these things were well established. The isolations seems to fit the setting extremely well so I really don’t understand your issues.
> 
> Back in 2nd edition, planescape wasn’t released until 1994 three years after Darksun so I’m not surprised that the planes weren’t a big deal in the Dark sun books. After Planescape there was a need to codify where Athas sat in the cosmology hence Preservers and Defilers coming out in 1996.
> 
> ...




A Johnny Come Lately retcon can, itself, be retconned with no shame. The 4E material rolled back a lot of latter day Dark Sun, and doubtless 5E will do similar. For example, see the presence of the Athasian Half-Giant in Faerun alongside a Tal'Dorei Goliath in recent times.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 9, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> A Johnny Come Lately retcon can, itself, be retconned with no shame. The 4E material rolled back a lot of latter day Dark Sun, and doubtless 5E will do aimilar. For example, see the presence of the Arhasian Half-Fiant in Faerun alongside a Tal'Dorei Goliath in recent times.




So you’re comfortable with Athas being accessible to all and sundry as normal with simple plane shifting magic?


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> So you’re comfortable with Athas being accessible to all and sundry as normal with simple plane shifting magic?




Perfectly comfortable, which is handy, because that is what will be happening moving forwards, it seems.

Note that there is a major distinction between "accessible" and "easily accessible." You can have a story telling about events in 12th century Mexico, that are not easily accessible to 12th century European characters in another story. Doesn't mean they take place in different universes.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 9, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I'm in favour of Athas remaining a D&D setting. It has content that can be backported or used in homebrew settings, it has story and creature lore overlaps with other settings, historically it has always been a D&D setting, and commercially the D&D brand is a huge advantage.
> 
> On the other hand: nothing.
> 
> I'm quite happy with it being considered part of the D&D multiverse, but hard to reach and, with magic dying, even harder to leave.




Dark Sun though was the ultimate example of a setting breaking the core rules to fit its tropes. The 2e era setting often resembled D&D In Name Only, with everything from races to classes to ability scores and xp tables changed. That kind of radical alteration to the core game wouldn't work under WotC's current design paradigm. There is no way WotC would sell a setting that that used 33%-50% of the core rules as is and nearly none of the supplemental material. They want a setting that would sell PHBs, not piece-meal replace them. 

That ultimately puts the setting into a kind of limbo between wanting to be a D&D setting and wanting to be this radical departure from it. If it wants to be a D&D setting, it needs to accept more of the D&D tropes and options like the 4e version of the setting did (that includes finding homes for every class and most races). If it wants to emulate the 2e version and have radically different classes and races than the PHB, then it needs its own PHB (and that would come in the form of a spin-off game). 

That really holds true for any setting, IMHO. Settings should flavor the core D&D setting, not replace or radically alter it. Forgotten Realms is vanilla D&D, while Dragonlance should be heroic/romantic fantasy, Greyhawk pulp, Eberron pulp/noir/magitech, Ravenloft gothic horror, Birthright political intrigue/dominion, and Dark Sun post-apocalyptic pulp. The PHB should be valid (with some minor changes required for flavor) in all of them. A new player should be able to use just his PHB and make a viable character with some small adjustments (such as in the areas of subraces, equipment or backgrounds). Options should be adapted when possible (half-orcs = calibans, dragonborn = dray) or if an option isn't available, its replaced with another equal option (no gnomes, but here are muls on Athas; all halflings must take the kender subrace on Krynn). Additional options (psionics, artificers, new races, etc) should be balanced enough that if a DM wants to use them in another setting (be it his homebrewed version of the Realms with warforged and psionics or a complete new setting) they are usable without imbalance to the game. Settings that cannot abide those rules should either be ditched or farmed out to 3pp as stand-alone games. 

Ultimately, I actually think the July product we'll see might be a UA-style primer that tests fan reaction to updating those settings to 5e. How will fans react to Athasian paladins, Krynnish warlocks, Oerthian dragonborn, etc. Feedback gathered will go in the product coming next year. It might be the best way to take the fans temperature for how much they can make settings conform to the Core Rules and how much they can make the Core Rules conform to the settings...


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 9, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Dark Sun though was the ultimate example of a setting breaking the core rules to fit its tropes. The 2e era setting often resembled D&D In Name Only, with everything from races to classes to ability scores and xp tables changed. That kind of radical alteration to the core game wouldn't work under WotC's current design paradigm. There is no way WotC would sell a setting that that used 33%-50% of the core rules as is and nearly none of the supplemental material. They want a setting that would sell PHBs, not piece-meal replace them.
> 
> That ultimately puts the setting into a kind of limbo between wanting to be a D&D setting and wanting to be this radical departure from it. If it wants to be a D&D setting, it needs to accept more of the D&D tropes and options like the 4e version of the setting did (that includes finding homes for every class and most races). If it wants to emulate the 2e version and have radically different classes and races than the PHB, then it needs its own PHB (and that would come in the form of a spin-off game).
> 
> ...




You continue to use wild hyperbolae with your anti-Dark Sun propaganda. I'm beginning to think Dark Sun must have run over your dog or something! I don't like Waterdeep, but I'm not saying it should be nuked out of existence so no one else can use the setting. I just won't be buying the books.

The truth is Dark Sun was far closer to the core D&D rules of the time than 5e (Warlocks, Dragonborn, non-Vancian magic), so if Dark Sun shouldn't be called D&D, 5e has no right to the name either.

Sure, it has some tweaks, but that's the thing: THERE IS NO POINT IN PUBLISHING A CAMPAIGN SETTING THAT ISN'T DIFFERENT.


And Dark Sun goes back to one of the core inspirations of D&D - the lurid pulp fiction of the 1910s-1950s, especially Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs (check out the 1st edition DMG). This is something that was there at the start but has been lost over the years.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> So you’re comfortable with Athas being accessible to all and sundry as normal with simple plane shifting magic?




It's easy enough for a DM to rule that _thier_ Athas isn't part of the standard D&D cosmology, just as they can with any setting.

It's the donkey work of worldbuilding - especially in the crunch-department - balancing subclasses, and races, developing psionics etc, that it's useful to have done professionally. Then the DM can add whatever customised detailing they like.


----------



## gyor (Jun 9, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Dark Sun though was the ultimate example of a setting breaking the core rules to fit its tropes. The 2e era setting often resembled D&D In Name Only, with everything from races to classes to ability scores and xp tables changed. That kind of radical alteration to the core game wouldn't work under WotC's current design paradigm. There is no way WotC would sell a setting that that used 33%-50% of the core rules as is and nearly none of the supplemental material. They want a setting that would sell PHBs, not piece-meal replace them.
> 
> That ultimately puts the setting into a kind of limbo between wanting to be a D&D setting and wanting to be this radical departure from it. If it wants to be a D&D setting, it needs to accept more of the D&D tropes and options like the 4e version of the setting did (that includes finding homes for every class and most races). If it wants to emulate the 2e version and have radically different classes and races than the PHB, then it needs its own PHB (and that would come in the form of a spin-off game).
> 
> ...




 4e Darksun straight up banned classes that used the Divine Power Source, Cleric, Paladin, Avenger, Invoker, Runepriest were a no no, although one must remember Primal was seperate then and so Druid, Barbarian, Seeker, Warden, and so on were okay.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 9, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> Perfectly comfortable, which is handy, because that is what will be happening moving forwards, it seems.
> 
> Note that there is a major distinction between "accessible" and "easily accessible." You can have a story telling about events in 12th century Mexico, that are not easily accessible to 12th century European characters in another story. Doesn't mean they take place in different universes.




Yeah, sorry it doesn’t work for me. If gold, iron, water etc can be ported in from beyond then ecological disaster becomes irrelevant. Athas is hell, if things could leave for less sunny climes, they would. In a place where gold is worth 100 times its normal price then 1,000 go becomes 100,000 gp. Apparently the designers/editors or the setting felt so to. I’m not going to bother arguing with you any more because you’re clearly choosing to ignore the official writings that don’t support your view. Do what you like with the setting. It’s old edition at this point so technically it’s all homebrew.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 9, 2018)

Just to throw another spanner into the works, there's more evidence that Athas was accessible (though not necessarily easily or readily) from the multiverse:

Kalidnay.

Which, for those who don't know, would be the domain of Ravenloft that was taken from Athas, and ruled by a lieutenant of one of the Sorcerer-Kings.

Again, access doesn't mean _easy_ access. It doesn't, in this case, even mean _mortal_ access. And for the record, I personally prefer Athas almost completely isolated, myself. But it's hard to argue the fact that TSR clearly intended accessing Athas from elsewhere to be at least somewhat possible.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 9, 2018)

TheSword said:


> Yeah, sorry it doesn’t work for me. If gold, iron, water etc can be ported in from beyond then ecological disaster becomes irrelevant. Athas is hell, if things could leave for less sunny climes, they would. In a place where gold is worth 100 times its normal price then 1,000 go becomes 100,000 gp. Apparently the designers/editors or the setting felt so to. I’m not going to bother arguing with you any more because you’re clearly choosing to ignore the official writings that don’t support your view. Do what you like with the setting. It’s old edition at this point so technically it’s all homebrew.




Well, I mean, sure, do what you like: I was discussing what we will be seeing for 5E Dark Sun, sooner or later (and have seen early bits of).


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 9, 2018)

Didn't Planescape and Spelljammer acknowledged the existence of Athas in general D&D multiverse? Like yeah, they made the world harsh and the stuff, but they also linked it to the rest of the product line. 

I don't see that as a homebrew stuff if it is acknowledged in official materials...


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 9, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> I'll do you one better: Dark Sun should be made officially unrelated to Dungeons & Dragons and be its own stand-alone fantasy game ...




Nah...not in favor.



Remathilis said:


> I mean, otherwise Athas is just another D&D setting, abet with a post-apocalypse /desert world vibe, that needs to accommodate most of the mechanics and assumptions in the core rulebooks like every other official setting for D&D does...




Huzzah!  Alterations in the accommodation fit my ideas.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 9, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> And Dark Sun goes back to one of the core inspirations of D&D - the lurid pulp fiction of the 1910s-1950s, especially Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs (check out the 1st edition DMG). This is something that was there at the start but has been lost over the years.




Quoted for truth.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 9, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> You continue to use wild hyperbolae with your anti-Dark Sun propaganda. I'm beginning to think Dark Sun must have run over your dog or something! I don't like Waterdeep, but I'm not saying it should be nuked out of existence so no one else can use the setting. I just won't be buying the books.
> 
> The truth is Dark Sun was far closer to the core D&D rules of the time than 5e (Warlocks, Dragonborn, non-Vancian magic), so if Dark Sun shouldn't be called D&D, 5e has no right to the name either.
> 
> ...




Dark Sun is the only one of the classic WORLDS OF D&D that repeatedly breaks the game's assumptions. Take a look at the other Non-Realm's settings mentioned in the DMG for a minute: 

There is no reason why Oerth could not support everything found in the Core books. It handled everything 3e could throw at it and made it work. Mystara similarly has no strong prohibitions on what is or isn't allowed; a 5e conversion could fit everything into it just fine. Dragonlance during 3e found room for every option but half-orcs (and halflings, but kender are just extreme halflings anyways these days) so I don't see why that would be different in 5e. Ravenloft did the exact same thing in 3e; finding room for everything but half-orcs (poor half-orcs) but replacing them with a similar race called Calliban. Birthright hasn't seen formal update since 2e, but based on the limited amount I know if it, PCs had no restrictions and I'm not sure there would be any needed in 5e. Eberron famously declared "if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron" and between the 3e and 4e versions found homes for most everything in the core books. Planescape and Spelljammer can literally pull from anywhere. Nobody claims these settings are the same, but each takes the core elements of the game and puts their own spin on them. 

So far, every setting in D&D so far has managed to adapt the the current edition, or has the potential to, into the setting. And then their's Dark Sun. Dark Sun has tried; once by Paizo in 3.5 and again by WotC during 4e, to drag Athas kicking and screaming into the modern ruleset of the time. Paizo found room for everything but half-orcs (man, they need a better agent!) and all the classes in the PHB and XPH (even paladins). 4e made room for arcane bards, tieflings, warlocks, dragonborn, and a lot of other Core rules options. And in both cases, hardcore fans have had issues with "ruining the setting" by trying to make it agree with the most recent edition of D&D rules. Dark Sun has been the biggest problem because, unlike every other setting, fans cannot accept it moving beyond the 2e box set assumptions. Which keeps putting it as the sore thumb sticking out. Every other setting can play nice with Planescape if you want it to; Dark Sun doesn't. Every other setting can absorb a new supplement and use much if not all of its options; Dark Sun cannot. Every other setting uses the PHB with minimal adaptation, Dark Sun doesn't. Every other setting expands the potential options for players, Dark Sun shrinks them. 

At a certain point, the fact that Dark Sun has such a hard time doing what every other major D&D setting has, it starts to look like an issue with the setting itself. 

It doesn't need to, of course. Primeval Thule has much of that Conan-pulp world feel with few if any changes to the core rules. DS 3e and 4e (as stated) has shown Athas doesn't break with including spellcasting bards or paladins. Its the dogmatic adherence to the 2e assumptions must be preserved at all costs that sinks the ship. If Dark Sun can adapt to 5e and use the Core rules like every other D&D setting does, I welcome it with open arms. But if the setting MUST be one that cannot abide monks, tieflings, or anything else that has been part of Core D&D since 2000, then maybe its best served spun off into its own thing.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 9, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> You continue to use wild hyperbolae with your anti-Dark Sun propaganda. I'm beginning to think Dark Sun must have run over your dog or something! I don't like Waterdeep, but I'm not saying it should be nuked out of existence so no one else can use the setting. I just won't be buying the books.
> 
> The truth is Dark Sun was far closer to the core D&D rules of the time than 5e (Warlocks, Dragonborn, non-Vancian magic), so if Dark Sun shouldn't be called D&D, 5e has no right to the name either.
> 
> ...




Also, if you want to know what fuels my disdain, a perfect example is right here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?644882-Darksun-Character-Generation-Half-Giant

That encompasses perfectly why Dark Sun needs to adapt to 5e's core rules OR be its own game.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 9, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> Didn't Planescape and Spelljammer acknowledged the existence of Athas in general D&D multiverse? Like yeah, they made the world harsh and the stuff, but they also linked it to the rest of the product line.
> 
> I don't see that as a homebrew stuff if it is acknowledged in official materials...




In Defilers and Preservers of Athas’ isolation was explained by the grey, a Demi plane that surrounds Athas and traps all its souls (as described in the Prism Pentad series). Rules were laid out showing it was difficult to reach Athas but not impossible. So yes Athas is definitely linked to the multiverse albeit remotely... there were also other more reliable methods for traveling at least on portal to the Astral and the Planar Mirror artifact.

Some people have said, because they don’t like the Defilers and Preservers supplement that it doesn’t apply and travel to Athas is the same as any other plane *slaps forehead*. Hence me saying if they want to play it that way they can homebrew it any way they like.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 9, 2018)

Well, that makes sense. In 4e was the same. You were able to go to Dark Sun from other planes, but it was really hard because of the Grey.

I am with [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]. I don't understand why people cannot acknowledge a Dark Sun that evolves alongside D&D. I said it before, some rules must be adapted when older settings are converted to a new edition, but for that to work, the setting also needs to adapt to the new rules.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 10, 2018)

TheSword said:


> In Defilers and Preservers of Athas’ isolation was explained by the grey, a Demi plane that surrounds Athas and traps all its souls (as described in the Prism Pentad series). Rules were laid out showing it was difficult to reach Athas but not impossible. So yes Athas is definitely linked to the multiverse albeit remotely... there were also other more reliable methods for traveling at least on portal to the Astral and the Planar Mirror artifact.
> 
> Some people have said, because they don’t like the Defilers and Preservers supplement that it doesn’t apply and travel to Athas is the same as any other plane *slaps forehead*. Hence me saying if they want to play it that way they can homebrew it any way they like.




Look, if you want to have your Athas isolated, I'm not going to stop you. My point is that it's by no means a make-or-break thing for the setting. Environmentally hazardous wizardry, yes. Psionics, hell yes. Crappy gear, probably, though I'd be OK with making it a cosmetic thing for balance reasons.  Higher stats, nah. Planar isolation, nah. No gods granting powers, definitely.


----------



## MonsterEnvy (Jun 10, 2018)

I am perfectly fine with it being isolated in that is it hard to get to and even harder to leave. And I don't think the people here arguing disagree with that.


----------



## AmerginLiath (Jun 10, 2018)

Coming back to this thread after a few days away, expecting to discuss settings ideas...

View attachment 98323


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 10, 2018)

Not that this is relevant to the original topic, or if anyone is concerned, but (although I never got to play it much, so I could be wrong) but I always thought 4e was a great fit for Dark Sun even before they published it. 

But I also have no problem with a setting that expands upon or breaks the core rules. The original Dark Sun rules when they first came out were really fun and groundbreaking with how they altered the core rules. I’d like more imaginative settings like that rather than less or forcing them to be another rule set.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 10, 2018)

MonsterEnvy said:


> I am perfectly fine with it being isolated in that is it hard to get to and even harder to leave. And I don't think the people here arguing disagree with that.




I don't, as long as when they DO get out, they are horribly broken munchkin machines compared to characters from other settings.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 10, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Dark Sun is the only one of the classic WORLDS OF D&D that repeatedly breaks the game's assumptions.




See, to me? That's a flaw with the design of other settings, not with Dark Sun. No, I don't think _all_ settings should break some of the game's assumptions, but I do think many should. I _like_ that sort of thing. I like creators putting theme, mood, and aesthetic ahead of rules.

It's one of several reasons that the upcoming _Lost Citadel_ setting cuts and replaces about half the core classes: Because that was the only way to make the assumptions of the setting logically cohere.

(I don't _think_ I've just spoiled something that hasn't been revealed, but if so, consider that a special sneak glimpse.  )



> It doesn't need to, of course. Primeval Thule has much of that Conan-pulp world feel with few if any changes to the core rules.




And while I can't speak for myself--I haven't read through PT in detail, let alone played it--I have seen a _lot_ of complaints, from people who otherwise like the setting, that the mechanics don't support the flavor or the theme, in terms of it being low-magic. I would bet that, were you to take a statistically solid survey, you'd find at least a significant minority who would have preferred more mechanical differentiation from the core.

I mean, you and I have had this discussion before. I know I'm not going to convince you, any more than you're going to convince me. But I still wanted to point out that what you see as a bug, many of us see as a primary feature.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 10, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> Coming back to this thread after a few days away, expecting to discuss settings ideas...
> 
> View attachment 98323




This thread is ENWorld in a nutshell...


----------



## Rhylthar (Jun 10, 2018)

> And while I can't speak for myself--I haven't read through PT in detail, let alone played it--I have seen a _lot_  of complaints, from people who otherwise like the setting, that the  mechanics don't support the flavor or the theme, in terms of it being  low-magic. I would bet that, were you to take a statistically solid  survey, you'd find at least a significant minority who would have  preferred more mechanical differentiation from the core.



I really like Primeval Thule (and I wouldn´t complain) but I can understand people who want a different approach to this setting.

Could it work? Sure, just take a look at Adventures in Middle-earth. You will find 5E in these books but a lot of different mechanics, too. Middle-earth has a complete different theme than the "standard" D&D-Settings.

I´m not really familiar with Dark Sun but I think, it could work. Problems will arise when players want to start cross-overs with other D&D Worlds.


----------



## Tiles (Jun 10, 2018)

In the last game of The Stream of Many Eyes, Mike M was the DM in a one shot featuring their heavyweight players. Mike seemed almost giddy to have players from the different planes. Dark Sun, Nine Hells, .... possible nod to a manual of the planes? (Strix’s!!)


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 10, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> Coming back to this thread after a few days away, expecting to discuss settings ideas...
> 
> View attachment 98323




That's Dark Sun for you.  The gods rolled a 1.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 10, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> See, to me? That's a flaw with the design of other settings, not with Dark Sun. No, I don't think _all_ settings should break some of the game's assumptions, but I do think many should. I _like_ that sort of thing. I like creators putting theme, mood, and aesthetic ahead of rules.
> 
> It's one of several reasons that the upcoming _Lost Citadel_ setting cuts and replaces about half the core classes: Because that was the only way to make the assumptions of the setting logically cohere.
> 
> (I don't _think_ I've just spoiled something that hasn't been revealed, but if so, consider that a special sneak glimpse.  ).




Yeah, that is a primal and fundamental disagreement we're never going to get past, because I see little value in arbitrarily restricting options based on _that designers_ interpretation of the theme, tone or mood. 

Moreover, I (perhaps unfairly) hold WotC to a different standard than you, or me, or even other companies like Necromancer or Green Ronin, because they get to use the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (TM) name on their product. The fact they can put the D&D name on their cover and you can't holds them to a higher level of compatibility with the main game. They need to make a setting work for new players, players who might never own any other book than the PHB but want to play in AL, casual players who just watched Critical Role, and a slew of other non-hardcore players that don't match the tastes of you or I. The easiest way to do so it to only remove things when absolutely necessary. 

Only dedicated hobbiests are going to hear about The Lost Citadel (I hadn't until you just mentioned it) so have hardcore dedicated players who love to tinker and decide if X fits in it or not is fine, but WotC isn't going to market Dark Sun to the same audience, they are going to market it to Tommy Newplayer and Gina Streamer, and those two aren't going to be happy finding out half their PHB is incompatible with their shiny new $50 campaign setting book. If you want a Dark Sun that matches the customized ruleset that Lost Citadel, then you have to expect it well sell to the same dedicated hobbiests and the same lower sales numbers. And considering WotC just topped several nonfiction best-seller charts with MToF, I'm guessing they are willing to cede the small pool of dedicated craft hobbiests for the larger market of casuals...

So the question is really, will WotC be willing to accept smaller sale numbers in order to cater to more niche markets, or will they opt to cast the widest net possible even if it means diluting the settings to fit elven paladins in it? I'm guessing the latter. Whether that's good or bad we'll agree to disagree.


----------



## gyor (Jun 10, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Yeah, that is a primal and fundamental disagreement we're never going to get past, because I see little value in arbitrarily restricting options based on _that designers_ interpretation of the theme, tone or mood.
> 
> Moreover, I (perhaps unfairly) hold WotC to a different standard than you, or me, or even other companies like Necromancer or Green Ronin, because they get to use the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (TM) name on their product. The fact they can put the D&D name on their cover and you can't holds them to a higher level of compatibility with the main game. They need to make a setting work for new players, players who might never own any other book than the PHB but want to play in AL, casual players who just watched Critical Role, and a slew of other non-hardcore players that don't match the tastes of you or I. The easiest way to do so it to only remove things when absolutely necessary.
> 
> ...




 I think they will be willing to dip their toe in niche markets, enough so that people will at least have the essentials of what they need, but unless they are more profitable then expected, they leave the rest to DMSGUILD.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 10, 2018)

gyor said:


> I think they will be willing to dip their toe in niche markets, enough so that people will at least have the essentials of what they need, but unless they are more profitable then expected, they leave the rest to DMSGUILD.




What I generally expect is some combination:

* A brief overview of said world from a micro-cosmic scale; detailing a single region or adventure setting with enough detail to run in said area. 
* A quick guide to using the main PHB options in said setting. ("In Krynn, monks are...)
* Any must have PC options to run the setting (kender, warforged, psionics, artificer) or at least what/where to find them ("you can use the goliath stats found in Volo's Guide...")
* A few important monsters (draconians) important to the setting.
* Possibly a mini adventure of 1-3 levels either as a taster or as part of some larger multiverse spanning adventure.
* DM's Guild support to cover regions, options, and monsters not touched by the main product. 

The actual product could take many forms: a mega-adventure that touches multiple worlds, a series of PDFs akin to the MTG: Plane Shift articles, a SoinSo's Guide to the Multiverse supplement, or some combination thereover. What I don't see is a product with enough detail to go introducing complex mechanical changes beyond new player options or DM goodies nor any intricate re-writing the mechanics already in the game. Something easy enough an AL player can sit down with just the PHB and make a serviceable PC with after the concept of the world has been explained to them. They will make whatever product piggyback off the PHB and allow a group to start playing in that world needing nothing more than whatever supplement it is and the Core Three. The DM's Guild will have to pick up the slack to make the complex mechanics and detailed fluff needed to jive these simpler taste-of versions work with the established lore, as they did with Curse of Strahd and Ravenloft. 

Of course, I could be all wrong about this: They could literally be putting out the Five Nations Adventurer's Guide (which goes into Eberron in depth), the Athasian Player's Guide (which has altered versions of many races and classes) and Tasselhoff's Guide to Dragons (which discusses the various monsters of Krynn, including 100 stat blocks of Krynnish monsters and foes). But I doubt it. We'll find out in July.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 10, 2018)

gyor said:


> I think they will be willing to dip their toe in niche markets, enough so that people will at least have the essentials of what they need, but unless they are more profitable then expected, they leave the rest to DMSGUILD.




I imagine most of it is going to be handled via the Guild. 
I expect introductions and then a focus on getting past edition products released for Print on Demand.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 10, 2018)

Is there any reason to believe this surprise is anything more than WotC saying “We’re unlocking X and Y settings - have at it” and maybe a couple PDF guides? 

I mean, I love the idea of setting books but it seems people are jumping the gun and potentially dooming themselves to nerdrage disappointment.

Now I’m not saying we won’t see a setting book, just that it seems a lot of folks are reading a lot into some relatively innocuous comments.


----------



## Mercurius (Jun 10, 2018)

Is there any reason to believe this surprise is anything more than WotC saying “We’re unlocking X and Y settings - have at it” and maybe a couple PDF guides? 

I mean, I love the idea of setting books but it seems people are jumping the gun and potentially dooming themselves to nerdrage disappointment.

Now I’m not saying we won’t see a setting book, just that it seems a lot of folks are reading a lot into some relatively innocuous comments.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 10, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any reason to believe this surprise is anything more than WotC saying “We’re unlocking X and Y settings - have at it” and maybe a couple PDF guides?
> 
> I mean, I love the idea of setting books but it seems people are jumping the gun and potentially dooming themselves to nerdrage disappointment.
> 
> Now I’m not saying we won’t see a setting book, just that it seems a lot of folks are reading a lot into some relatively innocuous comments.




Stewart said there was a product, specifically, coming, and Mearls did retweet the story in this original post in a teasing manner. They have dropped hints several times if a fourth gaming product this year previously, as well. I think the next couple of UA articles, which are properly timed for testing before a late December release, might reveal a bit of their plans.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 10, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any reason to believe this surprise is anything more than WotC saying “We’re unlocking X and Y settings - have at it” and maybe a couple PDF guides?
> 
> I mean, I love the idea of setting books but it seems people are jumping the gun and potentially dooming themselves to nerdrage disappointment.
> 
> Now I’m not saying we won’t see a setting book, just that it seems a lot of folks are reading a lot into some relatively innocuous comments.




I am 90+% sure it will be PDF products like the Planeshift stuff with possibly a print on demand option. Every comment by Stewart has specifically avoided calling the “surprises” anything like ‘books’ or ‘hardcovers’, plus he has been saying there will be some exciting new things with DMs Guild this year. 

I would be extremely surprised if they are another hardcover(s).


----------



## gyor (Jun 10, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any reason to believe this surprise is anything more than WotC saying “We’re unlocking X and Y settings - have at it” and maybe a couple PDF guides?
> 
> I mean, I love the idea of setting books but it seems people are jumping the gun and potentially dooming themselves to nerdrage disappointment.
> 
> Now I’m not saying we won’t see a setting book, just that it seems a lot of folks are reading a lot into some relatively innocuous comments.




 This is absolutely possible so I am waiting with no expectations, only curiousity.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 10, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> Is there any reason to believe this surprise is anything more than WotC saying “We’re unlocking X and Y settings - have at it” and maybe a couple PDF guides?
> 
> I mean, I love the idea of setting books but it seems people are jumping the gun and potentially dooming themselves to nerdrage disappointment.
> 
> Now I’m not saying we won’t see a setting book, just that it seems a lot of folks are reading a lot into some relatively innocuous comments.



There’s pretty much nothing solid. Case and point:



Parmandur said:


> Stewart said there was a product, specifically, coming, and Mearls did retweet the story in this original post in a teasing manner. They have dropped hints several times if a fourth gaming product this year previously, as well. I think the next couple of UA articles, which are properly timed for testing before a late December release, might reveal a bit of their plans.



The thing is... PDF is still a product. They still need to write it, edit it, commission art, and put it through layout. From their end, it’d pretty much just the same amount of work.  
They’ve never said “book”. Or if it will be available in stores. 

It seems unlikely they’re doing three more books. Even small softcovers. Especially when the two coming out this summer—before _Dragon Heist_— aren’t available for preorder on Amazon.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 10, 2018)

Jester David said:


> There’s pretty much nothing solid. Case and point:
> 
> 
> The thing is... PDF is still a product. They still need to write it, edit it, commission art, and put it through layout. From their end, it’d pretty much just the same amount of work.
> ...




My impression from the original article and the author's comments on Reddit was that the two "summer products" mentioned were Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage, as the reported conversation took place before the AP product reveals. If he meant something more, I would suppose it meant something UA related, in terms of final testing for whatever the final product is (book, boxed set, PDF, smoke signal: God alone knows).

There does seem to be something cooking, and the WotC seem extraordinarily pleased with it, even given their usual enthusiasm. I don't doubt neogod when he says it will be a surprise, whether he knows anything or not.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 10, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> View attachment 98143




This, at least, has now gotten an explanation:
https://twitter.com/hellsbellesdnd/status/1005905132511481862

It'll be a streamed game on Wizards' Twitch channel, based around the Great Modron March. They'll announce the players next week, but as someone else said, the Twitter account follows [MENTION=17465]Wizard[/MENTION]s_DND + 8 more people, so it's likely that those eight are the DM + seven players.

The Modron March could be a pretty good way to introduce other settings.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 10, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> My impression from the original article and the author's comments on Reddit was that the two "summer products" mentioned were Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage, as the reported conversation took place before the AP product reveals.



Which seems like a stretch. As the two _Dragon Heist_ products are coming out in September (which is arguably more Autumn than Summer) and November (which is Winter). It really seems like there's two additional settings coming. 
The article does quote Stewart as saying _"Next month we're going to talk about a couple of different settings that people can start playing as early as this year," _
And also:
_"We have two surprises that I think hardcore D&D fans are really going to love coming this summer," Stewart said. "And then I think we got one surprise that's going to release later this year that we've not told anyone about. We're going to announce it in July."_​Which would make ZERO sense if he were talking about _Dragon Heist_. Not just because—as mentioned—those are not coming this summer. But because those had already been announced (and thus were not surprises), and are hardly limited to hardcore fans. 

Now, admittedly, the second line could be an awkwardly worded statement that the surprises were coming in the summer, and not the products. But it seems weird to phrase things like that _at_ the Stream of Many Eyes. Why "We have two surprises coming this summer" rather than "we have two surprises coming in like 45 minutes"? That's possible. But strange. 

Plus, if it were misleading people, if it were bad phrasing from the author, wouldn't they have edited or updated the article rather than make a vague comment on reddit?

I'm keeping my expectations low, and not expecting a December hardcover that updates two or three settings but is mostly adventures. That'd be an odd product...


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 10, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Which seems like a stretch. As the two _Dragon Heist_ products are coming out in September (which is arguably more Autumn than Summer) and November (which is Winter). It really seems like there's two additional settings coming.
> The article does quote Stewart as saying _"Next month we're going to talk about a couple of different settings that people can start playing as early as this year," _
> And also:
> _"We have two surprises that I think hardcore D&D fans are really going to love coming this summer," Stewart said. "And then I think we got one surprise that's going to release later this year that we've not told anyone about. We're going to announce it in July."_​Which would make ZERO sense if he were talking about _Dragon Heist_. Not just because—as mentioned—those are not coming this summer. But because those had already been announced (and thus were not surprises), and are hardly limited to hardcore fans.
> ...




The whole thing is a bit strangely worded, but we will see. As I said, that was what the article writer had suggested on the Reddit thread he started. If they do have two surprises coming this Summer, I would assume it is testing material of some kind.

I have no idea what to expect from their next product, but I do expect it to be something weird and novel,based on everything that has been hinted at in that direction.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 11, 2018)

My criticism about the graffiti is that it should be either "Pike It" or "Sod Off", as "Pike Off" is not consistent with any of the cant previously used in Planescape.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 11, 2018)

I'll reiterate my position that the "surprise release" that will be announced in July will be a Planescape and/or Spelljammer book, presumably coming out in December.

And the "two surprises"/"couple of different settings" stuff are going to be extensive UAs for mechanics of two different settings, playtests for a product or products for 2019 (or later). I'll hazard a guess at Eberron and Darksun.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 11, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> I'll reiterate my position that the "surprise release" that will be announced in July will be a Planescape and/or Spelljammer book, presumably coming out in December.
> 
> And the "two surprises"/"couple of different settings" stuff are going to be extensive UAs for mechanics of two different settings, playtests for a product or products for 2019 (or later). I'll hazard a guess at Eberron and Darksun.




I think the second part is quite likely, but as to what the actual major setting product will look like: it seems that whatever they have up their sleeves is genuinely different, not like anything tried in the past 40 years of setting products. I am genuinely curious, but reluctant to pin it down to a specific guess at this point.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> What I generally expect is some combination:
> 
> * A brief overview of said world from a micro-cosmic scale; detailing a single region or adventure setting with enough detail to run in said area.
> * A quick guide to using the main PHB options in said setting. ("In Krynn, monks are...)
> ...



The problem is - what customer is this directed at?

All of this is perfunctory. It gives off the "as little investment as we can get away with" vibe.

In order to sell a setting to a new customer, you need more than perfunctory. Much more in fact. First, you need a company that shows it believes in its product and is ready to back it up. 

Summer back-door releases is not that. 

Then, you need actual adventure. "possibly a mini adventure" is not that.

So, not the new gamer then, who could be made interested by a large pr blitz, with a lavish campaign guide occupying one of the year's few big hardcover releases, accompanied by DMsG support a la the semi-official Mezro series of scenarios.

That leaves the existing gamer, the grognard, who has all the AD&D and d20 supplements. What she wants is a detailed account of any updates to the setting. She also wants rules support, of course, but what she does not need is for big daddy to say "you get permission to reskin the orc as a X, and you can feature bards as Y"

All the easy stuff she can do herself (and has probably done so already, considering how 5E has existed for so long already). What she would be interested in parting with money for, is the hard stuff. Not the light reskinning, but the deep retooling. The new classes, subclasses, spells and feats. The official answer to hard questions "no halflings in Z".

---

Don't get me wrong - I'm not contesting your predictions. I think they're probably not far from the mark. 

It's just that I happen to think this scenario is bloody perfunctory, and of little use to anyone. That's not on you, of course.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 11, 2018)

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] So you have got the opinion that DS is fundamentally mechanically different and should either be ist own product or totally watered down to FR Standard (Lol "watered" see what i did there ?), i got that, but what about Krynn? 

Why do you consider this one (DL) so easy compared to DS?

You got the three moons and Magic strength dependant on them, Spells available dependant on alignment, 

Depending on the starting Point of a campaign clerical Magic might not be working,

You got Dragonlances! How do you represent them for 5e? A +5 weapon doing Players HP to Dragons? 

You got of course Dragon Mounts, very cool Marketing Gadget, every younger Player would love that, they would be stupid to release  DL without that. Aaaand if you got your dragonlance and a Dragon  mount you can channel the Dragons breathweapon through it.

Same but a Little less complicated goes for eberron. The believe System is different, the planes are different! You got warforged, so you Need the rust and repair spells if you want to do it right. Characterising a warforged just with a +2 Str +1 Con and Advantage vs. poison is not doing it right. but that is Detail.


So what is so Special about DS compared to Krynn that it seems like another game to you instead of a heavy modded D&D?


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 11, 2018)

Staffan said:


> This, at least, has now gotten an explanation:
> https://twitter.com/hellsbellesdnd/status/1005905132511481862
> 
> It'll be a streamed game on Wizards' Twitch channel, based around the Great Modron March. They'll announce the players next week, but as someone else said, the Twitter account follows [MENTION=17465]Wizard[/MENTION]s_DND + 8 more people, so it's likely that those eight are the DM + seven players.
> ...




Now this could be interesting!


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 11, 2018)

Staffan said:


> This, at least, has now gotten an explanation:
> https://twitter.com/hellsbellesdnd/status/1005905132511481862
> 
> It'll be a streamed game on Wizards' Twitch channel, based around the Great Modron March. They'll announce the players next week, but as someone else said, the Twitter account follows @_*Wizard*_s_DND + 8 more people, so it's likely that those eight are the DM + seven players.




Seven players. Interesting . . . the 5e DMG lists seven known worlds of the Material Plane: Forgotten Realms (Toril), Greyhawk (Oerth), Dragonlance (Krynn), Dark Sun (Athas), Eberron, Birthright (Aebrynis), and Mystara.

Just to hypothesize, but it would be kinda neat if each of the seven player characters hailed from a different setting.


----------



## Hussar (Jun 11, 2018)

DEFCON 1 said:


> /snip
> 
> So why let yourself get so bent out of shape over it when they say it?




Swimming way upthread because I'm still catching up on this long thread, but, I just wanted to comment on this.

I get "bent out of shape" when they say it because it gets forced upon every single publication.  We have dozens, if not hundreds, of unique (for a given level of uniqueness) settings for D&D.  Every setting has its own schtick.  But, no matter what setting you start on, as soon as you leave that setting and travel into the planes, you land slap dab in Planescape.

And it's a setting that has been ossified over the years and nothing is allowed to change it.  Despite virtually every monster in D&D being given reinterpretations over the editions, the planar stuff is pretty much cut and paste exactly the same as it was back in the 70's.  Never minding that it makes zero sense that in a setting like, say, Dragonlance, that devils and Hell exists.  The second you jump out of Krynn, poof, you're in the Great Wheel whether you like it or not.

Despite the fact that we have all these incredibly creative settings, for some reason, we're not allowed to have any planar setting that isn't Planescape.  Every monster writeup, every module, everything, must adhere, lockstep to Planescape lore, no matter what.  

So, that's why I let myself get bent out of shape.  I want D&D to be free of the restrictions that Planescape has placed on D&D.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jun 11, 2018)

Hussar said:


> I get "bent out of shape" when they say it because it gets forced upon every single publication.  We have dozens, if not hundreds, of unique (for a given level of uniqueness) settings for D&D.  Every setting has its own schtick.  But, no matter what setting you start on, as soon as you leave that setting and travel into the planes, you land slap dab in Planescape.



The D&D Multiverse is not Planescape, this was also clear back even back in 2e when Planescape was published.  In Planescape philosophy and personal agendas matter a lot, and there's a different tone everything takes under Planescape.  It's like the various published campaign settings that take place in Earth, just because one is on Earth doesn't mean they're playing Dark*Matter or Masque of the Red Death.


----------



## MechaTarrasque (Jun 11, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Swimming way upthread because I'm still catching up on this long thread, but, I just wanted to comment on this.
> 
> I get "bent out of shape" when they say it because it gets forced upon every single publication.  We have dozens, if not hundreds, of unique (for a given level of uniqueness) settings for D&D.  Every setting has its own schtick.  But, no matter what setting you start on, as soon as you leave that setting and travel into the planes, you land slap dab in Planescape.
> 
> ...




Rutterkin in MToF is completely different than the rutterkin in Planescape.  So much for "Every monster writeup, every module, everything, must adhere, lockstep to Planescape lore, no matter what."  The trouble with making that type of argument is that you only need one counterexample to disprove it.  It is hardly the only one.  Even in 3e, they changed the names back to devils and demons and angels.  I guess you must have missed 4e altogether.


----------



## Von Ether (Jun 11, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> All the easy stuff she can do herself (and has probably done so already, considering how 5E has existed for so long already). What she would be interested in parting with money for, is the hard stuff. Not the light reskinning, but the deep retooling. The new classes, subclasses, spells and feats. The official answer to hard questions "no halflings in Z."




I think you'll be disappointed to find out how many gamers DO want something very close to that. The lure of getting "official" rules is very strong for some* and if the official rule is a simple reskin, then that means more compatibility with less rules.
*I hsve seen posts where gamers refuse to buy Guild Adept DM's Guild stuff because if the writer isn't getting directly paid by WotC, it's not official enough to use.


----------



## DEFCON 1 (Jun 11, 2018)

Hussar said:


> So, that's why I let myself get bent out of shape.  I want D&D to be free of the restrictions that Planescape has placed on D&D.




Hey, if you want to be constantly miserable about what happens in D&D, that's you're prerogative.  Enjoy your misery.


----------



## Doctor Futurity (Jun 11, 2018)

Even the Manual of the Planes (in 3rd and 4th edition for sure) had lengthy sections on how to break away from the Planescape Great Wheel, and 4E massively revamped the planes. Even 5E starts off its chapter on the Planes in the DMG by talking about how to build your own and what you need to consider.

The presentation of the planes has been simultaneously well defined and extremely fluid....it's not described as an effectively infinite realm of existence for nothing, after all....to accommodate literally any interpretation of planar concepts you want.


----------



## guachi (Jun 11, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Seven players. Interesting . . . the 5e DMG lists seven known worlds of the Material Plane: Forgotten Realms (Toril), Greyhawk (Oerth), Dragonlance (Krynn), Dark Sun (Athas), Eberron, Birthright (Aebrynis), and Mystara.
> 
> Just to hypothesize, but it would be kinda neat if each of the seven player characters hailed from a different setting.




Even better if the PC had a name that could be clearly associated with a specific world in the absence of outright saying where the PCs were from. That way, you can leave a hint as to the world without it being said outright.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 11, 2018)

*All the worlds*

I'm making a list of all D&D worlds and all other TSR/WotC TRPG settings, not counting settings owned by other companies (Star Wars, Wheel of Time, Indiana Jones, Lankhmar, Conan). I'd like to see each and every one of these worlds _at least mentioned _in any upcoming Planescape/Spelljammer(?) text which is slated to be announced this summer. Oh, and would you give us a "galactic" (planar/phlogistonic) map (http://www.spelljammer.org/worlds/articles/SphereGuide/Guide to the Spheres.pdfsee p.6 here) showing where all of these are?

Did I miss any?

D&D "Megaverse": other in-house Hasbro settings which have received TRPG treatment, or D&D Multiverse settings which were developed only by a WotC licensee:


Dominaria (M:TG Multiverse) is owned by WotC, but no setting cross-over yet, only 5E rules adaptation.
Aldrazar / Garweeze Wurld contained comedic versions of several D&D worlds, crystal spheres, and locales, under a license agreement between WotC and KenzerCo. I wonder what WotC are rights to that material? Can it be reprinted or referred to by WotC as being a part of the 5E D&D Multiverse, or a parallel "comedic continuity" thereof? There is actually a lot of relevant material, such as a name given for the Rock of Bral's crystal sphere: Casaspace.
Dreamblade (miniatures game). Not D&D, but were referred to in online articles, with suggestions of how to use with D&D.
My Little Pony: Tales of Equestria
(Note: Potential for connecting with the wider Hasbro Universe.)

D&D Multiverse: Worlds and Meta-Settings (main worlds or planar domains in bold)

Planescape (meta-setting): *Sigil*
Spelljammer (meta-setting): *Rock of Bral*
Chronomancer (meta-setting)
Tangents (meta-setting from Alternity)
Dimension X (meta-setting from d20 Future)

*Abeir-Toril*: The D&D World of Forgotten Realms
​

Abeir (split off from Toril during 4E era)
Toril (during 4E era)

*Oerth*: The D&D World of Greyhawk

Yarth (an alternate Oerth)
Uerth (an alternate Oerth)
Greyhawk 2000 (future timeline)
"Joerth" (unofficial designation for the "joke Greyhawk", seen in the 1988 Castle Greyhawk spoof. Perhaps a part of the "comedic continuity" seen in WotC's licensed Hackmaster spoofs)

The D&D World of *Blackmoor* (was retconned into the ancient past of Mystara, but, as originally printed in OD&D, was not a part of Mystara, and as presented in the 3E Blackmoor line, was not part of Mystara either. So Blackmoor exists in two different WotC continuities. Gygax said that he only borrowed the name for the Blackmoor of Oerth.)

*Krynn*: The D&D World of Dragonlance

various timelines in the River of Time

*Ravenloft*: The Demiplane of Dread

Classic Ravenloft Timeline
Curse of Strahd Timeline (essentially a reboot, combining iconic characters from different eras of the Classic RL Timeline)

The D&D World of *Eberron​*

*Mystara*: The D&D Known World (incl. Red Steel/Savage Coast, Hollow World, Thunder Rift (D&D Black Box setting), Ghyr (setting of the LJN Action Figures), Karawenn (setting of the First Quest novels), Islandia (vaporware); see also Blackmoor)

Urt (Mentzer and Froideval's BECMI setting, with the Master Set world map, and Gold Box cosmology, prior to the map be drastically reconceived in the Voyage of the Princess Ark stories, and the cosmology revised in WotI)
Classic Mystara Timeline (extending all the way to the last products: Joshuan's Almanac and Red Steel/Savage Coast)
"3000 BC Blackmoor Timeline" The Blackmoor adventures were at first presented in DA series and GAZ1 as taking place in 3000 BC, but then in GAZ2 were retconned to 4000 BC.
"AC 1000 Quagmire Timeline". As originally presented, X6 took place c.1000AC, but was retconned in Champions of Mystara to have taken place in the prehistoric past. Reportedly X9: Savage Coast was suggested to be retconned as well.
"AC 1150 X13 Timeline". GAZ7 retconned X13 to happen 150 years in the future, yet PWA1010 and Joshuan's Almanac places it 30-some years in the past)
"AC 1200 Great War Timeline". The Great War of the Desert Nomads event from X4, X5, and X10 was retconned twice: once from c.1000 AC to two hundred years in the future (1200 AC), and then again (in WotI) to 1005-1006 AC.

*Athas*: The D&D World of Dark Sun

Classic Dark Sun Timeline
4E Dark Sun Timeline

*Aebrynis*: The D&D World of Birthright

*Nerath*: The D&D Points of Light World

The D&D World of *Earth* (each Earth-based RPG and d20 Modern campaign model is considered to be a distinct timeline)

D&D Earth (the implicit present-day "non- or low-magical" Earth timeline in which most xD&D cross-overs have occurred (except for the Laterre-Mystara crossovers), such as: where Robilar got his six-shooters, the Wizards Three visit to Wisconin, the Mystaran Immortals visit to Chicago in one of the IM modules, and where the Egyptian and Mesopotamian peoples and pantheons of Toril came from. Urbana Arcana, as the default/core d20M campaign model, and the Historical Reference Guides from 2e, may be the closest representations of this continuity. Other campaign models (such as Boot Hill) may exist "off-screen", but each is assumed to be separate continuity.)
Urban Arcana (d20 Modern campaign model)
Historical Reference Earth (AD&D2e)
Gothic Earth / Masque of the Red Death
Laterre ("Magical Medieval Earth" which contains Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne in place of the French province of Auvergne - in the Dimension of Myth of the Classic D&D Reality.)
Midgard (Earth as perceived by the Norse - mentioned in the CD&D Northlands Gazeteer)
Bacchar (Earth as perceived by the Ancient Greeks - mentioned in Ravenloft)
Boot Hill
Gangbusters
Dawn Patrol
Top Secret/SI
Dark•Matter (Alternity setting, d20M campaign model)
Shadow Chasers (d20M campaign model)
Agents of PSI (d20M campaign model)
Genetech (d20M campaign model)
Magitech (Alternity Universe Book)
Pulp Heroes (d20 mini-game, later a campaign model for d20 Past)
The Seedy Streets of Northport (setting for Pulp Heroes d20 mini-game in Polyhedron Magazine)
Iron Lords of Jupiter (Polyhedron mag)
Shadow Stalkers (d20 Past campaign model)
V is for Victory (d20 Modern)
For Faerie, Queen, and Country (Alternity Universe Book)
Mecha Crusade (d20 Future)
Remember the Alamo (TSR mini-game)
Hi-Jinx (d20 Modern)
Thunderball Rally (d20 Modern)
Tabloid! (Amazing Engine Universe Book)
They've Invaded Pleasantville (Amazing Engine Universe Book)
Icebergs (TSR mini-game)
CyberRave (d20 Cyberscape)
Deathnet (d20 mini-game)
Kromosome (Amazing Engine)
Gamma World (various editions; including Omega World)
The Wasteland (d20 Future)
Atomic Sunrise (d20 Apocalypse)
Earth Inherited (d20 Apocalypse)
Plague World (d20 Apocalypse)
Hallowmere (WotC's flagship novel series of its Mirrorstone young adult imprint. About feys and unfeys of Virginia and Scotland)
Ravenloft: Domininion (novel series set in Earth)

Earth's Solar System or Milky Way Galaxy (Sci-Fi continuities (AFAIK) taking place in (some future version) of the Milky Way Galaxy):


Star Frontiers (also encompassing Star Law campaign model from d20 Future)
Star*Drive (Alternity)
Bughunters (Amazing Engine and d20 Future)
From the Dark Heart of Space (d20 Future)
The Galactos Barrier (Amazing Engine)
Once and Future King (Amazing Engine)
Revolt on Antares (Tom Moldvay's TSR mini-game)
Attack Force (TSR mini-game). Set on Arcturus.

Other Worlds:



Pelinore (house setting of TSR UK's Imagine magazine)
Aquaria (Though it's also Mentzer's person setting, WotC owns the rights to whatever is printed in the TSR Aquarian modules.)
Jakandor
Io's Blood Isles (Council of Wyrms)
City of Manifest: Ghostwalk
Kolhapur: quasi-Asian Indian setting from The Star of Kolhapur for 1e.
Land of Arir: quasi-Arabian setting from I9: Day of Al-Akbar for 2e.
The Realm (of the D&D Cartoon Show, includes Fantasy Forest boardgame and gamebooks)
Empire of Izmer (1st and 2nd D&D Movie; 3rd was set in Nerath)
The Vale (setting of the 1999 D&D Adventure Game)
Pharagos, Aquela, Imperium Romanum, Night, Petroyeska, Mahasara: settings designed by James Wyatt which were featured in DRAGON and POLYHEDRON magazines, or in a WotC web enhancment (Mahasarpa).
Wonderland: 1e cross-over with Alice in Wonderland.
The Dream World of Symslvch (The setting of the Hebrew-language Basic D&D modules.)
Alusia (the world of the TSR DragonQuest RPG)
The world of Role-Aids (TSR purchased these from Mayfair Games)
The world of the Endless Quest and HeartQuest gamebooks. Possibly placeable on Mystara (generic D&D gamebooks) and Oerth (generic AD&D gamebooks), or perhaps a distinct "gamebook world".
The worlds of the generic DUNGEON magazine adventures.
The worlds of the standalone TSR novels (Jewels of the Elvish, etc.)
Dunador (the setting of N3 Destiny of Kings)

I would like to add all of the planets, moons, crystal spheres, planes, and alternate timelines, but that'd be a bigger project.

https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/continuities


----------



## Hussar (Jun 12, 2018)

Kobold Avenger said:


> The D&D Multiverse is not Planescape, this was also clear back even back in 2e when Planescape was published.  In Planescape philosophy and personal agendas matter a lot, and there's a different tone everything takes under Planescape.  It's like the various published campaign settings that take place in Earth, just because one is on Earth doesn't mean they're playing Dark*Matter or Masque of the Red Death.




Meh, hairsplitting.  The second you leave whatever setting you started in, you're stuck in Planescape/Multiverse (because the two are inseparable).  Every module, every guide baselines to the same thing.  You have Asmodeus ruling Hell, you have Demogorgon rooting around in the Abyss with Orcus as the Demon Prince of Undead.  So on and so forth. 

Never minding that in a number of settings, it makes absolutely no sense for these things to even exist.  Why would Krynn need a Hell?  Why would my Viking setting need an Abyss?  But, as soon as we cast Plane Shift, poof, instant Planescape.



DEFCON 1 said:


> Hey, if you want to be constantly miserable about what happens in D&D, that's you're prerogative.  Enjoy your misery.




Not so much miserable as very disappointed.  I haven't bought anything planar for D&D in twenty years or so.  Because I know it's just warmed over Planescape.  No setting is allowed to have a unique cosmology regardless of how much they try, because, again, it all has to be connected to the Great Wheel and all those extra bits and bobs that go with the Great Wheel and Planescape.  So, we can talk about The Gray, or whatever it is that makes Eberron cosmology different, but, at the end of the day, one Plane Shift spell later and we're right back in the middle of Planescape.



Doctor Futurity said:


> Even the Manual of the Planes (in 3rd and 4th edition for sure) had lengthy sections on how to break away from the Planescape Great Wheel, and 4E massively revamped the planes. Even 5E starts off its chapter on the Planes in the DMG by talking about how to build your own and what you need to consider.
> 
> The presentation of the planes has been simultaneously well defined and extremely fluid....it's not described as an effectively infinite realm of existence for nothing, after all....to accommodate literally any interpretation of planar concepts you want.




Yet, despite that, not a single setting or module EVER actually allows you to break away from the Planescape Great Wheel.  Every module, every supplement, right into 5e with Mordenkainen's, we're right back to Blood Wars and Demon Princes.  Whoopee.  4e tried to revamp the planes, and got crucified for it.  To the point where the 4e cosmology and planar elements have been entirely (or mostly entirely) excised from the game in 5e.

Like I said, we're not allowed to have anything but the same warmed over 2e Planescape garbage that has been forced on the game for twenty or thirty years.  Nothing else is acceptable.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 12, 2018)

Coroc said:


> @_*Remathilis*_ So you have got the opinion that DS is fundamentally mechanically different and should either be ist own product or totally watered down to FR Standard (Lol "watered" see what i did there ?), i got that, but what about Krynn?
> 
> Why do you consider this one (DL) so easy compared to DS?
> 
> ...




Caveat: I know a LOT about Eberron, less so about Krynn. Forgive me if my details a bit sketchy...

The Wizards of High Sorcery is a wizard subclass with three variants based on the moons. Each variant controls various elements of the caster's magic (not unlike Circle of the Land for druids). A dragonlance can simply be a legendary magic item that deals massive damage to dragons (not sure player hp to damage is or was ever balanced, but numbers can be modified as needed.) A dragon mount could be represented with a simple variant rule or feat. Kender is a subrace of halfling (I mean, since 3e halflings have basically been more kender than hobbit anyway), minotaur was done in UA already. Knights of Solomnia/Takhisis could be fighter and/or paladin subclasses; dragonborn could be a variant of draconian (as insinuated in the PHB. 

Moreover, what are you *cutting* from the PHB to make Dragonlance work? Half-orcs? Forcing all halflings to take the Kender subrace? Maybe tieflings? (I'm not sure you couldn't find a place for them, what with how often the Abyss is mentioned). You easily have room for all twelve classes (Wiess's 3e Dragonlance found room for the 11 PHB ones, and warlocks work as renegade mages easily enough. 

Eberron? Please. Everything in the 3.5 PHB and 4e PHB 1 & 2 had a home in Eberron. They made Eberron work with the World Axis, it can work with the Great Wheel if they want it to. Their have been attempts at warforged, shifters, and changlings already (Keith Baker's version being a bit better than UA's) as well as dragonmarks (a combo of background and feats) and artificer (already a class). Kalashtar can come when psionics is ready. Literally, "if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron" is a selling point.

My point isn't that ONLY stuff in the Core rules should exist in a setting; that'd be silly. I want muls, kender, warforged, half-vistani, and all the good stuff from the settings there in proper 5e glory. I just don't want stuff arbitrarily cut from the PHB without a damn good reason. So far, I've seen no good reason why any class in the PHB need be cut from any of the seven classic settings. I've seen some better arguments for cutting a few minor races and replacing them with world specific (kender only halflings, no half-orcs but muls/calibans/minotaurs taking the strong/monstrous role). Backgrounds and equipment can be tailored to the world as well. Settings EXPLAND and COLOR the base game, they don't SHRINK it.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 12, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> The problem is - what customer is this directed at?




Its a sampler platter. It gives a new player enough of a taste of a world to decide if she likes it and either hunt down older stuff on DMs Guild or Wikis or demand more coverage later. It gives experienced players enough conversion and meta update to adapt their old stuff. It gives homebrewers new ideas to pillage. And it gives a basis for the DM Guild and Adepts to go wild and in depth (search Ravenloft on DM's Guild and compare how it spawned the 5e conversion off a single domain in Ravenloft). Doing it as a single book spreads the risk among the fanbase of all seven settings (an Eberron player and a Dark Sun player both purchase the same book for their update, which is safer than an Eberron book alone that doesn't appeal to the DS player and vice versa). A module gives enough of a flavor sample and could be tied to a bigger story (Modron March?) or run separate (Yawning Portal). And PDFs like MTG's Plane Shift give enough info at a low cost that they can later gauge interest and produce content for it as needed.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 12, 2018)

So, trawling the thread on the Giant in the Playground forums about the same article, somebody reported on "good authority" that he heard the next thing is a full-blown Magic: The Gathering RPG product. He wasn't happy about this, but add that to the rumor pile.


----------



## gyor (Jun 12, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> So, trawling the thread on the Giant in the Playground forums about the same article, somebody reported on "good authority" that he heard the next thing is a full-blown Magic: The Gathering RPG product. He wasn't happy about this, but add that to the rumor pile.




 This is a possiblity. It will anger alot of Traditional D&D fans if Magics settings get support before traditional none FR settings. Maybe both will see support. Honestly one of the products is D&D: Magic the Gathering, which I do support, how do they fit the Magic the Gathering multiverse within the D&D multiverse and will the relationship be reciperical, say D&D or Forgotten Realms decks for Magic the Gathering? (D&D power sources being linked to colours perhaps, Black=Shadow, Red=Arcane, White=Divine, Blue=Psionic, Green=Primal).


----------



## gyor (Jun 12, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Caveat: I know a LOT about Eberron, less so about Krynn. Forgive me if my details a bit sketchy...
> 
> The Wizards of High Sorcery is a wizard subclass with three variants based on the moons. Each variant controls various elements of the caster's magic (not unlike Circle of the Land for druids). A dragonlance can simply be a legendary magic item that deals massive damage to dragons (not sure player hp to damage is or was ever balanced, but numbers can be modified as needed.) A dragon mount could be represented with a simple variant rule or feat. Kender is a subrace of halfling (I mean, since 3e halflings have basically been more kender than hobbit anyway), minotaur was done in UA already. Knights of Solomnia/Takhisis could be fighter and/or paladin subclasses; dragonborn could be a variant of draconian (as insinuated in the PHB.
> 
> ...




 Shifters stopped being Eberron specific in 4e, most they were added to the Forgotten Realms (especiallt Dambrath and The Great Dale) and Nerath, I don't know about 4e Darksun.


----------



## gyor (Jun 12, 2018)

If one of the products is a merged Planescape and Spelljammer Product what do they call it, Planejammer? Spellscape?


----------



## Doctor Futurity (Jun 12, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Meh, hairsplitting.  The second you leave whatever setting you started in, you're stuck in Planescape/Multiverse (because the two are inseparable).  Every module, every guide baselines to the same thing.  You have Asmodeus ruling Hell, you have Demogorgon rooting around in the Abyss with Orcus as the Demon Prince of Undead.  So on and so forth.
> 
> Never minding that in a number of settings, it makes absolutely no sense for these things to even exist.  Why would Krynn need a Hell?  Why would my Viking setting need an Abyss?  But, as soon as we cast Plane Shift, poof, instant Planescape.
> 
> ...




Old examples: Dark Sun, Birthright, Jakandar, Spelljammer (sorta), Night of the Comet.

Newer Examples: Eberron, 4E's PoL Cosmology, 4E Dark Sun, a billion 3PP products

Current Examples: I agree, current D&D is focused on Forgotten Realms, and arguably the default cosmology is the Planescape cosmology, but this is an issue of limited releases and tighter focus. If you're looking for "D&D without the Realms/Planescape cosmology" then there are hundreds of 3PP out there, the majority of which do not touch upon canonical Planescape. 

Now, you will be tempted to denigrate the 3PP products, because you're on a high horse here and the point is not to be convinced you might be narrow in your vision but to convince others that your vision is unassailable...that's fine. But I've been running this game since 1980 weekly and I have barely ever used Planescape or the default cosmology as is, except when I feel like it, and some of my own settings aren't even remotely close to the "core." So I get where you're coming from: you want official WotC product that came out today or tomorrow that specifically removes the Planescape/Manual of the Planes components of the core setting from sight and somehow then bestows upon you an entirely new and different cosmology that you can use whole cloth (because it's in a module, see; if you were looking to do your own thing those tools have already been provided countless times) and that it meets your specific desires. This is an impossibly tall order with WotC's focus on prodividing carefully curated product that caters to a lineage of D&D experience right now, and is ironic anyway since this is a game that provides all the tools you need to do whatever you want, your own way, as you see fit. 

But I am not trying to convince you, I know that's not what you want. I will merely state that I feel your pain, and maybe one day you'll find what you're looking for and can stop being angry at D&D.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 12, 2018)

gyor said:


> This is a possiblity. It will anger alot of Traditional D&D fans if Magics settings get support before traditional none FR settings. Maybe both will see support. Honestly one of the products is D&D: Magic the Gathering, which I do support, how do they fit the Magic the Gathering multiverse within the D&D multiverse and will the relationship be reciperical, say D&D or Forgotten Realms decks for Magic the Gathering? (D&D power sources being linked to colours perhaps, Black=Shadow, Red=Arcane, White=Divine, Blue=Psionic, Green=Primal).




Yeah, curious how they would approach it, should that be something they make. The July announcement date would fit with M:tG goings-on, with new product cycles for M:tG keying in this Summer.


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 12, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Meh, hairsplitting.  The second you leave whatever setting you started in, you're stuck in Planescape/Multiverse (because the two are inseparable).




What?!! Put the 1e Manual of the Planes next to the Planescape campaign boxed set and they are indistinguishable? Seriously?So tone, flavor, theme, etc. has nothing to do with a setting? I don’t agree with everything Kobold Avenger says, but this is exactly like saying every game that happens on Earth is indistinguishable because it uses the same map. That’s just ridiculous.  



Hussar said:


> So, we can talk about The Gray, or whatever it is that makes Eberron cosmology different, but, at the end of the day, one Plane Shift spell later and we're right back in the middle of Planescape.




Are you familiar with Eberron? The way you word this, it sure doesn’t sound like it. Because the 3.5 Eberron products did exactly what you are asking for and had a non-Great Wheel cosmology. If you Plane Shift out of Eberron, there’s other planes you would go to NOT the Great Wheel. It’s all very clearly explained right there in the original hardcover. The only issue is that they didn’t do much with it (Keith Baker has said its the top of his list if they ever open up the setting on DMs Guild), not that they didn’t offer an alternative. Eberron absolutely 100% disproves this thing you are claiming as fact. It never used the Great Wheel or any of its history and had an alternative in the entire product line. 



Hussar said:


> 4e tried to revamp the planes, and got crucified for it.  To the point where the 4e cosmology and planar elements have been entirely (or mostly entirely) excised from the game in 5e.




[-]There’s a wee bit of difference between “offering an alternative” and “throwing away everything that came before.” I actually agree with you that there should be alternatives. But 4e’s forcing its own version on everything with no other alternatives is what a lot of people had a problem with and the same thing you are complaining about. [/-] (Zeromaru X corrected me below.)

But, yes, I agree that they should explore alternatives more, but the claiming they never did and everything planar they have ever done is indistinguishable from Planescape is factually wrong and pretty absurd hyperbole.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 12, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> .
> There’s a wee bit of difference between “offering an alternative” and “throwing away everything that came before.” I actually agree with you that there should be alternatives. But 4e’s forcing its own version on everything with no other alternatives is what a lot of people had a problem with and the same thing you are complaining about.




I begining to think people have not actually read the 4e books. 

Yeah, 4e did used the World Axis as the "default" cosmology (you can blame that to Forgotten Realms, BTW; read certain interview in Dragon 370), but they did offered alternatives. A Great Wheel conversion to 4e is right there in that edition's Manual of the Planes, and the World Axis was created to be compatible with Planescape. 

So, yeah, the World Axis was the default, but not the only one cosmology in 4e.

I do agree with you in the other points. But, we have to take into account the new selling philosophy of WotC.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 12, 2018)

kenmarable said:


> Are you familiar with Eberron? The way you word this, it sure doesn’t sound like it. Because the 3.5 Eberron products did exactly what you are asking for and had a non-Great Wheel cosmology. If you Plane Shift out of Eberron, there’s other planes you would go to NOT the Great Wheel. It’s all very clearly explained right there in the original hardcover. The only issue is that they didn’t do much with it (Keith Baker has said its the top of his list if they ever open up the setting on DMs Guild), not that they didn’t offer an alternative. Eberron absolutely 100% disproves this thing you are claiming as fact. It never used the Great Wheel or any of its history and had an alternative in the entire product line.




Voila, for cosmic truth!


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 12, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> I begining to think people have not actually read the 4e books.
> 
> Yeah, 4e did used the World Axis as the "default" cosmology (you can blame that to Forgotten Realms, BTW; read certain interview in Dragon 370), but they did offered alternatives. A Great Wheel conversion to 4e is right there in that edition's Manual of the Planes, and the World Axis was created to be compatible with Planescape.
> 
> ...




I stand corrected.  I was remembering how much it permeated and redefinied a lot of the monsters as well, but 4e is certainly a weaker area for me. Thanks for the correction!


----------



## Jester David (Jun 12, 2018)

Polyhedral Columbia said:


> The D&D World of *Blackmoor* (was retconned into the ancient past of Mystara, but, as originally printed in OD&D, was not a part of Mystara, and as presented in the 3E Blackmoor line, was not part of Mystara either. So Blackmoor exists in two different WotC continuities. Gygax said that he only borrowed the name for the Blackmoor of Oerth.)



I think Arneson took the rights for Blackmoor to another company during the 3e era...


----------



## Jester David (Jun 12, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> So, trawling the thread on the Giant in the Playground forums about the same article, somebody reported on "good authority" that he heard the next thing is a full-blown Magic: The Gathering RPG product. He wasn't happy about this, but add that to the rumor pile.



It's highly unlikely. But probably just as valid as any of the other rumours going around...


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 12, 2018)

Yeah. That company did created new Blackmoor's products under the official licenses,  though. 

There is a whole d20 Blackmoor line,  including a living campaign,  and 4e did got a Blackmoor campaign book (I loved that book).

Sadly, the 4e line got cancelled after Arnesson died, and the rights got so convoluted that technically no one can use Blackmoor anymore. We will not get a 5e Blackmoor, and that is sad, seeing Blackmoor's relevance in D&D history.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 12, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Caveat: I know a LOT about Eberron, less so about Krynn. Forgive me if my details a bit sketchy...
> 
> The Wizards of High Sorcery is a wizard subclass with three variants based on the moons. Each variant controls various elements of the caster's magic (not unlike Circle of the Land for druids). A dragonlance can simply be a legendary magic item that deals massive damage to dragons (not sure player hp to damage is or was ever balanced, but numbers can be modified as needed.) A dragon mount could be represented with a simple variant rule or feat. Kender is a subrace of halfling (I mean, since 3e halflings have basically been more kender than hobbit anyway), minotaur was done in UA already. Knights of Solomnia/Takhisis could be fighter and/or paladin subclasses; dragonborn could be a variant of draconian (as insinuated in the PHB.
> 
> Moreover, what are you *cutting* from the PHB to make Dragonlance work? Half-orcs? Forcing all halflings to take the Kender subrace? Maybe tieflings? (I'm not sure you couldn't find a place for them, what with how often the Abyss is mentioned). You easily have room for all twelve classes (Wiess's 3e Dragonlance found room for the 11 PHB ones, and warlocks work as renegade mages easily enough.



I think if there's room to fit in a class, it's probably a good idea. If not...
Dragonlance really added a lot of flavour to the existing classes. Warlocks and sorcerers fit less well in the classic era. That's something they can include in a sidebar and leave for individual DMs to allow or ban. Ditto dragonborn, tieflings, goliaths, catfolk, etc. 

The three orders of High Sorcerery in Dragonlance are less subclasses and more an organization. Each of the eight schools of magic are associated with a colour of robes and pushed to one alignment or another. It's an additive mechanic, as it ties into the phase of the moon, which increases or decreases spellcasting power. Not sure how that would work in 5e...

Really, what Dragonlance needs is an expansion of the organisation and faction rules. Examples of bonuses for gaining renown with the Orders of High Sorcerer, the Knights of Solamnia, the Legion of Steel, or other groups. 
After all, Knight of Solamnia is probably closer to a prestige class than a subclass. It's something you could do if you're a fighter or paladin or ranger or even a valor bard. Making it into something else added overtop of classes works.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 12, 2018)

Jester David said:


> It's highly unlikely. But probably just as valid as any of the other rumours going around...




Don't see as it is all that unlikely, given that they have been dipping their toes in the M:tG waters bit by bit for two years now, and have been surveying M:tG fans for their reactions and what they would like to see in a paid product almost as long. 5E M:tG sooner or latter is probable, we'll see soon enough if that related to their 3018 product plans.


----------



## Hussar (Jun 12, 2018)

Doctor Futurity said:


> Old examples: Dark Sun, Birthright, Jakandar, Spelljammer (sorta), Night of the Comet.
> 
> Newer Examples: Eberron, 4E's PoL Cosmology, 4E Dark Sun, a billion 3PP products
> 
> ...




Oh, I agree with all of this.  I run Primeval Thule currently.  I ran Scarred Lands in the past.  I have pretty much abandoned all WotC settings except for mining stuff for my own games.  Which means, at the end of the day, a lot of books just get left by the wayside because, well, they just aren't to my taste.  

I don't see why it's such a tall order.  There's no particular reason that Planescape/Great Wheel has to completely dominate all planar stuff.  There's a reason I have no real beef with Spelljammer, for example.  SJ is a pretty much self contained setting that doesn't really impact any other settings.  It's not like we're bombing in Giff into Eberron.  But, we are given books filled with Tieflings, Assimar etc. that are indelibly linked to Planescape/Great Wheel.  

I guess, at the end of the day, I just don't understand.  We have a bajillion settings out there.  But, again, one Plane Shift spell and poof, we're dead center of Great Wheel/Planescape.  You can argue Eberron all you like, but, again, if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron.  Isn't that the tagline?  So, yup, we've got Orcus and Teneberous and everything else shoehorned into the setting even when it makes zero sense.  

My Planar guide would be an actual guide.  Here's half a dozen different cosmologies you can use as baselines and off you go - create a cosmology that fits with your setting.  So, maybe demons are from the Abyss.  Maybe Demons are from the Gray.  Maybe they're from another planet and they aren't actually "demons" at all, just aliens.  Whatever.  But, if I want anything from WotC, I have to accept that it's Planescape uber alles.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 12, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> Don't see as it is all that unlikely, given that they have been dipping their toes in the M:tG waters bit by bit for two years now, and have been surveying M:tG fans for their reactions and what they would like to see in a paid product almost as long. 5E M:tG sooner or latter is probable, we'll see soon enough if that related to their 3018 product plans.




People have been predicting a crossover of MtG and D&D pretty much since WotC bought the company. They've done the fun little PDFs (which likely exist because a former D&D team member got moved to MtG and got creative). I can't imagine the fan reaction will be positive if they do a MtG campaign setting hardcover in place of any of the other classic settings...


----------



## kenmarable (Jun 12, 2018)

(Snipped because there’s no point in arguing to prove what’s already clearly printed in the books)

So in other news, a Magic setting would be interesting to me for the novelty of it especially since I know little about it. And as for unhappy fans, no matter what is released, there will be a lot of unhappy and happy fans. What’s perfect for some is absolute garbage for others.


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 12, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> the rights got so convoluted that technically no one can use Blackmoor anymore. We will not get a 5e Blackmoor, and that is sad, seeing Blackmoor's relevance in D&D history.




What's your source for this?

Though I haven't followed all the details, my basic understanding is that Arneson sold the TSR the rights to Blackmoor when he left TSR, like Gygax sold Greyhawk. And that WotC holds the name "Blackmoor", plus the material published in the few TSR products. Basically, my understanding is WotC owns the Blackmoor IP. In order to publish the 3E and 4E Blackmoor texts, he (and his partners at Zeitgeist Games) had to have a license from WotC.

If he (now his Estate) wanted to publish Blackmoor stuff without a license, he would've had to have filed off the "Product Identity" (proper names), like Gygax did with Castle Zagyg.

Blackmoor is mentioned in the 5E PHB (or is it the DMG?). Unless you know differently, I see no reason why WotC couldn't freely use all of the material in the TSR Blackmoor books and also the material in the Zeitgeist books.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 12, 2018)

Polyhedral Columbia said:


> What's your source for this?
> 
> Though I haven't followed all the details, my basic understanding is that Arneson sold the TSR the rights to Blackmoor when he left TSR, like Gygax sold Greyhawk. And that WotC holds the name "Blackmoor", plus the material published in the few TSR products. Basically, my understanding is WotC owns the Blackmoor IP. In order to publish the 3E and 4E Blackmoor texts, he (and his partners at Zeitgeist Games) had to have a license from WotC.
> 
> ...



I learned about this while hunting for info about the "Age of the Wolf",  the planned 4e product line that got cancelled. It seems that the licences with WotC expired and, at least at the time, weren't renegotiated. I don't now the status of Blackmoor right now, though. 

Here is the source, btw:
http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/03/end-officially.html?m=1


----------



## Dungeonosophy (Jun 12, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> I learned about this while hunting for info about the "Age of the Wolf",  the planned 4e product line that got cancelled. It seems that the licences with WotC expired and, at least at the time, weren't renegotiated. I don't now the status of Blackmoor right now, though.
> 
> Here is the source, btw:
> http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2010/03/end-officially.html?m=1




Right, all the source said (I know Havard) is that WotC decided not to renew Zeitgeist's right to use WotC's Blackmoor IP. AFAIK, in the run-up to 5E, WotC cancelled all such licenses, and, unlike the 3E era, doesn't license out its settings. Similarly, Bruce Heard tried to purchase a license to do Mystara 5E, but WotC wouldn't do it - even though Bruce was the main designer for TSR's Mystara line back in the day.

I looked in one of the Zeitgeist PDFs and it says:

"Based on the original Blackmoor setting, associated character and places owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Used with permission, all rights reserved ©1975 Wizards."

Yeah, Zeitgeist was working on another book (Age of the Wolf) for the Blackmoor line, but it wasn't ready by the time the license expired. So that book is not coming out. That's all.

That doesn't mean that Blackmoor is tangled in some complex legal limbo. It just means that WotC's policy is to not license out any settings whatsoever. (Except through DM's Guild.)


----------



## Coroc (Jun 12, 2018)

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]  "Moreover, what are you *cutting* from the PHB to make Dragonlance work? Half-orcs? Forcing all halflings to take the Kender subrace? Maybe tieflings? "

An alternate Setting is different, by cutting things and more importantly by adding things.

With DS it is so easy to do most of the things as refluff of existing races

Humans can stay as they are
Halflings ditto
Elves, use the Wood elf 
Halfelves can stay as they are
Dwarves use the hill dwarves
Mul use the Halforcs stats, give Advantage vs. Exhaustion
Halfgiants use the Mountain Dwarves stats give Advantage to strength
Thrikkreen take Dragonborn breathweapon stats for a poison bite, give them +2 dex and +1 wis and some jumping ability

So thats just a Little re using and refluffing there i could imagine you would even be fine with just that.

So now for classes that is a bit trickier:

Cleric use ligth (Fire) war (earth) healing (water) tempest (air) add some elemental stuff maybe the material for the weapons then you are done
Fighter use cahmpion
Gladiator use battlemaster
Rogue use anything but arcane trickster, rogue assasin is the athasian bard
Preserver: Use any wizard but a necromant do soem mechanic for preserving / defiling
Defiler use a wild Magic sorcerer 
Templar use a Warlock with Sorcerer King as Patron or a favored Soul like sorcerer who gets his spells from the sorcerer king
Druids of the land circle are no prob at all
Ranger as they are

The rest is not needed for a good dark sun experience

With inferior weapon and armor:

Use the normal stats for inferior materials and increase the die for steel weapons, inferior breaks on a DC10 check when you rolled a natural 1 on an attack

Armor: Be inventive, use armor class 17 for mekillot plate e.g., inferior material should be 1 Point worse in ac

Metal items are 1000x more expensive of course

Ok what is missing? Psionics fleshed out of course baut thats adding.
Also there should be a feat for wild Talent.

So here you go, its just some lines of text and you got a baseline, all you gotta do is fluff it out. I still can use most parts of the core rules, and i do not have much altered mechanics, i do not even Need exta tables for metal vs Obsidian axe the rule is easy to remember.

For everything you are missing, like paladins and gnomes eventually, something new is there. I think you consider this more complicated than me.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 12, 2018)

Polyhedral Columbia said:


> Right, all the source said (I know Havard) is that WotC decided not to renew Zeitgeist's right to use WotC's Blackmoor IP. AFAIK, in the run-up to 5E, WotC cancelled all such licenses, and, unlike the 3E era, doesn't license out its settings. Similarly, Bruce Heard tried to purchase a license to do Mystara 5E, but WotC wouldn't do it - even though Bruce was the main designer for TSR's Mystara line back in the day.
> 
> I looked in one of the Zeitgeist PDFs and it says:
> 
> ...



Thanks for clarifying. That is the problem of self-learned english.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 12, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Its a sampler platter. It gives a new player enough of a taste of a world to decide if she likes it and either hunt down older stuff on DMs Guild or Wikis or demand more coverage later.



I do not believe "sampler platters" attract new gamers. 

I know I would not look twice at a perfunctory summary of this new setting called "Dark Sun" (or Eberron, or Birthright) if I hadn't head of it before. 

And I believe the attraction of stuffy old AD&D modules (with incomprehensible, more or less, game statistics) is way overrated. 

No, sampler platters is meant for grognards. And not all of them - just the ones needing official stamps of approval. The ones with energy to convert old material don't need it. The ones with no energy can't use it, since what they need is full 5e conversions.

The opening up of the setting for DMsG publication will be useful, I'll grant you that. But there's a reason WotC have prohibited non-Realms material. I believe the main reason to lift the ban is D&D's immense success - that a sprinkling of Greyhawk (or whatever settings they plan) can no longer threaten their overall plan of "the D&D setting" (where the franchise will be set).

Talking for myself, I know what I need to get excited by a new (or "new") setting: a lavish product line from a publisher proud to serve it, confident in its core value to the brand. I could get excited by Dragonlance or whatever settings MtG can bring to the table (I haven't played Magic in a very long time, way before there were any talk of "settings"), but what I want and need is what I believe most new gamers want and need: a full campaign guide, brimming with detail, a player's guide with a load of options to offset any prohibited or discouraged PHB content, and a decent set of adventures.

Nothing about this news suggests WotC will commit to these settings even near that degree. Subsequently I believe it is improper to get your hopes up for any substantial resurgence.

To end on a positive note: the very best case scenario is if WotC is partnering up with a third party publisher to bring one of these setting to life. If there is a middle ground to be had between the 3PP taking too much money and being burdened with too much financial risk.

Thank you for reading.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 12, 2018)

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]

Tbh. the way wotc does it atm, i am satisfied with a rather minimalised solution. They tend to rather serve to the modern Player (which is partially understandable from an economic point of view) and I do not want them to destroy the old Settings vibe by fitting them into all nowadays asumptions.

So in the end i would just like to have an idea how they would officially resolve the hardest Problem childs, like there is 

DS

- Psionics
-Halfgiants
-Thrikreen

- Elemental Clerics


Eberron:
- Warforged
- Artificers

Krynn:

-Dragonlances
-Lunar Magic
etc.

And thats about it. Not that i am not perfectly capable to solve these things on my own, like e.g. check out my previous post, or that i need any official confirmation,
 i just want to see to which ideas they as "professionals" get, in contrary to the Forums here, maybe it is something interesting  i did not think about yet.


----------



## Hussar (Jun 12, 2018)

Honestly, I do hope that whatever setting they do put forth, they do so in the same way that Ravenloft was put into 5e - as a campaign, and not a setting.  I'm being completely and utterly selfish here and darnit, I demand that WotC cater to me.    But, frankly, I have pretty much zero interest in a "setting line".  Give me a one and done campaign like the recent Ravenloft and I'm far, far more easily sold on whatever setting you want to pitch.

Heck, I'm even going to buy the new AP when it comes out in September.  That's bloody near a first for me in all the years I've been gaming.  Not buying an AP, I've done that before, but, buying a Forgotten Realms AP?  Yup, that will be a first.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 12, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> They made Eberron work with the World Axis, it can work with the Great Wheel if they want it to.



It honestly didn't work that well when WotC attempted to shove the World Axis into Eberron, and a lot of Eberron fans weren't particularly happy with it. I don't see the Great Wheel working for Eberron, especially since it would break the great conceit of the setting: Baker's Dozen. 



> Settings EXPLAND and COLOR the base game, they don't SHRINK it.



You can EXPAND and COLOR the base game while also SHRINKING elements of the game, including player options. These are not mutually exclusive perspectives here. 



Remathilis said:


> Literally, "if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron" is a selling point.





Hussar said:


> You can argue Eberron all you like, but, again, if it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron.  Isn't that the tagline?  So, yup, we've got Orcus and Teneberous and everything else shoehorned into the setting even when it makes zero sense.



This catchphrase has a more restricted sense in Eberron than you both think it does: 


> *1. If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron.* A monster or spell or magic item from the core rulebooks might feature a twist or two to account for Eberron’s tone and attitude, but otherwise everything in the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual has a place somewhere in Eberron. Also, this is the first D&D setting built  entirely  from  the  v.3.5 rules,  which  enabled  us  to blend rules and story in brand-new ways. (Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 6)



It's not much about cosmology (i.e., the Great Wheel), particular entities (e.g., Lloth, Orcus, Vecna, etc.), or verbatim entries (e.g., CE red dragons) but about broadly using core rulebook tangibles (e.g., player options, spells, magic items, monsters, etc.). I don't think that Orcus is ever named in any Eberron core book or supplement. You can use Orcus, but that does not mean that you should, at least not without "a twist or two to account for Eberron's tone and attitude." Tiamat, for example, does exist in Eberron, but she's a different sort of character than how she often appears outside of the Eberron mythos. 

-------- 

WotC utilizing Magic the Gathering for a setting seems like an all too obvious move in hindsight. I would prefer that D&D supported some of their other settings first, but this is simply good cross-brand promotion on the part of WotC.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 12, 2018)

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] exactly that.

Eberron has colored Dragons, but they are not necessary of eveil alignment. They got Orc druids. Hobgoblins, Kobolds can peacefully roam around in cities. Drow revere scorpions instead of Spiders. So many things are there but most with a Twist. 

Fluffwise it may be the Setting which is hardest to converse, e.g. you just cannot pick the Monster manual and select a red Dragon as the next oponent because chances are that he is one of the good guys. 

So that is totally against the core rules by [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]  Definition.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 12, 2018)

Jester David said:


> People have been predicting a crossover of MtG and D&D pretty much since WotC bought the company. They've done the fun little PDFs (which likely exist because a former D&D team member got moved to MtG and got creative). I can't imagine the fan reaction will be positive if they do a MtG campaign setting hardcover in place of any of the other classic settings...




People have been predicting it because it would make major money, so continuing to predict it doesn't seem unsafe. There are several bits and bobs that might point to this being plausible:

- James Wyatt, a member of the M:tG team now, co-wrote last months UA on Centaurs & Minotaurs. When pressed on how these races were different from the MM versions, Crawford said on Twitter that they "weren't the same Centaur." Maybe they we're testing out a M:tG set of races.

- July announcement, which coincides with the release of the Dominara art book and a bunch of other M:tG kerfluffle from WotC. Good time to announce "we are releasing an anniversary M:tG RPG using 5E rules!"

-If the book was coming, technically, from the Magic team even if mainly written by D&D guys, then the booklist trawling might have missed it.

As to angering the fans, well, I'm not sure how big a worry that might be. Bit, given thatany people are reading Stewart as saying there are a couple things coming this Summer, maybe they are going to put out test docs for a couple settings on DMs Guild or some such.

We'll know soon enough.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 12, 2018)

I wouldn't object to a M:tG campaign setting. Anything that isn't pseudo-medieval would be welcome at this point.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 12, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> I wouldn't object to a M:tG campaign setting. Anything that isn't pseudo-medieval would be welcome at this point.




Thing is, there isn't *one* M:tG setting. There are something like 15-20 planes with major expansions set on them, plus numerous ones referenced in sets like Unstable, Planechase,  Magic: Origins, and so on. We have Dominaria (which used to be the main one), Rabiah (Arabian Nights), Rath (Tempest block, absorbed into Dominaria), Mercadia, Mirrodin/New Phyrexia, Kamigawa, Ravnica, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Alara (which in turn is made up of five different "shards" that each miss two colors of mana), Zendikar, Innistrad, Theros, Tarkir, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, and Ixalan. There are certainly some commonalities between these settings, but also many, many differences. The elves of Ravnica are not the same as those of Lorwyn, and the goblins of Kamigawa are not the same as those of Mercadia.

And Wizards works through these settings at a tremendous pace, about two per year (although they mix in some returning ones as well - out of the planes listed above, Dominaria, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Zendikar, and Innistrad have had 2 or more blocks set there). That would make it hard to do a D&D/Magic crossover product that would stay relevant very long.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 12, 2018)

True, but just one of those would serve as a crossover event.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 12, 2018)

Staffan said:


> And Wizards works through these settings at a tremendous pace, about two per year (although they mix in some returning ones as well - out of the planes listed above, Dominaria, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Zendikar, and Innistrad have had 2 or more blocks set there). That would make it hard to do a D&D/Magic crossover product that would stay relevant very long.




I agree there are a lot of worlds.  So I would focus on the "core" of the setting first.

Re above:  I would not be concerned at all with staying "relevant" as blocks get released.  All I am looking for and would be happy with, is a core setting and framework that mixes DnD and MtG.

After all, one day after they released such a setting, I would likely have added my own plane or two to the setting.  And NPC Planeswalkers.  Huzzah!


----------



## gyor (Jun 12, 2018)

If they did a MtG book or product, it would likely focus on the planes we've already seen, plus the core, with maybe blurbs about the rest. I don't think each plane will get its own setting book any more then every domain in Ravenloft got its own setting book.

 In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the MtG D&D guide included the previous MtG D&D setting guides to specific MtG planes, plus a few more within it, and blurbs on the rest, leaving it to DMSGUILD to fill in the rest. WotC likes to recycle in their products.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 12, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> I agree there are a lot of worlds.  So I would focus on the "core" of the setting first.
> 
> Re above:  I would not be concerned at all with staying "relevant" as blocks get released.  All I am looking for and would be happy with, is a core setting and framework that mixes DnD and MtG.
> 
> After all, one day after they released such a setting, I would likely have added my own plane or two to the setting.  And NPC Planeswalkers.  Huzzah!




The main thing would be to capture M:tG specific elements that transcend set, like the color system. Get that down, and the rules can remain relevant over time.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 12, 2018)

Baldman Games has some sort of Moonshae Campaign Guide coming out in some format.

https://twitter.com/Eric_Menge/status/1006580113213935617


----------



## Staffan (Jun 12, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> I agree there are a lot of worlds.  So I would focus on the "core" of the setting first.




Thing is, MtG doesn't really have a core - not anymore. It used to be Dominaria, but until this year's nostalgia-focused expansion set, the last time Magic went to Dominaria was Time Spiral block which was over a decade ago. The commonalities are mostly in the colors themselves - both in what they can do (e.g. Green having big creatures, pump effects, and land ramping) and what they represent (Green represents, among other things, growth). That kind of thing would be hard to transfer over to D&D without rewriting it completely, moreso than even Dark Sun.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 12, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> Baldman Games has some sort of Moonshae Campaign Guide coming out in some format.
> 
> https://twitter.com/Eric_Menge/status/1006580113213935617



Now that is intriguing. Is WotC going to farm out Forgotten Realms regions to 3rd parties? That would be an interesting and welcome development, as long as that are done well!


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 12, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> Now that is intriguing. Is WotC going to farm out Forgotten Realms regions to 3rd parties? That would be an interesting and welcome development, as long as that are done well!




I think WotC is probably granting license.  I think they're starting to work out where they want to build APs, and are willing to let others play with other areas on a case by case basis.


----------



## Staffan (Jun 12, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> Now that is intriguing. Is WotC going to farm out Forgotten Realms regions to 3rd parties? That would be an interesting and welcome development, as long as that are done well!




You also have this being released via the DM's Guild.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 12, 2018)

Staffan said:


> You also have this being released via the DM's Guild.




Ooh.  That's interesting.  This setting was release for AL use for Game Hole Con.  I didn't expect a campaign guide.  Super interesting.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 13, 2018)

That's two settings, right?  Game over.  Nothing to see here.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 13, 2018)

Coroc said:


> [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] exactly that.
> 
> Eberron has colored Dragons, but they are not necessary of eveil alignment. They got Orc druids. Hobgoblins, Kobolds can peacefully roam around in cities. Drow revere scorpions instead of Spiders. So many things are there but most with a Twist.
> 
> ...




Except its not. 

Remember, a world COLORS the core rules. Dragons not necessarily being Evil colors the perception, but it doesn't change either the mechanics or the assumptions of dragons. You're not saying they are 10,000 feet tall, covered in pink fur, breathe hot buttered rum as a breath weapon and can only talk sdrawkcab, they are still dragons with a potentially different outlook. Drow might patriarchal scorpion-worshipping jungle-dwellers, but they are still majority EVIL and fill the same general antagonistic niche the MM ones do. 

I get most people want to represent my point as "The PHB is inflexible and ALL games must obey it", but its a lot more nuanced than that. To whit.

Player: Hi, I'm new to this group but I have my PHB. What are we playing?
DM: This game is set in Eberron.
Player: Oh, Ok. I wasn't expecting that. I made a halfling rogue...
DM: That's OK! You can play a halfling, they tend to be nomadic dinosaur riders, but some live in cities like everyone else, or are scouts...
Player:  Wait, did you say DINOSAUR RIDER?!?
DM: Yeah, they use small ones as mounts. 
Player: That's cool! I want a dinosaur mount? Can I get one?
Sure, you'd need to talk to House Vadalis to buy a mount...
Player: House Vadalis? 
DM: Yeah, houses control various trades in Eberron, each house is made up of an extended family, usually by race...
Player:  Are their halflings ones?
DM:  Sure. House Jorasco are healers, and House Ghallandra are hospitalers.
Player: Cool, I want to be from House Ghallandra and maybe I'm a rogue because I stole money from guests or something...
DM:  Sure, we'll hammer those details out.

Compare to...
Player: Hi, I'm new to this group but I have my PHB. What are we playing?
DM: This game is set in Dark Sun.
Player: Oh, Ok. I wasn't expecting that. I made a tiefling monk...
DM: Sorry, but tieflings don't exist in Dark Sun as its removed from the planes. No plane-touched races do. And Monks aren't part of Dark Sun's feel and they aren't hampered by primitive equipment. Sorry, you'll need a new PC.
Player: Oh, uh. Can I be a half-orc or a dragonborn? How about something like a bard or warlock?
DM: Sorry, neither of those races exist, and bards are really rogues with the assassin subclass and warlocks are all Templars. You can be a bug-person or a half-dwarf!
Player: No, that's fine, I'll play a human fighter.
DM: OK. Keep in mind you can only be a champion or a battlemaster, as there are no samurai, cavaliers, arcane archers, or eldritch knights on Athas. You can take Psychic Warrior though!
Player: Actually, I think the local game store is hosting Friday Night Magic. I just got a new merfolk deck I want to try. Thanks anyway...

Both worlds created characters that would fit their setting; but one did it by offering interesting additions and changes, the other just kept restricting the player's options to ones that "fit". One feels welcoming, the other gatekeeping.


----------



## gyor (Jun 13, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Except its not.
> 
> Remember, a world COLORS the core rules. Dragons not necessarily being Evil colors the perception, but it doesn't change either the mechanics or the assumptions of dragons. You're not saying they are 10,000 feet tall, covered in pink fur, breathe hot buttered rum as a breath weapon and can only talk sdrawkcab, they are still dragons with a potentially different outlook. Drow might patriarchal scorpion-worshipping jungle-dwellers, but they are still majority EVIL and fill the same general antagonistic niche the MM ones do.
> 
> ...




 Darksun is not intended to be newbie friendly as say FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or heck even Eberron or Planescape. Darksun is for those bored with more typical settings.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 13, 2018)

Staffan said:


> Thing is, MtG doesn't really have a core - not anymore. It used to be Dominaria, but until this year's nostalgia-focused expansion set, the last time Magic went to Dominaria was Time Spiral block which was over a decade ago. The commonalities are mostly in the colors themselves - both in what they can do (e.g. Green having big creatures, pump effects, and land ramping) and what they represent (Green represents, among other things, growth). That kind of thing would be hard to transfer over to D&D without rewriting it completely, moreso than even Dark Sun.




I've liked that the Plane Shift articles have mostly avoided creating some new form of magic system or classes in favor of "fudging it" by using the PHB classes to kindasorta replicate various casters of different color(s). The Cleric class, for example, is a decent  White representative, with the domain they select determining if they are mono W, Orhoz, Selesnya, Boros, or Azorius. Druids similarly are default Green, but their subclass and spell choices can splash other colors in as well. Its not perfect, but it works well enough for Magic-flavored D&D. 

That said, I can't imagine this product is MTG related. Stewart says "We have two surprises that I think hardcore D&D fans are really going to love coming this summer, and then I think we got one surprise that's going to release later this year that we've not told anyone about. We're going to announce it in July." Hardcore D&D fans aren't going to go gaga over MTG. This is tied to D&D and its multiverse. They might be room for Magic's later, but THIS is for D&D fans first.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 13, 2018)

gyor said:


> Darksun is not intended to be newbie friendly as say FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or heck even Eberron or Planescape. Darksun is for those bored with more typical settings.



That is true... Wayback in 2e. As of 4e, Dark Sun is just another D&D. Darker and grittier, yes. But it is a setting for all players.

And we have to take into account that a 5e Dark Sun will catter to the new players that started playing D&D with 5e, not only those that came from 4e or 2e.

So, its no easy task to please old school fans under these circumstances


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 13, 2018)

gyor said:


> Darksun is not intended to be newbie friendly as say FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or heck even Eberron or Planescape. Darksun is for those bored with more typical settings.




Which honestly, is why its better its own game then. Its already being aimed at a niche market of a niche market (bored, experienced players looking for a S&S setting), you might as well go whole-hog and redo the rulebook to match it. Maybe licence it out to a 3pp who doesn't mind only selling 10,000's of copies. In fact, the worst thing they could do is market it like another Mordenkainens' Tome of Foes or Tomb of Annihilation style supplement.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 13, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Except its not.
> 
> Remember, a world COLORS the core rules. Dragons not necessarily being Evil colors the perception, but it doesn't change either the mechanics or the assumptions of dragons. You're not saying they are 10,000 feet tall, covered in pink fur, breathe hot buttered rum as a breath weapon and can only talk sdrawkcab, they are still dragons with a potentially different outlook. Drow might patriarchal scorpion-worshipping jungle-dwellers, but they are still majority EVIL and fill the same general antagonistic niche the MM ones do.
> 
> ...




Or, 

Player: Hi, I'm new to the group and saw your Dark Sun advertisement.  Sounds neat. Let's play.
DM: OK.  


I mean, do people join in a vacuum a lot?  Dont they discuss a lot of things (where playing, what level, what setting, whos the DM? etc.)?

Certainly the Dark Sun campaign is just as capable of offering "interesting additions and changes"?


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 13, 2018)

Anyone who makes a character without talking to the DM first is already starting off on the wrong foot. An enormous percentage of homebrew worlds also have restrictions.

Or maybe the world doesn't have restrictions, but the campaign is one in which all PCs have to be members of the royal court of a human kingdom.

Or maybe the world and the campaign don't have restrictions, but the party of five already has two monks in it, and the DM really doesn't want any more for balance reasons.

The example of "Oh, I didn't expect that, I created a tiefling monk" isn't convincing in the slightest, because it's an example of poor player behavior regardless of setting.


----------



## Zeromaru X (Jun 13, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> Or,
> 
> Player: Hi, I'm new to the group and saw your Dark Sun advertisement.  Sounds neat. Let's play.
> DM: OK.
> ...



As with all, it depends on the DM. 

Dark Sun on its own, can. Just look at 4e Dark Sun. It has some 4e races and mechanics. The setting didn't broke for being allowed to work with 4e's framework. And the designers even brought back some mechanics from 2e (weapons breakage, wild talents, "stronger" races compared to those from earlier books), so it was OK. You can even say that some mechanics from Dark Sun enhanced 4e as a whole (themes, non-magical enhancement bonuses, eventually all races were designed to match the ones from Dark Sun...)

But then came the DMs that only want a Dark Sun as it was in 2e, with no changes at all. That kind of people can ruin the game for anyone, and aren't exclusive to Dark Sun, though Dark Sun have a lot of them to spare...

And yes, I know people that joins a game with an idea of what they want to play from the beginning, alongside those that don't know how even the game works.


----------



## Dire Bare (Jun 13, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> Anyone who makes a character without talking to the DM first is already starting off on the wrong foot. An enormous percentage of homebrew worlds also have restrictions.
> 
> Or maybe the world doesn't have restrictions, but the campaign is one in which all PCs have to be members of the royal court of a human kingdom.
> 
> ...




I wouldn't call it "poor player behavior", perhaps "inexperienced player behavior". If you're new to D&D, just bought your PHB, what's the first thing you might do? Roll up a character! And then realize, I need to find a group or convince my friends to start one! If you are new to D&D, you probably aren't used to house rules and how persnickety many DMs are about them. Plus, communication goes both ways. I've started numerous games with new groups and asked the DM, "What should I play? Any restrictions?" and be told, "Nope, do what you want" . . . . only to find when I show up to game that my character does not fit into the group dynamic in all sorts of different ways.

And, IMO, any DM worth their salt says "yes" a lot more than they say "no". If a player wants to play a tiefling monk in a Dark Sun campaign . . . it's not the setting that says "no", its the persnickety or uncreative DM.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 13, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> I think WotC is probably granting license.  I think they're starting to work out where they want to build APs, and are willing to let others play with other areas on a case by case basis.



That was what I'm thinking as well. WotC keeps the core Sword Coast area and maybe a few other regions of interest, and licences other regions for 3rd parties to develop. That's really a win-win-win situation, for WotC, the developers, and the fans.

The question is, is this our "fourth product"? It would explain why WotC employees weren't involved in the editing, and also why it hasn't been discovered in upcoming product catalogues like WotC products and their codenames. And officially licenced 3rd party products covering FR regions would definitely fit as being the exciting July announcement mentioned in the original interview.


----------



## Shardstone (Jun 13, 2018)

There's no way it isn't Eberron with the finished Artificer.


----------



## gyor (Jun 13, 2018)

PointOfIsnpiration said:


> There's no way it isn't Eberron with the finished Artificer.




 Why do you say that?


----------



## gyor (Jun 13, 2018)

Zeromaru X said:


> That is true... Wayback in 2e. As of 4e, Dark Sun is just another D&D. Darker and grittier, yes. But it is a setting for all players.
> 
> And we have to take into account that a 5e Dark Sun will catter to the new players that started playing D&D with 5e, not only those that came from 4e or 2e.
> 
> So, its no easy task to please old school fans under these circumstances




 I still wouldn't use Darksun or traditional Spelljammer or even Ravenloft or Planescape for newbies. I'd use FR, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Nerath, maybe even Eberron as. Newbie settings. Then work your up to Darksun and Spelljammer.


----------



## gyor (Jun 13, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Which honestly, is why its better its own game then. Its already being aimed at a niche market of a niche market (bored, experienced players looking for a S&S setting), you might as well go whole-hog and redo the rulebook to match it. Maybe licence it out to a 3pp who doesn't mind only selling 10,000's of copies. In fact, the worst thing they could do is market it like another Mordenkainens' Tome of Foes or Tomb of Annihilation style supplement.




 It's find as being a Campaign Guide,  have it give a list of what is allowed and what isn't and then have it offer Tkreen,  Muls,  and so on.  Most of the basic rules remain in place,  such as advantage.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 13, 2018)

Dire Bare said:


> I wouldn't call it "poor player behavior", perhaps "inexperienced player behavior".




Okay, that's fair. But IIRC, the PHB also makes a point of saying that campaigns are different, and check with your DM. Players should be allowed to play what they want more often than not, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule, and they need to accept that there will be exceptions.



> I've started numerous games with new groups and asked the DM, "What should I play? Any restrictions?" and be told, "Nope, do what you want" . . . . only to find when I show up to game that my character does not fit into the group dynamic in all sorts of different ways.




And that is, indeed, the fault of the DM. But it's also not the situation being discussed.



> And, IMO, any DM worth their salt says "yes" a lot more than they say "no". If a player wants to play a tiefling monk in a Dark Sun campaign . . . it's not the setting that says "no", its the persnickety or uncreative DM.




And here I take serious issue. A good DM may say "yes" more than "no," but that doesn't mean they're being "persnickety or uncreative" those times they say "no." The need to compromise and try to ensure the other player has an enjoyable time _goes both ways_. If the DM has a specific sort of campaign she wants to run, and that campaign eliminates some options, that does not automatically make her a bad DM, and it is partly on the players to ensure that she continues to want to run the game as much as they want to continue to play it.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 13, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> I've liked that the Plane Shift articles have mostly avoided creating some new form of magic system or classes in favor of "fudging it" by using the PHB classes to kindasorta replicate various casters of different color(s). The Cleric class, for example, is a decent  White representative, with the domain they select determining if they are mono W, Orhoz, Selesnya, Boros, or Azorius. Druids similarly are default Green, but their subclass and spell choices can splash other colors in as well. Its not perfect, but it works well enough for Magic-flavored D&D.
> 
> That said, I can't imagine this product is MTG related. Stewart says "We have two surprises that I think hardcore D&D fans are really going to love coming this summer, and then I think we got one surprise that's going to release later this year that we've not told anyone about. We're going to announce it in July." Hardcore D&D fans aren't going to go gaga over MTG. This is tied to D&D and its multiverse. They might be room for Magic's later, but THIS is for D&D fans first.




Technically, he says the two Summer surprises are for hardcore fans, and separately there is another big surprise being announced in July. He doesn't specify that the July announcement is for hardcore fans.

We are all spitting in the dark here, though, we'll see what surprises they have soon enough...


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 13, 2018)

gyor said:


> It's find as being a Campaign Guide,  have it give a list of what is allowed and what isn't and then have it offer Tkreen,  Muls,  and so on.  Most of the basic rules remain in place,  such as advantage.




So what is or isn't allowed? Lets keep it JUST PHB options (no Volo, SCAG, etc). 

Races:
Human (as is)
Elf - Well considering Athasian elves aren't like normal elves, would you make a whole new subrace or limit it to just one subrace (no high or drow)? -2 options.
Dwarf - See Elf. (-1 option)
Halfling - See Elf (-1 option)
Dragonborn - 4e made them Dray. Lets assume we keep that, else -1 option.
Gnome - Don't exist. -2 options.
Half-elf - Fine? Maybe? 
Half-orc - Don't exist. -2 options.
Tieflings - Well, they were in 4e DS again. Else, -1 option. 
Half-giant - Either refluffed goliaths or thier own race +1 option.
Muls - New race +1 option. 
Thri-kreen - New race +1 option.

Losses between -7 and -9, depending on your option of 4e's version. Gains +3. 

Classes (note, I count one option lost per subclass, plus an additional if the base class is also not usable as that would stop future subs that might work for the setting to work). 
Barbarian - I've heard some DS fans say that unarmored defense breaks the setting's equipment system and shouldn't be allowed. Assuming we do, there is no bears, wolves, or eagles so Totem seems out of the question, though berserker seems to work fine. -1 option (-3 if no class at all). 
Bard - Again, 4e allowed spellcasting bards (3.5 Dragon did too) but purists argue they shouldn't and should best be Rogue-assassins. Assuming we allow them, there doesn't seem to be an issue. If not, -3 options.
Cleric - Elemental Priests were present in 2e and 3.5, but not 4e. If allowed, the only domains that make sense are tempest and nature. -5 options, unless you go 4e and -8 options.
Druid - Well, Circle of the land might get a nerf, but its still viable. Not sure about Moon. Play it safe- all options. 
Fighter - No eldritch knight. Others fine. -1 options.
Monk - 3e and 4e had them, but see barbarian for UAD and add superior martial arts dice. All the subs seem fine if your allowing them at all. All options OR -4 options.
Paladin - 3e found room for them, nobody else has and they seem to be the posterboy for exclusion. -4 options. 
Ranger - Fine? All options.
Rogue - No arcane trickster - 1 options.
Sorcerer - 3e and 4e found them homes, but all arcane classes depend on how you plan on doing defiling. At the very least, dragonblooded isn't an option with the setting changes to dragon. Wild magic possibly? -1 to -3 options.
Warlock - 4e made them templars. Either way, no fiend, GOO and archfey possible? -1 to -4 options. 
Wizard - See sorcerer. If preserving/defiling works with the school system, then no changes. Else, -8 options. 
Psionics - Mearls last HFH seemed to lean on muliple subs, for wizard, fighter, bard, rogue and monk as well as its own class. Lets assume they do that. +8 options.

Losses Between -14 (most lenient) to -32 (most restrictive) options removed. +8 options minimum. Thats a lot of subclasses that need replacing. At worst, we also lose up to 7 of the 13 classes at most restrictive. 

Which goes back to my point; if your cutting that much, you better do more than three new races and psionics. You've cut up to half the PHB! You could, of course, replace cut options with new appropriate options (new races, subraces, subclasses, and even classes) and do the same with equipment (an utterly useless chapter in the PHB for DS) backgrounds (again, some might work, others aren't) and spells (Melf who?). Also, most of the Appendixes are useless, cut them too. 

Huh, that's a lot of new material you need to replace; probably a majority of the book. And that doesn't get into rules like weapon breakage or defiling and preserving or desert survival. It starts to look like... wait, we might need, an alternate Player's Handbook to put all these things in one place?

Oh, and lets not bother looking at the Monster Manual. That's going to be fun to go through and decide what does and doesn't exist...


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Jun 13, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> Baldman Games has some sort of Moonshae Campaign Guide coming out in some format.
> 
> https://twitter.com/Eric_Menge/status/1006580113213935617






Demetrios1453 said:


> Now that is intriguing. Is WotC going to farm out Forgotten Realms regions to 3rd parties? That would be an interesting and welcome development, as long as that are done well!




Baldman Games has been producing adventures for Adventurer's League play for a year or two now, all set in the Realms. So far, they have done all of them in the Moonsea region, but at Origins they will be introducing an AL campaign set in the Moonshaes. So nothing really special or unusual, just a bit of branching out. The Moonshae Campaign Guide is just their version of an AL campaign guide that has been done for every season of AL play.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 13, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Baldman Games has been producing adventures for Adventurer's League play for a year or two now, all set in the Realms. So far, they have done all of them in the Moonsea region, but at Origins they will be introducing an AL campaign set in the Moonshaes. So nothing really special or unusual, just a bit of branching out. The Moonshae Campaign Guide is just their version of an AL campaign guide that has been done for every season of AL play.




The branching out to the moonshaes and the border kingdoms was announced a while ago.  I was expecting modules.  I wasn't expecting settings guides.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 13, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Baldman Games has been producing adventures for Adventurer's League play for a year or two now, all set in the Realms. So far, they have done all of them in the Moonsea region, but at Origins they will be introducing an AL campaign set in the Moonshaes. So nothing really special or unusual, just a bit of branching out. The Moonshae Campaign Guide is just their version of an AL campaign guide that has been done for every season of AL play.




Oh OK, that makes sense. Well, there goes that idea then!


----------



## Coroc (Jun 13, 2018)

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]  #474 "Except it's not...."


The way i do it is different. See, i discuss the General outline of a Setting and how i intend to run it upfront. Then i create a Matrix with playable race class Combos.
This i give to the Players and ask them to find something nice. They also discuss with each other to get some sort of Balance to the Group. If anyone is missing anything i will check if i can somehow shoehorn it in, but that has not been the case yet.

I do include things if they make sense, e.g. i dm Greyhawk atm allowed Player races are human halfelf halforc tiefling Gnome and that's it. All of them are accepted in the free lands. I use the official material as a Frame for a classic good vs evil campaign in a qasi Renaissance Environment. Iuz and his orc hordes bolstered by demons have plundered and marauded the lands.
Each of the Special races makes sense: Halfelves and halforcs are mostly orphans of war. Dwarves and elves exist but only as npcs they few and often remote.
Tieflings got to have lawful Background (No one wnated to Play one yet but if) because otherwise they would be associated with the enemy.

It all fits into the Settings published material the feel is a bit different but you can recognize it is greyhawk and you can recognize it is not FR, and most improtant my Players and me enjoy it.


But let us get to your example:

Assume: 

Player: i got this Halforc Barbarian (Not an unusual choice)
DM: To bad, we Play Dragonlance, sorry mate no Orcs on Krynn you can Play a Minotaur instead.

- So you see that is not DS specific

Another:

Player: I want to Play a tiefling Monk
DM: hm we Play darksun. So you want some martial Monk with unarmed combat? How about a Thrikreen Gladiator?
Ah, you want an elemental Monk? How about a Druid or an elemental cleric? How about some sort of mystic?

- So this is also resolvable in a contructive way, if you got mature Players.

You can tweak some of the classes allowed with a custom Background also if something is amiss, 5E is a Toolbox and the best Toolbox of all Editions so far to do such things, except eventually 4e where all  things just had different names but i am not to familar with 4e.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 13, 2018)

I wouldn't let a player bring in a character from another game under any circumstances anyway. If you want to join my campaign you create a new character with a background appropriate to the setting. Even though it's Forgotten Realms, I'm not allowing anyone to play as an elf, because it doesn't fit with the plot.


----------



## Coroc (Jun 13, 2018)

[MENTION=6906155]Paul Farquhar[/MENTION]   Why elf in FR in your case? (Mark it as Spoiler if  your Players are not to read it)


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Jun 13, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> The branching out to the moonshaes and the border kingdoms was announced a while ago.  I was expecting modules.  I wasn't expecting settings guides.




Do not be fooled by the phrase "campaign guide". It will be the same as normal AL guides in that it will be a 15-20 page pdf with area-specific downtime options and backgrounds and what your faction can do for you in the area.


----------



## gyor (Jun 13, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Baldman Games has been producing adventures for Adventurer's League play for a year or two now, all set in the Realms. So far, they have done all of them in the Moonsea region, but at Origins they will be introducing an AL campaign set in the Moonshaes. So nothing really special or unusual, just a bit of branching out. The Moonshae Campaign Guide is just their version of an AL campaign guide that has been done for every season of AL play.




 There are no AL Campaign Guides, there is an AL players guide, and a AL DMs guide, but nothing as extensive as a AL Campaign guide to a region.

 This sounds more like a SCAG specifically for the Moonshaes.


----------



## gyor (Jun 13, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Do not be fooled by the phrase "campaign guide". It will be the same as normal AL guides in that it will be a 15-20 page pdf with area-specific downtime options and backgrounds and what your faction can do for you in the area.




 Are you sure of that how do you know?


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 13, 2018)

Coroc said:


> The way i do it is different. See, i discuss the General outline of a Setting and how i intend to run it upfront. Then i create a Matrix with playable race class Combos.
> This i give to the Players and ask them to find something nice. They also discuss with each other to get some sort of Balance to the Group. If anyone is missing anything i will check if i can somehow shoehorn it in, but that has not been the case yet.




Sure the individual DM can always ban options if he wants; the DM can create the PC's for the players if they agree to it. I want the setting guidelines to not take that option out of my hands. So your vision of DS might be very restrictive, mine might be very lienient. It's easier to say "I run my game like 2e, so no monks and warlocks etc" than for some WotC author to make that call for me and the then I have to justify allowing it back in (by finding it a home that WotC didn't). I'd rather WotC did the legwork and found them homes and I decide if I like/want it than have a book that repeats the mantra "x doesn't exist in y".


----------



## Coroc (Jun 13, 2018)

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]  Ok, now i understand, and on this one i even agree with you, for consistency there would be better ways to realize the basic rulebook, but in this case i would want to have explicit stating it that a DM only has to use the parts of it which he needs. It would be a little dull to read though, compared with the way they integrate some fluff into PHB or DMG now.

I think many things in the PHB could be labeled optional and everything would be fine: e.g. Elves(optional) even Humans (optional) heck, it would be best to clarify all things which could be reasonable optional as such. In the end all you really need is some of the most Basic game mechanics, like character generation, to hit and damage rolls saving throws etc.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 13, 2018)

Coroc said:


> [MENTION=6906155]Paul Farquhar[/MENTION]   Why elf in FR in your case? (Mark it as Spoiler if  your Players are not to read it)




Just story reasons. Elves still exist, it just doesn't make sense for them to be in the party.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 13, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Do not be fooled by the phrase "campaign guide". It will be the same as normal AL guides in that it will be a 15-20 page pdf with area-specific downtime options and backgrounds and what your faction can do for you in the area.




They've posted the table of contents:

View attachment 98400
https://twitter.com/Eric_Menge/status/1006587354746892289

From the tweet:
_"ToC for the #Moonshae Campaign Guide by [MENTION=6674266]Ba[/MENTION]ldmangames! 50 pages! There was just so much good stuff! New backgrounds, new organizations, and islands of adventure!"_
A little bit more than 15 pages.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 13, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Do not be fooled by the phrase "campaign guide". It will be the same as normal AL guides in that it will be a 15-20 page pdf with area-specific downtime options and backgrounds and what your faction can do for you in the area.




The first one is 104 pages and has none of those things.  It is entirely built of descriptions of Realms, Cities, and Towns.

You can find it here:

http://www.dmsguild.com/product/244...ealms-Campaign-Supplement?affiliate_id=757342

It's very similar other settings that I've looked at.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 13, 2018)

Jester David said:


> They've posted the table of contents:
> 
> View attachment 98400
> https://twitter.com/Eric_Menge/status/1006587354746892289
> ...



While not a full-fledged physical campaign guide book, that's still quite impressive!


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 14, 2018)

Yeah, looks like the full implications of the DMs Guild terms of use are completely ng to bear on the Realms: Ed Greenwood can put out or give his blessing to as much setting material as can be desired.


----------



## gyor (Jun 14, 2018)

Are the Moonshae and Border Kingdoms Setting Guides Canon? I just curious if that is part of the agreement between WotC and the respective companies, like how the SCAG is canon, even thu it was written by another company.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 14, 2018)

gyor said:


> Are the Moonshae and Border Kingdoms Setting Guides Canon? I just curious if that is part of the agreement between WotC and the respective companies, like how the SCAG is canon, even thu it was written by another company.



_This does not answer your question - it's just a comment on the end of your last sentence._

The SCAG was published by WotC so its canonicity is not in question. (What company employs its writers is really of no concern in these matters - if WotC puts its name on the cover, that product is for all intents and purposes a 1PP and not a 3PP.)


----------



## gyor (Jun 14, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> _This does not answer your question - it's just a comment on the end of your last sentence._
> 
> The SCAG was published by WotC so its canonicity is not in question. (What company employs its writers is really of no concern in these matters - if WotC puts its name on the cover, that product is for all intents and purposes a 1PP and not a 3PP.)




 Excellent point, but your right it doesn't answer the fundlemental point.


----------



## Jester David (Jun 14, 2018)

gyor said:


> Are the Moonshae and Border Kingdoms Setting Guides Canon? I just curious if that is part of the agreement between WotC and the respective companies, like how the SCAG is canon, even thu it was written by another company.



I'd say the Moonshae book isn't. Not anymore than any other 3rd Party thing written for the Guild. It's just a world guild, which isn't something we've seen a lot of on the Guild. I imagine it just presents and repackages content we've seen before. 

The Border Kingdoms book is funkier. Being written by Ed Greenwood, it'd _technically _be canon. But unofficial...


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 14, 2018)

WotC has washed their hands of "Canon" at this point: ask Greenwood, Perkins said he is the arbiter of canonicity.


----------



## GarrettKP (Jun 14, 2018)

Jester David said:


> I'd say the Moonshae book isn't. Not anymore than any other 3rd Party thing written for the Guild. It's just a world guild, which isn't something we've seen a lot of on the Guild. I imagine it just presents and repackages content we've seen before.
> 
> The Border Kingdoms book is funkier. Being written by Ed Greenwood, it'd _technically _be canon. But unofficial...




Both products were written under the AL banner. WotC gave these companies permission to use these sections of the Realms for Convention AL content, so it is as official as a 3rd party book can get. 

This also signals to me that WotC doesn't plan on using those sections of the realms for official hardcovers any time soon.


----------



## gyor (Jun 14, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> WotC has washed their hands of "Canon" at this point: ask Greenwood, Perkins said he is the arbiter of canonicity.




 Where did he say that?


----------



## gyor (Jun 14, 2018)

It's funny,  we all thought the two setting we're actually settings,  like Plan escape or Eberron or Darksun,  or even like the MtG multiverse,  instead it's Setting Guides to two very small,  minor regions in the world,  not even say, Al Qadim or Oriential Adventures (likely to be renamed Kara Tur Adventures).


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 14, 2018)

gyor said:


> It's funny,  we all thought the two setting we're actually settings,  like Plan escape or Eberron or Darksun,  or even like the MtG multiverse,  instead it's Setting Guides to two very small,  minor regions in the world,  not even say, Al Qadim or Oriential Adventures (likely to be renamed Kara Tur Adventures).



I don't think these are what they were talking about. After all, it's not even July yet!


----------



## gyor (Jun 15, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> I don't think these are what they were talking about. After all, it's not even July yet!




 If it's not,  it's a really weird coincidence that 2 products AL legal at least came out as campaign settings, when they just said that two campaign setting we're coming out.  If they aren't,  which I hope they aren't,  then it's an odd twist.


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 15, 2018)

gyor said:


> If it's not,  it's a really weird coincidence that 2 products AL legal at least came out as campaign settings, when they just said that two campaign setting we're coming out.  If they aren't,  which I hope they aren't,  then it's an odd twist.



The positive spin is, they don't count regional FR material to be a "setting".


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 15, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> The positive spin is, they don't count regional FR material to be a "setting".




It would be tremendously underwhelming if this was it...


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 15, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> It would be tremendously underwhelming if this was it...



So the positive spin on it, is that it isn't


----------



## amethal (Jun 15, 2018)

Mouseferatu said:


> Anyone who makes a character without talking to the DM first is already starting off on the wrong foot. An enormous percentage of homebrew worlds also have restrictions.
> 
> Or maybe the world doesn't have restrictions, but the campaign is one in which all PCs have to be members of the royal court of a human kingdom.
> 
> Or maybe the world and the campaign don't have restrictions, but the party of five already has two monks in it, and the DM really doesn't want any more for balance reasons.



I agree. I can't imagine joining a campaign "sight unseen".

The  pitch for my current campaign was "I have an idea for a campaign I'd like to run in Golarion, but for it to work everyone needs to play an Elf or perhaps a Half-Elf." My players agreed. Later, two new players asked to join. They were told the current campaign had an "Elves only" rule (but the next one wouldn't). They were happy to play Elves and joined the current campaign.

Lucky for me neither of them turned up with a tiefling monk!


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 15, 2018)

gyor said:


> Are the Moonshae and Border Kingdoms Setting Guides Canon? I just curious if that is part of the agreement between WotC and the respective companies, like how the SCAG is canon, even thu it was written by another company.




They're blessed by WotC by way of the adventures league.  There's been some drama about it in some of the AL spaces.


----------



## gyor (Jun 15, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> They're blessed by WotC by way of the adventures league.  There's been some drama about it in some of the AL spaces.




 What kind of drama, just curious.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 15, 2018)

gyor said:


> What kind of drama, just curious.




Until this point, everyone doing CCC modules had to stick to the Moonsea Reigon.  Now Baldman has exclusive access to write AL legal mods in the Moonshae Isles and GameHole has exclusive permission to write AL legal mods in the Border Kingdoms.

Some people feel that that's unfair.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 17, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> Until this point, everyone doing CCC modules had to stick to the Moonsea Reigon.  Now Baldman has exclusive access to write AL legal mods in the Moonshae Isles and GameHole has exclusive permission to write AL legal mods in the Border Kingdoms.
> 
> Some people feel that that's unfair.




As much as some may think it's unfair, for FR fans, it's a real boon. Even if they aren't "officially" canon, they are all but official, and I (and I assume others) would consider them so, especially anything written by Ed himself. I've already purchased the Border Kingdoms book and will do the same with the Moonshae one when it becomes available. Honestly, I would be quite happy if even more regions of the setting were licensed out like this and given detailed coverage!


----------



## CapnZapp (Jun 17, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> Some people feel that that's unfair.



What's unfair about it?

Can't their company select a region and apply for a similar license, jumping through all required hoops?


----------



## TheSword (Jun 17, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Which honestly, is why its better its own game then. Its already being aimed at a niche market of a niche market (bored, experienced players looking for a S&S setting), you might as well go whole-hog and redo the rulebook to match it. Maybe licence it out to a 3pp who doesn't mind only selling 10,000's of copies. In fact, the worst thing they could do is market it like another Mordenkainens' Tome of Foes or Tomb of Annihilation style supplement.




Absolute nonesense. Dark Sun AD&D was one of the first campaign sets I bought aged 17. It had nothing to do with being a Jaded Forgotten Realms player. I liked the aesthetic, the eco-warrior vibe, the grim distopian reality and the fact that wizards would slowly turn into dragons by sacrificing thousands of people. 

They won’t market it like MToF’s it will be done like Curse of Strahd.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 20, 2018)

For what it's worth, Keith Baker is on Facebook right now asking for suggestions "to update the list of books, movies, and TV shows that help capture the flavor of Eberron."


----------



## Bitbrain (Jun 20, 2018)

Gradine said:


> For what it's worth, Keith Baker is on Facebook right now asking for suggestions "to update the list of books, movies, and TV shows that help capture the flavor of Eberron."






Indiana Jones (film) meets Game of Thrones (tv series and books) meets The Friday Society (book)?

I'm not on Facebook, so I don't know if this is confirmation of Eberron, but boy, do I hope it's the case.

Dark Sun, Eberron, and Dragonlance are my three favorite settings.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 20, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Indiana Jones (film) meets Game of Thrones (tv series and books) meets The Friday Society (book)?
> 
> I'm not on Facebook, so I don't know if this is confirmation of Eberron, but boy, do I hope it's the case.
> 
> Dark Sun, Eberron, and Dragonlance are my three favorite settings.




If memory serves me, Raiders of the Lost Ark was on the "inspiration list" from the original 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting book


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 20, 2018)

Gradine said:


> If memory serves me, Raiders of the Lost Ark was on the "inspiration list" from the original 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting book




Correct. The list from the ECS of movies was:

Brotherhood of the Wolf
Casablanca
From Hell
The Maltese Falcon
The Mummy
The Name of the Rose
Pirates of the Caribbean
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sleepy Hollow


----------



## Gradine (Jun 21, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> Correct. The list from the ECS of movies was:
> 
> Brotherhood of the Wolf
> Casablanca
> ...




That is a list of excellent movies.



Also Sleepy Hollow.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 21, 2018)

Gradine said:


> That is a list of excellent movies.
> 
> 
> 
> Also Sleepy Hollow.



My takeaway is that your Eberron PC should resemble Harrison Ford, Humphrey Bogart, or Johnny Depp.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 21, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> My takeaway is that your Eberron PC should resemble Harrison Ford, Brenden Fraiser, or Johnny Depp.




Or Humphrey Bogart!

_Especially_ Humphrey Bogart, really.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 21, 2018)

Gradine said:


> Or Humphrey Bogart!
> 
> _Especially_ Humphrey Bogart, really.




You got me before me edit.


----------



## gyor (Jun 21, 2018)

Polar Express could be an interesting movie influence.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 21, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> You got me before me edit.




To be fair, in that context Brendan Frasier was doing his best to resemble Harrison Ford.


----------



## Gradine (Jun 21, 2018)

gyor said:


> Polar Express could be an interesting movie influence.




Terrifying uncanny-valley man kidnaps children on the Lightning Rail for a demonic overlord the Emerald Claw a Daelkyr fleshwarper Santa?


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 21, 2018)

The cover for the Moonshae Isles Campaign Guide showed up here:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156448428243088


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 21, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> The cover for the Moonshae Isles Campaign Guide showed up here:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156448428243088




And its gone.


----------



## bmfrosty (Jun 21, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> And its gone.




Still works for me.  You may need to be part of the AL facebook group to see it.  I'll attach it.

View attachment 98671


----------



## gyor (Jun 21, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> Still works for me.  You may need to be part of the AL facebook group to see it.  I'll attach it.
> 
> View attachment 98671




 Its sad that this is by far the best cover art of 5th edition.


----------



## Parmandur (Jun 23, 2018)

gyor said:


> Its sad that this is by far the best cover art of 5th edition.




Nah. I mean, it's decent, but the 5E cover art has been consistently awesome.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 23, 2018)

gyor said:


> Its sad that this is by far the best cover art of 5th edition.




It's good, but Xanathar's Guide blows that out of the water.  I *love* that cover.  Look at that smile!  He's the happiest beholder I've ever seen.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 23, 2018)

To get back on topic though - is that really a new campaign setting?  It's just part of the realms....


----------



## gyor (Jun 23, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> It's good, but Xanathar's Guide blows that out of the water.  I *love* that cover.  Look at that smile!  He's the happiest beholder I've ever seen.




 I personally didn't like Goldfish.


----------



## gyor (Jun 23, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> Nah. I mean, it's decent, but the 5E cover art has been consistently awesome.




 We will have to agree to disagree.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 23, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> To get back on topic though - is that really a new campaign setting?  It's just part of the realms....



Part of the Realms, and most likely NOT what was being alluded to.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 23, 2018)

gyor said:


> I personally didn't like Goldfish.



Xanathar would literally disintegrate you on the spot.


----------



## Salthorae (Jun 23, 2018)

bmfrosty said:


> Still works for me.  You may need to be part of the AL facebook group to see it.  I'll attach it.
> 
> View attachment 98671




That cover is beautiful. I love the Moonshae islands, have ever since the trilogies set there. Can’t wait to dig into this guide!


----------



## Gradine (Jun 25, 2018)

I mean sure, it looks nice, but I feel like other than the admittedly gorgeous detail on the dragon's scales it could be literally any fantasy novel cover from the 90's. _Especially_ the ivory towers in the background.


----------



## gyor (Jun 25, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I mean sure, it looks nice, but I feel like other than the admittedly gorgeous detail on the dragon's scales it could be literally any fantasy novel cover from the 90's. _Especially_ the ivory towers in the background.




 I see that as a plus,  not a minus,  I like a lot of fantasy art and comic art from the 90's.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 25, 2018)

Gradine said:


> I mean sure, it looks nice, but I feel like other than the admittedly gorgeous detail on the dragon's scales it could be literally any fantasy novel cover from the 90's. _Especially_ the ivory towers in the background.



Indeed. It didn't feel very specific...


----------



## pukunui (Jun 26, 2018)

gyor said:


> I see that as a plus,  not a minus,  I like a lot of fantasy art and comic art from the 90's.




There’s nothing in it indicative/evocative of the “Moonshae Isles”, though, so in that sense it fails as a cover. It reminds me of those generic fantasy pictures you see in the bargain puzzle bin.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 26, 2018)

pukunui said:


> There’s nothing in it indicative/evocative of the “Moonshae Isles”, though, so in that sense it fails as a cover. It reminds me of those generic fantasy pictures you see in the bargain puzzle bin.




Not sufficiently "Celtic" you mean? I'm inclined to agree, and I'm afraid the original celticness of the Moonsheas will be lost in this iteration.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jun 26, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Not sufficiently "Celtic" you mean? I'm inclined to agree, and I'm afraid the original celticness of the Moonsheas will be lost in this iteration.




Judging a book by its cover much?

When one island in the table of contents is noted as "reclaimed by the fey" and another as "perilous moorland", and with all the references to the Ffolk and the Northlanders in the player section, I tend to doubt that will happen.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 26, 2018)

The island "reclaimed by Fey" has had it's Celtic name replaced with a non-Celtic name. The current D&D version of Fey seems to owe more to the Victorians than the Celts. As can be seen in the picture of gleaming white spires, rather than a pile of mossy stones.


----------



## pukunui (Jun 26, 2018)

Paul Farquhar said:


> Not sufficiently "Celtic" you mean? I'm inclined to agree, and I'm afraid the original celticness of the Moonsheas will be lost in this iteration.



I guess. But they could have put a moonwell on the cover. Or a faerie dragon rather than whatever kind of dragon that is. They could also have included some blond elves and a firbolg or two, plus maybe a Viking Northlander longship ... and so on.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 26, 2018)

Moonwells are fine, but Faerie Dragons are Victorian-style tweeness


----------



## pukunui (Jun 26, 2018)

Perhaps. But I was specifically thinking of Newt, the faerie dragon from the original Moonshae novels.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jun 26, 2018)

pukunui said:


> Perhaps. But I was specifically thinking of Newt, the faerie dragon from the original Moonshae novels.




I know, but a new edition should be an opportunity to rectify the bad stuff from earlier versions, not double-down on the tweeness by adding Victorian-style fairy castles.


----------



## gyor (Jun 26, 2018)

I don't care if its more victorian, I love the cover.


----------



## Mercule (Jun 26, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> It's good, but Xanathar's Guide blows that out of the water.  I *love* that cover.  Look at that smile!  He's the happiest beholder I've ever seen.



It's all aesthetics, so I'm not going to knock your preference. I'll just say that I hated the Xanathar's cover, especially the special edition. Not having to look at the cover was one of the biggest factors in pushing me to buy the DDB version instead of the physical book. Of course, I also think beholders are a lame monster and the name "Xanathar" sounds like a nine-year-old making up names for his stuffed poop emoji, so there were really no variations on that book that would have been even acceptable, let alone awesome, to me.


----------



## TheSword (Jun 26, 2018)

Mercule said:


> Of course, I also think beholders are a lame monster and the name "Xanathar" sounds like a nine-year-old making up names for his stuffed poop emoji




Shame...

Shame...

*rings bell*

Shame...

Shame...

*rings bell*


----------



## Jester David (Jun 26, 2018)

They’ve announced the fourth D&D book for the year, details on the WotC website.
Price: $16.95 
Release Date: 21 August, 2018


----------



## MechaPilot (Jun 27, 2018)

Mercule said:


> It's all aesthetics, so I'm not going to knock your preference. I'll just say that I hated the Xanathar's cover, especially the special edition.




I've hated all the special edition covers for 5e.  Which is fine by me.  Saves me money.  If the 5e covers had been reversed (the special edition ones were the normal covers and the normal covers were the special editions) I'd be trying to get all special edition books just to avoid the ugly covers.  I'd rather have the non-descript faux leather with gilt embossing of the AD&D 2e supplements than 5e's special edition covers.


----------



## Remathilis (Jun 27, 2018)

Jester David said:


> They’ve announced the fourth D&D book for the year, details on the WotC website.
> Price: $16.95
> Release Date: 21 August, 2018




1.) Not sure this is the mythical "4th" book
2.) Not sure it has anything to do with the "two new settings".
3.) Not sure 1 and 2 are the same product.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 27, 2018)

Mercule said:


> It's all aesthetics, so I'm not going to knock your preference. I'll just say that I hated the Xanathar's cover, especially the special edition.




Of course, taste can vary - and to be honest, the special edition didn't do much for me - it din't have that radiant smile


----------



## Chronos96 (Jun 27, 2018)

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they released Kara-Tur yeah it's the realms but what are Asian inspired Drow like etc. The other continents have almost always felt like an afterthought and while I'm sure there are articles and maybe a few supplemets for Kara-Tur I think it would be cool to flesh it out.


----------



## Tiles (Jun 27, 2018)

I feel like the feywild has been consistently supported and is ripe for the picking. Not so much some of the others. Just my fleeting thought. I’d love to say the same for a manual of the planes but that support feels only resent?


----------



## MechaPilot (Jun 27, 2018)

Mercule said:


> Of course, I also think beholders are a lame monster and the name "Xanathar" sounds like a nine-year-old making up names for his stuffed poop emoji, so there were really no variations on that book that would have been even acceptable, let alone awesome, to me.




I think that's because of the pattern the name follows: consonant, "a," consonant, "a," consonant digraph, "a," consonant.  It's like the name Banana, the repetition makes it feel fake.


----------



## Ancalagon (Jun 28, 2018)

MechaPilot said:


> I think that's because of the pattern the name follows: consonant, "a," consonant, "a," consonant digraph, "a," consonant.  It's like the name Banana, the repetition makes it feel fake.




I think it *all* depends on where you put the emphasis.  If you say xaNAthar (like banana) it sounds dumb.  But if you say XAnathar (like Canada), it's fine


----------



## BadBreath (Jun 28, 2018)

Please be Darksun.... please be Darksun.... please be Darksun...


----------



## Gradine (Jun 28, 2018)

MechaPilot said:


> I think that's because of the pattern the name follows: consonant, "a," consonant, "a," consonant digraph, "a," consonant.  It's like the name Banana, the repetition makes it feel fake.




Of course, this is also building upon a game where grown men came up with names such as "Zygag" and "Melf".


----------



## Mercule (Jun 29, 2018)

MechaPilot said:


> I think that's because of the pattern the name follows: consonant, "a," consonant, "a," consonant digraph, "a," consonant.  It's like the name Banana, the repetition makes it feel fake.



You got me thinking. There also aren't a lot of common, real words that begin with the "z" sound, especially written as an "X". I'm sure that' a factor.

So... Xanathar is a banana with eye stalks.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 30, 2018)

Bah...nah...nah

View attachment 98856


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jul 2, 2018)

Hopefully now that it's July, we'll be getting some info over the next week or two (hopefully the next few days, although the July 4th holiday may keep that from happening), instead of them dragging it out and making us wait to the later part of the month...


----------



## vecna00 (Jul 3, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> Hopefully now that it's July, we'll be getting some info over the next week or two (hopefully the next few days, although the July 4th holiday may keep that from happening), instead of them dragging it out and making us wait to the later part of the month...




I'm hoping there will be an announcement on Nathan Stewart's Fireside Chat that should be happening this Friday.  He hasn't tweeted about it yet, so I'm not 100% sure it's happening due to this being a holiday week.


----------



## vecna00 (Jul 3, 2018)

Nevermind, he did tweet about it, it was just in his replies!

https://twitter.com/NathanBStewart/status/1013833580718391301

Shoutout to Garrett for the hard-hitting questions!


----------



## Jester David (Jul 3, 2018)

They're _clearly _holding back the announcement until the week Paizo releases the Pathfinder 2 playtest, so they can retain dominance of the gaming new cycle.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jul 3, 2018)

https://mobile.twitter.com/NathanBStewart/status/1014196339368812544

Definitely looks like we'll be getting news on Friday, and that very much looks like a PHB with a special edition cover there in the picture.


----------



## Bitbrain (Jul 3, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/NathanBStewart/status/1014196339368812544
> 
> Definitely looks like we'll be getting news on Friday, and that very much looks like a PHB with a special edition cover there in the picture.




Looks like a new cover for Players Handbook off to the right . . . And the words "MER" on the lower left.
I'm thinking my guess of Spelljammer just might be right for once.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jul 3, 2018)

Bitbrain said:


> Looks like a new cover for Players Handbook off to the right . . . And the words "MER" on the lower left.
> I'm thinking my guess of Spelljammer just might be right for once.



Unfortunately, in the responses, he says that it's just the end of "summer". Unless it's a double-trolling attempt!


----------



## Bitbrain (Jul 3, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> Unfortunately, in the responses, he says that it's just the end of "summer". Unless it's a double-trolling attempt!




The old Spelljammer logo had the "R" trail down below the "E" almost exactly like that . . . For now, I'm thinking that at least one of the new settings will be Spelljammer.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 3, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/NathanBStewart/status/1014196339368812544
> 
> Definitely looks like we'll be getting news on Friday, and that very much looks like a PHB with a special edition cover there in the picture.




I'm happy they're going back and doing special editions for the older books. 
Of course, it means I'd have two decorative PHBs sitting on my shelf: the fancy cover and the 1st printing I got signed at GenCon


----------



## lkj (Jul 4, 2018)

I wouldn't take Stewart's mentions of Spelljammer too seriously. He's taken every opportunity to 'accidentally' say Spelljammer or hint Spelljammer or suggest Spelljammer in the last several weeks. It's a running joke. In fact, the gist would be that it definitely isn't Spelljammer because he keeps mentioning it, and they clearly want the announcement later this month to be at least a bit of a surprise. Is it possible that it's actually is Spelljammer and that he keeps mentioning it to make us think it isn't? Sure. Totally possible. But that basically puts us back in the situation of not having an idea one way or another. Which is clearly what he wants. 

AD


----------



## QuietBrowser (Jul 5, 2018)

My two cents on the matter... WoTC has two major things that it's going to take its cues from when it comes to reviving settings; preserving intellectual copyright, and popularity with the fanbase. They have, after all, explicitly stated that the "many settings" approach was actually a financial mismanagement. So, here's my opinions on the settings that I'm aware of:

*Planescape:* This is perhaps the most iconic "weird fantasy" D&D setting. It's also getting a lot of promotions between things like Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and the recent web-serial "Hell's Belles", which is about a D&D group playing a 5e translation of a Planescape adventure called "The Great Modron March". Properly handled, Planescape is nothing like the Forgotten Realms, and whilst they're most likely to make some major tweaks to the setting, it's still looking like the best and most likely choice for a new setting.

*Nentir Vale:* They literally had a setting book for the "Points of Light" world ready to be printed under 4e before they hit the cancel button on that, and it does offer a very different and yet still familiar approach to the formula. I wouldn't say this has the highest chance, but I want to think it has a better than average chance.

*Greyhawk:* This one I honestly think has the lowest odds of getting in as, on the surface, it's too close to the Forgotten Realms. Both have a very strong "Neo-Medieval Europe" feel, and whilst Greyhawk is more Sword & Sandals than the Realms are, that difference isn't enough to make it seem like a "good sell" from WoTC's perspective. Indeed, Greyhawk's comparatively low-fantasy stance is actually an argument against its revival, simply because that minimizes the usefuless of other splatbooks - Greyhawk is supposed to be a world where only the "Neo-Tolkien" races are abundant, whilst the Realms were the first setting outside of Dark Sun to have an official thri-kreen population.

*Spelljammer: *I don't see this as very likely, simply because the execution was extremely goofball focused. A "5e Spelljammer" would probably be more of an in-name-only translation, and its more likely it'll be folded into Planescape than anything.

*Birthright/Dragonlance:* Both of these are falling into the same position of "kind of Realmsian, but they do have a unique hook". They're more likely than Greyhawk, but still, I don't think that these would be WoTC's first choice.

*Mystara:* Again, this "Pulp Fantasy" setting isn't that close to the Forgotten Realms when you look close, but it can seem similar at a casual glance. Also, the fact it's such a mash-up of expies of various real-world cultures and peoples alongside its more fantastical races is problematic in this day and age. With "cultural appropriation" such a media hotspot, as much as I miss the lupins, aranea, diaboli, enduks, scorpionmen, phanatons and so forth, I don't think this setting is likely.

*Al-Qadim/Kara-tur/Maztica:* They're all officially part of the Realms and, even more so than Mystara, they are a big PR risk from the "cultural appropriation" crowd. As much as I want an official Oriental Adventures splatbook for 5e, I don't think any of these are going to make it into the game.

*Ravenloft:* I think we can cross this off the board altogether; the Ravenloft setting is obscure, the last version was handled by a 3rd party, and WoTC already refreshed their IP rights to this by publishing Curse of Strahd. 

*Eberron:* The most popular fantasy setting of recent years, it was well-received in 3rd edition and 4th; it's got the biggest existant fandom of any of the settings I've named here and it requires the least amount of new rules - yes, yes, I know Kalashtar need psionics, but Kalashtar aren't from the Five Nations, so they can easily delay them until they do a 5e equivalent to "Secrets of Sarlona". Whilst coming out in 4e means that IP isn't a big priority for them, still, this is the big, obvious market to tap.

*Dark Sun:* This got a major shot in the arm with its well-received 4e release, but because of how much work it needs in order to be pulled off right, and how little a concern its IP is, I would put money against it being released this year.

In conclusion, I think we can be assured of seeing Planescape and either Eberron or Nentir Vale/Nerath/PoLand this year. My money is on Planescape and Nerath, simply because the Nentir Vale requires the least amount of work from WoTC to make ready.


----------



## gyor (Jul 5, 2018)

QuietBrowser said:


> My two cents on the matter... WoTC has two major things that it's going to take its cues from when it comes to reviving settings; preserving intellectual copyright, and popularity with the fanbase. They have, after all, explicitly stated that the "many settings" approach was actually a financial mismanagement. So, here's my opinions on the settings that I'm aware of:
> 
> *Planescape:* This is perhaps the most iconic "weird fantasy" D&D setting. It's also getting a lot of promotions between things like Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and the recent web-serial "Hell's Belles", which is about a D&D group playing a 5e translation of a Planescape adventure called "The Great Modron March". Properly handled, Planescape is nothing like the Forgotten Realms, and whilst they're most likely to make some major tweaks to the setting, it's still looking like the best and most likely choice for a new setting.
> 
> ...




 How do you know that Eberron has the biggest fan base of any none FR setting? Not saying I disbelieve,  just curious.


----------



## Remathilis (Jul 5, 2018)

More teasing and another look at those SE covers


----------



## gyor (Jul 5, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> More teasing and another look at those SE covers




 I noticed the blame Tito at the end.


----------



## Chronos96 (Jul 6, 2018)

QuietBrowser said:


> My two cents on the matter... WoTC has two major things that it's going to take its cues from when it comes to reviving settings; preserving intellectual copyright, and popularity with the fanbase. They have, after all, explicitly stated that the "many settings" approach was actually a financial mismanagement. So, here's my opinions on the settings that I'm aware of:
> 
> *Planescape:* This is perhaps the most iconic "weird fantasy" D&D setting. It's also getting a lot of promotions between things like Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and the recent web-serial "Hell's Belles", which is about a D&D group playing a 5e translation of a Planescape adventure called "The Great Modron March". Properly handled, Planescape is nothing like the Forgotten Realms, and whilst they're most likely to make some major tweaks to the setting, it's still looking like the best and most likely choice for a new setting.
> 
> ...




They've already said that it will appeal to to hardcore fans which I'm taking to mean people that played with second edition settings which the majority are. 

I honestly doubt that they'll do Nentir Vale as it was only a rectangle in the DM's guide and the fact that it's the most recent "setting" if you want to call it that limits the likeliehood that they'll do anything more with it.

Hardcore also implies difficulty which could suggest Dark Sun,Planescape and Spelljammer. Keep in mind they're only announcing the book tommorow but they did say that they're announcing two things that we'll be able to use as early as this year in the summer which at the latest is sometime in August. 

They also said that whatever product they're releasing would be similar to how COS is a primer on just Barovia but will give us just enough detail to start playing with things on our own. 

Given those details I feel that Wizards may give us two fifty page plus pdfs on the settings they want to reintroduce to 5E. Stewart also said that the product announced tomorrow will be sometime this year. Dragon Heist comes out in September while Mad mage comes out in November so at the latest that leaves the product being released in December or earlier on the odd chance the didn't tell online retailers like Amazon. Worst case scenario though it gets pushed back to early Q1 2019.

All of the adventure paths in 5E have had little easter eggs that connect to the next product from the Ring of Winter being in Storm King's Thunder to the Black Obelisks that keep showing up in all of the adventures as well as the villian of Mad Mage having a Spelljammer Helm and the creatures from Spelljammer in MToF's.

In my mind D&D has five really distinct settings that are viable.

Forgotten Realms is the default 

Eberron-  Noir, Steampunk, Adventure

Dark Sun- D&D hard mode

Ravenloft- Horror

Spelljammer- D&D in space

The reason I don't add planescape is because its cosmology, the positive and negative planes, the elemental planes, the 12 outer planes have all been added to the base cosmology in addition to the Feywild and Shadowfell. 

Yes, Planescape was its own setting but all the basic componets have been there since 3rd edition-the present. Basically I'd place it as I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make it but I wouldn't be surprised if they did either. For that reason alone I'd argue that Spelljammer is far more likely as well as the fact that their have been more signs pointing towards is that Planescape with the Dungeon of the mad mage easter egg and the monsters from MToF's 

The big question is whether or not they've cracked Psionics behind the scenes and are just sitting on it. If they have I'd say that one of these primers we get will be Dark Sun and the other will either be Spelljammer or Planescape. 

I feel like they'll get back to Ravenloft later and I feel like they may want to save Eberron as the "Best for last"


----------



## Henry (Jul 6, 2018)

Some thoughts:

—WHERE have I seen that fist-scepter design before? It’s SERIOUSLY triggering a memory for me in an old TSR product, but where?

— Book SDCC travel - San Diego Comic-Con: Are they announcing something about the upcoming movie there?

—That design of the platform/gallows reminds me of the Dungeon of the Fire Opal from the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (the section with the room with the holes in the stone wall with wood fragments in them). 

Tomorrow: you’re only a day away...


----------



## Mercurius (Jul 6, 2018)

As much as I love the idea of WotC expanding Nentir and detailing Nerath and the world beyond, I highly doubt that will happen. Nentir/Nerath is probably a single edition setting, like Birthright for 2E.

That said, due to the lack of published material it would make a good "community setting" that could be opened up in the DM's Guild.


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 6, 2018)

I'm going to place a large bet on Eberron being one of the announced settings tomorrow. 

Just now getting to watch the Happy Fun Hour from 7/3...he's asking chat on the stream if they are ok moving away from Psion building to undead monster building. GamePhantomDM asked at about 2:29 in the stream (youtube): "Itching for the Artificer"... 

Mearls' response? "You might not... well well I'm not going to spoil anything. We'll see, we'll see." while having a sheepish grin on his face and spreading his hands apart. There 

WotC also pulled the UA Artificer down from DMs Guild back in October. 

I'm 80% that one of the settings is going to be Eberron tomorrow... he does talk more a bit later about "there is a revision that needs refinement", but that doesn't mean one of the settings won't be Eberron. Settings aren't releasing tomorrow, just soon, only announcing tomorrow. 

I suppose we'll find out in about 10 hours!


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> I'm going to place a large bet on Eberron being one of the announced settings tomorrow.
> 
> Just now getting to watch the Happy Fun Hour from 7/3...he's asking chat on the stream if they are ok moving away from Psion building to undead monster building. GamePhantomDM asked at about 2:29 in the stream (youtube): "Itching for the Artificer"...
> 
> ...




I so HOPE  you are right. Eberron is my all-time favorite setting! Just a few hours left to know for sure...


----------



## Mercule (Jul 6, 2018)

Chronos96 said:


> Eberron-  Noir, Steampunk, Adventure



Eberron is not steampunk. It's relatively easy to bastardize into steampunk, for those so inclined, but it's not intended to be so.



> Dark Sun- D&D hard mode



With the original "roll 5d4 for stats", DS wasn't so much "hard mode" as "inflated mode". If you used standard character generation, it was definitely hard mode.




> The reason I don't add planescape is because its cosmology, the positive and negative planes, the elemental planes, the 12 outer planes have all been added to the base cosmology in addition to the Feywild and Shadowfell.



Wow. I hadn't considered that angle, but I hope you're right. I've never been a particular fan of Planescape. I don't hate it, but it's not really my "thing", either. I've been assuming one of the settings would be Planescape and the other would be either Eberron or Dark Sun. 



> The big question is whether or not they've cracked Psionics behind the scenes and are just sitting on it. If they have I'd say that one of these primers we get will be Dark Sun and the other will either be Spelljammer or Planescape.



I think both Dark Sun and Eberron require psionics to do "right". You can completely ignore psionics in Eberron, if you want, but they're a major part of the setting, as a whole. Not at the same level as Dark Sun, but it'd be a bit like leaving out, say, warforged -- it doesn't necessarily break it and some folks would be happier doing so, but it leaves a big whole for many/most fans.



> I feel like they'll get back to Ravenloft later and I feel like they may want to save Eberron as the "Best for last"



As pointed out, elsewhere, Eberron is the most popular D&D setting, after the Realms. It's also different enough to not inherently blur into the Realms (e.g. Greyhawk), but not so different as to be potentially niche (e.g. Dark Sun). Doing Eberron would be significant work, but it's also the the most likely "other" setting to be profitable. Plus, it'd make the "sick of the Realms" folks (like me) happy to have something different. I'm pretty sure Keith is poised to spam the crap out of the DM's Guild as soon as he's given the go ahead, so WotC has the added benefit of being able to have "official-ish" support for the setting without actually having to invest their own resources (though, this point could cut both ways -- I know I care a lot more about Keith's take on Eberron than anyone/everyone at WotC).

I still think Planescape is the most likely first setting, even though I hope you're right about it being defaulted into the Realms-based/implied setting. Dark Sun and Eberron are the most likely options for the other setting, just due to ready fan base -- assuming they've got psionics ready. Because Mearls has pretty much said psionics and Dark Sun will be released at the same time, I'm leaning towards Dark Sun.

Dark Sun + psionics, first, then Eberron would tickle me greatly, though. I'd definitely buy Eberron and am at least 75% likely to buy Dark Sun.


----------



## Chronos96 (Jul 6, 2018)

> I think both Dark Sun and Eberron require psionics to do "right". You can completely ignore psionics in Eberron if you want, but they're a major part of the setting, as a whole. Not at the same level as Dark Sun, but it'd be a bit like leaving out, say, warforged -- it doesn't necessarily break it and some folks would be happier doing so, but it leaves a big hole for many/most fans.




What I think they'll do is release the setting fluff  as a pdf and then maybe sometime next year they'll release a full setting book or adventure path.





> I still think Planescape is the most likely first setting, even though I hope you're right about it being defaulted into the Realms-based/implied setting.




What I meant about it being defaulted is all of those locations are talked about in the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide on Pages 46-68.

We'll know this evening though!


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 6, 2018)

Well that was a bust 

We have to wait till July 23 to hear any official announcement


----------



## Parmandur (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Well that was a bust
> 
> We have to wait till July 23 to hear any official announcement




Interesting, the day after the National Magic: The Gathering championships end. Feeling the M:TG 5E vibes here.


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jul 6, 2018)

Some things caught my attention: 1) Nathan said -I’m paraphrasing- it is not my (stress MY) job to announce Eberron -I hope!-; 2) he did clarify no NEW setting is coming; 3) it seemed that, somehow, third parties will be involved; 4) after the 23rd we will not have to wait much for access...


----------



## Lidgar (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Well that was a bust
> 
> We have to wait till July 23 to hear any official announcement




So for those that missed it - basically they just announced that they will announce something in a couple of weeks?


----------



## Parmandur (Jul 6, 2018)

Lidgar said:


> So for those that missed it - basically they just announced that they will announce something in a couple of weeks?




He was teasing that he would give some details, and so he has.


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 6, 2018)

Yeah, but if he had told us there would be nothing actually announced I would not have wasted an hour of my time being trolled about his and Tito’s camping trip or the alternative (or not) covers for the core books. Or things that may or may not happen at SDCC. 

The only reason I watched was to hear about settings because he “hinted and people thought but I never promised”. I hate having my time wasted by that kind of junk. 

That is my first and probably last fireside that I spend time watch.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jul 6, 2018)

The announcement that there will be a future announcement is a non-announcement; it's a scheduling change dressed up like an announcement.  And, most likely, it was an intentional lure to get more people to view the fireside.  I'm glad I skipped it, and stuff like this gives me no incentive to ever want to view it.


----------



## Parmandur (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Yeah, but if he had told us there would be nothing actually announced I would not have wasted an hour of my time being trolled about his and Tito’s camping trip or the alternative (or not) covers for the core books. Or things that may or may not happen at SDCC.
> 
> The only reason I watched was to hear about settings because he “hinted and people thought but I never promised”. I hate having my time wasted by that kind of junk.
> 
> That is my first and probably last fireside that I spend time watch.




His goal was to get people to watch, certainly.


----------



## Mercule (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Yeah, but if he had told us there would be nothing actually announced I would not have wasted an hour of my time being trolled about his and Tito’s camping trip or the alternative (or not) covers for the core books. Or things that may or may not happen at SDCC.
> 
> The only reason I watched was to hear about settings because he “hinted and people thought but I never promised”. I hate having my time wasted by that kind of junk.
> 
> That is my first and probably last fireside that I spend time watch.



So, I should be glad that I had no idea what vehicle was actually being used to announce the non-announcement?


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 6, 2018)

Parmandur said:


> His goal was to get people to watch, certainly.




Yeah but it’s like killing the sheep for the wool. Now I, and I’m sure others, who might have tuned in on the regular with a good worthwhile stream are never going to watch. How is that helpful?


----------



## Mercule (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Yeah but it’s like killing the sheep for the wool. Now I, and I’m sure others, who might have tuned in on the regular with a good worthwhile stream are never going to watch. How is that helpful?



I've come to the conclusion that the current staff thinks they are much "cuter" (mentally) and better showmen than they actually are. I don't understand the appeal of things like "Stream of Annihilation" and "Stream of Many Eyes".


----------



## Remathilis (Jul 6, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Well that was a bust
> 
> We have to wait till July 23 to hear any official announcement



So it was an announcement of an announcement? 

They are learning from the Magic team apparently...


----------



## R_Chance (Jul 6, 2018)

This is why I let other people watch things and spill the beans, or at least tell me when the beans are going to be spilled


----------



## Jester David (Jul 6, 2018)

Remathilis said:


> So it was an announcement of an announcement?
> 
> They are learning from the Magic team apparently...



Keep in mind that all of 87 people watched that stream. That’s a ridiculously tiny audience. 
They need to slowly build anticipation and word of mouth.


----------



## vecna00 (Jul 7, 2018)

It was mentioned that it would be an announcement of an announcement.  But half the reason I watch is to see if he just spills the beans of his own accord!

View attachment 99128


----------



## Charlaquin (Jul 7, 2018)

Mercule said:


> I've come to the conclusion that the current staff thinks they are much "cuter" (mentally) and better showmen than they actually are. I don't understand the appeal of things like "Stream of Annihilation" and "Stream of Many Eyes".



I think they recognize that streaming is extremely popular, but don’t understand that streaming something, _per se_, doesn’t make it more appealing.

Its just weird out of touch “this what the kids like these days, right?” Moon logic.


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 7, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Keep in mind that all of 87 people watched that stream. That’s a ridiculously tiny audience.
> They need to slowly build anticipation and word of mouth.




Really? I saw 570 people on when I was watching.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 7, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> Really? I saw 570 people on when I was watching.



Twitch views are funky sometime. :/
87 might have been archive views. Combining the two is still only 650-ish. Still low.


----------



## Mercurius (Jul 7, 2018)

I can't help but feel that whatever is actually announced, it is going to be underwhelming and disappointing. Hope I'm wrong.


----------



## LordEntrails (Jul 7, 2018)

I only caught the end of it, but asked what had been revealed and two people told me;
- shoes and other D&D merchandise will be available at San Diego Comic Con
- their will be an announcement on July 23rd about the two settings that will be released ("released" as in CoS released Barovia, but then will be available to the DMsGuild)
- There will be new collector editions versions of the PHB, MM, DMG

Hints of;
- Spelljammer as one of the settings (which probably just means more info on DoMM)


----------



## Jester David (Jul 7, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> I can't help but feel that whatever is actually announced, it is going to be underwhelming and disappointing. Hope I'm wrong.




given what people are expecting... almost certainly. We're setting ourselves up to be let down


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 7, 2018)

I will be happy with anything that isn't Forgotten Realms...


----------



## Dispater (Jul 7, 2018)

The entire Dark Sun community online has by now already made several (including one brilliant and major) conversion of Dark Sun, including psonics to 5e. Needless to say, the 'hardcore' community is not sitting around waiting, and plodding away happily at its own pace. I'd stil be interested to see what WotC comes up with in regards to DS, but the work's already been done as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## delericho (Jul 7, 2018)

Mercurius said:


> I can't help but feel that whatever is actually announced, it is going to be underwhelming and disappointing. Hope I'm wrong.




I dunno. For a setting like Spelljammer (and Planescape), I think being opened to DMs Guild may be the best possible outcome - with so much space to cover and so many possibilities, it's not practical for WotC to ever do more than barely scratch the surface. But a crowd-sourced effort can come up with a _lot_ of material, some of it very much "out there"... which might be just what the Cleric ordered.

So if Spelljammer is one of the two, I think I'd be very happy with that - almost regardless of whatever supporting product is provided for it.


----------



## gyor (Jul 7, 2018)

LordEntrails said:


> I only caught the end of it, but asked what had been revealed and two people told me;
> - shoes and other D&D merchandise will be available at San Diego Comic Con
> - their will be an announcement on July 23rd about the two settings that will be released ("released" as in CoS released Barovia, but then will be available to the DMsGuild)
> - There will be new collector editions versions of the PHB, MM, DMG
> ...




 I still think it's possible he conciders Moonshae and Border Kingdoms setting guides as settings,  so I won't get any hopes up until we know better,  he's, already gotten peoples hopes up just to disappoint them.


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jul 7, 2018)

gyor said:


> I still think it's possible he conciders Moonshae and Border Kingdoms setting guides as settings,  so I won't get any hopes up until we know better,  he's, already gotten peoples hopes up just to disappoint them.




You don't hype up an announcement for something that has already been announced, and, in the case of the Border Kingdoms guide, is already available!


----------



## Demetrios1453 (Jul 7, 2018)

Jester David said:


> given what people are expecting... almost certainly. We're setting ourselves up to be let down




It's funny, but a week ago, even the minimum what they could announce, that other settings will become available on the DM's Guild or otherwise available electronically, would have been greeted with celebration here. Now, for some reason, that would be "underwhelming and disappointing".


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jul 7, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> It's funny, but a week ago, even the minimum what they could announce, that other settings will become available on the DM's Guild or otherwise available electronically, would have been greeted with celebration here. Now, for some reason, that would be "underwhelming and disappointing".




Not me. I would love an Eberron PDF by Keith Baker at the Guild!


----------



## Mercule (Jul 8, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> It's funny, but a week ago, even the minimum what they could announce, that other settings will become available on the DM's Guild or otherwise available electronically, would have been greeted with celebration here. Now, for some reason, that would be "underwhelming and disappointing".



It's probably a bit of reaction to them trying to set the bar. When you're hungry, the expectation is "food". If Mom says, "I've got dinner planned out" it raises the bar a bit. If an hour later, she says, "You're really gonna like dinner, but I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I'll tell you in a couple hours, just before I serve it," it sets the bar quite a bit higher. If dinner turns out to be canned green beans and Spam, it's going to be a bit of a let down to most folks. Even if you don't mind those foods (I loathe both), they probably aren't worth trying to be cute about, so the build up, itself, is what leads to disappointment.

In short, if you're not going to do something cool, don't call a press conference, shine a spotlight, and hire a marching band. Just announce it and be done.


----------



## gyor (Jul 8, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> You don't hype up an announcement for something that has already been announced, and, in the case of the Border Kingdoms guide, is already available!




 You don't hype up an announcement for an announcement either,  but he did, so anything is possible.  I hope I'm wrong,  but I'm not getting my hopes up.


----------



## Cyber-Dave (Jul 8, 2018)

Demetrios1453 said:


> You don't hype up an announcement for something that has already been announced, and, in the case of the Border Kingdoms guide, is already available!



 Are you talking about Storm King’s Thunder, or did I miss a text?


----------



## Mercule (Jul 8, 2018)

Jester David said:


> given what people are expecting... almost certainly. We're setting ourselves up to be let down



With the level of build-up, I'm expecting something along the lines of a SCAG for Eberron (or whatever the setting is). There's no way we're going to see a setting book in the vein of prior editions, and that's fine. What I will consider a successful product would:
1) Get something on hobby store shelves that actually gives new players enough info to even know they could look at earlier edition material for more info. A foot in the door, essentially.
2) Opens up the DMs Guild for third party publishing. Keith has pretty much said he's got a lot of things that he could write up that wouldn't be profitable enough for WotC to worry about.
3) Is reasonably faithful to previous edition material. There's quite a bit of difference between the 3.5 and 4E books, mechanically, but the flavor is consistent enough.

An online PDF, whether at the Wizards site or DMs Guild wouldn't accomplish #1. There has to be some sort of physical product. My understanding is that the setting announcement plays into the formal release schedule, so I think we're okay, here. I could be wrong, though.

Really, I don't see any issue with #2. If they're teasing this much for a UA article, they deserve whatever rains down on them. Again, this isn't my understanding of what's being teased.

If they do some sort of "Other Worlds Atlas" book, covering multiple settings, it could go either way on #3 (and, maybe, #1). A SCAG-sized book should be able to give a good enough overview of a setting. I don't see how a book that size could do anything worthwhile with more than one, though. You'd have to leave out something important, whether that meant all crunch and no fluff, no crunch and all fluff, or an incomplete mishmash of both.

Note: I'm not saying there has to be deep info on the inner workings of the Cults of the Dragon Below, Sarlona, the Dreaming Dark, Xendrik, each of the nations and Dragonmarked houses. SCAG didn't go into Undermountain, Chult, etc. There's a balance. I'd just like to have enough to give a good starting point and compass for anyone who coming to Eberron in 5E. That should be both reasonable and realistic.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 8, 2018)

Mercule said:


> With the level of build-up, I'm expecting something along the lines of a SCAG for Eberron (or whatever the setting is).



The catch being... there's not _really_ a lot of official build-up. There was one article with an interview and a little teasing, but not much else. All the build-up is taking place via fan speculation and hype. We're building ourselves up and, very likely, setting ourselves up for disappointment. 

For example, I doubt we'll see something like SCAG. Because that's the one product that has seemed like a disappointment, and they haven't done something else like that. Instead, they have talked about something like _Curse of Strahd_, which was an adventure with a setting introduction. Something like _Death House_ paired with 30-pages of setting. 



Mercule said:


> 1) Get something on hobby store shelves that actually gives new players enough info to even know they could look at earlier edition material for more info. A foot in the door, essentially.



That I'm doubtful about. I think this is something for the established fans, while they're leaving the Realms for new fans.



Mercule said:


> 2) Opens up the DMs Guild for third party publishing. Keith has pretty much said he's got a lot of things that he could write up that wouldn't be profitable enough for WotC to worry about.



I think that has been confirmed, at least for whatever setting they launch. 



Mercule said:


> An online PDF, whether at the Wizards site or DMs Guild wouldn't accomplish #1. There has to be some sort of physical product. My understanding is that the setting announcement plays into the formal release schedule, so I think we're okay, here. I could be wrong, though.



I'm still expecting online PDFs.


----------



## gyor (Jul 8, 2018)

gyor said:


> You don't hype up an announcement for an announcement either,  but he did, so anything is possible.  I hope I'm wrong,  but I'm not getting my hopes up.




 I hope you are right,  but I'm not holding my breath,  can't be disappointed that way.


----------



## eryndel (Jul 9, 2018)

Henry said:


> Some thoughts:
> 
> —WHERE have I seen that fist-scepter design before? It’s SERIOUSLY triggering a memory for me in an old TSR product, but where?




Don't know if you got an answer to this, but it looks to me like it's either a wand that can cast the various Bigby's Hand spells... Or a +2 Backscratcher.   Not sure which...


----------



## Mercule (Jul 9, 2018)

Jester David said:


> The catch being... there's not _really_ a lot of official build-up. There was one article with an interview and a little teasing, but not much else. All the build-up is taking place via fan speculation and hype. We're building ourselves up and, very likely, setting ourselves up for disappointment.



He's being cute and doing teasing. If it isn't a physical book, he's being too cute by half (aka: a jerk).



> For example, I doubt we'll see something like SCAG. Because that's the one product that has seemed like a disappointment, and they haven't done something else like that. Instead, they have talked about something like _Curse of Strahd_, which was an adventure with a setting introduction. Something like _Death House_ paired with 30-pages of setting.



You have a point. Not being a Realms fan, I can only speculate, but I think the disappointment had a lot to do with the expectation of a full 3.5 FRCS type book. As an Eberron fan, I'm fully braced for a tasting platter for Eberron. That doesn't mean WotC will release a SCAG-type book. But, it is the minimum I've ever seen as actually supporting a setting.



> That I'm doubtful about. I think this is something for the established fans, while they're leaving the Realms for new fans.



I'm not expecting them to pivot all adventures to be set in Eberron. I'm expecting the absolute best-case to be a SCAG and an adventure, but that's not even remotely my expectation. It's more likely SCAG or an adventure -- and I think either could work. I'd prefer a SCAG, but you could do Eberron or Athas as an adventure. It'd whet people's appetite, but wouldn't qualify as actual support, IMO. It's the minimum to say, "We did Eberron" though.



> I'm still expecting online PDFs.



If it doesn't sit on a shelf in my FLGS, I don't consider it an actual release of the setting. Any announcement of such a product is akin to an announcement of "Yeah, we decided that we're not actually doing anything with these settings, so we're at least no longer blocking them on DMs guild." Really, though, as much as a rail against WotC being too focused on the Realms, I'm expecting them to do something more than a PDF for other settings. It may not be exactly what I want, but I'd be genuinely shocked if it was purely digital. That shock would probably be the end of any attachment I had to the D&D "brand", too. I understand the money behind the focus on the Realms. Trying to pass off a PDF as actual support for other settings and "fan service" would completely alienate me in a way that even "Screw it, we're never putting out 5E product for Eberron, so we're making it open on the DMs Guild" wouldn't. I could see a way that a PDF for a baseline, then opening it up wouldn't alienate me, but Nathan's tease tweet plus the non-announcement tease completely screwed that. If he's willing to do that for a PDF, he's flat out incompetent and represents a team I don't actually want to spend any mental energy on.

Edit: Maybe "incompetent" is too strong of a word. Mechanically, I find 5E to be easily the best version of D&D, ever. The marketing and branding strategy, however, leave me cold. I'm not talking just about the focus on the Realms (which I've made no bones about my opinion of). The entire strategy just turns me off. If I hadn't been playing D&D, as a brand, since BECMI, I wouldn't give it a second look and would probably actively run away from what appears to be an aging property eating itself in an attempt to stay "cool", with all the panache of a septuagenarian in a halter top. Clearly, the strategy is working, because 5E is staying ridiculously strong, in the market. I just get the continual impression that I'm not the target audience and the game is moving further and further from what I actually love. Worth noting is that I'm indifferent to the system, but play D&D for the readily available building blocks to use in my own creation, especially its rich history of multiple worlds that are completely separate, while using the same basic tropes.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 9, 2018)

Mercule said:


> If it doesn't sit on a shelf in my FLGS, I don't consider it an actual release of the setting. Any announcement of such a product is akin to an announcement of "Yeah, we decided that we're not actually doing anything with these settings, so we're at least no longer blocking them on DMs guild." Really, though, as much as a rail against WotC being too focused on the Realms, I'm expecting them to do something more than a PDF for other settings. It may not be exactly what I want, but I'd be genuinely shocked if it was purely digital. That shock would probably be the end of any attachment I had to the D&D "brand", too. I understand the money behind the focus on the Realms. Trying to pass off a PDF as actual support for other settings and "fan service" would completely alienate me in a way that even "Screw it, we're never putting out 5E product for Eberron, so we're making it open on the DMs Guild" wouldn't. I could see a way that a PDF for a baseline, then opening it up wouldn't alienate me, but Nathan's tease tweet plus the non-announcement tease completely screwed that. If he's willing to do that for a PDF, he's flat out incompetent and represents a team I don't actually want to spend any mental energy on.



My thought is that they’re not going to risk splitting the fanbase with lots of competing setting publications. 

And they’re not going to do a half-dozen campaign settings, especially when:
A) the hardcore fans are likely to be the only ones to care
B) Said fans will never be satisfied that the books have just the right era/ tone/ changes
C) Said fans already have all the world content, and just need rules updates
D) New fans have no affection to these settings 

Instead, it makes sense to either do a book with a bunch of small adventures and a gazetteer for each setting. And then open them up on the Guild along with Print On Demand books. 
Or
Do a bunch of individual PDFs and then open up the settings.

Let’s face it, people going to stores and only looking for content there are unlikely to be hardcore fans of a setting. They won’t care. 
For most of the D&D audience, putting out an Eberron book will be as interesting as putting out as World of Velatium sourcebook.


----------



## LordEntrails (Jul 9, 2018)

Jester David said:


> I'm still expecting online PDFs.




I'm still convinced one of the settings is Spelljammer and will simple be "released" as part of DoMM product we already know about. Just like they did with CoS, SJ will be "released" through DoMM. And the "announcement" will simple be confirming that. Maybe they will add to that with some pdfs on the Guild, but those will be written by Guild Adepts, and most people won't consider those official anyway.

No idea what the second setting will be.


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 9, 2018)

Halaster certainly does have historic and "new" ties to Spelljammer. Per this Reddit post Perkins has confirmed that Halaster has a Spelljammer helm. There was the old Stardock 2e adventure where Halaster was kidnapped to a spacestation and had to be rescued before Undermountain went too crazy. 

There were Giff in the Tome of Foes, so it certainly seems like they are gearing up SJ for release to me.

That said, I'd rather they dropped wholly new 5e settings. Dark Sun and Eberron are my preference. I hope with all the work Mearls has done on Psionics it could be possible we'll get one or both of those soon.


----------



## lkj (Jul 9, 2018)

Listened to the vodcast, and I came away with a few things about the setting stuff:

Disclaimer: These are just semi-educated guesses made for fun.

1) Stewart mentions that there will be some instant gratification on the announcement date. To me this suggests DM's Guild being opened to other settings and/or perhaps a pdf.

2) Stewart then hints that there will be more stuff later. Which might suggest an upcoming print product. Might.

3) Stewart also hints there might be plans that flow into next year. Which suggests that they have a longish term plan for rolling out the settings.

I think it'll be interesting to see how they go about this. They've said in the past that they want each of the settings to offer something that isn't already available. They want them to be part of a story, like everything else they do these days. And, presumably, they don't want to split their base, as was the curse of TSR past.

I get the impression from Mearls' occasional dropped hints that they are pretty excited about their plan. But I'll acknowledge that's just guesses based on really vague hints. But he does seem super excited about upcoming projects.

My two wooden nickels.

AD


----------



## Mercule (Jul 9, 2018)

lkj said:


> Disclaimer: These are just semi-educated guesses made for fun.
> 
> 1) Stewart mentions that there will be some instant gratification on the announcement date. To me this suggests DM's Guild being opened to other settings and/or perhaps a pdf.
> 
> ...



Building from this....

One possible scenario that would fulfill these points would be a PDF on the day of the announcement (per Jester David), plus a formal adventure next year. That would make the PDF sort of an "online appendix" or expansion for the adventure, kind of like they ended up doing with the PotA bonus material. While this wouldn't exactly thrill me, it would meet my minimum definition of "support". There would be a physical product on the shelves to open the door for new converts. It's darn close to a "punt to Keith on DM's Guild" answer, but that physical product is important, to me.


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jul 9, 2018)

Look at what Nathan (from D&D’s fireside chat) posted today! Eberron book in the background. Spoilers for what is to come the 23rd? I sure hope so!


----------



## lkj (Jul 9, 2018)

Man, he's a real bastard. And I mean that in a good way.

AD


----------



## lkj (Jul 9, 2018)

Mercule said:


> Building from this....
> 
> One possible scenario that would fulfill these points would be a PDF on the day of the announcement (per Jester David), plus a formal adventure next year. That would make the PDF sort of an "online appendix" or expansion for the adventure, kind of like they ended up doing with the PotA bonus material. While this wouldn't exactly thrill me, it would meet my minimum definition of "support". There would be a physical product on the shelves to open the door for new converts. It's darn close to a "punt to Keith on DM's Guild" answer, but that physical product is important, to me.





So, I totally understand why the printed product is important to you. And it's totally within your rights to say that if they aren't going to have a printed product that you consider that insufficient support. 

But, given that-- Hypothetically, what if they wrote fully fleshed out, fully vetted campaign setting books with all the bells and whistles but decided that the only way to make that financially viable was to release them as digital products. Say for example their market analysis suggested not enough people would buy the books to make actual printing profitable. Or that it will confuse their market strategy or whatever (say by splitting or confusing newbies).  So, instead, they release it digitally, knowing that their harder core users get what they want and that they can still keep their strategy intact.

For the record-- I don't think they'd go this route because the design effort would probably be too high to justify the work if it wasn't leading to a printed product.  But I can see gradations along a spectrum toward that end. I mean, 'punting to Keith' could also be-- Pay Keith as a freelancer to do an official sourcebook on DM's Guild and have it go through the same vetting as the rest of their products. Which is different than just letting Keith publish stuff on his own.

Anyway, just curious, since I see a wider gradation of possible outcomes between 'printed product' and 'crappy digital throwaway'

AD


----------



## gyor (Jul 10, 2018)

nicolas.carrillos said:


> Look at what Nathan (from D&D’s fireside chat) posted today! Eberron book in the background. Spoilers for what is to come the 23rd? I sure hope so!




 How can you tell that is eberron?


----------



## nicolas.carrillos (Jul 10, 2018)

gyor said:


> How can you tell that is eberron?




It’s my favorite setting, I absolutely love it and know its covers and logo by heart. I promise you that image and logo ARE from Eberron. Look, a comparison proves this, as in the image below


----------



## lkj (Jul 10, 2018)

There's also no doubt that he's absolutely trolling or teasing. 

Same with the constant mentions of Spelljammer.

It makes me think they are going to throw out something for all the settings. Otherwise, if there is no Spelljammer and no Eberron material, he's just actively made two whole groups of fans really angry. So, how do you not give away the surprise while still dropping hints for a couple of settings? You produce material for all the settings. 

Of course, in that scenario, you get a primer for each setting and only one or two get full treatment. 

 But then if he knows that I know that he knows that I know that he knows . . .

AD


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 10, 2018)

nicolas.carrillos said:


> Look at what Nathan (from D&D’s fireside chat) posted today! Eberron book in the background. Spoilers for what is to come the 23rd? I sure hope so!




Man... that guy... just... argh!?! 

Nerd-tease-rage powers activate!!!


----------



## darjr (Jul 10, 2018)

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-setting-hint-is-Eberon&p=7460055#post7460055


----------



## Mercule (Jul 10, 2018)

lkj said:


> So, I totally understand why the printed product is important to you. And it's totally within your rights to say that if they aren't going to have a printed product that you consider that insufficient support.
> 
> But, given that-- Hypothetically, what if they wrote fully fleshed out, fully vetted campaign setting books with all the bells and whistles but decided that the only way to make that financially viable was to release them as digital products. Say for example their market analysis suggested not enough people would buy the books to make actual printing profitable. Or that it will confuse their market strategy or whatever (say by splitting or confusing newbies).  So, instead, they release it digitally, knowing that their harder core users get what they want and that they can still keep their strategy intact.
> 
> ...



Oh, there's definitely a gamut. Hopefully, my understanding of that basic fact is clear from the ways I've responded, in this thread. There's a minimum level of "real" support. The specific options I've given aren't the only possibilities -- just the ones I've thought of. As much as I'd love to see a full, 256+ page ECS 5E, I totally see why they wouldn't, especially if current printing costs would push that up to a $75 (or more) book, which sounds possible. Also, as much as I'd love one for Eberron, and would probably pay $75 for it, I don't actually need it. In fact, too much of a full ECS 5E would be just another opportunity for "drift", which seem to happen every time a setting gets reprinted. I've come to actually believe that the best option for setting support is a SCAG-length book that gives the setting-specific mechanics necessary to play in the world and enough of an overview to whet the appetite of the uninitiated to go to DM's Guild for third-party support or find the old books (including at the DM's Guild). I'm not a Realms fan, so I have no opinion on whether the SCAG served those basic functions for the Realms and people just expected something different or if the book didn't even do that.

I will say that one of the basic criteria for "support" -- and why the print product is so essential to it -- is that I want players new to D&D with 5E to have a clearly visible alternative to the Realms as a published setting. Some of this bias is, absolutely, because I loathe the Realms. I will totally own that. But, I also think it's bad for the game to be too tightly coupled to any one setting. The biggest benefit D&D provides, IMO, is the battery of ready-made stuff (monsters, spells, etc.) that can be quickly and easily recombined to make a new setting, tailored to a group's tastes. That can totally include grabbing a published setting and go.

The D&D system actually isn't that great. Class and level based characters just suck. You can somewhat redeem classes by turning them into a starting package of some sort (see Genesys), but the gigantic blocks of level-based rewards is horrible. It's only benefit is in the simplicity and ease of use. As long as you keep your customization inside the given box, all is good. This applies for GMing, too, with the selection of monsters and magic items available without work. If you don't fit in the box, things get pretty dicey. Long term, tying D&D to the Realms means it becomes just another setting-specific RPG, like Shadowrun, Vampire, Exalted, etc. Rarely does someone take the time to decouple systems from they're settings. So, when people tire of the Realms, they'll abandon the system.

I'm definitely not begging for the setting glut of the 1990s. We don't need 873 region and race books for each of three dozen settings. But, I think having 2-3, maybe 4, settings on the shelves would actually help the game, not hurt it, especially if the settings weren't just 3 different takes on vanilla fantasy. I don't think there's any good reason to publish Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara, etc. because they really would just compete with the Realms. Eberron is probably about as close as you would want to get. Dark Sun is the other obvious legacy property that stands out as "different, but relatable". Planescape and/or Spelljammer could be sold as "optional expansions" to the Realms or their own stand-alone settings. Neither is my cup-o-tea, but I don't necessarily bear either any ill will, either.

One thought on "pure digital" did occur to me. Since DDB is the official online support for 5E rules, and they actually aren't offering (much) non-official material, a digital-only product that was sold on DDB in a way that was indistinguishable from a print product would probably work. Buying habits are changing and, someday, the web will replace the FLGS for discovering new official products. I don't think we're there, yet, which is why I think a print product on store shelves is a requirement for anything but "punt", but I could be convinced that DDB is approaching that tipping point -- or, at least is close enough for a compromise. Better yet, promote it there and co-launch it on DM's Guild, with print-on-demand.

Doing an Eberron book as a PDF downloadable from the WotC site would just come off too much like an over-sized UA offering, regardless of layout, images, etc. I don't even like launching it solely (or primarily) as DM's Guild because it's too easy to miss or lose stuff, there.


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Jul 10, 2018)

WotC just posted on Twitter that the scheduled Unearthed Arcana release for today has been delayed............to July 23rd.


----------



## SkidAce (Jul 10, 2018)

These kind of teasers, while intriguing at first, actually wear me out.

So, hopefully I'll hear something after the 23rd, until then...I'm tired....


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Jul 10, 2018)

nicolas.carrillos said:


> Look at what Nathan (from D&D’s fireside chat) posted today! Eberron book in the background. Spoilers for what is to come the 23rd? I sure hope so!




Notice that it is on a computer screen? Makes me think these new releases will be D&D Beyond exclusives. Also, DDB adds all the UA content after it releases, and the next UA is delayed to the same date of July 23.


----------



## Mercurius (Jul 10, 2018)

I agree with [MENTION=18646]lkj[/MENTION] that at this point they almost "have to" release a capstone like product offers access to a bunch of setttings. This is why I think a Spelljammer-Planescape is the most likely offering. Imagine a book that covers SJ/PS, details Sigil, then has overviews of a few major settings.

They can then release fuller treatments of specific settings later on.

On the other hand, I also wouldn't be surprised if we see nothing more than the "Planejammer" book, and then DM's Guild opened up and/or licensing of settings to trusted companies. I don't see what WotC loses if they do something like they did with Dragonlance with Margaret Weis in 3.x days.


----------



## Henry (Jul 10, 2018)

....


----------



## Henry (Jul 10, 2018)

eryndel said:


> Don't know if you got an answer to this, but it looks to me like it's either a wand that can cast the various Bigby's Hand spells... Or a +2 Backscratcher.   Not sure which...


----------



## LordEntrails (Jul 10, 2018)

Enevhar Aldarion said:


> Notice that it is on a computer screen? Makes me think these new releases will be D&D Beyond exclusives. Also, DDB adds all the UA content after it releases, and the next UA is delayed to the same date of July 23.




This would (probably) be the only possible type of product that would infuriate me.

DDB is not the only, and it wasn't the first, official digital product for 5E. I think WotC continues to do a disservice to SmiteWorks with their continual absence of mentioning them.


----------



## Kobold Avenger (Jul 10, 2018)

You sure the delay of the UA to the 23rd doesn't have to do with something like people just going on vacation, rather than any timing with an announcement?


----------



## Enevhar Aldarion (Jul 10, 2018)

Kobold Avenger said:


> You sure the delay of the UA to the 23rd doesn't have to do with something like people just going on vacation, rather than any timing with an announcement?




For the the folks here who do not Twitter, even to read comments, this is the text of the tweet:

"Hey everyone, this month's Unearthed Arcana won't be coming out today. The gnomes preparing the documents all took their time off at the same time & this UA's contents might just be better suited for a later release. Look for it to be published on or around July 23rd! Apologies!"

Maybe it was vacations by their tech people getting in the way or maybe they decided to delay it on purpose, or maybe they did not have one planned at all for today anyway and they threw this out to hype the news on the 23rd even more. So make of it what you will.


----------



## lkj (Jul 10, 2018)

Mercule said:


> Oh, there's definitely a gamut. Hopefully, my understanding of that basic fact is clear from the ways I've responded, in this thread. There's a minimum level of "real" support. The specific options I've given aren't the only possibilities -- just the ones I've thought of. As much as I'd love to see a full, 256+ page ECS 5E, I totally see why they wouldn't, especially if current printing costs would push that up to a $75 (or more) book, which sounds possible. Also, as much as I'd love one for Eberron, and would probably pay $75 for it, I don't actually need it. In fact, too much of a full ECS 5E would be just another opportunity for "drift", which seem to happen every time a setting gets reprinted. I've come to actually believe that the best option for setting support is a SCAG-length book that gives the setting-specific mechanics necessary to play in the world and enough of an overview to whet the appetite of the uninitiated to go to DM's Guild for third-party support or find the old books (including at the DM's Guild). I'm not a Realms fan, so I have no opinion on whether the SCAG served those basic functions for the Realms and people just expected something different or if the book didn't even do that.
> 
> I will say that one of the basic criteria for "support" -- and why the print product is so essential to it -- is that I want players new to D&D with 5E to have a clearly visible alternative to the Realms as a published setting. Some of this bias is, absolutely, because I loathe the Realms. I will totally own that. But, I also think it's bad for the game to be too tightly coupled to any one setting. The biggest benefit D&D provides, IMO, is the battery of ready-made stuff (monsters, spells, etc.) that can be quickly and easily recombined to make a new setting, tailored to a group's tastes. That can totally include grabbing a published setting and go.
> 
> ...




There's a lot here. And I understand your thoughts on the matter. I don't agree with a lot of it, but I think we'll probably just have to go with the 'agree to disagree' route (which I usually do with forum disagreements, as I lack the energy for lengthy ones and usually it comes down to differing tastes).  But to avoid being cryptic, I'll note my own opinions:

1) I don't think the D&D system 'isn't that great' or that class and level based systems suck. I can see that they might not suit certain tastes, however. And that's fine. 

2) I don't agree that having the Realms as the only supported setting would make D&D a setting specific game and eventually result in people abandoning it. From previous survey info WotC has released, most games are homebrew. And within the main books (especially DMG) they provide a great deal of support of homebrew. And I've found their Realms products to be great and easily adaptable resources for my own homebrew games. I haven't run a realms game in decades, but I've lifted a lot material from their adventures in 5e. And I think they are designed that way intentionally. Do I think providing other settings as examples would be useful for folks?  Yes! Do I really want them to release other settings for me to plunder? Absolutely! Do I think it's an imperative for the long term viability of the game? Probably not. 

All that said, they have been clearly telegraphing other settings for awhile. I don't think it will be a quick bone thrown to us grognard dogs. We may or may not like their approach (I guarantee some of us will hate it). But I think it will be a well thought out plan. I also think it'll be wrapped around storylines. 

I think you have a great point about DDB and the likelihood that print at some point may not be the primary mode of consumption. 

And I have all these random thoughts about how they might use 'primers', the DM's Guild, print adventures, their multiverse approach in these upcoming plans . . . but I'm tired. And my ability to predict with any specificity what they tend to do has been pretty piss poor anyway. So I think I'll go to bed instead. 

Cheers,
AD


----------



## Dried (Jul 10, 2018)

I hope the 23rd they will not just release a classic unearthed arcana but do a big "playtest" or a "basic rules" equivalent for the settings.
I mean a pdf with basic information and some rules for each setting for letting player try the settings and begin to sell us book for the settings in 2019 afterwards.

I know it may be a wishful thinking but I think it fits with their teasing.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 11, 2018)

Dried said:


> I hope the 23rd they will not just release a classic unearthed arcana but do a big "playtest" or a "basic rules" equivalent for the settings.
> I mean a pdf with basic information and some rules for each setting for letting player try the settings and begin to sell us book for the settings in 2019 afterwards.
> 
> I know it may be a wishful thinking but I think it fits with their teasing.




Well, for a setting like Eberron they really only need four races, dragonmarks, dragonshards, and *maybe* the artificer. That could be done in like 20 pages. Possibly less. That's well within the realm of a regular UA.


----------



## Mercule (Jul 11, 2018)

lkj said:


> And I have all these random thoughts about how they might use 'primers', the DM's Guild, print adventures, their multiverse approach in these upcoming plans . . . but I'm tired. And my ability to predict with any specificity what they tend to do has been pretty piss poor anyway. So I think I'll go to bed instead.



This. I think we’re at a point of mutual understanding. There are a lot of variables that we just don’t have access to, especially in sales and polling (I suspect that the “all Realms, all the time” approach of 5E has shifted the percentages of Realms players, home brewers, and “other” a non-trivial amount in the last few years, but that’s very speculative). We could discuss this until the 23rd and be no more accurate.

I hope it’s Eberron. I hope it’s a print, gateway product. I think both those are likely, but the PDF-only isn’t out of the question.


----------



## vecna00 (Jul 11, 2018)

Realistically, it'll be a decent-sized UA style document. At best, it'll be akin to the Elemental Evil Player's Guide. 

I'm managing my expectations, but still looking forward to some goodness.


----------



## Paul Farquhar (Jul 11, 2018)

The logical thing to do would be to make a print book as a "meta-setting" (i.e. Planescape+Spelljammer), with links to the other settings. Then expand the setting-specific material digitally. This minimises the "divided-playerbase" problem, since digital releases don't have the development and production costs of a print book, so they don't have to be purchased by a high percentage of the total playerbase in order to be profitable.


----------



## delericho (Jul 11, 2018)

Jester David said:


> Well, for a setting like Eberron they really only need four races




The problem there is that one of those races, the Kalashtar, is psionic in nature, which opens up a big can of worms.



> dragonmarks, dragonshards, and *maybe* the artificer.




And the magic item economy. One of the ways Eberron differs from other settings is that the Last War featured industrial-scale magic item development. Those weapons are still around, and indeed are all over the setting. One of the dragonmarked houses (Cannith, IIRC) are specified as having established standardized prices for magic items.

(None of which should be surprising - Eberron was of course built specifically for 3e, and consequently made use of the common assumptions of that edition, including easy sale and purchase of items.)

This presents one of two problems: presenting a detailed magic item economy would be way beyond what could really be presented in 20 pages. Alternately, they could remove that aspect - but that's a pretty big change to the setting.


----------



## Remathilis (Jul 11, 2018)

delericho said:


> The problem there is that one of those races, the Kalashtar, is psionic in nature, which opens up a big can of worms.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Kalashtar aren't hard as it appears; gith races are psionic and that was emulated with SLA and racial abilities. A pseudo-psionic kalashtar could still be done in the same vein.

Likewise, the MIE could still work if you expand the common magic items idea from Xanathars. House Cannith doesn't make +1 swords or wands of fireball, but could make moontouched swords or limited use wands cheap. Good magic items still need to be quested for in Xen'drik and other dark places.


----------



## Salthorae (Jul 11, 2018)

There is already a framework for buying and selling magic items in Xanathar’s. They really just need to expand up the creation rules, that framework and maybe push a price list out for the major/minor items at each level. I.e. Sovreign Glue should not cost anywhere close to a +2 Shield. 

Unfortunately House Cannith and other houses were specifically churning out weapons of war (eternal wands, +1 armor and weapons, warforged) for the Last War. So just pulling that back to common it me doesn’t work. 

That said much of what they did make is probably already in the uncommon section. Even Gauntlets of Ogre Power are uncommon.


----------



## delericho (Jul 11, 2018)

Salthorae said:


> There is already a framework for buying and selling magic items in Xanathar’s.




For most campaign settings, and for 5e in general, I find that this system is perfectly fine - they've (rightly, IMO) decided that magic items should be found rather than bought/sold/made, and so the system provides enough to support that and no more.

But for _Eberron_ specifically, I'd expect something more.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 11, 2018)

delericho said:


> The problem there is that one of those races, the Kalashtar, is psionic in nature, which opens up a big can of worms.



I think they needed to know what the psion would look like to have an idea. I think they have a much better idea now, and know enough to make it synergize.
I doubt they'll do the "1 bonus power point/ level" mechanic again, as that seems unattractive if not playing a psychic character. But they can make them able to communicate telepathically and cast _detect thoughts_ fairly easily. 



delericho said:


> And the magic item economy. One of the ways Eberron differs from other settings is that the Last War featured industrial-scale magic item development. Those weapons are still around, and indeed are all over the setting. One of the dragonmarked houses (Cannith, IIRC) are specified as having established standardized prices for magic items.
> 
> (None of which should be surprising - Eberron was of course built specifically for 3e, and consequently made use of the common assumptions of that edition, including easy sale and purchase of items.)
> 
> This presents one of two problems: presenting a detailed magic item economy would be way beyond what could really be presented in 20 pages. Alternately, they could remove that aspect - but that's a pretty big change to the setting.



The magic item economy of PCs was basically "here's the 3e magic item economy". No changes were needed and the setting didn't do anything revolutionary there. The big change for Eberron was that it stopped to ask "hey, if there are all these mages making bespoke magic items for adventurers and magic item shops... wouldn't they sell to the remaining 99.5% of the populace?"
So what's needed isn't a detailed magic item economy, but more common magic items that can be used by commoners and cost a small amount of money. The magic items of convenience. But mostly that's description and fluff: you don't need hard, detailed rules for a _broom of sweeping_ or an _everburning candle_.

As for PC magic items and standardised prices, that's just a matter of saying "all House Cannith made magic items cost twice the minimum price, except arms and armour that instead cost three times the minimum price".
So, yes, they could do that in 20 pages.


----------



## pukunui (Jul 11, 2018)

FWIW there are some magic items for sale at set prices in Port Nyanzaru in ToA, so there is some precedent for it in 5e.


----------

