Of all the 5e materials we have bought (core books, Rime of the Frost Maiden, Spelljammer, Dragonlance and order of Planescape), my wife and I have been most psyched and inspired by the Dragonlance set (Shadow + Warriors of Krynn). We spent most of our years playing in Forgotten Realms and Planescape (with hints of Jammer), and only just started delving into Krynn with this. So far we have really liked what we've seen, and while we aren't sure about how some things have been done, it's been enjoyable.
That has me wondering if WOTC plans to do any more Dragonlance stuff in the near future/ down the line, or if this was just a one-off side trip? I know that Forgotten Realms is pretty much their prized pig at this point, with the most adventures being published for it (and BG3's popularity will no doubt reinforce that). I have, however, definitely been feeling some FR fatigue over the years, and while I'm absolutely psyched for Planescape (awesome setting), the more classical vibes of Dragonlance are something I've been keen on for a while. So I'm certainly hoping to see another adventure or -something- to continue on from SotDQ.
Honestly, I wouldn’t expect anything for a while; they’ve already done a setting and adventure book; judging by the other material we’ve got, they seem to move on after that.
Crawford did just do an interview where he said, basically, the classic settings aren't meant to be 1-off products. There were no more specifics, and no hint of whether, or if they are currently working on something for any particular setting. Just that they want to and hope to revisit some of them. So, there is hope they might do more. But no official word.
Crawford did just do an interview where he said, basically, the classic settings aren't meant to be 1-off products. There were no more specifics, and no hint of whether, or if they are currently working on something for any particular setting. Just that they want to and hope to revisit some of them. So, there is hope they might do more. But no official word.
To be honest, that thought is conflicting for me. On the one hand, I do agree the settings need more love. The pattern of releasing the setting book then dropping it to move on to something else does leave a lot of open space. On the other hand, as someone who mostly runs published adventures...as of the last fews years, there's been like one campaign per year. If you are only keen on a small proportion of settings, that's only going to be a campaign you like every couple of years. Maybe even only a couple of them per edition.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Crawford did just do an interview where he said, basically, the classic settings aren't meant to be 1-off products. There were no more specifics, and no hint of whether, or if they are currently working on something for any particular setting. Just that they want to and hope to revisit some of them. So, there is hope they might do more. But no official word.
To be honest, that thought is conflicting for me. On the one hand, I do agree the settings need more love. The pattern of releasing the setting book then dropping it to move on to something else does leave a lot of open space. On the other hand, as someone who mostly runs published adventures...as of the last fews years, there's been like one campaign per year. If you are only keen on a small proportion of settings, that's only going to be a campaign you like every couple of years. Maybe even only a couple of them per edition.
Interesting point. I only play in homebrew so never thought of it in those terms. In the interview, Crawford seems pretty ambiguous about whether these will be another setting boom (I bet a larger FR book would sell like hotcakes), or an adventure set in a world they’ve already printed as a setting.
I also wonder if the Baldur’s Gate gazetteer they just released is a proof of concept. I just got a survey asking about interest in smaller products — one shot adventures, things like this gazetteer that are relatively small but also a huge lore dump, small rules books. Maybe they are looking at that as a longer term strategy. Something like Eberron is out there in the world, now we’ll give you (sell you) a 30-page gazetteer about Sharn.
Here is the problem as I see it - more than half of all tables are homebrew, of the tables that aren’t fairly pure homebrew half (roughly) are forgotten realms based so that is 3/4 of the D&D world right there. Then for the rest we have Spelljammer, planescape, Mystara, tal’dorei, ravenloft, Ebberon, wildemont, Strixhaven, exandria, the radiant citadel, and Dragonlance. Just how much stuff can you put out each year? They seem to be bent on rewriting monsters to be as world independant as possible while keeping the world specific lore available for those that want it. Then they have the revised core books for 2024. I’m not sure where any setting specific book is likely to come in after the revised Phlandelver adventure later this year. Bigby’s looks to me like a good example of what might be typical in the future - a “monster” specific book with general lore, specifics for some long established worlds, some feats, magic and maybe a subclass or three for related PC types.
I doubt they’ll completely cut them out, but I personally wouldn’t expect more than 1 a year, or maybe something like every 18 months. There’s enough interest that I doubt they’ll just leave that money on the table, but I doubt we’ll get as many major world books as things like Strixhaven, Planescape, etc, that focus on a region or a specific institution.
It's not so much the lore books (expansions to setting books?) that concern me, but that's not what the quote from Crawford suggested to me:
D&D can be classic high fantasy, in the form of the Forgotten Realms. It can be sort of a steampunk-like fantasy, like in Eberron. We feel it's vital to visit these settings, to tell stories in them. And we look forward to returning to them. So we do not view these as one-shots.
Emphasis mine.
That suggests that they're planning on writing adventures for them. I could be misinterpreting what he's saying (I don't have what he said either side, so quite possible). I welcome the concept of having more adventures in those settings (Spelljammer in particular, but quality adventures in the other settings might be exactly what I need to stretch my wings and try those settings out as well - or even just tie them into a Spelljammer campaign), but I'm unsure of output.
Recently, we've had roughly a collection of one-shots, a setting book and a campaign released each year (plus bits and bobs like Bigby's, DoMT, etc). I'm not overly interested in the one-shots, so it really depends on how these "other setting's adventures" fit into the production schedule. If they're replacing the setting books then that's good (or fantastic if it's in addition). If they're cycling through the settings in their yearly campaign release (which is seemingly what they've been doing, or at least what they did with Krynn), then it's going to be a problem, at least for me.
5e does two things substantially better than its competitors, at least that I can think of. One of them is that there is a pretty reasonable output of published adventures I can run. Even if one is a stinker, there is a big enough back catalogue that I can pick one of those to run and then pick the next one that comes out. If they're just going to cycle through...that's not really going to work.
So, this idea they have could be really amazing...or it could be really bad (at least, from my perspective).
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
As far as Dragonlance is concerned I would really like to see some further expansions for the Warriors of Krynn game perhaps allowing it to be used in other stories set elsewhere in the D&D multiverse. It would be a pity if this game died just because it was tied to just one adventure campaign when it could be used as a more generic battle system for the D&D game.
My suspicion is that like Fizban and bigby have been doing with monsters - giving generic/general info and then setting specific additions with a bit of player additions their adventures will be starting to be similar - setting independant with setting specific suggestions for integration and possibly a new subclass/feats/spells and some new magic ( like the spell crystals in the new Phlandelver). The problem with setting specific adventures is that they are setting specific and so appeal to no more than 25% of the possible market - not good for sales. Going setting independant with integration instructions opens up the full market. So I expect fairly setting independant adventures, books like Fizban’s and Bigby’s and books like Xanthers and Tasha’s as those have the largest markets (players not just DMs) . At most I’m hoping for a single book a year updating those settings that aren’t effectively time static ( like FR and Dragonlance and Ebberon).
As far as Dragonlance is concerned I would really like to see some further expansions for the Warriors of Krynn game perhaps allowing it to be used in other stories set elsewhere in the D&D multiverse. It would be a pity if this game died just because it was tied to just one adventure campaign when it could be used as a more generic battle system for the D&D game.
I'm assuming that you're referring to the board game thing? If so, maybe a full conversion rather than an expansion. Very few (as a proportion) people will have bought the original, but I could see a generic or FR version being released.
The problem with setting specific adventures is that they are setting specific and so appeal to no more than 25% of the possible market - not good for sales.
It's worked so far. And to be honest, I'm not sure how appealing setting agnostic adventures would be. Rules and monster books are one thing for setting agnostic, an adventure that would work equally well in Eberron as well as FR? With only a small set of instructions on how to adapt? It would have to be very bland to function - otherwise most of the book would be dedicated to the instructions rather than adventure - and I don't see that happening. There's a reason why the most flavourful adventure is the one that I hear people racing about the most often. I'm not even sure Eberron et al would be particularly receptive to an adventure - all the fans of it are homebrewers and the sense I've gotten from them is that many are even disdainful of published adventures. They'd be risking fairly safe buyers..for those who are likely to ignore it anyway. You'd also have to blur the various settings, and that would not go down well.
Rule books and deep dives like Bigby's and Fizban's will be setting neutral, but I'm confident adventures will still be setting
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You may be right but that still leaves the problem ( for Dragonlance and other settings) that the largest single setting audience is the Forgotten Realms with roughly 50% of the market so you would need at least 2 adventure books a year with one dedicated to the FR and the other rotating thru the others. You wouldn’t have to worry that much about Exandria/Tal’dorei as they are covered by a third party but that still leaves Dragonlance, Spelljammer and Planescape if you are right about the Eberron crowd. Things like Strixhaven and the radiant citadel seem to fit with Ebberon as both time static and primarily for homebrew.
Yeah, and that's my concern. I'm wondering if they're replacing the new settings releases with "alternative settings" adventures, or if they're sticking to the one adventure per year pace they've been maintaining.
It's 5e's biggest advantage over other engines that there frequent adventures you can buy. If they're going to spread that over several settings... it'll definitely lose ground over other engines.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
As far as Dragonlance is concerned I would really like to see some further expansions for the Warriors of Krynn game perhaps allowing it to be used in other stories set elsewhere in the D&D multiverse. It would be a pity if this game died just because it was tied to just one adventure campaign when it could be used as a more generic battle system for the D&D game.
I believe Warriors of Krynn board game is a 5e version of AD&D 1e DL11 Dragons of Glory. You can therefore use the new board game for this AD&D campaign DL-series.
Just how good were the board game sales? If they were good to exceptionally good you can expect expansions if not forget it. WOtC is for profit - if it’s not making a profit they aren’t going to throw good money after bad. My suspicion is that what they are trying to do is find ways to put some, but not lots, of player facing stuff in every book- some players will buy the book for the player stuff, some for setting lore (for roleplay) but most won’t - but they will buy the player facing stuff separately here or elsewhere giving a second revenue stream for each book. If it makes a profit off DM sales then the PC stuff second stream is pure profit.
As far as Dragonlance is concerned I would really like to see some further expansions for the Warriors of Krynn game perhaps allowing it to be used in other stories set elsewhere in the D&D multiverse. It would be a pity if this game died just because it was tied to just one adventure campaign when it could be used as a more generic battle system for the D&D game.
I believe Warriors of Krynn board game is a 5e version of AD&D 1e DL11 Dragons of Glory. You can therefore use the new board game for this AD&D campaign DL-series.
Actually no it isn't. DL11 was an old-style hex-based map of Ansalon with cardboard counters intended as a separate stand-alone game. The new game is tile-based and designed to be played as a mass combat system that can be incorporated into a regular D&D game to resolve large battles. If it resembles anything from the TSR period it is probably the first edition of the D&D Batttlesystem now long out of print though the more miniatures-based second edition is still available in PDF form.
I've actually been homebrewing some new cards and counters in order to run the High Clerist`s Tower siege from DL8 Dragons of War using the old Battlesystem army lists from the original module for reference. While I can use a lot of existing tiles from the box and just create an extra one for the tower to be used in conjunction with the old module dungeon maps I can only use one card, Bakaris from the box.
As far as Dragonlance is concerned I would really like to see some further expansions for the Warriors of Krynn game perhaps allowing it to be used in other stories set elsewhere in the D&D multiverse. It would be a pity if this game died just because it was tied to just one adventure campaign when it could be used as a more generic battle system for the D&D game.
I'm assuming that you're referring to the board game thing? If so, maybe a full conversion rather than an expansion. Very few (as a proportion) people will have bought the original, but I could see a generic or FR version being released.
The problem with setting specific adventures is that they are setting specific and so appeal to no more than 25% of the possible market - not good for sales.
It's worked so far. And to be honest, I'm not sure how appealing setting agnostic adventures would be. Rules and monster books are one thing for setting agnostic, an adventure that would work equally well in Eberron as well as FR? With only a small set of instructions on how to adapt? It would have to be very bland to function - otherwise most of the book would be dedicated to the instructions rather than adventure - and I don't see that happening. There's a reason why the most flavourful adventure is the one that I hear people racing about the most often. I'm not even sure Eberron et al would be particularly receptive to an adventure - all the fans of it are homebrewers and the sense I've gotten from them is that many are even disdainful of published adventures. They'd be risking fairly safe buyers..for those who are likely to ignore it anyway. You'd also have to blur the various settings, and that would not go down well.
Rule books and deep dives like Bigby's and Fizban's will be setting neutral, but I'm confident adventures will still be setting
The game as it stands has a good core system with some decent components. The included scenarios, commander, and unit cards though are specific to covering the bigger battles in Shadow of the Dragon Queen. It wouldn`t be hard to expand it to cover other Krynn battles or warfare in other D&D settings as they only need to print more cards and counters for different armies and maybe a few more tiles for more exotic locations. As it is I think they put out a solid product here that handled well might just make them a bit of money though I`ve no idea what the sales figures might be.
Of all the 5e materials we have bought (core books, Rime of the Frost Maiden, Spelljammer, Dragonlance and order of Planescape), my wife and I have been most psyched and inspired by the Dragonlance set (Shadow + Warriors of Krynn). We spent most of our years playing in Forgotten Realms and Planescape (with hints of Jammer), and only just started delving into Krynn with this. So far we have really liked what we've seen, and while we aren't sure about how some things have been done, it's been enjoyable.
That has me wondering if WOTC plans to do any more Dragonlance stuff in the near future/ down the line, or if this was just a one-off side trip? I know that Forgotten Realms is pretty much their prized pig at this point, with the most adventures being published for it (and BG3's popularity will no doubt reinforce that). I have, however, definitely been feeling some FR fatigue over the years, and while I'm absolutely psyched for Planescape (awesome setting), the more classical vibes of Dragonlance are something I've been keen on for a while. So I'm certainly hoping to see another adventure or -something- to continue on from SotDQ.
Any notions, speculations, etc?
Honestly, I wouldn’t expect anything for a while; they’ve already done a setting and adventure book; judging by the other material we’ve got, they seem to move on after that.
Crawford did just do an interview where he said, basically, the classic settings aren't meant to be 1-off products. There were no more specifics, and no hint of whether, or if they are currently working on something for any particular setting. Just that they want to and hope to revisit some of them. So, there is hope they might do more. But no official word.
Dungeons & Dragons Will Re-Visit Classic Campaign Settings (comicbook.com)
I only believe it to be true when there is an official announcement or at least a demo product.
backrooms
To be honest, that thought is conflicting for me. On the one hand, I do agree the settings need more love. The pattern of releasing the setting book then dropping it to move on to something else does leave a lot of open space. On the other hand, as someone who mostly runs published adventures...as of the last fews years, there's been like one campaign per year. If you are only keen on a small proportion of settings, that's only going to be a campaign you like every couple of years. Maybe even only a couple of them per edition.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Interesting point. I only play in homebrew so never thought of it in those terms. In the interview, Crawford seems pretty ambiguous about whether these will be another setting boom (I bet a larger FR book would sell like hotcakes), or an adventure set in a world they’ve already printed as a setting.
I also wonder if the Baldur’s Gate gazetteer they just released is a proof of concept. I just got a survey asking about interest in smaller products — one shot adventures, things like this gazetteer that are relatively small but also a huge lore dump, small rules books. Maybe they are looking at that as a longer term strategy. Something like Eberron is out there in the world, now we’ll give you (sell you) a 30-page gazetteer about Sharn.
Here is the problem as I see it - more than half of all tables are homebrew, of the tables that aren’t fairly pure homebrew half (roughly) are forgotten realms based so that is 3/4 of the D&D world right there. Then for the rest we have Spelljammer, planescape, Mystara, tal’dorei, ravenloft, Ebberon, wildemont, Strixhaven, exandria, the radiant citadel, and Dragonlance. Just how much stuff can you put out each year? They seem to be bent on rewriting monsters to be as world independant as possible while keeping the world specific lore available for those that want it. Then they have the revised core books for 2024. I’m not sure where any setting specific book is likely to come in after the revised Phlandelver adventure later this year. Bigby’s looks to me like a good example of what might be typical in the future - a “monster” specific book with general lore, specifics for some long established worlds, some feats, magic and maybe a subclass or three for related PC types.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I doubt they’ll completely cut them out, but I personally wouldn’t expect more than 1 a year, or maybe something like every 18 months. There’s enough interest that I doubt they’ll just leave that money on the table, but I doubt we’ll get as many major world books as things like Strixhaven, Planescape, etc, that focus on a region or a specific institution.
It's not so much the lore books (expansions to setting books?) that concern me, but that's not what the quote from Crawford suggested to me:
Emphasis mine.
That suggests that they're planning on writing adventures for them. I could be misinterpreting what he's saying (I don't have what he said either side, so quite possible). I welcome the concept of having more adventures in those settings (Spelljammer in particular, but quality adventures in the other settings might be exactly what I need to stretch my wings and try those settings out as well - or even just tie them into a Spelljammer campaign), but I'm unsure of output.
Recently, we've had roughly a collection of one-shots, a setting book and a campaign released each year (plus bits and bobs like Bigby's, DoMT, etc). I'm not overly interested in the one-shots, so it really depends on how these "other setting's adventures" fit into the production schedule. If they're replacing the setting books then that's good (or fantastic if it's in addition). If they're cycling through the settings in their yearly campaign release (which is seemingly what they've been doing, or at least what they did with Krynn), then it's going to be a problem, at least for me.
5e does two things substantially better than its competitors, at least that I can think of. One of them is that there is a pretty reasonable output of published adventures I can run. Even if one is a stinker, there is a big enough back catalogue that I can pick one of those to run and then pick the next one that comes out. If they're just going to cycle through...that's not really going to work.
So, this idea they have could be really amazing...or it could be really bad (at least, from my perspective).
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
As far as Dragonlance is concerned I would really like to see some further expansions for the Warriors of Krynn game perhaps allowing it to be used in other stories set elsewhere in the D&D multiverse. It would be a pity if this game died just because it was tied to just one adventure campaign when it could be used as a more generic battle system for the D&D game.
My suspicion is that like Fizban and bigby have been doing with monsters - giving generic/general info and then setting specific additions with a bit of player additions their adventures will be starting to be similar - setting independant with setting specific suggestions for integration and possibly a new subclass/feats/spells and some new magic ( like the spell crystals in the new Phlandelver). The problem with setting specific adventures is that they are setting specific and so appeal to no more than 25% of the possible market - not good for sales. Going setting independant with integration instructions opens up the full market. So I expect fairly setting independant adventures, books like Fizban’s and Bigby’s and books like Xanthers and Tasha’s as those have the largest markets (players not just DMs) . At most I’m hoping for a single book a year updating those settings that aren’t effectively time static ( like FR and Dragonlance and Ebberon).
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I'm assuming that you're referring to the board game thing? If so, maybe a full conversion rather than an expansion. Very few (as a proportion) people will have bought the original, but I could see a generic or FR version being released.
It's worked so far. And to be honest, I'm not sure how appealing setting agnostic adventures would be. Rules and monster books are one thing for setting agnostic, an adventure that would work equally well in Eberron as well as FR? With only a small set of instructions on how to adapt? It would have to be very bland to function - otherwise most of the book would be dedicated to the instructions rather than adventure - and I don't see that happening. There's a reason why the most flavourful adventure is the one that I hear people racing about the most often. I'm not even sure Eberron et al would be particularly receptive to an adventure - all the fans of it are homebrewers and the sense I've gotten from them is that many are even disdainful of published adventures. They'd be risking fairly safe buyers..for those who are likely to ignore it anyway. You'd also have to blur the various settings, and that would not go down well.
Rule books and deep dives like Bigby's and Fizban's will be setting neutral, but I'm confident adventures will still be setting
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
You may be right but that still leaves the problem ( for Dragonlance and other settings) that the largest single setting audience is the Forgotten Realms with roughly 50% of the market so you would need at least 2 adventure books a year with one dedicated to the FR and the other rotating thru the others. You wouldn’t have to worry that much about Exandria/Tal’dorei as they are covered by a third party but that still leaves Dragonlance, Spelljammer and Planescape if you are right about the Eberron crowd. Things like Strixhaven and the radiant citadel seem to fit with Ebberon as both time static and primarily for homebrew.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Yeah, and that's my concern. I'm wondering if they're replacing the new settings releases with "alternative settings" adventures, or if they're sticking to the one adventure per year pace they've been maintaining.
It's 5e's biggest advantage over other engines that there frequent adventures you can buy. If they're going to spread that over several settings... it'll definitely lose ground over other engines.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I believe Warriors of Krynn board game is a 5e version of AD&D 1e DL11 Dragons of Glory. You can therefore use the new board game for this AD&D campaign DL-series.
Just how good were the board game sales? If they were good to exceptionally good you can expect expansions if not forget it. WOtC is for profit - if it’s not making a profit they aren’t going to throw good money after bad. My suspicion is that what they are trying to do is find ways to put some, but not lots, of player facing stuff in every book- some players will buy the book for the player stuff, some for setting lore (for roleplay) but most won’t - but they will buy the player facing stuff separately here or elsewhere giving a second revenue stream for each book. If it makes a profit off DM sales then the PC stuff second stream is pure profit.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Actually no it isn't. DL11 was an old-style hex-based map of Ansalon with cardboard counters intended as a separate stand-alone game. The new game is tile-based and designed to be played as a mass combat system that can be incorporated into a regular D&D game to resolve large battles. If it resembles anything from the TSR period it is probably the first edition of the D&D Batttlesystem now long out of print though the more miniatures-based second edition is still available in PDF form.
I've actually been homebrewing some new cards and counters in order to run the High Clerist`s Tower siege from DL8 Dragons of War using the old Battlesystem army lists from the original module for reference. While I can use a lot of existing tiles from the box and just create an extra one for the tower to be used in conjunction with the old module dungeon maps I can only use one card, Bakaris from the box.
The game as it stands has a good core system with some decent components. The included scenarios, commander, and unit cards though are specific to covering the bigger battles in Shadow of the Dragon Queen. It wouldn`t be hard to expand it to cover other Krynn battles or warfare in other D&D settings as they only need to print more cards and counters for different armies and maybe a few more tiles for more exotic locations. As it is I think they put out a solid product here that handled well might just make them a bit of money though I`ve no idea what the sales figures might be.