Being new to D&D, I have zero nostalgia for old settings, and have set about reading up on them all to get a vibe for what may be coming and what I may be interested in. Greyhawk, Mystara, and Dragonlance appear to offer very little that Forgotten Realms doesn't already give us. They're all mostly just Tolkien-in-a-blender stuff with the biggest differences between them basically being the names of gods or towns. Not a one interests me.
However, I am into Spelljammer, Planescape, and to a slightly lesser degree, Darksun. D&D Star Wars? Yes please. D&D Sliders meets Marvel's Secret Wars? Yes please. D&D Dune/Mad Max/John Carter? Yes please. Those all have a definable conceptual hook that really sets them apart from all the extant settings.
I know a lot of people complain about Magic crossover stuff, but I'm new to D&D and have no history with Magic, so conceptually that means nothing to me and doesn't bother me at all. At least Ravnica has a hook to it. It's fantasy Coruscant with a bit of cyberpunk vibe, where the big corporations ("Guilds" work the same way even if the fluff is different) run everything. And Theros has the Greek Myth thing and a heavy focus on the gods' interference and heroes bonds to those gods. I'm into those to a lesser degree than, say, Eberron, but at least they have a hook.
I mean...unless someone can sell me on Greyhawk/Mystara/Dragonlance using something other than nostalgia and history, I do not remotely see the point in releasing settings for them. Give us something that lets us get weird with it. Give us spaceships and other dimensions and post-apocalyptic deserts.
The one main continent from Mystara was basically 14 different campaign settings (1 for each country), it had several other continents on the planet, and the planet itself was hollow so the interior was like a Dyson sphere with its own unique setting. Plus, the ancient history of Mystara had robots and aliens, and the more recent history had what was basically a portion of France slider-esque relocate there. There are no “gods” on Mystara. Instead they have “immortals.” Anyone could conceivably become an Immortal, and the very first Immortal was a Dinosaur. Is that enough, or you need more?
Sadly, Wizards will go where the money is, and nostalgia has ever been more lucrative than innovation. Even when the innovation is also nostalgia.
You're echoing many of the same complaints that were levied against the Critical Role book - "why is this taking up valuable development time with just-different-Fantasy? Nobody asked for this, we have Faerun already! Gimme something different!" It's a valid criticism, and while I personally find enormous value in the Wildemount book even beyond being a fan of Critical Role, I can see where someone without the investment would see little value in adding a reskinned High Heroic Fantasy setting.
But there's a metric buttload of Dragonlance fans out there who will hurl their money at their nearest retailer with tremendous force and zero hesitation the moment Wizards announces a Dragonlance book. Same way they released a Critical Role book whose timing puts it suspiciously right around the time Critical Role generated over eleven million dollars in Kickstarter funding and literally every entertainment company in the market did a Scooby Doo spit take and started saying "how can we cut ourselves into a slice of that?" Same way Magic: the Gathering has a much larger fanbase than D&D, and Wizards would love to squeeze even more of those poor cardstock crack-addicted junkies' money out of their abused, anorexic wallets.
Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark sun - all of those can be objectively better ways for the game to evolve and grow beyond its current limits and borders. But we'll only get them if somebody in the internal team decides to make it their Passion project, because Wizards exists for the sole reason of Making More Money, and sadly junk like Dragonlance or Tom and Jerry's Cartoon Reel of Everything is where the Money is.
Frankly, we should all be astonished and grateful we even got Eberron back, given how terrible Wizards is at this shit.
Given the limited amount of UA right now and that most of it is dragon related, I think Wizards might be working on a decent dragon adventure or a book similar to VGtM, considering that tyranny of dragons was a railroading mess.
The one main continent from Mystara was basically 14 different campaign settings (1 for each country), it had several other continents on the planet, and the planet itself was hollow so the interior was like a Dyson sphere with its own unique setting. Plus, the ancient history of Mystara had robots and aliens, and the more recent history had what was basically a portion of France slider-esque relocate there. There are no “gods” on Mystara. Instead they have “immortals.” Anyone could conceivably become an Immortal, and the very first Immortal was a Dinosaur. Is that enough, or you need more?
That sounds slightly more interesting than my cursory reading indicated, but I'd have to see what kind of races and subclasses and magic items that would lead to. "Hollow Earth" isn't all that different from the Underdark in concept, and Eberron already has countries that function as their own smaller settings, as well as robots. Aliens and Immortals have potential, though. Especially that Dinosaur Immortal.
The one main continent from Mystara was basically 14 different campaign settings (1 for each country), it had several other continents on the planet, and the planet itself was hollow so the interior was like a Dyson sphere with its own unique setting. Plus, the ancient history of Mystara had robots and aliens, and the more recent history had what was basically a portion of France slider-esque relocate there. There are no “gods” on Mystara. Instead they have “immortals.” Anyone could conceivably become an Immortal, and the very first Immortal was a Dinosaur. Is that enough, or you need more?
That sounds slightly more interesting than my cursory reading indicated, but I'd have to see what kind of races and subclasses and magic items that would lead to. "Hollow Earth" isn't all that different from the Underdark in concept, and Eberron already has countries that function as their own smaller settings, as well as robots. Aliens and Immortals have potential, though. Especially that Dinosaur Immortal.
The Hollow World and Underdark have absolutely nothing to do with each other whatsoever.
The Underdark is a vast underground cave network. It is Dark, it is brutal, and the bulk of its inhabitants are evil.
The Hollow World is a vast, wide open interior of the planet with a sun at its center and a massive floating continent that provides a semblance of night time to the rest of the Hollow World. And every one of its civilizations was rescued from extinction in the surface and relocated by the Immortals to the Hollow World as a sort of anthropological preserve.
Also, Mystara has two moons, one that’s invisible and inhabited by people, the other inhabited by the Immortals. And the immortals draw their power from the spheres. Think like a giant machine that provides divinity to those who go can learn to master its ways.
Sadly, Wizards will go where the money is, and nostalgia has ever been more lucrative than innovation. Even when the innovation is also nostalgia.
You're echoing many of the same complaints that were levied against the Critical Role book - "why is this taking up valuable development time with just-different-Fantasy? Nobody asked for this, we have Faerun already! Gimme something different!" It's a valid criticism, and while I personally find enormous value in the Wildemount book even beyond being a fan of Critical Role, I can see where someone without the investment would see little value in adding a reskinned High Heroic Fantasy setting.
But there's a metric buttload of Dragonlance fans out there who will hurl their money at their nearest retailer with tremendous force and zero hesitation the moment Wizards announces a Dragonlance book. Same way they released a Critical Role book whose timing puts it suspiciously right around the time Critical Role generated over eleven million dollars in Kickstarter funding and literally every entertainment company in the market did a Scooby Doo spit take and started saying "how can we cut ourselves into a slice of that?" Same way Magic: the Gathering has a much larger fanbase than D&D, and Wizards would love to squeeze even more of those poor cardstock crack-addicted junkies' money out of their abused, anorexic wallets.
Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark sun - all of those can be objectively better ways for the game to evolve and grow beyond its current limits and borders. But we'll only get them if somebody in the internal team decides to make it their Passion project, because Wizards exists for the sole reason of Making More Money, and sadly junk like Dragonlance or Tom and Jerry's Cartoon Reel of Everything is where the Money is.
Frankly, we should all be astonished and grateful we even got Eberron back, given how terrible Wizards is at this shit.
The older I get, the more I'm convinced that nostalgia is a disease. Some things from our past age well and merit our devotion, some do not. Many people seem unable to tell the difference.
(And hey, at least Wildemount has a bit of a strange science angle with quantum/gravity/time/superposition elements in the magic and subclasses, that's something)
I get chasing money, but a lot of the reboots and long-gap sequels of movies, TV, comics, novels or whatever we've seen over the last decade or so make it pretty clear that the nostalgia and brand recognition only get you so far, and quality can carry you much, much further. Mad Max: Fury Road was an absolute masterpiece and nobody cared about Terminator: Dark Fate. The name and nostalgia are not enough. You need to justify your existence by bringing something new to the table, even when resurrecting the dead.
Dragonlance: Weiss & Hickman just dropped their lawsuit against WotC for pulling the plug on 3 new novels. Not smart enough to read into that other than timing is notable.
Magic (Zendikar or elsewhere): There's a new Magic D&D card set coming out for the Forgotten Realms setting in 2021...but that would be a Magic product about D&D, not a $50 D&D hardcover book about Magic. ~Simultaneously launching a D&D product about a Magic setting is either a really good idea or really bad. I personally feel like the free zendikar publication (& other magic settings) never got very far.
Planescape: Tasha did make hopping awful easy with dream of the blue veil. could be nice forethought.
I would love more fey options in 5e. The fey with the highest CR are the Eladrin from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, with a CR of 10. We seriously need higher level options for fey monsters, like Archfey and other powerful faerie folk that can be used to fight against the party.
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The one main continent from Mystara was basically 14 different campaign settings (1 for each country), it had several other continents on the planet, and the planet itself was hollow so the interior was like a Dyson sphere with its own unique setting. Plus, the ancient history of Mystara had robots and aliens, and the more recent history had what was basically a portion of France slider-esque relocate there. There are no “gods” on Mystara. Instead they have “immortals.” Anyone could conceivably become an Immortal, and the very first Immortal was a Dinosaur. Is that enough, or you need more?
That sounds slightly more interesting than my cursory reading indicated, but I'd have to see what kind of races and subclasses and magic items that would lead to. "Hollow Earth" isn't all that different from the Underdark in concept, and Eberron already has countries that function as their own smaller settings, as well as robots. Aliens and Immortals have potential, though. Especially that Dinosaur Immortal.
The Hollow World and Underdark have absolutely nothing to do with each other whatsoever.
The Underdark is a vast underground cave network. It is Dark, it is brutal, and the bulk of its inhabitants are evil.
The Hollow World is a vast, wide open interior of the planet with a sun at its center and a massive floating continent that provides a semblance of night time to the rest of the Hollow World. And every one of its civilizations was rescued from extinction in the surface and relocated by the Immortals to the Hollow World as a sort of anthropological preserve.
Also, Mystara has two moons, one that’s invisible and inhabited by people, the other inhabited by the Immortals. And the immortals draw their power from the spheres. Think like a giant machine that provides divinity to those who go can learn to master its ways.
Hmmm. That has potential, but I'd need a better idea how any of that affects the overall feel, and what kinds of races, subclasses, monsters, and items would come out of it. I need a solid balance of both fluff and crunch. Too much of one or the other and I start tuning out entirely.
Planescape: Tasha did make hopping planes awful easy with dream of the blue veil. could be nice forethought.
That's not planes-hopping, that's world hopping. Planehopping is from plane shift and similar spells, that's travelling from the Forgotten Realms to Wildemount or from Dark Sun to Eberron.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I would love more fey options in 5e. The fey with the highest CR are the Eladrin from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, with a CR of 10. We seriously need higher level options for fey monsters, like Archfey and other powerful faerie folk that can be used to fight against the party.
An Archfey Warlock should absolutely have a canon mechanical way to face and destroy their patron.
Well, unfortunately there would only be one or two race/subraces. Lupins (think Tabaxi but canine) and there was a race of winged elves. Also the Aranea, shape shifting spider people. To be clear though, that’s only because races that were originally from Mystara are now everywhere. For example, before anyone ever heard of anything called a Tabaxi, there were the Rakasta on Mystara. Tortles were originally from Mystara too. It was also the first setting with rules for PC Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Ogres, Trolls and a few other monstrous Races (like Gnolls before their canon went fiendish). So, there would have been tons of new races, but they already got stolen for the rest of D&D.
As for subclasses, in the Savage Coast of one of the other continents, the entire feel was very Gaucho, so that could lead to a number of late colonial-early western feeling subclasses. Back in the Known World continent there was literally everything from Dervishes to Braves to Mongols to an entire country populated by arcane Magic users where divine magic was banned. And in the prehistory was Blackmore, and entire nation of what were basically Atificers that is now “lost to history.” So... take your pick.
And a slew of monsters (like the terrifying Manacorpions) and magic items you have never even heard of yet. Unfortunately, to do Mystara proper justice, even if they abridged everything it would still take 4-6 books the size of Eberron or Wildmount. There was just that much published for it.
That’s the beauty of Mystara. If I keep going, sooner or later I’ll hit something that everyone is into. It really has everything. But depending on how you want to play it, you never have to deal with any of it if you don’t want to because of how things were divided geographically.
Anyone remember a setting called Red Steel from Advanced D&D days? I brought it many many moons ago and never got round to playing as 3e came out about a week later. The blurb on the back of the box says:
"Red Steel. An Extrordinary metal, lighter than common steel and more precious than gold. The object of quests and the cause of war, Only one place holds this treasure: the Savage Coast. This Grand frontier is also home ot the Red Curse, an ancient bane that hideously deforms some victims, whilst mysteriously granting power to others. Here the player characters can acquire wonderous abilities, even as they seek to garner red steel, the key to power and fame!"
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Anyone remember a setting called Red Steel from Advanced D&D days? I brought it many many moons ago and never got round to playing as 3e came out about a week later. The blurb on the back of the box says:
"Red Steel. An Extrordinary metal, lighter than common steel and more precious than gold. The object of quests and the cause of war, Only one place holds this treasure: the Savage Coast. This Grand frontier is also home ot the Red Curse, an ancient bane that hideously deforms some victims, whilst mysteriously granting power to others. Here the player characters can acquire wonderous abilities, even as they seek to garner red steel, the key to power and fame!"
Yes, that was on Mystara. That was located on the continent with the Gauchos and the Manscorpions and the Aranea.
I’m actually looking at it on my coffee table right now as I type this.
Being new to D&D, I have zero nostalgia for old settings, and have set about reading up on them all to get a vibe for what may be coming and what I may be interested in. Greyhawk, Mystara, and Dragonlance appear to offer very little that Forgotten Realms doesn't already give us. They're all mostly just Tolkien-in-a-blender stuff with the biggest differences between them basically being the names of gods or towns. Not a one interests me.
However, I am into Spelljammer, Planescape, and to a slightly lesser degree, Darksun. D&D Star Wars? Yes please. D&D Sliders meets Marvel's Secret Wars? Yes please. D&D Dune/Mad Max/John Carter? Yes please. Those all have a definable conceptual hook that really sets them apart from all the extant settings.
I know a lot of people complain about Magic crossover stuff, but I'm new to D&D and have no history with Magic, so conceptually that means nothing to me and doesn't bother me at all. At least Ravnica has a hook to it. It's fantasy Coruscant with a bit of cyberpunk vibe, where the big corporations ("Guilds" work the same way even if the fluff is different) run everything. And Theros has the Greek Myth thing and a heavy focus on the gods' interference and heroes bonds to those gods. I'm into those to a lesser degree than, say, Eberron, but at least they have a hook.
I mean...unless someone can sell me on Greyhawk/Mystara/Dragonlance using something other than nostalgia and history, I do not remotely see the point in releasing settings for them. Give us something that lets us get weird with it. Give us spaceships and other dimensions and post-apocalyptic deserts.
The one main continent from Mystara was basically 14 different campaign settings (1 for each country), it had several other continents on the planet, and the planet itself was hollow so the interior was like a Dyson sphere with its own unique setting. Plus, the ancient history of Mystara had robots and aliens, and the more recent history had what was basically a portion of France slider-esque relocate there. There are no “gods” on Mystara. Instead they have “immortals.” Anyone could conceivably become an Immortal, and the very first Immortal was a Dinosaur. Is that enough, or you need more?
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Sadly, Wizards will go where the money is, and nostalgia has ever been more lucrative than innovation. Even when the innovation is also nostalgia.
You're echoing many of the same complaints that were levied against the Critical Role book - "why is this taking up valuable development time with just-different-Fantasy? Nobody asked for this, we have Faerun already! Gimme something different!" It's a valid criticism, and while I personally find enormous value in the Wildemount book even beyond being a fan of Critical Role, I can see where someone without the investment would see little value in adding a reskinned High Heroic Fantasy setting.
But there's a metric buttload of Dragonlance fans out there who will hurl their money at their nearest retailer with tremendous force and zero hesitation the moment Wizards announces a Dragonlance book. Same way they released a Critical Role book whose timing puts it suspiciously right around the time Critical Role generated over eleven million dollars in Kickstarter funding and literally every entertainment company in the market did a Scooby Doo spit take and started saying "how can we cut ourselves into a slice of that?" Same way Magic: the Gathering has a much larger fanbase than D&D, and Wizards would love to squeeze even more of those poor cardstock crack-addicted junkies' money out of their abused, anorexic wallets.
Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark sun - all of those can be objectively better ways for the game to evolve and grow beyond its current limits and borders. But we'll only get them if somebody in the internal team decides to make it their Passion project, because Wizards exists for the sole reason of Making More Money, and sadly junk like Dragonlance or Tom and Jerry's Cartoon Reel of Everything is where the Money is.
Frankly, we should all be astonished and grateful we even got Eberron back, given how terrible Wizards is at this shit.
Please do not contact or message me.
Given the limited amount of UA right now and that most of it is dragon related, I think Wizards might be working on a decent dragon adventure or a book similar to VGtM, considering that tyranny of dragons was a railroading mess.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
That sounds slightly more interesting than my cursory reading indicated, but I'd have to see what kind of races and subclasses and magic items that would lead to. "Hollow Earth" isn't all that different from the Underdark in concept, and Eberron already has countries that function as their own smaller settings, as well as robots. Aliens and Immortals have potential, though. Especially that Dinosaur Immortal.
Them's fighting words. Gnomes, proper Gnomes, are awesome.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
The Hollow World and Underdark have absolutely nothing to do with each other whatsoever.
The Underdark is a vast underground cave network. It is Dark, it is brutal, and the bulk of its inhabitants are evil.
The Hollow World is a vast, wide open interior of the planet with a sun at its center and a massive floating continent that provides a semblance of night time to the rest of the Hollow World. And every one of its civilizations was rescued from extinction in the surface and relocated by the Immortals to the Hollow World as a sort of anthropological preserve.
Also, Mystara has two moons, one that’s invisible and inhabited by people, the other inhabited by the Immortals. And the immortals draw their power from the spheres. Think like a giant machine that provides divinity to those who go can learn to master its ways.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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The older I get, the more I'm convinced that nostalgia is a disease. Some things from our past age well and merit our devotion, some do not. Many people seem unable to tell the difference.
(And hey, at least Wildemount has a bit of a strange science angle with quantum/gravity/time/superposition elements in the magic and subclasses, that's something)
I get chasing money, but a lot of the reboots and long-gap sequels of movies, TV, comics, novels or whatever we've seen over the last decade or so make it pretty clear that the nostalgia and brand recognition only get you so far, and quality can carry you much, much further. Mad Max: Fury Road was an absolute masterpiece and nobody cared about Terminator: Dark Fate. The name and nostalgia are not enough. You need to justify your existence by bringing something new to the table, even when resurrecting the dead.
food for thought:
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
I would love more fey options in 5e. The fey with the highest CR are the Eladrin from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, with a CR of 10. We seriously need higher level options for fey monsters, like Archfey and other powerful faerie folk that can be used to fight against the party.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Hmmm. That has potential, but I'd need a better idea how any of that affects the overall feel, and what kinds of races, subclasses, monsters, and items would come out of it. I need a solid balance of both fluff and crunch. Too much of one or the other and I start tuning out entirely.
That's not planes-hopping, that's world hopping. Planehopping is from plane shift and similar spells, that's travelling from the Forgotten Realms to Wildemount or from Dark Sun to Eberron.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
An Archfey Warlock should absolutely have a canon mechanical way to face and destroy their patron.
Well, unfortunately there would only be one or two race/subraces. Lupins (think Tabaxi but canine) and there was a race of winged elves. Also the Aranea, shape shifting spider people. To be clear though, that’s only because races that were originally from Mystara are now everywhere. For example, before anyone ever heard of anything called a Tabaxi, there were the Rakasta on Mystara. Tortles were originally from Mystara too. It was also the first setting with rules for PC Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Ogres, Trolls and a few other monstrous Races (like Gnolls before their canon went fiendish). So, there would have been tons of new races, but they already got stolen for the rest of D&D.
As for subclasses, in the Savage Coast of one of the other continents, the entire feel was very Gaucho, so that could lead to a number of late colonial-early western feeling subclasses. Back in the Known World continent there was literally everything from Dervishes to Braves to Mongols to an entire country populated by arcane Magic users where divine magic was banned. And in the prehistory was Blackmore, and entire nation of what were basically Atificers that is now “lost to history.” So... take your pick.
And a slew of monsters (like the terrifying Manacorpions) and magic items you have never even heard of yet. Unfortunately, to do Mystara proper justice, even if they abridged everything it would still take 4-6 books the size of Eberron or Wildmount. There was just that much published for it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Okay, you said "Gaucho," and now I'm into it.
That’s the beauty of Mystara. If I keep going, sooner or later I’ll hit something that everyone is into. It really has everything. But depending on how you want to play it, you never have to deal with any of it if you don’t want to because of how things were divided geographically.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Anyone remember a setting called Red Steel from Advanced D&D days? I brought it many many moons ago and never got round to playing as 3e came out about a week later. The blurb on the back of the box says:
"Red Steel. An Extrordinary metal, lighter than common steel and more precious than gold. The object of quests and the cause of war, Only one place holds this treasure: the Savage Coast. This Grand frontier is also home ot the Red Curse, an ancient bane that hideously deforms some victims, whilst mysteriously granting power to others. Here the player characters can acquire wonderous abilities, even as they seek to garner red steel, the key to power and fame!"
Yes, that was on Mystara. That was located on the continent with the Gauchos and the Manscorpions and the Aranea.
I’m actually looking at it on my coffee table right now as I type this.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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I will continue to hope beyond hope for a Greyhawk book, even just a module with Greyhawk as the default setting. But I know it'll never happen...
Ghosts of Saltmarsh happened.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms