D&D 5E WotC: 5 D&D Settings In Development?

WotC's Ray Winninger spoke a little about some upcoming D&D settings -- two classic settings are coming in 2022 in formats we haven't seen before, and two brand new (not Magic: the Gathering) settings are also in development, as well as return to a setting they've already covered in 5E. He does note, however, that of the last three, there's a chance of one or more not making it to release, as they develop more than they use.

Two classic settings? What could they be?​

So that's:

• 2 classic settings in 2022 (in a brand new format)
• 2 brand new settings
• 1 returning setting

So the big questions -- what are the two classic settings, and what do they mean by a format we haven't seen before? Winninger has clarified on Twitter that "Each of these products is pursuing a different format you've never seen before. And neither is "digital only;" these are new print formats."

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions, there are two more products that revive "classic" settings in production right now.

The manuscript for the first, overseen by [Chris Perkins], is nearly complete. Work on the second, led by [F. Wesley Schneider] with an assist from [Ari Levitch], is just ramping up in earnest. Both are targeting 2022 and formats you've never seen before.

In addition to these two titles, we have two brand new [D&D] settings in early development, as well as a return to a setting we've already covered. (No, these are not M:tG worlds.)

As I mentioned in the dev blog, we develop more material than we publish, so it's possible one or more of these last three won't reach production. But as of right now, they're all looking great.

Of course the phrase "two more products that revive 'classic' settings" could be interpreted in different ways. It might not be two individual setting books.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If Disney after the Marvel Superheroes RPG is going to publish their own Star Wars RPG then Hasbro could think about to release their own space-opera franchise, based in the settings from d20 Future (Star*Drive + Star Frontiers).

 

[Hatmatter]

The issue is twofold:

1) Spelljammer has a crap setting. I'm sorry, but it is. It's crap. The Rock of Bral is nice, the races are nice, but aside from that? It's pretty bad. Crystals spheres are dumb and feel like something from a 1970s prog rock album in a really bad way. The phlogiston feels like the bad kind of steampunk. It all also doesn't particularly "play nice" with existing settings. It would generally let you move away from the more dubious bits of Spelljammer towards something more accessible/playable.

I really, really like the Spelljammer setting.

 

[Hatmatter]

Planejammer is a fan thing. Won’t happen like that. They will keep it classic. It hasn’t even happened in a game, people are just projecting the idea onto BG3 in some wish fulfillment manner. Planescape will be similar to Ravenloft, that will be the new format, a tool for planar campaigns with examples from the known planes and guidelines for new ones and a Sigil Gazeteer. If they do Spelljammer with Planescape it will water down Spelljammer and essentially gut whatever made Spelljammer unique, reducing it to a mode of transportation. No Rock of Bral, no Spelljammer described in meaningful ways. I think a lot of people wanting a Planejammer thing aren’t too familiar with Spelljammer and what it was. Don’t smoosh it together.

This is well said. I agree. I love running an adventure that has the characters visit the planes and I also love running Spelljammer. And, I think combining them could be wonderful. But, they occupy their own distinct flavors so they should be handled separately for those who do not want to combine them. And, I agree that I think that is how Wizards would handle it, judging from the little comments from Chris Perkins and others over the years in Dragon Talk.

 

[Steampunkette]

That’s actually an amazing idea. I absolutely love it. Gonna steal that for a hypothetical future where in person games actually happen again and 5e DS is real and not just perpetual board speculation fodder.

Thanks! I did that back when I was, like... 12? 13ish? It really set my Dark Sun games apart from the other DMs at the Bookmark who were trying it. One of whom did do the full Murder-Death-Kill player churn while another tried to do it strictly as heroic fantasy with a new world to keep the "Core D&D Feel".

Not as many people played in my version, because I was the youngest DM, least experienced, but we had our fun and that's what mattered!

Not just once either. Repeatedly. It's literally one of the main functions it clearly has. And in lore they're literally designed to travel to the Astral Sea and to other worlds via that.

That's not exactly true, though. Nautiloids exist even when Spelljammer doesn't, and they don't sail the phlogiston, they sail the Astral Sea. Like Tieflings from Planescape, they're a piece of lore that escaped the original setting and is now simply it's own thing.

The issue is twofold:

1) Spelljammer has a crap setting. I'm sorry, but it is. It's crap. The Rock of Bral is nice, the races are nice, but aside from that? It's pretty bad. Crystals spheres are dumb and feel like something from a 1970s prog rock album in a really bad way. The phlogiston feels like the bad kind of steampunk. It all also doesn't particularly "play nice" with existing settings. It would generally let you move away from the more dubious bits of Spelljammer towards something more accessible/playable.

2) Planescape has a couple of issues that Spelljammer could solve - first of all, Planescape is kind of bound to the Great Wheel, which isn't a universal - whereas the Astral Sea kind of is - so you could fit Planescape into a lot more settings if you went that way. Secondly, there wasn't a great sense of exploring or the like in Planescape, and spelljammers could really enable that whilst still keeping Sigil at a home base and so on. It would also allow you to get away from some bad decision late in Planescape history.

Bestiary-wise there's no real issue. The monsters/NPC races worth keeping potentially fit well into both settings.

It's perfectly possible they won't combine them. Indeed I think it's more likely that they won't. If they don't however, I expect Spelljammer either won't come out (99% of the reason people think it will is the Illithid Nautiloid, but as I've pointed out, those exist even outside of Spelljammer, and go on the Astral Sea, and the one in BG3 is clearly operating that way), or will be drastically rebooted in a way that makes VRGtR look like a carbon copy of the 1990 boxed set by comparison. Probably getting rid of crystal spheres and any specific linkage to any specific setting, and instead having a setting of its own.

Nautiloids do exist outside of Spelljammer. But not just in the Baldur's Gate 3 videogame, either. Spoilers below!

Spoiler: Official Adventure Spoilers

Dungeon of the Mad Mage also has a crashed Nautiloid in it as an adventure location inside Undermountain.

This is a big part of why I think Planesjammer would be a better setting than releasing both Planescape and Spelljammer as separate games. Yeah, Spelljammer had a funnier tone, but its ships and "Aerial" combat are the main draw to the setting, both visually and narratively. The goofy fun bouncy stuff is all present, but it's not what lures you into the setting.

Besides. A Planescape Book could absolutely have a Spelljammer section for the ships, a few of the different groups, and their identities as locations across the Astral Sea that players can visit and interact with, possibly betraying their higher Planescapey Allegiances to create interesting conflicts and conflicts of interest.

Or be some gormless berk who is the first from your world to find Sigil and get lost in its streets... Big narrative adventure spelljamming across reality to reach this fabled city only to learn what it REALLY is and just how small your world is by comparison...

Anyway. I think it'd be fun to put Spelljamming into Planescape and then release the Wackier stuff as future supplements that show off the massive variety of the universe.

 

[Parmandur]

Crystals spheres are dumb and feel like something from a 1970s prog rock album in a really bad way.

This gets at what I love about the setting: I was 3 going on 4 when it was published, but I found it in Half Price Books many moons ago, and couldn't say no to the 1970s Prog Rock camp cover.

It's perfectly possible they won't combine them. Indeed I think it's more likely that they won't. If they don't however, I expect Spelljammer either won't come out (99% of the reason people think it will is the Illithid Nautiloid, but as I've pointed out, those exist even outside of Spelljammer, and go on the Astral Sea, and the one in BG3 is clearly operating that way), or will be drastically rebooted in a way that makes VRGtR look like a carbon copy of the 1990 boxed set by comparison. Probably getting rid of crystal spheres and any specific linkage to any specific setting, and instead having a setting of its own.

The nautiloid is a minor bit of Spelljammer material in the 5E era: Dungeon of the Mad Mage has an actual Spelljammer piloted by a Mindflayer pirate and a crew that doubles as snacks in a pinch, and one of the possible outcomes of the Adventure is the party flying off into the Phlostigon (including Spelljamming rules). Volo's Guide and MToF have a bunch of Spelljammer elements, and Perkins keeps sprinkling references into the Adventures. It may or may not get a book: at the rate they are going, I would bet on it being probable if they keep up the pace, since WotC has noted Spelljammer's popularity level in the B Tier of Settings.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If Planescape does comes out I think the Tieflings, Aasimar and Genasi are due for a refresh as Planetouched "Lineages". I've tried doing my own version of them (shameless plug), but I feel the Planetouched races do need a refresh especially if Planescape gets a 5e setting. The proposed refresh of the Dragonborn in UA, and the Dhampir/Hexblood/Reborn from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft sort of pushes this point.

Less important to me is Githzerai (as I think their existing writeup is sufficient enough), Bariaur (the neglected odd-one out, though I'm sure they'll remove mechanical differences in genders) and Rogue Modrons (or Nathri or Nethlings).

They could go either way in rewinding/retconning or advancing years (the rule Unity-Of-Rings being embodied) past Faction War/Die! Vecna! Die! which blew up the setting.

I wouldn't be surprised if Sigil now has a subway rail system, because of other settings which have trains, and the mentions of Eberron native Vi living in Sigil.

 

[OblivionDrive]

Crystals spheres are dumb and feel like something from a 1970s prog rock album in a really bad way.

See, I’m a bit confused here because you say that as if that doesn’t make them objectively badass and cool as hell...

Seriously though, Spelljammer has some rough edges that definitely would need to be smoothed out in modern times (scro, elven imperialism, etc) but I think the unabashed whack job silliness of it would go over super well these days. A lot of the newer guard of players that have come into the hobby recently seem more than willing to embrace the silly and the strange and aren’t anywhere near as hung up on a power fantasy of looking like a cooler-than-thou edgelord like I saw so much of when I was in my teens.

Also I’m not gonna lie but part of me is just angry I never got to run/play Spelljammer back in the day, despite owning a lot of the materials, so I really would love a chance to approach it again with some better rules and modern sensibilities.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Seriously though, Spelljammer has some rough edges that definitely would need to be smoothed out in modern times (scro, elven imperialism, etc) but I think the unabashed whack job silliness of it would go over super well these days.

I see where you're coming from, totally but Spelljammer is the wrong kind of silly.

Like "kids today" do indeed like a lot of stuff that's kind of superficially "silly" (as did my generation, really), most of it represented by various somewhat-actually-edgy cartoons like Rick & Morty or Infinity Train (I'm sorry, it is, based on what I've seen of it), or, especially for a slightly older generation, now in their later twenties mostly seriously fluffy/secretly kind cartoons with a slight edge of self-knowing-ness like the previous gen of MLP (I dunno if there's a new gen yet I haven't been following - I've literally watched six episodes of MLP in my life, well, over the age of 10 anyway) or Steven Universe or w/e (actually SU is extremely serious at times, but that's part of the whole deal).

Spelljammer belongs, very firmly, to an older breed of much less self-aware or totally un-self-aware, much less secretly-edgy (or equally, secretly kind - Spelljammer is neither) silliness, that is silly more for the sake of being silly, doesn't feature references or much in the way of "meta" commentary or the like. It has a relationship to the LOL SO RANDOM era of the internet (a long-ago time), which whilst later, featured a lot of the same sort of stuff that didn't really have a meta component, it was literally just silly to be silly.

So I think it would take a lot of work to reshape that into a modern-friendly kind of silly.

And I guess the big issue is, there ain't much to work with. You have a very bland and rather featureless space setting. Even Realmspace, Krynnspace etc. which probably won't feature due to potential IP damage, don't actually help much because they're also pretty bland. I hate to say it, but based on the decent amount of Spelljammer stuff on the shelf behind me, this was not TSR's greatest work. This was not something they were really doing a great job with. This setting was not written at the same level as Taladas, Dark Sun, or Planescape, all of which had a hell of a lot of energy. It feels like an artifact from the mid-80s, but not like, compellingly '80s, just... old. Like a boardgame you find from back then in an attic, and give a go, and turns out, it wasn't actually very good!

And it's whole age of sail, empires rock! deal would need re-working.

So where Dark Sun and Planescape are really solid settings that you could re-work, Spelljammer is more like the idea for a setting, which you'd have to rebuild from the ground up. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, does mean it would be a lot more work than something like Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or Planescape.

 

[Faolyn]

1) Spelljammer has a crap setting. I'm sorry, but it is. It's crap. The Rock of Bral is nice, the races are nice, but aside from that? It's pretty bad. Crystals spheres are dumb and feel like something from a 1970s prog rock album in a really bad way. The phlogiston feels like the bad kind of steampunk. It all also doesn't particularly "play nice" with existing settings. It would generally let you move away from the more dubious bits of Spelljammer towards something more accessible/playable.

Hey, Spelljammer made it so I aced the "myths about space" part of high school astronomy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hey, Spelljammer made it so I aced the "myths about space" part of high school astronomy.

Planescape ensured I got an A in A-level Fine Art! I was really having difficulty with the coursework part of it until I realized, actually, all my DiTerlizzi-inspired portrait-sketches were probably fine to submit for that, and indeed the teachers loved them.

Fire, Fusion and Steel for Traveller: The New Era also probably helped ensure I got an A in Maths at GCSE level.

Definitely RPGs in general helped a ton with my math and vocab, and massively with logical arguments/lawyering - I don't think it's any accident that multiple people I played RPGs with became lawyers (and good ones), and indeed one of them entirely credits his legal prowess (now a partner at a major international law firm lol) to playing tons of RPGs and being a power-gamer lol.

And being a DM definitely made me really good at leading meetings, making sure everyone gets heard, dealing with a lot of attention (I was a bit shy before D&D) and even being a foreman on a jury.