21 September 2020

Some Classic Dungeons and Dragons Settings to Return?

Dungeons & Dragons will be revisiting several classic campaign settings over the next few years. During the closing panel of D&D Celebration 2020 yesterday, Wizard of the Coast's Ray Winninger confirmed that D&D's upcoming slate of publications will include several classic settings highly requested by fans. "I can tell you that there are three of the old settings that we're working on right now that you'll be seeing in the next year or two, including some that the fans have been asking for a very long time " Winninger said during the "Inside the D&D Studio Panel." Some of the more highly requested settings from fans include Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Planescape, and Dragonlance, all of which were seminal and influential settings for past (and current) generations of players.
Personally, I'd love to see Greyhawk in print again. It's my favourite 'classic' TSR setting, and the one that I’ve been using as DM in my most recent D&D games. However, I worry a bit about how it would be handled by the current team at WotC. I'm not too keen on some of the post-Gygaxian history for the setting (especially the break-up of the Great Kingdom). I rely primarily on the 1983 box set for my setting information. Nonetheless, I think that the recent Saltmarsh book was quite good, so perhaps a resurrected Greyhawk will be handled well.

My favourite ‘unusual’ setting is Planesape. I’d love to see a new version of it. The great thing about Planescape is that you can combine it with pretty much any other setting (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, homebrew #978, etc.). But it also has its own very distinctive style and ethos. (And Planescape: Torment is one of the greatest computer role-playing games of all time.)


 

5 comments:

  1. Thanks to C. Robichaud for the tip!

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  2. A second hand box set of Greyhawk that I picked up at a comic shop was what turned me on to AD&D from BECMI. I would love to see that one come back, even though I still have my old one (a "new" one that I bought several years later). I wouldn't mind Dragonlance either, as that one was tough for me to track down in those pre-Internet days.

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  3. Aw, no mention of Dark Sun? Still have a soft spot for that one. I suppose it did get a fair bit of attention back in 4E though, so not quite as "left in the past" as the others on the list. Torn between Spelljammer or Planescape as to which "odd" one I'd like to see more, and Greyhawk is certainly long overdue for some love.

    Note that even I'm not crazy enough to hold out hope for Birthright ever seeing anything new. That setting's really in the "forgotten" pile for most folks, sadly. :)

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  4. I predict (hope) that the 3 settings will be:
    1. Greyhawk.
    2. Dark Sun.
    3. Planescape.

    I actually don't know that much about Dark Sun, but it's always looked pretty cool to me.

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  5. I'm hoping for Greyhawk as well as it is also my favourite D&D setting, but I also am wary it will be what I'm looking for in a setting as of the state of 2020 WoTC.

    O'well if it does come it out may turn on new players to the awesomeness of the older books for the setting.

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I'm a Canadian political philosopher who lives primarily in Toronto but teaches in Milwaukee (sometimes in person, sometimes online).