From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd


So, following up on my theme of glomming off other people's ideas for
articles:


Why D&D Desperately Needs A New Campaign Setting https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/new-dnd-campaign-setting/


The article basically says what you expect: that classic D&D is
largely remembered for some of its excellent settings (Ravenloft,
Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, etc.) but we haven't really
seen any new and cohesive campaign worlds since the release of Eberron
back in 2004. The closest WOTC has come has been porting various Magic-the-Gathering gameworlds to the D&D game. Creating a new setting
for the game would add some needed excitement and focus to the game
that is currently lacking, especially if this new world was built up
around the new mechanics of the latest edition.

None of which I really disagree with. A lot of third-party material
does just that, but it seems odd that WOTC isn't creating their own
official setting. It would create an official starting point for a lot
of new players, not only for interconnected adventures but also as a
guide for their creating their own gameworlds.

A lot of my own game-world was inspired by the original Forgotten
Realms boxed set, for instance. Not so much tonally, but just the how
and why and what was needed. Current D&D offers DMs and players a lot
of options on what to do, but lacks a lot of guidance on the how to do
it. An official campaign setting might help.

WOTC's constant fixation on stand-alone adventure blocks and re-using
old settings also makes them seem creatively bankrupt. They have a
real reputation problem of being just a cog in a corporate machine.
Building an entire setting might help counteract that reputation.

Then again, WOTC hasn't really shown itself to be that imaginative. Do
we really want them to build a setting? Will it be anything but the
most uninspired pabulum, I wonder?

Still, it's gotta be better than what we have now... which is nothing,
right?


What do you think: does D&D need a new official setting? Is WOTC
better off just releasing (mostly) stand-alone adventures? Should they
instead rely on the old material? Or should they leave the whole idea
to third-parties and just stick to the rules?



--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 2/9/2026 9:40 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What do you think: does D&D need a new official setting? Is WOTC
better off just releasing (mostly) stand-alone adventures? Should they instead rely on the old material? Or should they leave the whole idea
to third-parties and just stick to the rules?

At this point, I'd rather them just die.
--
-Justisaur

|+-|+
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
-|-4'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 10:16:29 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
said this thing:

On 2/9/2026 9:40 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What do you think: does D&D need a new official setting? Is WOTC
better off just releasing (mostly) stand-alone adventures? Should they
instead rely on the old material? Or should they leave the whole idea
to third-parties and just stick to the rules?

At this point, I'd rather them just die.

I can't /entirely/ disagree with that opinion. WOTC has never been my
favorite curator of the franchise, and the idea of their creating a
new 'official' setting does set my teeth on edge. I've argued before
that D&D would be better off if it could escape the corporate umbrella
of Hasbro, who views it simply as another plastic commodity whose only
appeal comes through marketing and not any intrinsic worth. Maybe WOTC understands the value of the game itself but under Hasbro, they'll
never be able to treat the game right.

Still, that aside, I don't disgree that D&D could use a new campaign
setting. Let's pretend we could magically divest the game from its
current owners and into the hands of somebody more reliable (whether
you believe that an independent WOTC or somebody completely
different), what would you say then?




--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 2/10/2026 8:09 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 10:16:29 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
said this thing:

On 2/9/2026 9:40 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

What do you think: does D&D need a new official setting? Is WOTC
better off just releasing (mostly) stand-alone adventures? Should they
instead rely on the old material? Or should they leave the whole idea
to third-parties and just stick to the rules?

At this point, I'd rather them just die.

I can't /entirely/ disagree with that opinion. WOTC has never been my favorite curator of the franchise, and the idea of their creating a
new 'official' setting does set my teeth on edge. I've argued before
that D&D would be better off if it could escape the corporate umbrella
of Hasbro, who views it simply as another plastic commodity whose only
appeal comes through marketing and not any intrinsic worth. Maybe WOTC understands the value of the game itself but under Hasbro, they'll
never be able to treat the game right.

Still, that aside, I don't disgree that D&D could use a new campaign
setting. Let's pretend we could magically divest the game from its
current owners and into the hands of somebody more reliable (whether
you believe that an independent WOTC or somebody completely
different), what would you say then?

Sure. While I love the idea of something other than the
magi-fant-medieval settings, and I enjoyed reading and stealing from
them none of the ones from 2e I loved held up for even an entire
campaign. Dark Suns I ran, but it wasn't that interesting in play, the
SSI game was good though. Even 1e OA for some reason didn't stick, even though the classes themselves were better replacements for the standard
ones in the PHB. No one else was even interested in Spelljammer.
Ebberon had no interest to me.

I suppose they could reinvent the wheel and start from scratch with a
less problematic setting rehashing the magi-fant-medieval (see Greenwood talking about the different races flavors of breast milk.)
--
-Justisaur

|+-|+
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
-|-4'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Fri, 13 Feb 2026 07:59:44 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
said this thing:

On 2/10/2026 8:09 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Sure. While I love the idea of something other than the
magi-fant-medieval settings, and I enjoyed reading and stealing from
them none of the ones from 2e I loved held up for even an entire
campaign. Dark Suns I ran, but it wasn't that interesting in play, the
SSI game was good though. Even 1e OA for some reason didn't stick, even >though the classes themselves were better replacements for the standard
ones in the PHB. No one else was even interested in Spelljammer.
Ebberon had no interest to me.

Like you, I liked "Dark Sun" in concept... but in actual
implementation it was just too pessimistic and 'mean' for me to enjoy
playing very long. I mean, IIRC the starting rules were that every
player should have three characters because two of them were expected
to die in an adventure. That's just not the sort of game I enjoy
playing regularly. Our group tried it a couple of times as 'side gigs'
and everyone in our group agreed it was a neat setting... but nobody
really wanted to keep playing.

#

We were more sanguine about Spelljammer, and incorporated into our
main campaign. The PCs got a spelljammer ship, had a few adventures,
and even visited another sphere to have adventures there (it was a
planet where orcs were the dominant species, and the mannish empires
of their home planet were trying to colonize it. We called it,
predictably, "Orcworld"). But eventually we returned to the main
campaign setting. Technically, spelljamming is /still/ part of the
gameworld but it's mostly of swept under the carpet and you don't see spelljamming ships in the harbors anymore (it also helps that I did a three-hundred year time-skip after those adventures).

There was a certain lack of cohesiveness and an overall silliness to
the setting that didn't work well for long campaigns. Spelljammer was
trying to be a bit of everything --Star Wars, cyberpunk, Star Trek,
steampunk, D&D, etc.-- and as such it never really had an identity of
its own.

#

Eberron I never cared for. It was just too high-magic for my liking;
by then I was definitely pushing to make my campaigns and gameworld
less reliant on powerful wizards and spells (which I felt were OP and overpowered everything else), and Eberron went in the complete other
direction. It didn't help that it was a 3E setting, and I'd firmly
decided to stick with 2E. I'll be the first to admit I never fully
gave Eberron a fair shake because of that reason. Some of the stuff
I've read about it actually makes it sound sort of neat... but I still
don't have much intention of fully exploring it. What can I say, I'm a
2nd Ed die-hard ;-P

#

One setting I felt never got a fair shake was Birthright. I really
liked the world design and epic feel to the game. Unfortunately, TSR
saddled the game with these optional rules revolving on giving the
players political clout, which added a level of complexity and
strategy that a lot of gamers weren't interested in adding to their
adventures.

#

Were D&D to get a new campaign setting today, I wouldn't object to
traditional medieval-fantasy. I wouldn't mind seeing something more
akin to the down-n-dirty low-magic of settings like "Game of Thrones"
or "The Witcher"... although how you'd incorporate that with Dungeons
& Dragons, where powerful magic and player abilities are part and
parcel of the rules, is a challenge left up to the designers. ;-)

I suppose they could reinvent the wheel and start from scratch with a
less problematic setting rehashing the magi-fant-medieval (see Greenwood >talking about the different races flavors of breast milk.)

I don't know what that last comment is is referring to, and I'm afraid
to google it. ;-)


--- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2