Setting the Stage

Wizards of the Coast recently announced the schedule for releases for the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons with much fanfare. In early April Chris Perkins one of the designers for the new edition announced at PAX East that there would be Eberron support and in an article in Forbes it was announced that Ravenloft would receive support. Although at this point I'm not sure if its beyond a new board game. Perennial favorite the Forgotten Realms is also receiving strong support and is the focal point of the new Organized Play campaign as it was for 4th edition.

Mike Mearls another designer of the new edition has gone out of his way to make sure that the new edition is simple, easily convertible from past editions and embraces core elements of the old editions like Vancian Magic. But one step that Wizards of the Coast can take to wholly embrace fans of older editions is to publish editions of old D&D settings too. As much as I'd like to see an edition of Greyhawk. I think that's unlikely for a variety of reasons. Some of the other settings more likely are:

1. Dragonlance : Kender were in the play test editions and creator Margaret Weis has expressed some interest on Twitter in having a new edition of the Dragonlance published setting using the new rules for D&D.

2. Planescape – a setting that was overlooked in 3rd and 4th editions and has a lot of hardcore fans. Plancescape writers such as Colin McComb and Monte Cooke have moved onto other work but perhaps a new generation of writers can pick up were they left off.

3. Mystara – Wizards of the Coast refused to license this setting when author and ex TSR employee Bruce Heard announced plans to do a Kickstarter based on his stories in Dragon magazine. Perhaps the beloved Basic D&D setting will be revlived in the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons?

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