It's a weird time for D&D fans. I'm stuck between a "internet mob mentality is blowing this out of proportion" position and a "well damn, this is a real shitty move on WotC's part" one. There's even an argument I've heard that all of this consternation is ultimately moot not justbecause the original OGL that people like is theoretically irrevocable, but that it might not even be necessary (under the theory that game rules is a process and you can't copyright a process, which is why "Words with Friends" never had to pay any money to whoever owns Scrabble).
The thing is, the deep lore and story of D&D dates back to well before WotC even owned the franchise. The specifics of the settings and lore are, in fact, something that company can and does have a copyright to.
Now, I actually prefer homebrewed settings in general as a DM. While my Ravnica game is now almost three years in and thus might actually be my longest-running campaign (of like three, one of which is running concurrently and started more recently) I love being able to throw my own lore around and really get into my own anachronistic blend of classic fantasy, sci-fi, and David-Lynchian weirdness.
WotC was fairly slow to release campaign setting books for 5th Edition. The Edition first came out in 2014, and for the first four years, the only campaign setting books was Sword Coast Adventuring Guide.
Sword Coast Adventuring Guide:
This one is an odd one. For one, it's surprisingly short given that it is a sourcebook for such a storied region. Interestingly, despite its short length, it has a wealth of subclasses - a feature found in most setting books, which I like even if there might be a cynical motivation (to encourage non-DMs to buy them as well - though honestly, I don't think most non-DMs even have the Player's Handbook).
In terms of information about the setting... ok, let's be honest, I haven't read this one in a long time. It touches on a lot of places, though perhaps only lightly. Really, of note, there are a lot of subclasses here that vary vastly in terms of power and satisfaction. I'll single out the Purple Dragon Knight as possibly the worst subclass in all of 5E.
The odd thing, though, is that because the Forgotten Realms and in particular the Sword Coast was more or less the primary setting for 5th Edition, this meant that most of the published adventures effectively expanded upon FR as a setting, making this book arguably less useful - if you want to know about Waterdeep, the gazeteer in Dragon Heist is probably more useful. Candlekeep? Look at Candlekeep Mysteries. Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale have a lot of details scattered in their adventure books.
Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica:
It was a full four years after the launch of the edition that we got a true sourcebook for another setting (though Curse of Strahd was obviously a Ravenloft adventure). This was a big controversy given that it was importing a setting from another IP, and particularly because Eberron got a relatively short PDF released around the same time (though WotC was clear this was a kind of preview of a full Eberron book, a lot of D&D purists were enraged, as purists are wont to be).
There are a lot of things to like about GGR. Primarily, they give you a great sense of the different guilds that are so crucial to the setting. Player options, NPC stats, and even adventure concepts are all arranged by guilds, so you have tons of tools with which to build Ravnican adventures.
What I think the book lacks is a bit about the actual places in the setting and the history. Now, worlds for MTG tend to be more about high concepts that fit into the mechanics of that game (something the guilds did very elegantly). Running my campaign, I've had to invent a massive host of lore for the setting.
Nevertheless, the format here was a successful one, and I think this counts as one of the better books in the edition.
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount:
This book makes a solid argument for Exandria being your go-to standard D&D setting. Like the Darrington Press-published Tal'dorei Guide that came out later (itself a revamp of the older Tal'dorei guide) Wildemount is built to be very friendly to the DM running things in the setting. Every location on the map has a sample adventure hook or two, or three. And the book comes with a system to build deep character backstories that will allow for a very personal, character-driven campaign.
If you're a Critical Role fan, especially if you liked the second and (what exists so far) of the third campaign, one of the big appeals is how seriously the players and DM take the characters, and this book is there to help you tell a dynamic and interesting story.
And on top of that, it has cool subclasses, monsters, and magic items. As a note, the only campaign I'm in right now as a player is set in Wildemount, and it's been a really great experience.
Eberron: Rising from the Last War:
Eberron was first released for 3rd edition, and was very popular. I don't know if it's been quite as popular with its 5E release. Now, I like Eberron, but I think Rising from the Last War as a book is... it's dense. If you really love the setting already and want to pull all kinds of details from it to build your campaign, I'm sure it's great.
But as someone who had a vague sense of the setting, I don't think I was ever able to get through the whole damned thing. You get your money's worth in terms of sheer density here, of course, but for my actual tastes and style, I don't know if this book was the right format for me.
Still, it gave us the Artificer, which I adore, and again, I mostly like it (it also has some really cool monsters).
Mythic Odysseys of Theros:
So, I was surprised by this one. While Ravnica is a very original setting (though one could argue it borrows a lot from Sigil, the planar hub city of the Planescape setting) Theros is MTG's take on Greek Myth, and thus, I think, suffers a bit from being, well, something you could already approximate in D&D anyway.
Theros does make the Gods a much more important part of the game - it's rare that I run a game where anyone who isn't a Cleric or Paladin cares about religion (though refreshingly, in the Spelljammer game I'm running, all four characters have a preferred patron deity).
I know this came out around the time that MTG revisited Theros, but even if I like the book all right (and it did introduce Mythic Monsters - a concept I think is very cool for encounter design) I still wonder if it was the best choice for another MTG crossover.
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft:
I. Love. This. Book. As I argued in an earlier post, I think its format could be the model for future setting books. The book takes great care to not just throw a bunch of lore and stat blocks at you, but it really delves into a discussion about the horror genre itself.
Van Richten's acknowledges that Ravenloft is not just some other world - it's not really a world at all, but a nightmare.
So, not only do we get a substantial chapter for several domains of dread - some new and some classic (though many of the classic ones have been given a clearer horror hook, like Falkovnia) but there's also lots of horror mechanics - I haven't played with the Dark Gifts, but I'd eager to use the Stress system.
Spelljammer: Adventures in Space:
This suffered from a couple problems, the first being the build-up. WotC's announcement that this would be three different books seemed to imply that we'd get something really substantial. However, given that each of its three volumes was only about 60 pages, the total page count wound up being lower than most other books. And that lack of page count showed.
It's actually a shame that the whole set has been derided because two of its three component parts are quite good. Boo's Astral Menagerie has a lot of very cool, new, interesting monsters in it (though it doesn't seem like tier 1 adventures in Wildspace are really viable using the material here.) And Light of Xaryxis is actually a really cool structure for an adventure that feels truly easy to break up into single-session episodes.
The problem, though, is that while the new playable races (species? We haven't yet got the official name they're sticking with yet) are cool, that was kind of it for player options. A big chunk of the Astral Adventurer's Guide is dedicated to the ships, which... are sort of boring, to be honest.
Other that the Rock of Bral, there's not really any "Setting" to this setting book.
I think very few people got what they really wanted out of this box set, which is a shame, given how much excitement built up toward its release.
Quasi-Setting Books:
So, you'll notice I haven't mentioned Strixhaven or Dragonlance here, or the tiny sliver of Greyhawk that is Saltmarsh. I'm trying to stick strictly to full campaign setting books. Strixhaven is actually the one 5E book that I haven't gotten (actually, scratch that - I never got Call of the Netherdeep, but I'm a little inundated with adventure books I might never run).
The Dragonlance book's setting lore really just gives you enough to run the adventure - you'd likely need some older edition stuff to put together a full homebrew campaign set there. Strixhaven, as I understand, has tons of cool stuff for the setting that is then completely unused in the book's campaign.
Now, part of the reason I did this review is in anticipation and excitement for this year's 5th Edition Planescape book. Last year I read a bunch of old 2nd Edition sourcebooks for the setting, and while the mechanics made no sense to me (did creatures not have creature types back then?) the concept of these planes was super cool (I'll admit I was always a little less interested in the places where explicitly real-world mythological figures popped up, though you could argue that the line between that and D&D stuff is blurry.)
I've written before about what my biggest hopes for a Planescape book would be. The Spelljammer release, though, left me underwhelmed, so I'm hoping this is more akin to Van Richten's in terms of quality.
No comments:
Post a Comment