Three New 5e Settings Confirmed

[Devils_Advocate]

OK, Light(Fire) and Tempest(wind?) are safe. My nephew did a Water Domain homebrew, and I can see an earth domain that's a bit like Nature and a bit not ... two new domains? Sure.

Tempest is pretty watery already. Weather in general is largely about water doing stuff. Like... rain, which is water, and snow, which is frozen water, fall from clouds, which are made of water. Lighting and thunder also come from those clouds made of water. And prayers to a sea god are probably for good weather out at sea, too, so there's not really much of a difference between oceanic and weather deities, which explains why they're both covered by the Tempest domain. If there are a god of thunder for weather on land and a separate god of the ocean for weather at sea, then that's probably a matter of two entities with the same divine superpowers dividing up territory. They may well even be identical twins. Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen them together?

The Tempest domain does have one wind spell and flight at 17the level, so it's certainly not entirely without Air associations, but it's mostly a Water thing. Like, yeah, this stuff happens in an atmosphere, but by that standard you could associate Forge with Air because metal-heating fire needs oxygen and items are normally crafted by mortals who need to breathe to live. Seems somewhat tenuous, is what I'm saying. Bit of a stretch there.

I knew none of that about phlostigon. Sounds like it's under an artifact-level dimension lock.

I have limited knowledge of Spelljammer lore, but my understanding is that the Phlogistion is cut off from all other planes. (Even extradimentional spaces, traditionally; be sure to store and remove whatever items you wish before departing.) Probably because, well, the availability of instantaneous magical transportation sort of undermines the whole premise the more available it is. Thus, while you can teleport within the wildspace of a given crystal sphere, you can't teleport between spheres, and no getting around that by teleporting to just outside of your destination sphere the moment you're out in the Phlogiston.

Even then, getting from one sphere to another still isn't anything that you can't get out of a couple of castings of plane shift. So, as with airships, the real advantage of spaceships lies in moving large quantities of stuff around rather than speed of travel. But it's more about the journey than the destination anyway. Maybe the real metasetting is the friends we made along the way...

Regardless, being buffered from one another allows different crystal spheres to have different gods, laws of magic, and so on*, as is necessary for spelljamming to allow travel between settings where such things are different. They are indeed at least analogous to planar layers in that regard. They can even be connected to different planes. 3rd Edition was big on each setting having its own cosmology. I don't think that alternate planes ever got fleshed out to the degree that the Great Wheel did, though, so 5E dumped the Forgotten Realms' at least. That's good; providing a different set of planar locations for the players to visit could be interesting, but obliging the DM to create those locations seems impolite at best.

*On the other hand, I think that that stuff is the same for different worlds in the same crystal sphere. I think that that's even part of the point of different worlds sharing the same crystal sphere?

As a "setting," Spelljammer is, indeed, meant to allow visiting multiple settings, but it also is a different style of game, because it encourages literally dropping out of the sky to do an adventure then taking off again.

I think that at the start of a Spelljammer campaign you'd want to introduce a bunch of stuff about the logistics of supplying and running a spelljamming vessel and ship travel through the Phlogiston, wildspace, skies, and even just seas (if your group hasn't already covered naval stuff at some point). Not because the game should primarily be about any of that, but in order to establish the mediums that the characters traverse and indeed the ship itself as setting. Then, once routine operations have been established, it's appropriate to let such details fade into the background and time skip past them except when complications arise. (Indeed, establishing a normal baseline helps complications to be understandable problems that the crew can address.)

At that point, I'm all for being able to just have the ship's dwarven artificer teleport an away team to and from the surface at the beginning and end of a weekly adventure.

[EggKookoo]

I have limited knowledge of Spelljammer lore, but my understanding is that the Phlogistion is cut off from all other planes. (Even extradimentional spaces, traditionally; be sure to store and remove whatever items you wish before departing.) Probably because, well, the availability of instantaneous magical transportation sort of undermines the whole premise the more available it is. Thus, while you can teleport within the wildspace of a given crystal sphere, you can't teleport between spheres, and no getting around that by teleporting to just outside of your destination sphere the moment you're out in the Phlogiston.

Correct. You can't even access your bag of holding while sailing through the phlog. It's not a "plane" of its own, it's like the substrate that all the planes are embedded in. You also can't bring phlogiston into one of the spheres. It simply can't exist inside one.

You also don't want to light a match while out in it...

Even then, getting from one sphere to another still isn't anything that you can't get out of a couple of castings of plane shift. So, as with airships, the real advantage of spaceships lies in moving large quantities of stuff around rather than speed of travel. But it's more about the journey than the destination anyway. Maybe the real metasetting is the friends we made along the way...

I'm not sure you can plane shift from FR to Greyhawk. They're not separate planes, they're separate realities. From what I've read in the Spelljammer book, each sphere contains all its planes within it. The astral plane of FR is not the same astral plane that Greyhawk uses. Note that Spelljammer is not bound by anything implied or described in Planescape, although I guess a 5e version might change that.

Edit: Hm, I may be wrong about the astral plane. A quick Google suggests they all share that. I wonder if that's something they'd keep in an updated version, as it does seem to undermine the point of the setting. Although at the same time, a 5e Spelljammer could get a lot of mileage out of an in-sphere focus with the Jules Verne approach of going from world to world, with travel outside the sphere being more of an advanced gameplay thing.

[Devils_Advocate]

I'm not sure you can plane shift from FR to Greyhawk.

Well, not directly. But you can go from one to e.g. Baator to the other. Even in 3E their different cosmologies had planes in common.

Of course, a character doesn't get two 7th-level spell slots until 20th level. But, look gang, if we just take this shortcut, we only need to spend one day in Hell, so the cleric can take a long rest, and then we'll be on our way. It's still way more efficient, okay?

They're not separate planes, they're separate realities. From what I've read in the Spelljammer book, each sphere contains all its planes within it.

A crystal sphere is a planar layer of the Prime Material Plane at most. It certainly doesn't contain multiple planes. But probably you didn't mean that literally.

The astral plane of FR is not the same astral plane that Greyhawk uses.

Ah, right, that was part of the "different cosmologies for different settings" model. Or maybe the Astral Plane is divided into separate regions; the difference is academic. Point is that even under 3E's "The Astral goes everywhere, even the Inner Planes", you couldn't just plane shift from any plane to any other plane. But you could take a detour through a plane connected to both planes, or both crystal spheres as the case may be. Most everything shares the Elemental Planes.

Of course, you could say that instead of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms sharing the same Nine Hells with all of the same important locations and personages, they have two separate but identical Baators. That's a little ridiculous for my taste, but if Vecna could somehow create a bunch of new planes with his screwing around, I guess he could duplicate existing ones too??

Note that Spelljammer is not bound by anything implied or described in Planescape, although I guess a 5e version might change that.

My understanding of Spelljammer is that it's meant to contain other settings within itself by buffering them so that stuff isn't imposed on them from outside. E.g., Mystra can be the supreme master of magic in FR, and another setting can have a different supreme master of magic, and those settings can coexist within the broader setting of Spelljammer because Spelljammer gives them boundaries such that they don't overlap. So, basically, if Spelljammer is written such that it can only contain an alternate version of Greyhawk with an alternate version of the Great Wheel cosmology, then someone done screwed the pooch, because you're supposed to be able to just straight-up use Greyhawk in it without need for modification.

Edit: Hm, I may be wrong about the astral plane. A quick Google suggests they all share that. I wonder if that's something they'd keep in an updated version, as it does seem to undermine the point of the setting.

The thing is, alternate cosmologies undermined Planescape's role as a crossover setting. Also, as I mentioned, they didn't have detailed locations that DMs could just take and use. That's why Hell and the Abyss were still part of FR's weird "Astral Tree" or whatever; there was apparently a judgement made that Forgotten Realms adventures might still want to involve those locations. But why cut out anything if you're not going to replace it with an alternative?

So they undid that because it was bad.

[Segev]

I think that at the start of a Spelljammer campaign you'd want to introduce a bunch of stuff about the logistics of supplying and running a spelljamming vessel and ship travel through the Phlogiston, wildspace, skies, and even just seas (if your group hasn't already covered naval stuff at some point). Not because the game should primarily be about any of that, but in order to establish the mediums that the characters traverse and indeed the ship itself as setting. Then, once routine operations have been established, it's appropriate to let such details fade into the background and time skip past them except when complications arise. (Indeed, establishing a normal baseline helps complications to be understandable problems that the crew can address.)

At that point, I'm all for being able to just have the ship's dwarven artificer teleport an away team to and from the surface at the beginning and end of a weekly adventure.

All nice information (including stuff I didn't quote), and I appreciate you sharing it.

I just want to give a brief standing ovation for the last line of what I quoted here, though.

[Devils_Advocate]

"Ach, Cap'n, repeerin' th' 'elm's inCROOdibly delicate work! Et cannae be rooshed! If I brick th' thing we're stranded, sir. I'm nae a miracle worker!"

"I get even more back talk from that guy. 'I'm a cleric, not an archeologist.' 'I'm a cleric, not a botanist.' Look, we're sitting ducks out here, and the helm will definitely be irreparably broken if our entire ship is blown to smithereens! Just get the thing to work for an hour, and do it within an hour, so we can get out of here."

"An' eff tha' leaves oos flootin' aimlessly through th' Flow?!"

"Then we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

"... Aye, Cap'n."

[Naanomi]

In older edition lore...

Different cosmologies other than the Great Wheel exist, they are incredibly hard to access; mostly you have to travel 'out' into the thinnest parts of the transitional Planes (well beyond the normal 'Outer Astral'), most commonly (in 3e) the Shadow Plane... until the 'gravity' of another reality took hold. A handful of monsters explicitly from other Cosmologies, most notably Spellweavers

It is implied that the same Eldest beings that made the Great Wheel also go around making other Cosmologies as well in the same 'beyond comprehension of lesser beings' medium that makes up the larger (largest?) metasetting. We have a few monsters tied to those Eldest beings (Blackblots... some dog thing... Overpowers like AO may be servants of them)

Still, virtually all worlds are conceivably within crystal spheres; albeit some with some strange local metaphysics 'in between' slightly seperating the Sphere and it's contents from the rest of the Wheel (Like the demi-plane system around Eberron, or Athas' 'The Grey')

[EggKookoo]

One thing I was thinking, if I were to homebrew a 5e Spelljammer, is that maybe a sphere is like the Tardis, and weirdly bigger on the inside. The portals out of the sphere are at the same distance from the primary body as the external radius would suggest, but from the interior you can just fly right past it if you're not trying to open a portal. Maybe the interior shell is massively compressed spacetime, kind of like The Way from Eon but in three dimensions instead of along a path.

From the outside, they're finite size.

[Millstone85]

One thing I was thinking, if I were to homebrew a 5e Spelljammer, is that maybe a sphere is like the Tardis, and weirdly bigger on the inside. The portals out of the sphere are at the same distance from the primary body as the external radius would suggest, but from the interior you can just fly right past it if you're not trying to open a portal. Maybe the interior shell is massively compressed spacetime, kind of like The Way from Eon but in three dimensions instead of along a path.

From the outside, they're finite size.

From previous threads, it seems Spelljammer lore already has plenty of this type of weirdness.

I remember someone, probably Naanomi, mentioning that a given sphere could contain inverted space, such that it appears to have two outsides and no inside.

Personally, I don't see the appeal, as it makes the crystal sphere just another planar portal.

[Naanomi]

The ‘unusual sphere’ chart had some weird stuff... nested spheres (a smaller sphere inside a larger one); spheres with ‘worlds’ flat-earth attached to the interior wall; spheres with specially-distorting ‘wind’ that redirected you so you couldn’t reach the edge conventionally no matter how long you traveled; spheres with ‘one way’ travel where you could only go in one side and out the other; etc

In 2e the inside could follow any rules at all separate from the rest of the planes; 3e standardized things a bit but no-magic worlds, no external afterlife worlds, etc are all easily accommodated (especially when you add Constellation demiplanes around them that are technically suspended in the near ethereal or (more rarely) astral and functionally cut the world off from the inner/outer planes directly)

People often have a weird sense of the scale of these things... they are absolutely immense, without a practical upper limit. Most seem to contain a single solar system and a huge amount of mostly empty space outside of it before the crystal shell, but it isn't inconceivable that an entire Galaxy of a sci-fi setting be in one sphere (astromundi was sort of that way); or even the entire observable sum of our own universe... with a huge amount of empty space outside of it again... is perfectly possible.

Then again, some are so small that a single world with a tiny sun and moon orbiting it is about all there is.

[EggKookoo]

Personally, I don't see the appeal, as it makes the crystal sphere just another planar portal.

It turns the phlogiston into hyperspace, basically. Although there's some fun in the idea that you fly out to twice Pluto's orbit, open a portal, fly through, and when you look behind you you see the entire known universe tucked into a sphere not much more than 20 light-hours in diameter.

[Naanomi]

It turns the phlogiston into hyperspace, basically. Although there's some fun in the idea that you fly out to twice Pluto's orbit, open a portal, fly through, and when you look behind you you see the entire known universe tucked into a sphere not much more than 20 light-hours in diameter.

Phlogiston is sort of... hyperspace + age of exploration ocean currents... on its own (the travel speed between crystal spheres if you are 'going with the flow' is absurdly fast)

[EggKookoo]

Phlogiston is sort of... hyperspace + age of exploration ocean currents... on its own (the travel speed between crystal spheres if you are 'going with the flow' is absurdly fast)

Right, I guess I left a part out. One implication might be that two spheres might be encompassing two separate parts of the same wildspace/universe. In theory, if you go past the edge of the sphere from the inside and travel in the right direction long enough, you could enter the interior space of another sphere. This travel time would probably be impossibly long -- centuries at the very least but probably many, many millennia between "nearby" sphere-spaces at spelljammer helm speeds.

More of a conceptual thing than something that would have in-game implications, as you'd still want to go through the phlogiston to get around. I doubt a hypothetical 5e version would do anything like that but it's fun to imagine the ways it could go...

[Devils_Advocate]

Something I never got about Dragonlance is why on earth the different mage robes even exist. Black robes are evil, yeah? Why would anyone ever sign up for that? Society would just imprison or kill or whatever the wizards with the black robes. I'd assume actual evil wizards would put themselves in white or red and be more subtle about what they actually desire. Maybe this is just because I'm not very familiar with the setting?

I get the impression that you hold some dubious assumptions. I daresay that no human society has ever collectively opposed all forms of selfishness, ruthlessness, or cruelty. Openly being an evil person who commits evil deeds can get someone punished, but can also get someone rewarded with a position of power and influence, depending on what they do and what culture they operate in. A fictional fantasy-world civilization could be different than that, but a normal-ish human society would be most likely to categorically discriminate against the chaotic. Or at least the government would; chaotic people are the most likely to be criminals, right?

[Joe the Rat]

There's a bit of evolution here. Spelljammer came out fairly early in 2e, as a way to get from Prime world to Prime world (and a lot of cool stuff in-between) without dipping into the dangers of Planar travel, which was a higher level thing. The focus was on the journey, and its dangers, and some new and seriously exotic locales. Everyone is here somewhere, you are moving place to place.

Then Planescape came out, and made the outer planes a potential full campaign - both mundane (cities, mortals all over the place, politics) and fantastical (once you grok that the outer planes are not only made out of alignment, but entirely shaped by beliefs). It is about the places you go, with getting the right Key and Door being the hard part of travel. It's also very lived-in: it feels eternally old, with very little unknown. Sigil becomes a safe(ish) way to move between settings at low levels.

3e moves away from the Universal Cosmology (Well, moreso. Old Ed always did things differently). 4th tears it all down. 5th puts it back with a little rejiggering.

[verbatim]

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/com...w_dragonlance/

It looks like the Hickmans are in an ongoing legal battle over WOTC reneging on a deal to pay them for writing dragonlance books, which makes me think that dragonlance is not going to be one of the three new settings, or perhaps that the "2 maybe 3" language implies that dragonlance was going to be one of the three settings and now might not be.

[Segev]

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/com...w_dragonlance/

It looks like the Hickmans are in an ongoing legal battle over WOTC reneging on a deal to pay them for writing dragonlance books, which makes me think that dragonlance is not going to be one of the three new settings, or perhaps that the "2 maybe 3" language implies that dragonlance was going to be one of the three settings and now might not be.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I can't even entirely blame WotC/Hasbro for being afraid of being bullied. I mean, I can blame them, but it does come down to a question of priorities.

Oh well. You'd think Hasbro would have figured out that WotC is a very profitable little sub-company if left to its own devices, and that they'd have found a way to divest themselves of legal responsibility while keeping significant shares in it for profitability purposes, by now, though.

[EggKookoo]

I can't even entirely blame WotC/Hasbro for being afraid of being bullied. I mean, I can blame them, but it does come down to a question of priorities.

According to everything I've read, D&D has never been more popular. I can see WotC trying to thread the needle so they can bring it to even more heights while also trying to avoid the social microscope effect.

Honestly they should just probably go with all new settings from now on.

[micahaphone]

According to everything I've read, D&D has never been more popular. I can see WotC trying to thread the needle so they can bring it to even more heights while also trying to avoid the social microscope effect.

Honestly they should just probably go with all new settings from now on.

heresy I know, but I'm a bit more interested in new settings over returning to the classics. I think Ravnica* is a lot cooler than dragonlance, for example. I've never played that part of mtg (after my time in the card addiction) or read the dragonlance books.


*yes, the backgrounds were a terrible idea and should be modified or skipped.

[Segev]

According to everything I've read, D&D has never been more popular. I can see WotC trying to thread the needle so they can bring it to even more heights while also trying to avoid the social microscope effect.

Honestly they should just probably go with all new settings from now on.

Going with new settings would be a better approach. I think “threading the needle” is impossible, though, because there will always be some people unhappy with any work.

I fear this current trend may curtail, rather than enhance, D&D’s mass appeal.

But, making new settings is the best way to try this out. You minimize the risk of alienating existing fans by making changes they might dislike, avoid sparking arguments over whether fans are bad people for not supporting those changes, and can (best of all) build whatever it is you feel will enhance the mass appeal of the new work into the setting from the ground up.

Make great settings with whatever elements you want incorporated, rather than forcing templates on existing works, and you can see how well this appeals to the mass market without the pushback from your existing fanbase over “they changed it: now it sucks.”

[EggKookoo]

heresy I know, but I'm a bit more interested in new settings over returning to the classics.

In general, so am I. I'm running a 5e Eberron game now but I only set it there because it's so close to the 100% homebrew setting I had been cooking up. Had it not been released, my game would be very similar in the broad strokes. I would probably have just adapted the Wayfinder stuff for my player that has a warforged.

But, making new settings is the best way to try this out.

And the thing is, WotC could still cannibalize from classic settings. What's the best stuff from Dragonlance or Planescape? Just use that and call it something else, with different setting details. Granted, releasing a 5e Planescape wholesale is probably safe...

[Segev]

And the thing is, WotC could still cannibalize from classic settings. What's the best stuff from Dragonlance or Planescape? Just use that and call it something else, with different setting details. Granted, releasing a 5e Planescape wholesale is probably safe...

The best part is that they could make settings for niche appeal or mass appeal. Make niche appeal settings to draw in niche interests to the overall system. Make several. Who cares if it offends* one group or another; they can buy into the one that caters to them, and not buy that which they dislike.

That’s probably the best way to expand the mass appeal of D&D as a whole. Put out something for everyone and let them pick and choose what to use it with that they like.

*You can find someone, somewhere, to be offended about just about anything.

[EggKookoo]

The best part is that they could make settings for niche appeal or mass appeal. Make niche appeal settings to draw in niche interests to the overall system. Make several. Who cares if it offends* one group or another; they can buy into the one that caters to them, and not buy that which they dislike.

I'm not convinced that's how the Perpetually Offended operate. It's not enough to abstain from something -- no one else is allowed to consume it.

That’s probably the best way to expand the mass appeal of D&D as a whole. Put out something for everyone and let them pick and choose what to use it with that they like.

This brings me back around to the question of what the other two classic settings are. I think this is a pretty strong clue that one of them was going to be Dragonlance. But how many classic unpublished-as-5e D&D settings are there? Greyhawk, Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Gamma World..?

[Segev]

I'm not convinced that's how the Perpetually Offended operate. It's not enough to abstain from something -- no one else is allowed to consume it.

Due to forum rules and a desire to give them a super wide berth, I'm not going to delve into this as much as I'd like to. Sorry. All I'll say is that it doesn't matter how loudly some people scream, all they can actually do is refuse to buy the product that offends them. They can't forbid others who're interested in it to give it a look. And the loudness can be used to market it to those who actually might be interested, as well as an excuse to deflect to the works designed to appeal to those doing the screaming. Those who genuinely are interested in that niche/genre/kind of work will be drawn to investigate it and get into it, if they have any interest that D&D might spark in the first place.

This brings me back around to the question of what the other two classic settings are. I think this is a pretty strong clue that one of them was going to be Dragonlance. But how many classic unpublished-as-5e D&D settings are there? Greyhawk, Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Gamma World..?

Birthright, Mystara, Hollow World (which is connected to Mystara), the Underdark (could be justified as its own setting despite being mostly a Forgotten Realms thing).

[Luccan]

These are supposedly settings people have been asking for a lot (which is another reason to discount the Hasbro crossovers being the settings discussed). Mystara and Birthright don't seem to have the same pull as the others these days. I know some people remember them fondly, but I don't think I've seen anyone outside the earliest adopters of D&D really asking for them.

[x3n0n]

But how many classic unpublished-as-5e D&D settings are there? Greyhawk, Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Gamma World..?

I think Planescape and/or Spelljammer is a solid pick. Per discussion here, it sounds like the 5e cosmology fits well enough. I remember having an interview with Jeremy Crawford a long time ago in which he mentioned that his favorite campaigns revolve around travel between worlds, and there's not yet a direct campaign setting resource to support it for the 5e-only crowd. Also, consider that there are multiple active UA subclasses concerned with portals and cross-plane stuff (likely destined for Tasha's Cauldron of Everything in some form).

I personally think Greyhawk is the other likely pick, based on JC's willingness to name-drop it as a potential target in discussions about making TCoE's content setting-agnostic.

Los of discussion here about Dark Sun. If they're going to print something for it, they need some form of psionics, and they will have some support in TCoE. As we've seen in several pages of this thread, "add psionics and angry people" is not enough to cover the existing setting, so I don't think it's a sure thing.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Going with new settings would be a better approach. I think “threading the needle” is impossible, though, because there will always be some people unhappy with any work.

I fear this current trend may curtail, rather than enhance, D&D’s mass appeal.

But, making new settings is the best way to try this out. You minimize the risk of alienating existing fans by making changes they might dislike, avoid sparking arguments over whether fans are bad people for not supporting those changes, and can (best of all) build whatever it is you feel will enhance the mass appeal of the new work into the setting from the ground up.

Make great settings with whatever elements you want incorporated, rather than forcing templates on existing works, and you can see how well this appeals to the mass market without the pushback from your existing fanbase over “they changed it: now it sucks.”

Yeah. I think I made this exact argument several pages ago. I still think it's the best option.

[Segev]

Does Hasbro own My Little Pony? Equestria might be a good setting for mass appeal. Grab bronies and young girls and boys. Comes with premade NPCs, and the school thing from late seasons might make a good “adventurers’ guild” setup for a home base and quests.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Does Hasbro own My Little Pony? Equestria might be a good setting for mass appeal. Grab bronies and young girls and boys. Comes with premade NPCs, and the school thing from late seasons might make a good “adventurers’ guild” setup for a home base and quests.

I believe a tabletop setting was already confirmed to be in the works... and one already exists.

[EggKookoo]

All I'll say is that it doesn't matter how loudly some people scream, all they can actually do is refuse to buy the product that offends them. They can't forbid others who're interested in it to give it a look.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what happened with Dragonlance, then. Isn't it the idea that WotC (or Hasbro) shut down the book deal out of fear of such screaming?

I believe a tabletop setting was already confirmed to be in the works... and one already exists.

Yes, there was another thread about MLP, Transformers, and GI Joe all getting "5e" games. It was shut down for some reason...

In any event, I'm not sure any of those classify as classic D&D settings.

[Segev]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what happened with Dragonlance, then. Isn't it the idea that WotC (or Hasbro) shut down the book deal out of fear of such screaming?

That is the speculation. I'm asserting that such a decision is a mistake, and a failure to understand how to handle PR and marketing. Sadly for me, I am not a multi-billionaire nor head of a megacorp, so I am unable to put my theories to the test.

Yes, there was another thread about MLP, Transformers, and GI Joe all getting "5e" games. It was shut down for some reason...

Huh. Well, don't want to rehash something that got shut down, so I'll drop that line of speculation.