D&D 5E What should be the 5E default setting?

I'd like a very light, almost under-defined core, akin to what 1e provided.

What I'd like to see:

1.) A small list of "sample" core deities to form a generic pantheon, akin to 4e's lot (Pelor, Bane, Raven Queen, etc). Individual settings can use other deities if they wish.
2.) A vague "Great Wheel" cosmology: Celestia, Arborea, Hell, Abyss, Elemental Planes, Limbo, etc. Just enough to give planar beasties somewhere to live, but leave the real planescapy stuff (Sigil, Blood War, Factions) to the Planar/Planescape book.
3.) Named Spells (Melf's Acid Arrow), items (Heward's Handy Haversack) and artifacts (Mace of Cuthbert).
4.) Iconic modules/dungeons given a "generic" treatment like they did before: Tomb of Horrors, Sunless Citadel, etc.
5.) A bit of generic fluff for monsters that can be ignored or revised if so chosen (Death Knights are fallen paladins, minotaurs serve Baphomet, etc.)

What I DON'T want:

1.) Countries, Towns, and Kingdoms: I don't need a Nentir Vale in the core. Sell a supplement/module if you must. Leave world building to either the DM to homebrew, the settings to sell, or the modules to loosely define.
2.) Intricate History: I don't need God/Primordial wars, fallen Empires, or other very specific info on races.
3.) A Predefined Setting: It worked pretty poorly in 3.5. It STARTED out Greyhawk, but after a while, 3.5 introduced so much stuff NOT found in Greyhawk (new races, Gods, cities, etc) that it hardly seemed useful to say Greyhawk was the setting anymore.

Let Setting be written between the lines, not spelled out in the rules.

It will probably be Greyhawk, but I'd like to see support for all of them.

Here’s the thing though, D&D has always had elements of an assumed setting.

As an example. let’s look at orcs. The basics are established: green skinned evil humanoids with porcine features. But the descriptions never stop there and always include the elite warriors who have plucked out one of their own eyes as tribute to their one-eyed orc god. The “Eye of Gruumsh”.
This assumes:
a) There’s an orc god with one eye
b) Orcs can gain favour with said god for ocular mutilation
c) There’s someone named “Gruumsh”
2e had no assumed setting, so it was always “the orc god” but that’s still making assumptions. At least with 3e and 4e we had more information on Gruumsh and because he was assumed to exist we could have more mechanical options.
Really, which sounds cooler? An orc Eye of Gruumsh or the orc bruiser? One has story and background and history and the other just says “I’m a slightly higher level orc”, even if the two are mechanically the same. The default setting makes orcs more interesting.

That said, there are 4 Reasons to have a default assumed setting.
a) Easier for groups of new players. It tells them how the world works and how the various races and people interact. It lays out the common assumptions and background.
b) Easier for new World Builders. It sets an baseline that can either be followed, or moved away from in deliberate contrast.
c) Consistent Tone. It prevents a little of the “kitchen sink” as new additions will have to be more carefully justified, being an addition to an established world. New content has to fit and cannot be forced.
d) Fewer setting books yet more setting content. At first this seems a little contradictory. If every book has a dash of Realmslore then that should make every book less appealing for non-fans. But if every book has a little Realmslore then there will be fewer dedicated Realms books, which have no desired content. It means more books with something everyone can like.

Point “c)” is understated but important. For example, let’ look at content like wildens and shardminds. They’re added to the game with little thought about how the fit in established worlds and campaigns in progress. WotC just throws in this idea bomb, which DMs have to react to: explaining how a living crystal race fits the tone and back-story of their world. If there was a default setting this kind of addition is done more cautiously; it’s adding one more thing to the Realms that cannot easily be removed.
If an idea or option does not add something necessary or beneficial to the Realms than there’s a good chance it won’t add anything to most homegames. Or that more effort has to be made on the part of the designers to make the new edition fit seamlessly into the world, to ensure the default flavour is solid and unique.

I’m not advocating every book should be Realms 24-7. For some books the information can be presented generically and a paragraph added working the content into the Realms – especially in the Core books.
Instead, it’s something I’d like to see more in the splatbooks, in the equivalents of Complete Warrior or Martial Power. There the extra flavour would be appreciated. The content isn’t just more content entirely for the sake of releasing more content, the standard “more options just to keep the brand published”. Instead, it’s content that complements the world, expands the story, and enriches the game. We’re not getting more arcane traditions or cleric domains just so players have more options, but because there’s something lacking in the setting, something that isn’t well executed with the current options.

Additionally it’s always, always, always easier to ignore content than make it up from the ether if it’s lacking. It’s possible to run a Dark Sun game using the core rulebooks easily enough by just replacing the fluff. It’s not a huge issue to ignore the bits or Realmslore or change over names of deities.
I remember when 2e came out I did a horrible job of writing-up deities for my campaign setting as I had no examples. I had no idea what to include. World building was not my forte. Part of that was my poor job of reading the “cleric” entry, but the lack of sample gods – including dogma and portfolios – hurt my game.
In my most recent 4e game, I was using a homebrew world that was post apocalyptic fantasy, mixing the various tropes of end of the world fiction with D&D. I cast orcs in the role of wasteland mutants, making them a recent race in terms of the world. It was a very different take that didn’t mesh very well with 4e and its assumptions, but it was not hard at all making those changes.

The thing is, picking any setting will be a turnoff to some group of gamers.

Having no default settings, and making some minor references to the various settings out there, won't alienate anyone. They will still have their old materials for setting, or be able to make there own settings without having to "ignore" swaths of the core books.

Jester Canuck said:

Point “c)” is understated but important. For example, let’ look at content like wildens and shardminds. They’re added to the game with little thought about how the fit in established worlds and campaigns in progress. WotC just throws in this idea bomb, which DMs have to react to: explaining how a living crystal race fits the tone and back-story of their world. If there was a default setting this kind of addition is done more cautiously; it’s adding one more thing to the Realms that cannot easily be removed.
If an idea or option does not add something necessary or beneficial to the Realms than there’s a good chance it won’t add anything to most homegames. Or that more effort has to be made on the part of the designers to make the new edition fit seamlessly into the world, to ensure the default flavour is solid and unique.

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Oh come on. If you're a DM and you don't find the idea of a living crystal race something that is awesome and totally easy to slot into your campaign world I weep. I can think of a dozen ways offhand, and all of them would add interesting new hooks. If there's one complaint about shardminds it's that they're better as NPCs than PCs!

Wilden are odd, but they add a lot of flavor to the Feywild. And the feywild is fun and interesting.

I like WotC throwing us interesting tidbits rather than carefully considering if the tidbit will make Elminster unhappy. WotC should keep the mechanics tight and the ideas wild and wacky, not keep the ideas tight and the mechanics wild and wacky.

If WotC releases something you don't like for flavor reasons, ban it, reflavor it, or cope with it.

With that said, I think a game nowadays needs a default setting. In fact, I don't think it's possible to have a game without one. Even "generic fantasy" is a setting of sorts.

-O

GreyICE said:

Oh come on. If you're a DM and you don't find the idea of a living crystal race something that is awesome and totally easy to slot into your campaign world I weep. I can think of a dozen ways offhand, and all of them would add interesting new hooks. If there's one complaint about shardminds it's that they're better as NPCs than PCs!

Wilden are odd, but they add a lot of flavor to the Feywild. And the feywild is fun and interesting.

I like WotC throwing us interesting tidbits rather than carefully considering if the tidbit will make Elminster unhappy. WotC should keep the mechanics tight and the ideas wild and wacky, not keep the ideas tight and the mechanics wild and wacky.

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I had a gage grind to halt when the warforged in the party was attacked by a vampire. I ate to imagine how that scene would have played out if he had been solid crystal held in humanoid form by force of will. Plus, as I like lower magic lower fantasy games, living crystal folk damage my tone.
I wouldn't have minded them if they were setting specific or in a side book, or a DDI exclusive but having them in a PHB made them seem as "core" as elves, dwarves, tieflings, and the like.

All that is paired with the suddenness of their arrival. They were this big secret from WotC, a surprise for PHB3, so suddenly, two years into campaigns, there a crystal people there. Why? Just cause. And they'd always been there, no one had just noticed.
But, most agregiously, despite 37 years of D&D lore, they had no ties to existing stories or lore. They were the definition of "tacked on"

Jester Canuck said:

I had a gage grind to halt when the warforged in the party was attacked by a vampire. I ate to imagine how that scene would have played out if he had been solid crystal held in humanoid form by force of will. Plus, as I like lower magic lower fantasy games, living crystal folk damage my tone.
I wouldn't have minded them if they were setting specific or in a side book, or a DDI exclusive but having them in a PHB made them seem as "core" as elves, dwarves, tieflings, and the like.

All that is paired with the suddenness of their arrival. They were this big secret from WotC, a surprise for PHB3, so suddenly, two years into campaigns, there a crystal people there. Why? Just cause. And they'd always been there, no one had just noticed.
But, most agregiously, despite 37 years of D&D lore, they had no ties to existing stories or lore. They were the definition of "tacked on"

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Are you kidding? Vampires are superstrong. Okay, they can't drain blood, so the blood-drain portions don't work, but crystal takes blows as well as flesh - not very.

As for D&D lore, it's a weird and nebulous place. There were giant space hamsters and sailing ships going intersteller and mists that ate your soul and factotems. The world can handle a race of sentient crystals.


P.S. Irony - WotC hasn't produced enough new material and settings and "shardminds were tacked on because they're not connected to D&D lore" are both floating about this thread.

Jester Canuck said:

That said, there are 4 Reasons to have a default assumed setting.
a) Easier for groups of new players. It tells them how the world works and how the various races and people interact. It lays out the common assumptions and background.
b) Easier for new World Builders. It sets an baseline that can either be followed, or moved away from in deliberate contrast.
c) Consistent Tone. It prevents a little of the “kitchen sink” as new additions will have to be more carefully justified, being an addition to an established world. New content has to fit and cannot be forced.
d) Fewer setting books yet more setting content. At first this seems a little contradictory. If every book has a dash of Realmslore then that should make every book less appealing for non-fans. But if every book has a little Realmslore then there will be fewer dedicated Realms books, which have no desired content. It means more books with something everyone can like.

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Yeah...uhm...I think I'm going to have to disagree with all four of these.

For a & b:
If you are not experienced at worldbuilding, great! You don't have to be. Do a silly little adventure. Then do another one. Repeat as necessary. As the adventures happen, narrative cruft will accumulate. During this process, don't be afraid to listen to what your players are saying, and take their suggestions. When a sufficient mass of narrative cruft has accumulated... congratulate yourself, you have built a world.

For c: I just have no idea what, in the history of this game, makes you think a default setting somehow restrains WotC from throwing in the kitchen sink repairman prestige class. Whatever world gets presented as default, you can bet that "kitchen sink" will be one of its defining features, so that any IP WotC produces can be labeled "core."

For d: Great! More useless Realmslore polluting my supposedly generic product and forcing me to "deprogram" any new players....awesome. I think I'd rather pay for content I at least have some chance of using.

Giving people advice on how to build characters, adventures, campaigns, and worlds is great and I highly endorse it. Giving them a singular default example setting strung out through the rules is perhaps the least effective way of doing it.

GreyICE said:

P.S. Irony - WotC hasn't produced enough new material and settings and "shardminds were tacked on because they're not connected to D&D lore" are both floating about this thread.

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I don't think its lack of new material so much a lack of new settings that are the center of the complaint.

Personally, I think WotC should learn from M:tG's process. Put out a new setting every year or two. Give us some skeletal framework in a setting guide and a new adventure path. Use it to feature whatever new mechanics or splat material you've come up with. We'll happily merge it with our own campaigns as we like. If one of 'em really takes off and is super-popular, then revisit it in a few years.

Tacking everything and anything into the Realms (or Greyhawk, or whatever) just seems to dilute those settings.