D&D 5E Does D&D Next need a Core Setting?

[Keldryn]

I think that D&D should absolutely have a core setting that is lightly detailed in the DMG and/or PHB. It provides a ready-made context for new players to set their adventures, and also provides an example for DMs who wish to build their own settings.

I've been playing and DMing for 25 years, and while I've toyed around with creating my own setting several times, I find that I can't be bothered. I've played in a number of homebrewed worlds, and frankly 99% of them aren't appreciably different from Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Mystara, or any other medieval fantasy setting. Different names, different maps, same general feel. It often seems that only the DM really enjoys it while the players wish the DM could just stick with names that they can remember and pronounce.

A lightly-detailed setting gives a nice framework for new or busy DMs to get started but still make it their own. Much like the core rules themselves.

Having come at it from both angles, it's far easier to ignore some names and default setting information in the core books when using another setting than it is to have to invent that stuff. DMs shouldn't have to buy another book just so that some DMs don't have to ignore a few pages of default setting spread.

It was many things, but unintrusive was one thing it was not. It forced massive changes to FR, dropped primordials, eladrin, and various other PoL core concepts into Dark Sun... it even shamelessly altered the history/nature/origins of a huge number of classic D&D creatures and concepts. It was anything but unintrusive.

If Nentire Vale / PoL is the default setting for 5e with a similar level of saturation and intrusion into other campaign settings, it's a deal breaker for me.

The implied setting of 4e (Nentir Vale) was an example of applying the "Points of Light" philosophy of setting design. It was used to create a coherent, default story context in which to place the myriad of monsters and magic that D&D has lifted from a variety of literary and mythological sources.

The fact that 4e has this implied setting in no way forced anything upon the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Dark Sun. That designers at WotC chose to do so is another matter entirely. The Forgotten Realms has become such an incoherent kitchen-sink fantasy setting that most of the core 4e concepts could have been dropped in as minor elements without another Realms-shattering event. These elements were added to Eberron fairly unintrusively. They took a different approach with Dark Sun; since they were resetting the timeline they did a bit of re-imagining of the setting and used some new core 4e elements where they thought they would fit in. After all, they did more or less cut the whole divine power source from the setting.

The Nentir Vale is to 4e what The World of Greyhawk is to AD&D. It's a setting crafted to highlight the D&D game system for which it was designed. It provides a context for adventures and campaigns and shows how game concepts can be integrated with the world.

A number of "traditional" D&D game elements have distinct origins in the World of Greyhawk: druids, drow, named spells, artifacts, named magic items, The Great Wheel cosmology, the dual-axis alignment system, and more. They've been a part of the game for so long (and have always been a part of AD&D) that they were generally part of any new settings created for the game.

I dislike many things about 4e, but the core setting is one of the things that they absolutely nailed, in my opinion.

 

[Lanefan]

The Nentir Vale is to 4e what The World of Greyhawk is to AD&D. It's a setting crafted to highlight the D&D game system for which it was designed. It provides a context for adventures and campaigns and shows how game concepts can be integrated with the world.

A number of "traditional" D&D game elements have distinct origins in the World of Greyhawk: druids, drow, named spells, artifacts, named magic items, The Great Wheel cosmology, the dual-axis alignment system, and more.

The odd thing here for me is that while I've used all those things (well, except the cosmology; I reinvented that ages ago) none of them make me think "Greyhawk" when they crop up. Which means, at least in my own case, the level of setting integration is about perfect: the examples are there but they work as examples without constantly reminding me of where they came from.

I dislike many things about 4e, but the core setting is one of the things that they absolutely nailed, in my opinion.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of Nentir Vale but the general PoL concept is a fine one; I far prefer it to the over-development that was 3e's FR if for no other reason than as a DM it's easier to add stuff in than to knock it out, and a mostly-wilderness PoL-type setting has lots of room for additions.

Lan-"we got a thousand points of light, for the homeless man"-efan

 

[nnms]

In fact my red box BD&D doesn't mention deities, despite coming later. I think that was in reaction to the BADD type scares of the 80s.

The ironic thing is that the presentation of immortals in BECMI in the 1980s as a removal of deities in response to the satanic scare of the 1980s actually made the game world closer to the teachings/world views of the larger satanic organizations that were growing in the 1980s. Basic D&D's ascension to immortality is far, far closer to the theology of the Temple of Set than the more polytheistic approach of previous D&D releases. The Church of Satan, on the other hand, is pretty much atheistic (with a mixture of Crowley style occultism and natural forces), so again, the removal of deities is actually closer to that form of satanism than the polytheism people railed against.

 

[Hussar]

The Blood War didn't change the nature of the planes or their inhabitants - it just detailed a political relationship between them. I don't think the "intrusiveness" is on anywhere near the same scale.

Certainly it did. The Blood war DEFINED the nature of the planes and their inhabitants. It was hugely pervasive.

It's far from true that every extraplanar 2E creature is related to the Great Wheel and Blood War. Unless you are talking about Planescape books, but that would be a weird comparison, like comparing a normal MM to Dark Sun.

Everything in 4E is related to something else. Random opening MM2, Phase Spider is the result of ancient magical experimentation of Eladrin. Melora created Lycantropes, etc. It's just a matter of checking "Lore" and comparing.

There was no such heavy ties in former editions.

Opening the Moldvay Basic Book, which is about as setting neutral as you can possibly get, you learn that "a thoul is a magical combination of a ghoul, a hobgoblin and a troll".

I guess the big difference is the addition of proper nouns, but, sheesh, does that really matter? A 2e phase spider has a human like head and is often mistaken for a drider or a neogi. Again, presumptions - what if my world doesn't have Drow? Or space faring psionic centaur spiders?

 

[Mercule]

I really don't want a default setting in the rules. With (f'rinstance) deities and spheres, I'd like to see a big list of examples that includes gods from multiple settings and a good system for ensuring that custom-written deities balance well, but there ain't no Bane, Pholtus or Silver Flame in my campaign.

This. In spades.

This goes back to what I was saying about why the "implied" setting of 1e worked -- it wasn't really concrete. When you were reading the 1e books, there were rules for cool things, and it felt like the "setting" bits were pulled out of Gary's rear to use as ad hoc examples. It never (with the possible exception of racial attitudes, but I think those were more genre conventions) felt like the fluff were primary or expected and the framework secondary.

3e got this wrong, but they included so little that it didn't much matter. 4e got it wrong in exactly the same way, but they included more elements.

From 5e, what I want is a list of spheres/domains in the PHB, with a note that each cleric has two (semi-random number), based on their deity. The DMG can have some info on creating deities "by the numbers" -- think 1e artifacts -- and some examples of how to build the Raven Queen, et al.

Basically, any implied setting should be presented as examples of how to use the rules, not default constructs.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Certainly it did. The Blood war DEFINED the nature of the planes and their inhabitants. It was hugely pervasive.

The alignment system defined the nature of the planes and their inhabitants. Lawful creatures fight differently than chaotic creatures. Planar creatures are defined by their alignments. The Blood War was simply a commentary on why the numerous and aggressive fiends hadn't killed everyone already.

Planescape elaborated greatly on this, but the fiends were first and foremost defined by their alignments, as they had been in AD&D.

 

[prosfilaes]

4e is no more or less guilty of this than any other edition. It's just that it chose a different baseline setting rather than simply regurgitating the same old stuff that we've been running on the treadmill for thirty years.

But that's why I buy D&D, for the same old stuff we've been running for the last 30 years. This is Coke versus New Coke again.

I'd rather have some good fantasy RPG than a bad D&D.

I'd rather have D&D be D&D and some good fantasy RPG be sold under another name. When it comes down to it, the only way D&D Next has of grabbing my group is to be a better D&D then D&D 3.5.