D&D (2024) What Should A New Core Setting Look Like?

[Yaarel]

A setting tells you what you are supposed to do in play, and since in D&D you are supposed to do whatever you want, you need a settingbthat gives all the options. You need dungeons AND dragons, plus perilous swamps and mysterious towers and floating islands and cut throat courts and blasted wastes and magical face forests and on and on.

What I am saying is, zooming in is a terrible idea.

Actually, the Baldurs Gate region has all of that, including an Underdark connecting directly with Fiend planes of the Astral Plane.

 

[Reynard]

Actually, the Baldurs Gate region has all of that, including an Underdark connecting directly with Fiend planes of Astral Plane.

How many different nations with different cultures does Baldurs gate have in it?

 

[Yaarel]

How many different nations with different cultures does Baldurs gate have in it?

Actually it is cosmopolitan. Baldurs Gate includes citizens from all over the world, a thriving port. Historically, the region includes influxes from several neighboring ethnicities.

 

[Reynard]

Actually it is cosmopolitan. Baldurs Gate includes citizens from all over the world, a thriving port. Historically, the region includes influxes from several neighboring ethnicities.

That's not what I mean. BG is too small. Adventurers travel.

 

[Yaarel]

That's not what I mean. BG is too small. Adventurers travel.

Of course adventurers travel.

But, when characters are low tier, they tend to be local. They create backgrounds, and meet each other forming relationships locally. Perhaps they all go to the same school or frequent the same pub, or their families know each other. A zoom-in is useful. The campaign starts in a "point of light", with lots of details.

When the characters do venture off, wherever they go, the DM needs to flesh out the details. If using an official resource, like Strixhaven or Witchlight or Ravnica, it supplies its own cultural details. If worldbuilding, the DM would have Baldurs Gate in the Players Handbook, as an example of how to do this.

Also, by only focusing on one locale, the DM has more freedom to redefine any other locale.

 

[Morrus]

The Forgotten Realms.

If it makes you millions of dollars, why would you change it?

 

[Yaarel]

Very roughly, each local "regional" setting can be about 1000 square miles (2500 square kilometers).

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Imo, a new core setting should be everything I dislike about a setting, as that's what's proven most popular, and is what the lore has been heading towards for a while.

Cosmopolitan, high magic, without potentially triggering topics like racism and slavery. Every species lives side by side, with the 'bad guys' being things like undead, fiends, and constructs, in order to completely avoid moral questions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Forgotten Realms.

If it makes you millions of dollars, why would you change it?

But is that the best choice for making D&D the best possible game?

...I'm kidding, of course. That's not WotC's priority!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Imo, a new core setting should be everything I dislike about a setting, as that's what's proven most popular, and is what the lore has been heading towards for a while.

Cosmopolitan, high magic, without potentially triggering topics like racism and slavery. Every species lives side by side, with the 'bad guys' being things like undead, fiends, and constructs, in order to completely avoid moral questions.

I'm really surprised they haven't made exactly that yet.