D&D 5E Elements in a new official setting

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What are your essential features for a swashbuckling setting? How does it differ from PH options?

Higher technology level (it's hard to ascend to the balcony of your lady love when she's living in a squalid one-room hut), courtly intrigue, an aristocracy, light armor and finesse weapons predominate. Trade and diplomacy are the battlefields more than, you know, actual battlefields. Your enemy is more likely to be a rival faction in your own nation than invaders from elsewhere.

Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards. True Love.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Fair point. The one area of Sword & Sorcery that might require a deeper clean than more general fantasy is perhaps the legacy of the 1930s influencers (Howard and Lovecraft in particular) who were pretty racist and misogynist. Maybe it says more about the era than the genre?

A lot of people doing modern work in that space double down on those elements. (Obviously, there are also people who go in the exact opposite direction.) So it's not just "a man of his time," to the extent that that excuses anything.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are many settings ideas I’d like. However, there are only so many that would work with the present D&D material and the “if it exists in D&D, there is a place for it in this setting” design philosophy for official settings, which inevitably lean toward kitchen sink settings.

but I wouldn’t mind a high-adventure skyland pirate/swashbuckler with airships and earth-bergs of various size.

Folks looking for sky adventure settings in the meantime could do a lot worse than to check out Skycrawl, which is systemless and adds the stuff you'd need for skyships.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Secondly, the big issue here is objectification, as opposed to sexualization. The two often go hand in hand, but they can be separated from each other by a skilled, mindful, and respectfully horny writer. It's primarily about the level of agency a character has, both from and in-universe perspective and from a metanarrative perspective.

Robin Wright in Wonder Woman is honestly one of the sexiest fantasy characters ever. Her Antiope has guns for days, lots of visible scars and, while she shows a fair amount of skin, it's because she lives on a sunny island and is a lightly armored warrior. She does not exist to be ogled (and honestly, that would be a somewhat risky proposition, because if you make her mad, look out), but is undeniably sexy.

She'd be a great sword and sorcery character. That sort of treatment -- giving everyone agency and not defaulting to a male and white coded dominant setting -- are probably the biggest stuff required to make sword and sorcery work as a 5E setting.

Compare to Robin Wright's Buttercup in the Princess Bride (which I adore). She's a beautiful woman with almost no agency, even once she's running around with the rest of the heroes. She most exists to be a pretty object, which is a real missed opportunity in an otherwise A+ film.

 

[Faolyn]

Is that a requirement for fantasy settings now?

Is what a requirement? Inclusiveness?

 

[Yora]

A lot of people doing modern work in that space double down on those elements. (Obviously, there are also people who go in the exact opposite direction.) So it's not just "a man of his time," to the extent that that excuses anything.

I think the main things in Sword & Sorcery that could come across as somewhat dodgy are "violence is an appropriate solution to even small evils" and "wine, women, and song are great ways to use you fame and rewards". When that's considered to much, then there's really nothing left to work with.

One thing I find very interesting is that it's generally aggressively inclusive and anti-segegationist, especially when compared to typical Epic Fantasy. In Sword & Sorcery, nobody cares who you are, how you look, or where you come from. Everyone are judged solely by their deeds and words.

I think much of the sexualization is less "I'm a hero so I deserve chicks", but more "I'm hot and won't let myself be forced to hide it". Because the heroes are badasses and if someone tries to tell them otherwise they get punched in the face.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think the main things in Sword & Sorcery that could come across as somewhat dodgy are "violence is an appropriate solution to even small evils" and "wine, women, and song are great ways to use you fame and rewards". When that's considered to much, then there's really nothing left to work with.

I think you have happily missed a lot of grosser stuff in the big names in Sword & Sorcery.

The latter Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser books have extended sequences with sex with explicitly underage women who are arguably being raped on top of the very explicit statutory stuff happening.

You can also find other authors talking about "inhuman," "bestial" and "savage" humans who aren't white-coded.

There's a whole lot of harems, all of them full of women and sometimes young boys, for the male protagonists to view as prizes.

I don't think anyone who enjoys Sword & Sorcery is calling out violence or sex appeal as the genre's issues.

One thing I find very interesting is that it's generally aggressively inclusive and anti-segegationist, especially when compared to typical Epic Fantasy.

I'm not sure where you're getting this. There's a lot of slavery in Sword & Sorcery and the protagonists sometimes condemn their enemies to lives as slaves.

Yes, the villains are more into it than the protagonists, but it's hardly unique to them. You don't have to read Gor to see it as a common, accepted part of many stories.

In Sword & Sorcery, nobody cares who you are, how you look, or where you come from. Everyone are judged solely by their deeds and words.

I think this is a good contemporary place to take the genre. It is by no means what it's been historically.

 

[Yora]

Is what a requirement? Inclusiveness?

I know, I am being deliberately a bit an ass about this.

But I am having my own strong opinions about as someone dealing with my own disabilities and being queer. Of course, all of us are feeling different about their personal situations and what they are looking for in fiction and entertainment. But my own feelings on this is that if I create a character with difficulties similar to mine, in a setting heavily inspired by a society that dealt with the issues in way completely different than we do today, then I don't want to have a literal "magic" pill that makes the issue go away.
I feel that a setting does not respect a disability when it says "Oh yeah, this disability exists in this world, but there's a common easy solution that makes it go away". I actually feel more disrespected by that, because the issue is not actually being addressed while the creators can proudly show everyone their inclusivity path.

Settings with magic prothetics or wondrous medications have their place and can even be fun. But making this a default requirement that all settings have to conform to is something that really doesn't sit right with me. Nothing of what was brought up here goes in that directions, but sometimes you really do run into situations where people forcefully try to make your struggle and challenges disappear instead of giving it a place. Which then becomes the opposite of inclusion. I want a space to show my figurative scars instead of being told that they have no place in supposedly inclusive and supportive spaces.

 

[Faolyn]

I know, I am being deliberately a bit an ass about this.

But I am having my own strong opinions about as someone dealing with my own disabilities and being queer. Of course, all of us are feeling different about their personal situations and what they are looking for in fiction and entertainment. But my own feelings on this is that if I create a character with difficulties similar to mine, in a setting heavily inspired by a society that dealt with the issues in way completely different than we do today, then I don't want to have a literal "magic" pill that makes the issue go away.
I feel that a setting does not respect a disability when it says "Oh yeah, this disability exists in this world, but there's a common easy solution that makes it go away". I actually feel more disrespected by that, because the issue is not actually being addressed while the creators can proudly show everyone their inclusivity path.

I am also both disabled (physical and developmental disabilities, as well as some minor mental illnesses) and queer (well, aroace, but still), and I used to work with intellectually disabled adults (most of whom also had rather severe physical disabilities as well) for a living.

The way I figure, D&D already has blindness and deafness as standard conditions, which can be cured by magic or gotten around by magical means. It has ways to raise your stats, including your mental stats, both through mundane effort and by magic. And many games have rules for mental illnesses (just got a touch of insanity in my CoC game last Friday). So who am I to say that it's OK to include ways to include or get around those issues but not my personal ones? Yeah, you're always going to have jerks who play as obnoxious stereotypes, but those are jerks; just kick 'em out of your game.

Plus, simply making it possible to play someone with a disability doesn't mean that you have a "magic pill" that makes that issue go away. It just means that the game acknowledges that not everyone is physically or mentally "perfect" (for whatever definition of "perfect" you want) or totally heterosexual and cis-gendered, and that's absolutely fine.

 

[Sithlord]

Yes very much this, when I voted Swashbuckling I was actually thinking of Conan and John Carter of Mars. Theres the Pirate spin but generally anything in the early modern/post-renaisance 16th to 19th century - and Sci-fi renditions of that era - fits Swashbukling approach too

This is what I was thinking as well as the three musketeers. Pirates never even crossed my mind.