D&D (2024) Should There Be a Core Setting?

[Neonchameleon]

I mean, while that's fair, D&D "got truly huge" in the 80s. The early to mid 80s is when we had the D&D cartoon, for example, which reached millions of people even if they didn't play the game. A lot of the people who played D&D in the early 80s were out of college no later than the late 90s, and that's when you started seeing the profusion of MMOs, which are pretty clearly one of D&D's two biggest impacts on video gaming as a medium (the other being single-player RPGs). I fully grant that you can see D&D's influence at least as early as 1987, with Final Fantasy, but...well, video gaming in general had only had two generations of consoles at that point, and PC gaming itself was still in its infancy.

More or less, I'm saying there really weren't that many video games that pre-date D&D getting "truly huge."

And those that there are, like Colossal Cave Adventure, DnD [sic], Wizardry, Zork (which called itself Dungeon until a TSR Cease & Desist) Ultima, and Rogue are frequently openly D&D inspired as were MUDs/Multi-User Dungeons. 1975-77's Colossal Cave Adventure (a game so influential the entire Adventure genre was named after it) was explicitly an attempt to create a computer-mediated D&D game for a group that couldn't organise sessions.

Indeed I believe that D&D almost dominated PC/mainframe gaming before it got big because the most complex games you could play were text based (rather than really primitive graphics) - and if you're doing that then dungeons are awesome as is a combat system. And anyone who'd played D&D would have a huge advantage knowing what they wanted to do when there were no templates. Oh, and if D&D was niche it was nerd-niche, as was programming games.

D&D looms so large over the market in large part because its boom-times were literally right at a formative juncture for video gaming, and then that boom time heavily influenced a whole generation of story-heavy, mechanically-heavy gaming experiences. (There had been classic Adventure games before that, but RPGs took those in a new direction, marrying in elements of action and statistical improvement that have become core traits of CRPGs today.)

As mentioned Adventure games were named after Colossal Cave Adventure (a.k.a. Adventure) which was an attempt to play D&D when they couldn't schedule.

For goodness' sake, Pong as a home-playable game didn't come out until the mid to late 70s

Correction: Pong was an improved copy of a Magnavox Odyssey game. The Odyssey was the first home console and came out in 1972.

So....yeah. D&D got big at almost exactly the same time video games got their act back together (after the crash of '83). And that timing could not possibly have been better for centralizing D&D concepts into the video gaming sphere.

The Atarishock (it only applied in the US) only really affected console gaming and only in the US; I'm not even sure it affected PC gaming that much (but then it was a niche thing at the time anyway). The thing was that D&D already owned PC gaming but although Adventure made it to the Atari 2600 it took The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to show how to do an RPG on console, and even Dragon Quest/Dragon Warriors and Final Fantasy were pretty mechanics heavy. Dragon Warriors was a deliberate reaction against having to know the D&D rules - and Final Fantasy's original battle system was explicitly based on D&D and Wizardry (which was also D&D derived)

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm joining the thread late, so please forgive me if I cover ground well trod . . .

I didn't vote in the poll, as none of the options really felt right for me, although the sixth option is the closest (no, but some descriptions of specific settings and their races/monsters cultures are okay).

I really like how the 5E books handle things right now (the core three, that is). The default setting is ALL THE SETTINGS, or the D&D multiverse more broadly. I like how the examples presented come from a variety of D&D sources, leaning heavily on the Realms. The various "everything" supplements (Volo's, Xanathar's, Tasha's) follow this approach, even through Volo and Xanathar are Realmsian characters. Each adventure has a different implied setting, mostly the Realms of course, but are done with a light enough touch they are easily adaptable to other campaigns.

Love it.

With the possible exception of Greyhawk, none of the many existing, official settings really sit at the center of the D&D genre and core assumptions of the game. Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, and the Realms are close . . . but any of them, if tightly integrated into the core rules and assumptions, would change the game enough to upset fans of other settings, and probably not even make fans of the chosen setting happy either. WotC could create a new setting designed to flesh out the existing core assumptions of the game, but . . . they tried that during 4th Edition with the Nentir Vale setting, and everything about 4E was controversial.

And ultimately, it's just not necessary and allows a lot of fluidity and freedom for gamers, and for the designers of the game. Current adventure releases are Realms-heavy . . . but the current paradigm allows for occasionally something different like Ghosts of Saltmarsh. There's also space for using a different setting, and even creating a new one for future adventures and/or "everything" supplements (Volo's, Xanathar's, Tasha's).

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The druid thread is a great case for going setting agnostic. Because the designers made a flavor decision, people treat it like a literal real-world taboo instead of making their own choices. It's like a smaller version of the LG Paladin thing.

Agreed. I don't want specific setting assumptions built into my mechanics. Sure, some thematic fluff and descriptions other than physical appearance and capabilities are necessary, I feel that much of this can be rolled back from how 5e approaches it (especially with Druids and similar races). Volo's Orcs originally had a -2 to Intelligence, which is a setting-assumption that made its way into the ruleset, even though settings with non-evil, non-stupid orcs are fairly common and have been popular for decades, like Eberron.

You need a definition of the concepts, but more often than not, I've found that small descriptions work better to inspire and encourage creativity than in-depth ones that have their setting-based themes baked into their mechanics, both for DMs and the official game designers. The LG paladin restriction is gone, as are strict racial-alignments, as are many other setting-specific assumptions that are based into the game. People like choice, and less setting assumptions often promote choice.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I disagree. Heroic or pre-whatever; D&D does D&D style fantasy.

What is "Heroic Fantasy" ?
What is "Pre-Industrial Heroic Fantasy" ?

Strong definitions needed.

And I can almost guarantee that our definitions of what those genre's encompass will not line up.

I'm going to focus on specifically this part of your response, because I don't want to get bogged down in three largely different arguments.

Firstly, saying D&D does D&D-style-fantasy is like saying World of Warcraft does Warcraft style fantasy. I mean, yeah it's true, it also doesn't mean anything. It's like saying your dog is a canine; it's circular.

I'm not a literary professor, so I'm not going to try and provide my definitions for what "Heroic Fantasy" is; just google it or look at it's Wikipedia article. My personal definition probably isn't going to line up exactly with yours, and I don't care. The exact definition doesn't matter, the approximate definition (extraordinary people doing adventures) is all that's necessary.

Now, what does do a good job of explaining D&D's genre for me? Why, it's 5E's appendix E from the Player's Handbook;

Now, there are a couple books here that stand out from as black sheep (I mean, HP Lovecraft doesn't really scream D&D), but most of these books have a lot of commonalities. More importantly, most of these books are the inspiration for the many settings of D&D and it's core tenets; how wizards do magic for example (forgetting their spells) is pulled nearly directly from Jack Vance. Does that mean that D&D Fantasy is actually Vancian Fantasy? I doubt it, because Vance's books are usually set in Earth's far future. So is it more like Moorcock, set on a completely different world?

Anyway, the point is that D&D is inspired by an amalgamation of several different writers. And, the core rulebooks, while providing one easy outline for how to run a setting, also provide several alternatives in cosmology and even magical systems. So I find it silly to say 5E has a core setting at all, although I think it is fair to say it hedges to a specific genre of fantasy (as shown by the Appendix E).

 

[The Green Hermit]

I think this might be why I'm far more interested in the Tasha's subclasses than the Xanathar's ones or even the PHB's; Tasha's feel a lot fresher while with the exception of the Warlock, Barbarian, and Paladin the PHB subclasses were all trying to be D&D (and even there they were mostly being 4e rather than trad D&D).

I could barely read Tasha's. I have it, but I doubt I will use it much.

 

[Scott Christian]

I have to agree with the above poster that I'd call it "heroic fantasy" rather than narrowly "D&D fantasy."

@Jaeger For both of you, maybe I'm just not in the know. But I have never heard the term "D&D Fantasy" to describe anything. I understand the statement, and partially agree with it. Yet, there are too many other descriptors out there that categorize the fantasy genre. No where, on any RPG book I have ever picked up, nor any podcast with a writer, nor any interview with a movie or tv producer have I ever heard them describe anything as D&D fantasy.
When you say this, do you mean generic fantasy?

 

[pemerton]

D&D wizards, and warlocks for that matter, more closely resemble Dr Strange than they do any fairy tale wizard, or Gandalf, or Ged from the Earthsea books.

And they are found in a world populated by all manner of quasi-human peoples - many more such diverse peoples than in JRRT's stories, let alone REH Conan or Le Guin or Jack the Giant Killer.

And in that self-same world are found druidical nature priests, and chivalric knights, and wuxia martial artists. There are various warriors of comparable puissance - those knights, those martial artists, totem warriors - but not (for example) doublet-wearing fencers. (AC too low.)

It's just not all that generic, in my view.

 

[Northern Phoenix]

D&D wizards, and warlocks for that matter, more closely resemble Dr Strange than they do any fairy tale wizard, or Gandalf, or Ged from the Earthsea books.

And they are found in a world populated by all manner of quasi-human peoples - many more such diverse peoples than in JRRT's stories, let alone REH Conan or Le Guin or Jack the Giant Killer.

And in that self-same world are found druidical nature priests, and chivalric knights, and wuxia martial artists. There are various warriors of comparable puissance - those knights, those martial artists, totem warriors - but not (for example) doublet-wearing fencers. (AC too low.)

It's just not all that generic, in my view.

Think you're using a different definition of generic here. Generally, if people come into DnD from fantasy video games or other modern fantasy stories, they can probably expect to find the sort of things they've seen there in DnD. DnD has all the fantasy stuff, so colloquially, it is "generic fantasy".

 

[Jaeger]

Now, what does do a good job of explaining D&D's genre for me? Why, it's 5E's appendix E from the Player's Handbook;

The compilation in Appendix E is not from a single genre of fantasy.

the point is that D&D is inspired by an amalgamation of several different writers. And, the core rulebooks, while providing one easy outline for how to run a setting, also provide several alternatives in cosmology and even magical systems. So I find it silly to say 5E has a core setting at all, although I think it is fair to say it hedges to a specific genre of fantasy (as shown by the Appendix E).

That D&D is an amalgam of several different writers points to the fact that D&D is very much it's own thing because many of the sources it draws from are very different from each other.

The only specific 'genre' of fantasy that D&D hedges to is D&D fantasy.

Appendix E is just sources of inspiration. The books listed have very different types of fantasy in them.

They are not by any measure all the same 'genre' of fantasy. Even though they are all put under the 'fantasy' label.

Tolkiens vision of fantasy is different from Moorcocks. Burroughs tales are very different in tone than Pratchetts. Howard, Dunsany, And Martin are very different in tone, worldbuilding, and magic levels.

Listed in appendix E you have everything from weird fantasy, original mythology, sword and planet, sword and sorcery, pastiches based on D&D itself! Along with Tolkien and pastiches of Tolkien.

D&D has taken inspiration from all that to then make its own unique thing.

The unique genre assumptions D&D hard codes into its rules set bear this out.

This is not a bad thing. It's just the way it is.

That D&D is its own genre of fantasy is hardly a controversial statement, and I am not by any stretch the first one to point this out.

Now as to whether or not the D&D rules set can do "All fantasy genre's"
This argument has largely been dealt with before:

D&D 5E - D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

edit: two posts have pointed toward the title as indicative of conflict, interpreting “vs” as competitive rather than comparative as I intended, so I’ve changed the title. So, there is a lot of traffic on the internet dedicated to the idea that DnD is a very limited game, and if you want to...

www.enworld.org

I'll defer to the arguments and counterarguments presented in the linked thread.

 

[pemerton]

Generally, if people come into DnD from fantasy video games or other modern fantasy stories, they can probably expect to find the sort of things they've seen there in DnD. DnD has all the fantasy stuff, so colloquially, it is "generic fantasy".

Well, if people come to D&D from material that is inspired by D&D then they will find what they're looking for.

But the most obvious thing about D&D - what the hell with the "cleric" class, ie armed and armoured healing priests? How is that generic?