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

[Northern Phoenix]

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?

You can find that sort of thing in most any game that has many different types of magic or classes in it, either explicitly or obliquely (i.e in Dark Souls). Sometimes you find a more clear split between the "Cleric/Priest" and the "Paladin" (or "Acolyte" and "Templar" if they're trying too hard to be unique), but that's all minutia. And it also gets back to the fact that DnD ultimately has a lot of stuff. The only thing DnD doesn't have, is strong limits on what is in it. You can find all the stuff from Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, in DnD, but you can't (usually) find just those things, they exist along a multitude of other fantasy... stuff.

 

[pemerton]

You can find that sort of thing in most any game that has many different types of magic or classes in it

I'm sure you can. That would mean they're not generic either.

But there are approaches to RPG design that can increase or decrease how generic the game is. A system based on "choose a race, choose a class" where classes are defined by all these little packets of ability (especially spells) is going to struggle to be as generic as a system which is a bit more open-ended in its approach to PC build.

 

[Malmuria]

There are games that integrate setting and genre into the core rules, and games that are designed around being open ended, but 5e doesn't do either. Instead, it is purposefully vague as to what kind of world its mechanics and core lore would actually produce. We've seen this in recent discussions here as to what 5e does well, if 5e (or any dnd) can really do horror, etc, with the inevitable responses of either yes, it works well enough for anything or no, you need a more specific or more customizable game. I'm assuming they don't want to produce a 5e version of the d20 system and license, since I feel that didn't work out to well for them in the 3e era, but that's what a setting agnostic version of 5e would look like. I suppose they could use setting books to swap out aspects of the core, but that would reduce cross compatibility (for example, a dark sun setting could and probably should come out and say only x,y,z classes and subclasses are available here, but they would never do that)

 

[pemerton]

There are games that integrate setting and genre into the core rules, and games that are designed around being open ended, but 5e doesn't do either. Instead, it is purposefully vague as to what kind of world its mechanics and core lore would actually produce. We've seen this in recent discussions here as to what 5e does well, if 5e (or any dnd) can really do horror, etc, with the inevitable responses of either yes, it works well enough for anything or no, you need a more specific or more customizable game. I'm assuming they don't want to produce a 5e version of the d20 system and license, since I feel that didn't work out to well for them in the 3e era, but that's what a setting agnostic version of 5e would look like.

I think there are features of 5e that make "generic" or "setting agnostic" a challenge: central to its design are (i) lists of PC build elements that are put together within certain pre-established frameworks ("classes", "races/ancestries/heritages"), (ii) lists of monsters/opponents for the GM to use in confronting those PCs with challenges, and (iii) a focus on task and process as the core of the resolution system.

If you compare to more generic systems - say, HeroQuest revised or Cortex+ Heroic - they differ in all of these respects: PCs are built from descriptors, opposition is likewise built from descriptors, and resolution is mostly based around framing and intention with task and process being secondary concerns or even byproducts of resolution rather than inputs into it.

This is not an evaluative comparison. It's just a comparison. For similar reasons to 5e, Apocalypse World is not a generic system - it uses distinct suites of moves (playbooks) plus thematically-conceived basic moves as the core of its resolution process, and these bring task and process to the fore also. In the same way that the way you move from AW to (say) DW is to come up with new playbooks and new basic moves, so the way to move from 5e D&D to some other sort of fantasy or some other genre would be to come up with new class, race and skill lists, and new monsters lists. I gather this is how Adventures in Middle Earth does it.

 

[Malmuria]

I think there are features of 5e that make "generic" or "setting agnostic" a challenge: central to its design are (i) lists of PC build elements that are put together within certain pre-established frameworks ("classes", "races/ancestries/heritages"), (ii) lists of monsters/opponents for the GM to use in confronting those PCs with challenges, and (iii) a focus on task and process as the core of the resolution system.

If you compare to more generic systems - say, HeroQuest revised or Cortex+ Heroic - they differ in all of these respects: PCs are built from descriptors, opposition is likewise built from descriptors, and resolution is mostly based around framing and intention with task and process being secondary concerns or even byproducts of resolution rather than inputs into it.

This is not an evaluative comparison. It's just a comparison. For similar reasons to 5e, Apocalypse World is not a generic system - it uses distinct suites of moves (playbooks) plus thematically-conceived basic moves as the core of its resolution process, and these bring task and process to the fore also. In the same way that the way you move from AW to (say) DW is to come up with new playbooks and new basic moves, so the way to move from 5e D&D to some other sort of fantasy or some other genre would be to come up with new class, race and skill lists, and new monsters lists. I gather this is how Adventures in Middle Earth does it.

I've heard good things about Adventures in Middle Earth. Homebrew classes/subclasses/races in 5e seem very hit or miss, and rely a lot on the designer's instinctive feel for the game and/or access to playtesting. Whereas something like the white hack feels like a toolkit for creating your own osr game. But other impediment is probably more to do with the business side of things, where they want all their content to be usable across different kinds of settings and genres, but don't want those supplemental books to necessarily reference each other.

For those of you who play ebberon, do you feel like the high magic aspect of that setting has a better feel for 5e mechanics (compared to any of the faux medieval settings)?

 

[Doug McCrae]

But the entire D&D spell system including slots and levels dictates things about the setting.

I think that's true. Vancian casters, to be balanced against non-casters, require many dangerous encounters, typically monsters, over a short space of time. That means D&D dungeons, and D&D dungeons are more plausible in a kitchen sink world that's filled with monsters.

The most important source for Vancian magic, "Mazirian the Magician", feels D&D-y in a way that almost all other fantasy fiction doesn't: not only does the protagonist encounter many different monsters and other dangers, these are gathered together in a small geographic area. D&D and "Mazirian the Magician" are monster dense.

 

[pemerton]

Homebrew classes/subclasses/races in 5e seem very hit or miss, and rely a lot on the designer's instinctive feel for the game and/or access to playtesting

<snip>

But other impediment is probably more to do with the business side of things, where they want all their content to be usable across different kinds of settings and genres

Right. Part of moving towards different genres is feeling free to produce material that is not mutually compatible.

For instance, a variant wizard/sorcerer who doesn't have Dr Strange-style blasts but has stronger summoning than a D&D wizard might be a good fit for a Conan-esque game, which would downplay combat balance and 6-8 encounters per day as core to the game, focusing on other arenas of conflict as just as important and being more ready to say "time passes" between scenes.

This different sort of game can easily enough accommodate the existing fighter and rogue, I think, because making long rests more common has only a modest impact on their balance. But this different game with its variant arcanist is obviously not going to be compatible with the inclusion of the PHB casters, who (i) will break it due to nova-ing, and (ii) may not be a good fit given the wide range of their other abilities that tend to undercut Conan-esque adventure.

EDIT: I see this post as highly compatible with @Doug McCrae's just upthread.

 

[SkidAce]

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.

I feel you just described a generic setting i.e. mixing pot of all kinds of different things thrown together.

Of course I look at D&D as a tool kit so...

 

[tetrasodium]

There are games that integrate setting and genre into the core rules, and games that are designed around being open ended, but 5e doesn't do either. Instead, it is purposefully vague as to what kind of world its mechanics and core lore would actually produce. We've seen this in recent discussions here as to what 5e does well, if 5e (or any dnd) can really do horror, etc, with the inevitable responses of either yes, it works well enough for anything or no, you need a more specific or more customizable game. I'm assuming they don't want to produce a 5e version of the d20 system and license, since I feel that didn't work out to well for them in the 3e era, but that's what a setting agnostic version of 5e would look like. I suppose they could use setting books to swap out aspects of the core, but that would reduce cross compatibility (for example, a dark sun setting could and probably should come out and say only x,y,z classes and subclasses are available here, but they would never do that)

5e very much does that. Basically everything is setup for Forgotten Realms and the d&d settings that are very similar to it. official d&d settings that differ from that to any notable degree barely rank as an afterthought for consideration in the core rules.

 

[Malmuria]

5e very much does that. Basically everything is setup for Forgotten Realms and the d&d settings that are very similar to it. official d&d settings that differ from that to any notable degree barely rank as an afterthought for consideration in the core rules.

I mean games like blades in the dark, apocalypse world, or even osr games like mork borg that have a relatively specific setting or genre in mind and create, or at least intend to create, a play experience centered around that genre. Then there are games like fate, white hack, or (reputedly, because I haven't looked at it much) gurps that are more toolkits that allow for players to match mechanics to their preferred genre.

5e has produced a lot of content for the forgotten realms, but there are disconnects between the core rules and the FR. But then, it's not clear to me that FR is very internally coherent as a setting to begin with, so maybe I'm reacting more to that than to the implicit 5e setting.

If you look at something like acquisitions incorporated, especially the past couple of years where they are bouncing around between various planes and different settings, what genre is that? Whatever genre that is, I think it's a good fit for 5e mechanics (even though it is a stage show and so very different from home games)