D&D 5E Yes to factionalism. No to racism.

[Minigiant]

Trying to understand what you want. WOTC can't provide details on every possible option, where would they even start?

No one is asking for every option.
The requested info is of guideline to design or alter your own worlds, nations, factions, and races.

How to turn Woody Elves into Steel Elves or create a whole Pirate faction of sea orcs, dwarves, tritons, and halflings. How you trade out cultural class features. How different factions typically interact with the world. How a racial god might be changed to adapt to a new view of a race or how to incorporate a new god in a racial pantheon.

People take it for granted. However I don't even think many people even know how to run a LG orc god.

 

[Malmuria]

If I were going to set up a kitchen sink campaign, the world would be some kind of crossroads world or a magical Bermuda triangle destination. There was a time when there were no civilized lands or only ancient ruins of a long lost people. Then groups from entirely different worlds just started appearing, and continue to appear today. Sometimes it's one individual, sometimes it's a thousand. After a period of initial war and bloodshed, the races started banding together after realizing they were all in a strange land. Nowadays? Nobody looks twice at a race they've never encountered before except maybe to ask if their people have registered with the bureau of resettling yet.

As far as dungeon ecology, I agree. I haven't run a standard dungeon since high school.

This is why the one 5e campaign I ran was planescape, and I encouraged everyone to play whatever they wanted. Your character is from some part of the multiverse, and then you went through a portal, and now you're here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If I were going to set up a kitchen sink campaign, the world would be some kind of crossroads world or a magical Bermuda triangle destination. There was a time when there were no civilized lands or only ancient ruins of a long lost people. Then groups from entirely different worlds just started appearing, and continue to appear today. Sometimes it's one individual, sometimes it's a thousand. After a period of initial war and bloodshed, the races started banding together after realizing they were all in a strange land. Nowadays? Nobody looks twice at a race they've never encountered before except maybe to ask if their people have registered with the bureau of resettling yet.

Yeah I've thought about doing this myself, and come across settings which kinda do it. Sort of like RIFTS a couple of thousand years on or something (and with the Coalition States who are er, about problematic as it's humanly possible to be lol - jeez of all the things in RIFTS that didn't age well).

Or yes Planescape as @Malmuria points out is also this.

 

[Scribe]

This is why the one 5e campaign I ran was planescape, and I encouraged everyone to play whatever they wanted. Your character is from some part of the multiverse, and then you went through a portal, and now you're here.

Indeed, it blows my mind they havent realized they could leverage Planescape SO easily.

 

[Malmuria]

Indeed, it blows my mind they havent realized they could leverage Planescape SO easily.

Was Ravnica sort of like this?

 

[Faolyn]

My point is, sometimes a PC wants to play a dwarf. Maybe they like the mechanics, or they thought Gimli was cool, maybe they just like the default dwarf. Should I still have to create a dozen subcultures for every race a PC might play, or I want to include on my world map? If I want to include a Shire-type community of halflings, I shouldn't also have to include 5 other halfling cultures to balance it out. Especially if most of the different cultures in the setting are human anyway.

No, but you could create 2-3 cultures, or at least have a list of 2-3 ways Culture A and Culture B are different.

The Halflings of Greenmeadow Shire are old-fashioned and very staid, and usually leery of anything newfangled. They get most of their food from gardens, orchards, and flocks of chickens and sheep. They're known for the quality of their wool products and their hard and soft ciders.

The Halflings of Three Rivers are boaters, fishers, aquaculturalists, and freshwater pearl divers. They're known to be excellent traders and many people use them to ship goods. They also tend to be very good cooks and use ingredients from anywhere their boats can reach.

The Halflings of Big Rock Shire are friendly and welcoming to outsiders of any kind, to the point that there's a fair number of half-halflings running around the place. They have huge farms and act as the breadbasket for the surrounding area; they're also known for the spirits they make from the grain they raise. The "Big Rock" is actually an ancient fort of unknown origin; the halflings use some of it as a government house and temple.

And unless you have a player who really wants to know more about the culture or an adventure that takes place around there (or are using a heritage/culture divide like in Level Up), you probably don't need more than this. Maybe another sentence or two, if you feel like being fancy.

And then, if you have a player who really wants to know about the culture? Have them make some stuff up!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Was Ravnica sort of like this?

Yeah but Ravnica makes it all as boring and staid as is humanly possible. It makes Sigil look like some kind of insane rave party by comparison. And worse... Ravnica doesn't have style.

Indeed, it blows my mind they havent realized they could leverage Planescape SO easily.

I have theories.

In particular my theory is that a lot of people "in charge" at WotC do not and never have liked Planescape, and that how much people in WotC like a setting causes irrational decision-making (like the repeated failed attempts to make Greyhawk "happen").

My supporting evidence is sparse, I admit, principally:

1) WotC allowed the horrible "kill all the Factions" adventure at the end of 2E to get published, but refused to publish the alleged "Oh no it was only temporary" adventures Monte Cook claims he was writing.

2) WotC has never been nice to Sigil or Planescape in three editions now. In 4E, it actually doubled-down on the very worst stuff from the "kill all the Factions" adventure, and made Sigil be run by a number of extremely dull three-letter-acronym agencies like it was smallish Midwestern city or something, not the capital of the multiverse, or the melting-pot of the multiverse, or whatever.

The sheer staggering lack of Planescape despite it's enduring popularity and nigh-legendary status (in significant part due to DiTerlizzi's illustrations ofc) speaks volumes, imho.

Hoping to be proven completely stupid and wrong by one of the upcoming classic settings but I really doubt it at this rate.

 

[Scribe]

Was Ravnica sort of like this?

The MTG settings offend me at a cellular level, and I liked MTG. I dont want crossing of the streams.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Take Hobgoblins (and for the sake of discussion, we can put to one side the way they are clearly coded using east Asian stereotypes, at least in 5e). We have here an entire species that is described as lawful and militaristic. Organized militaries take a lot of resources! Volo's tells us the following

That's a lot of infrastructure! Even if you were going with race-as-monoculture, it seems like Hobgoblins should have some stable kingdom, trading patterns, relationships with neighbors, etc. Volo's expands on this:


Ah yes, an "out-of-the-way area" that is rich in arable land, lumber, and mineral resources. In which they develop a medieval-esque, stable society. It seems like, if your world has hobgoblins, they should have a defined territory on the map and detailed interactions with other defined territories. But because they are "monsters," and not humans, they exist in a vague, "out of the way" space so they can enter the narrative purely as antagonists.

Excellent analysis. That's why goblinoids have proper nation-states in every world I build.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No one is asking for every option.
The requested info is of guideline to design or alter your own worlds, nations, factions, and races.

How to turn Woody Elves into Steel Elves or create a whole Pirate faction of sea orcs, dwarves, tritons, and halflings. How you trade out cultural class features. How different factions typically interact with the world. How a racial god might be changed to adapt to a new view of a race or how to incorporate a new god in a racial pantheon.

People take it for granted. However I don't even think many people even know how to run a LG orc god.

Has any RPG ever done what you're asking for? Serious question, because if such a beast exists I'm buying it.