D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[doctorbadwolf]

Like you said, that'd be Nentir Vale 2.0. That world was a flop.

What a weird claim. I’d love to hear your reasoning that a world that was never given a distinct setting book and wasn’t meant to get especially developed but did anyway due to player demand…was a flop.

There aren’t even any setting products to use as a measure of success! Lol

 

[Mordhau]

Isn't there a long history of people asking for detailed setting books about campaigns that have previously been hinted at in pieces?

Nentir Vale is just one example (although the setting book never came out). Didn't Greyhawk start that way? Forgotten Realms definitely did with hints given away in Dragon Articles by Greenwood. Frog God Games' the Lost Land is basically the same, the background to adventure/campaign books given out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Like you said, that'd be Nentir Vale 2.0. That world was a flop.

The Multiverse is inherent to D&D's richness. It'd be like smooshing all the worlds of M:tG into one planet. The "Multiverse" concept just made a huge leap into the mainstream with the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home film. People can handle diverse timelines.

If I were head of the D&D team, for 5.5E or 6E, I would go for a very specific two-prong articulation which was both more generic and more specific:

1) I would make the creation of a homebrew world simply part of the game. I would "gamify" that process by making a World Builder's Guidebook (WBG) a core rulebook (equal to the PHB, DMG, and MM); either that fill most of the DMG with that. This WBG would have randomized tables which would truly cover the entire array of world-features which have ever been seen in any D&D product, including Spelljammer. (Of course with the option to intentionally choose features instead of rolling.) So that "rolling up a world" is as much a part of the game as "rolling up a character." There'd even be a World Building Sheet, like a Character Sheet, but for worlds.

There'd even be a random "campaign setting name" table which includes (among many other results) all the name elements that make up the published worlds: e.g. "Grey", "Dragon", "Forgotten", "Dark", "Raven" + "Hawk", "Lance", "Realms", "Sun", "Loft", etc.

D&D Beyond would support World Building in the same way that it supports Character Creation.

AND, AT THE SAME TIME...

2) I would really coherentize the D&D Multiverse in all its diversity, as a single meta-setting.

Through introducing world-hopping as a common feature, even at low levels. Via alternate world gates and cross-world organizations, such as a Multiverse-spanning Adventurers League.

By producing official conversion notes which place every adventure in every published world.

By publishing an Atlas of the D&D Multiverse that provides the phlogistonic and planar equivalent of the Star Wars Galaxy map which WotC, showing exactly where every D&D world and plane ever mentioned, in any edition, are located. And including official world maps for all the D&D worlds, from Toril to Krynn to Mystara to Oerth to Nerath.

By producing a Grand History of the D&D Multiverse, which finally synchronizes the timelines of all the published worlds.

By turning all continuity discrepancies into alternate timelines. And giving those parallel universes ("paraverses") official names.

This Multiverse would serve as a setting for cross-world novels and media events. People can handle it. The M:tG and MCU and Spider-Man films are all introducing the general public to the complexities of alternate worlds and timelines. D&D RPG folk ought to be able to handle it.

***
A two-pronged approach. Both more generic and more specific.

Ok, a like is not enough. That is an AMAZING idea!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Ok, a like is not enough. That is an AMAZING idea!

Going all the way forward ... to the original Gygaxian multiverse.

If you live long enough, everything comes back into fashion.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

What a weird claim. I’d love to hear your reasoning that a world that was never given a distinct setting book and wasn’t meant to get especially developed but did anyway due to player demand…was a flop.

There aren’t even any setting products to use as a measure of success! Lol

Even Mearls admitted that 4E was a flop. If 4E was a flop, so was its setting. Commercially and consumer-wise. Not necessarily artistically.

I love Nerath. I think as far as D&D worlds go, it's pretty cool. I always advocate that Nerath be restored to equal stature alongside all the other D&D worlds.

But, as you say, Nerath did away with the Multiverse, its storied history, and all the worlds. (Though some worlds were gradually reintroduced.) In a similar way that 4E sort "did away" with almost everything which was recognizable about D&D as it had developed thus far. And how the GSL did away with the OGL. It all felt like a pressurized push of the D&D consumer to bow down and cram ourselves into a corporate-crafted box: world-wise, system-wise, and license-wise.

Still, I like Nerath. What I didn't like is the implication (which lasted a pretty long while): "There's no other world than Nerath now. Everything is crammed into Nearth. There's nothing more to D&D than Nerath." That felt arrogant and pushy.

I definitely would not want to see that repeated. Might as well just use Garweeze Wurld of Aldrazar!

But I would like to see Nerath featured as full-blown campaign setting in 5E. That'd be swell. It's an awesome world.

 

[Faolyn]

Like you said, that'd be Nentir Vale 2.0. That world was a flop.

The Multiverse is inherent to D&D's richness. It'd be like smooshing all the worlds of M:tG into one planet. The "Multiverse" concept just made a huge leap into the mainstream with the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home film. People can handle diverse timelines.

If I were head of the D&D team, for 5.5E or 6E, I would go for a very specific two-prong articulation which was both more generic and more specific:

1) I would make the creation of a homebrew world simply part of the game. I would "gamify" that process by making a World Builder's Guidebook (WBG) a core rulebook (equal to the PHB, DMG, and MM); either that, or fill most of the DMG with that. This WBG would have randomized tables which would truly cover the entire array of world-features which have ever been seen in any D&D product, including Spelljammer. (Of course with the option to intentionally choose features instead of rolling.) So that "rolling up a world" is as much a part of the game as "rolling up a character." There'd even be a World Building Sheet, like a Character Sheet, but for worlds.

I would definitely do this--I've thought a book (or section in the DMG) would be a great idea for a long time. I would also include a sample world done to show how each section can relate to each other, and then use this as the "default setting" when discussing D&D in general.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Even Mearls admitted that 4E was a flop. If 4E was a flop, so was its setting. Commercially and consumer-wise. Not necessarily artistically.

That doesn’t follow. to be a flop, it would have had to be published. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even recognized as a setting as such.

I love Nerath. I think as far as D&D worlds go, it's pretty cool. I always advocate that Nerath be restored to equal stature alongside all the other D&D worlds.

But, as you say, Nerath did away with the Multiverse, its storied history, and all the worlds.

I said no such thing, nor is it true.

Still, I like Nerath. What I didn't like is the implication (which lasted a pretty long while): "There's no other world than Nerath now. Everything is crammed into Nearth. There's nothing more to D&D than Nerath." That felt arrogant and pushy.

That implication didn’t exist. Each setting’s cosmology was self contained, so you could say that 4e did away with Planescape (and good riddance), but that’s it. Forgotten Realms was supported with a new set of books in year 1 of the edition, IIRC.

But I would like to see Nerath featured as full-blown campaign setting in 5E. That'd be swell. It's an awesome world.

At least we can agree on this.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I would also include a sample world done to show how each section can relate to each other,

Yes - another D&D world. I'm for it.

and then use this as the "default setting" when discussing D&D in general.

I disagree. Because this is going yet again into the direction of a Core World which gets most of the attention, like Oerth was for 1E and 3E, Mystara was for BD&D, FR was for 2E and 5E, and Nerath was for 4E. This blurs the two-pronged approach I advocate.

I'm all up for a single page or few pages in the World Builders Guide which shows an example of how to apply the worldbuilding principles, with a filled out sample World Builder Sheet. Cool. And then for this sketch to eventually get a single hardcover Worldbook. And be done with it. Also cool.

But to use this world as the Default Setting throughout the rest of the D&D rulebooks? No! That approach is not much different than any other edition's designation of a "Default World". I don't want it.

Instead, for explanatory examples, I prefer the approach which 5E uses, where famous (or interestingly obscure) iconic D&D characters from any world of the Multiverse are used: like Caramon, Raistlin, and Tika, and Morgan Ironwolf, and Aleena and Bargle. In "my 6E", these characters' worlds are all part of a single meta-setting: the D&D Multiverse.

It's not a priority of mine to introduce yet another iconic set of newly-designed characters, from yet another newly-designed world, as the Default/Core Iconics. We already have plenty of Iconics. Show me Aleena, Warduke, Bigby, Melf the Elf, Regdar, Zagyg, Sister Rebecca...gods, even Drizzt and Elminster! That's not to say I'm opposed to seeing new characters in new novel series, etc. -- I just don't need new Default Iconics invented wholecloth yet again.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm just glad WotC has found a new way to make money on this wonderful book. It's a good thing First Nations and East Asian people never experience racism and stereotyping that this definitely doesn't promote.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

That doesn’t follow. to be a flop, it would have had to be published. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even recognized as a setting as such.

I experience that as sophistry and mincing words. It's almost as if nothing could be said about Nerath! At least nothing critical. Since it was a non-published, non-existing, non-setting? The Nerath continental map from the boardgame was a non-map. The Dawn War / World Axis cosmology was a non-cosmology. The Nerath pantheon was a non-pantheon of non-gods. The many, many pages of Nerath-specific history and lore was simply non-history and non-lore, since it wasn't gathered together and published in a single book "as such." Well then, this is a non-interesting non-conversation!

I said no such thing

I mistook you for Remathilis, who did say something like that (here). Sorry about that.

At least we can agree on this.

Yay!