D&D General Is there a D&D setting that actually works how it would with access to D&D magic?

[Faolyn]

Possible, though it’s also possible they’d have similar station to a blacksmith.

Also like, just because the magic guy can start fires, doesn’t mean people wouldn’t learn how to do it manually.

True to both--but not everyone can manually purify water or heal wounds with a touch. And yes, people will learn nonmagical ways of performing these abilities--but then again, they might not, if their society decides that this magic is the best way to do it.

To me, detect poison and disease is pretty clearly worded in a way that means a healer with it would know what they’re looking at.

It wouldn’t have to give them the details, any additional more accurate info would accelerate the advancement of medical science.

<shrug> Yeah, I mean I can see how you can interpret the spell's description in that manner, but it's not how I would do it. To me, the phrase "You also identify the kind of poison, poisonous creature, or disease in each case" doesn't mean that that they would know what the disease actually is. Just what it's commonly called by. It's a 1st-level spell, after all, and learning the biology of the ailment might require something higher level. Like the difference between identify and legend lore. And, of course, there might not be any actually biological reasons for a disease, no bacteria or viruses at all; they might actually be created by evil gods or fiends of disease.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm not sure how Detect Poison works these days, but for a long time, you needed to make an ability check (either Heal or Craft (Alchemy), I can't recall which) to diagnose poisons. At least at that point, it implies there is knowledge of such things extant in the setting.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Trust me, you can't get rid of spell components, or you'll have a small army of posters saying "it doesn't feel like/isn't D&D!".

spell components tends not to be a thing with the new guard players so it is more likely to become optional.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

What I mean is- humans, at the very least, are a very industrious and innovative people. Look how far we’ve developed in just the past 2000 years- or even the past 100! But most D&D settings seem to have multi-thousand-year histories where the world has existed at the “default” D&D setting; that is- a vaguely medieval, feudal peasant society that happens to have magic, dragons, etc. Now monsters aside, our world does not exist like that, and we don’t have fairly accessible magic.

I’m not saying I want a D&D game that recreates modern society- except with magic instead of electricity. But the D&D rules, as written; with item creation, permanent spells effects, and more; would NOT create Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, or Golarion.

Eberron comes close, but it also invents at least three other systems to “justify” it (dragonmarks, manifest zones, and rampant exploitation of elementals). You don’t need anything extra like that to envision that most D&D worlds should be vastly different than the medieval default that’s used for most of them.

Also, I should mention, I’m not looking for an argument or reasons about WHY most D&D worlds ARE stuck in their vaguely medieval setting. I know the history of D&D’s development and all the books that Gary and Dave got their inspiration from. They took a setting, slapped rules for dungeons, magic, and dragons on it and started to play. All those game worlds I mentioned are fine. I've gamed in them for years, just like all of you have. But what would a world that has always existed within those rules ACTUALLY look like? Is there a setting that takes the rules-as-written and runs with it- as humanity would do?

Well it's funny that you mention Greyhawk because there's a lot of material written for Greyhawk that talks about how there are the ruins of ancient civilizations everywhere. And not only that but the level of technology was far superior and it's even explained that many "magic" items could be technology that no one understands any more.

Back before the sci-fi and fantasy tropes became more established, there was a lot of pulp fantasy fiction that didn't distinguish at all between sci-fi and fantasy and used it all for inspiration. Greyhawk is the only D&D setting I know of which reflects D&D's pulp fantasy roots.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Well it's funny that you mention Greyhawk because there's a lot of material written for Greyhawk that talks about how there are the ruins of ancient civilizations everywhere. And not only that but the level of technology was far superior and it's even explained that many "magic" items could be technology that no one understands any more.

Back before the sci-fi and fantasy tropes became more established, there was a lot of pulp fantasy fiction that didn't distinguish at all between sci-fi and fantasy and used it all for inspiration. Greyhawk is the only D&D setting I know of which reflects D&D's pulp fantasy roots.

that sounds nice and all but how do you make it a selling point to people who are so far removed it does not make sense to them?

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

that sounds nice and all but how do you make it a selling point to people who are so far removed it does not make sense to them?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Who? The players? The PCs and NPCs?

And what is anyone trying to sell? It's simply a fact that fantasy and sci-fi used to blend together a lot, I'm not sure you can sell a fact.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'm not sure I understand your question. Who? The players? The PCs and NPCs?

And what is anyone trying to sell? It's simply a fact that fantasy and sci-fi used to blend together a lot, I'm not sure you can sell a fact.

the new players is who I mean by people as other people seem to really want to make greyhawk a thing again.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

the new players is who I mean by people as other people seem to really want to make greyhawk a thing again.

You normally can't sell anything to anyone who isn't already predisposed on some level to like it. But these are things you can mention if you know newer players who seem as if they would be interested in a more alternative system such as Greyhawk:

Tell them it's a big shift towards the world being weird and mysterious, and even cruel. Magic and technology are often the same thing and the party is in a world that is basically built on the corpses of a hundred dead civilizations, some of which even had space ships.

You can throw good and evil out the window and dig into law vs chaos, and Greyhawk is super ideal for that. It is literally the only official D&D setting that is super grey about morality.

It can't be understated how big a deal this is when you've got, e.g., a setting like Golarion for Pathfinder. If you want to play Pathfinder, and want to play the official Pathfinder setting, you are stuck with a world where the players are basically hamstrung into not only being good characters but mostly interacting with non-monster NPCs who are good. This does not feel like much of a realistic world, it can make things less immersive.

Now if that's a big TL;DR or "quit it DM you're being long winded with your campaign pitch" then you need to cater to those players or find people a little more inquisitive and open to trying new things.

 

[tetrasodium]

.

You can throw good and evil out the window and dig into law vs chaos, and Greyhawk is super ideal for that. It is literally the only official D&D setting that is super grey about morality.
.

Not familiar with eberron?

 

[James Gasik]

Mentioning Greyhawk, which could be both subtle with it's references or blatant (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, for example) I like having some pulp and science fantasy in my fantasy. Whether it's John Carter, a fighting man from Virginia tossed into a world that is pretty much a fantasy adventure, but hey, there's ray guns and flying ships, to even video games. I can't have been the only one to play the original Final Fantasy and been amazed to find my party of D&D heroes aboard a space station- or be wowed by the twist of Phantasy Star 3, when you realize your entire world is part of a generation starship that's been in transit for 2000 years!

...maybe my next campaign should have psionics and the explanation for that and the various strange races be genetic engineering in the distant past...

Speaking of Psionics, this is what the Complete Psionics Handbook had to say about Greyhawk: Psionics is an old and established facet of life on Oerth. Presumably it was brought there when an illithid spacecraft crashed on the planet ages ago. Psionicists are by no means common, but most people are at least aware of the existence of psionics and often consider it to be just another mystical pursuit. Psionic guilds and secret associations can be found in major cities.