D&D 5E First World: Possibly One of the New D&D setting?

[Urriak Uruk]

I don't like the idea of dragons having created basically all of D&D and coming before everything else. Never been a huge fan if them in general. I prefer a more traditional deity-based cosmology, like Tolkien with Iluvatar, or Greyhawk and the Realms (both of which are similar). It'll be a lot easier to believe the dragon myth is just one interpretation when there's more than one interpretation.

Obviously just my preference.

I think Dragons should be responsible for exactly half of Dungeons & Dragons. The latter half.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

They could easily make First World an active setting ...perhaps it no longer exists on the Prime Material Plane, but exists "outside time and space" - as a kind of eternal meta-world that underlies other worlds.

Yeah, there are a few ways to make it work as a setting book. If I were to write it, I'd explicitly write it as a world that existed in the past (because writing a section on how to run a doomsday game when it's ending would be great). But there are other ways to make it work too.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't like the idea of dragons having created basically all of D&D and coming before everything else. Never been a huge fan if them in general. I prefer a more traditional deity-based cosmology, like Tolkien with Iluvatar, or Greyhawk and the Realms (both of which are similar). It'll be a lot easier to believe the dragon myth is just one interpretation when there's more than one interpretation.

Obviously just my preference.

Indeed. And this is why it doesn't make commercial sense for WotC to produce a First World campaign setting. There are many players who prefer to use their own creation myths, so don't want WotC to dictate a "definitely true" creation myth. So, by leaving it as myth, they provide an "off the peg" explanation for those who want it, whilst allowing those who prefer something else to say "that myth isn't true".

Note that WotC already know the "myth" approach works, since Keith Baker used it for Eberron.

 

[dave2008]

I don't like the idea of dragons having created basically all of D&D and coming before everything else. Never been a huge fan if them in general. I prefer a more traditional deity-based cosmology, like Tolkien with Iluvatar, or Greyhawk and the Realms (both of which are similar). It'll be a lot easier to believe the dragon myth is just one interpretation when there's more than one interpretation.

Obviously just my preference.

A few thoughts:

1. First, in the First World myth: the Dragon Gods created the first Prime Material World. It was still created by gods and it was not all of creation.
2. We have other interpretations. You already mentioned Greyhawk and the Realms. There is also the Dawn War interpretation. I am not overly familiar with DD settings, but there are at least those 3.

I personally use a version of the Dawn War mythology in my setting, but I welcome the dragon's idea of the First World, even if my favorite creatures are a little mistaken!*

*There was a "first world" of sorts, and it was shattered in a way. However, it was created by the Primordials; it wasn't one world, but the whole Prime Material plan; it was the Dawn War that caused it to be "shattered."

 

[dave2008]

Indeed. And this is why it doesn't make commercial sense for WotC to produce a First World campaign setting. There are many players who prefer to use their own creation myths, so don't want WotC to dictate a "definitely true" creation myth. So, by leaving it as myth, they provide an "off the peg" explanation for those who want it, whilst allowing those who prefer something else to say "that myth isn't true".

Note that WotC already know the "myth" approach works, since Keith Baker used it for Eberron.

But doesn't Eberron show you can make a campaign setting based on the "myth" approach? I mean, if it works for Eberron, why not the "First World?"

 

[Tonguez]

Anyway whats the deal with AO?

 

[dave2008]

D&D's Tiamat is decidedly not from Sumerian myth. I'll actually be very surprised if the historical pantheon make it back into the revised DMG (or the PH, I don't remember where they are). It makes better business sense for them to use that space to push the brand.

The point was there is RL dragon creation myths that have a connection to D&D (at least that is how I read that statement). That is probably why @SkidAce said Sumerian, not Babylonian. Everyone knows her connection to D&D is through the "Babylonian Mythos"
Page 24 of Deities and Demigods,:

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But doesn't Eberron show you can make a campaign setting based on the "myth" approach? I mean, if it works for Eberron, why not the "First World?"

It shows you can have a campaign setting with things that may or may not be true, including a creation myth.

The problem with creating a First World campaign setting is it transforms "may or may not be true" (as in Fizban's) to "definitely true".

It would be like going to Eberron and proving the gods are real. It changes everything.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I think Dragons should be responsible for exactly half of Dungeons & Dragons. The latter half.

Perhaps the First World was a humongous megadungeon?

 

[dave2008]

It shows you can have a campaign setting with things that may or may not be true, including a creation myth.

The problem with creating a First World campaign setting is it transforms "may or may not be true" (as in Fizban's) to "definitely true".

It would be like going to Eberron and proving the gods are real. It changes everything.

Not necessarily. You can creating a campaign world were they (the people in the world) believe it is the "Frist World," that doesn't make it true. There doesn't need to be proof for the setting to work.