D&D (2024) How does a New Setting with the One D&D Origins and Classes look?

[aco175]

The background sysem pushes that the elven society has orcish smiths, farmers, mages, priests, musicians, etc for your orc PC to come from. Your PCs origin no longer has to be an anomaly, just your PC's power is.

I'm not looking for this myself, but we will see how far things go before player backlash.

I might be able to take an orc PC and come up with a reason why they have an elf background, but a whole bunch of them just waters things down and they might just go with the Pathfinder generation of just picking from a list of traits.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm not looking for this myself, but we will see how far things go before player backlash.

I might be able to take an orc PC and come up with a reason why they have an elf background, but a whole bunch of them just waters things down and they might just go with the Pathfinder generation of just picking from a list of traits.

There's no elf background in 5e nor 5.5e.

There might be an elf sage wizard. The point now is there will require a setting where an orc sage wizard makes sense. Or an tiefling sailor fighter or dwarf guide druid.

 

[RangerWickett]

Orc sage wizard. The country of Ber was once dominated by dragon tyrants, but they were slain or driven away, and now our orc hero is a graduate of a young university that took the hoarded magical knowledge of the old enslavers and shared it with the people. Our wizard is driven to teach and inspire his people to make the best of their hard-won freedom.

Tiefling sailor fighter. The nation of Danor was cursed centuries ago at the catastrophic end of a holy war, turning many survivors into tieflings. Our tiefling hero is a descendant of a group that fled the post-collapse chaos and settled in a nearby archipelago. His parents own a farmstead, but he was drawn to the sea, hoping to find glory by joining the Danoran navy. His family disapproves, seeing their old homeland as a place of scorn and failure, but our hero wants to be part of something greater.

Dwarf guide druid. Though officially the war known as the Siege of the Shawl ended a century ago with the victory of Drakr over the tundra elves and frost giants, pockets of resistance persist in the Shawl Mountains. Our dwarf hero was young when her father brought her on an patrol to find those rebels, and when the troop was caught in a blizzard, the rest of the group fell to a frost giant ambush. But a druid among the giants spared our hero, and they took her as their own.

She grew up resentful, and perhaps only learned the magic of the snowy peaks in hopes she might one day flee home. But by a small miracle, in the two decades since she joined the giants, a new leader among the dwarves of Drakr has sued for peace. Our hero is one of the few who truly believes there is a chance for the two groups to put decades of bloodshed behind them, and now she serves uncertainly as a guide for travelers between the lands of the two peoples.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'm going to preface this by saying that trying to design a setting round the mechanics for PCs is a terrible idea.

How does a setting look with Ardlings as a base assumption in the world?

No different than it would with Aasimar or Tieflings, or the Deva from 4E.

How does a setting look with Dragonborns as a common occurrence and global power player?

Why is this an assumption? It was in 4E, and several setting already have it, but I think the default assumption is that they're not common.

How does Dwarves and Halflings having no origin based differences alter their role in a setting? What new kinds of Dwarves and Halflings might emerge?

Since much of the linage differences were cultural, removing them was probably the best option. New types are unlikely to appear, and those that do are not likely to have much impact.

How does all Elves and Gnomes having magic in their lineage alter their image in a setting?

This is already pretty much the default, so no real changes.

How does Orcs being a base player option equal in importance as dwarves and elves alter this setting?

I'm not a fan, but orcs since they've removed the "evil" aspect of orcs, they become no different than the other "humans in funny hats."

What does Tieflings having 2 more core legacies mean for the setting?

It forces the acknowledgement of the default cosmology, since you have all three fiend types represented.

How does a world look if aspects found in 1st level feats are common enough to be found in adventurers?

This shouldn't impact the world at all, unless you follow the 3E philosophy of giving every NPC a level. Since 4E and 5E have wisely moved away from this, it's irrelevant.

 

[the Jester]

WOTC has officially supported only 3 non-MTG settings since the start of 3e (Eberron, Nentir Vale, Exandria). All three are pretty much "You know all the magic and nonsense you all keep adding to the game. This is how a setting would look if it layed on top the land".

Ravenloft, Greyhawk (Ghosts of Saltmarsh), and Spelljammer, at the least, would like a word, but I don't know where you see official support for the Nentir Vale in 5e.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm going to preface this by saying that trying to design a setting round the mechanics for PCs is a terrible idea.

It's more designing a setting that doesn't contradict the PHB.

It doesn't make financial sense to sell a core book that allows a Orc Paladin with Magic initiate Arcane and sell mostly setting books than ban a Orc Paladin with Magic Initiate Arcane.

"Well you can homebrew a setting"
Sure. But then WOTC makes zero dollars off the homebrew setting book they aren't selling that supports their new PHB, MM, and DMG.

 

[Minigiant]

Ravenloft, Greyhawk (Ghosts of Saltmarsh), and Spelljammer, at the least, would like a word, but I don't know where you see official support for the Nentir Vale in 5e.

Ravenloft, Greyhawk, and Spelljammer are all older than 3e. None of them are new nor built on 5e's assumptions.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding the elf-orc mix, in one of my settings, this is what the "grugach" are. In any case, remote wood elves and remote orcs sometimes need to cooperate in order to survive extreme weather in the wilderness. Some communities join together.

 

[the Jester]

Ravenloft, Greyhawk, and Spelljammer are all older than 3e. None of them are new nor built on 5e's assumptions.

Which isn't what I was replying to. The exact claim was, "WOTC has officially supported only 3 non-MTG settings since the start of 3e", which is absolutely false. And I didn't even address non-5e treatments; if you include those, Nentir Vale gets in, as does Dark Sun.

Even so, I'd say that the 5e versions of (especially) Ravenloft and (a bit less so, but still) Spelljammer show a lot of 5e assumptions in how they're built.

 

[Minigiant]

Which isn't what I was replying to. The exact claim was, "WOTC has officially supported only 3 non-MTG settings since the start of 3e", which is absolutely false. And I didn't even address non-5e treatments; if you include those, Nentir Vale gets in, as does Dark Sun.

Even so, I'd say that the 5e versions of (especially) Ravenloft and (a bit less so, but still) Spelljammer show a lot of 5e assumptions in how they're built.

I figured by the context of the discussion that I was talking about new settings. WOTC only officially produced 4 new non-MTG settings since 2000.

Ravenloft and Spelljammer also barely count as your PC only always makes sense because you technically can come from another setting. There isn't a setting that runs on 5e character creation without using a bridge of your PC being from another setting. Your PC being a strange anomaly is written in the base assumption.