D&D 5E (2024) Preferences in a New Official 5.5e Specific Setting

[Paul Farquhar]

If people would please provide definitions of "heroic fantasy", "sword & sorcery", "high fantasy", "epic fantasy" and "mythic fantasy" when they make surveys like that, that would be very nice. Because half of time these terms are used interchangeably and when asked to provide examples, the same classics like Lord of the Rings and Conan are as likely to be brough up an example either one of them. So I would like to see what the foundations of this survey are.

I would prefer if these meaningless subdivisions just crawled away into a hole and died.

I'll allow "high fantasy" so long as there is also "low fantasy" on the list. If something has an antithesis it's meaning is easier to pin down. Otherwise it comes down to "is a copy of [insert name of more famous work here]".

But as @Hussar says, if you include everything in 5e, then you are locking in high fantasy anyway.

 

[...m...]

...the radiant citadel already offers everything D+D needs in a 5.24 setting; another, more in-depth campaign sourcebook would be welcomed but there's no need to reinvent the wheel...

 

[Hussar]

Now, if we're talking about a wish list of what we personally would like to see?

Me, a 2024 setting would be small. I don't want a world. I want a continent, at most. From the central point, figure 3 weeks travel on horseback - so, a rough circle 500 miles in radius? Thereabouts. That's more than enough space to put everything you need. To put that in perspective, it's about 1000 miles (give or take) from Rome to Paris. So, that's the diameter of the circle. That's a circle that would cover a good chunk of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia. Maybe a bit more bits and bobs.

That's 8 nations in the modern world. More than enough space for LOTS of history. Lots of geography too. That circle encompasses several mountain ranges, a desert or two, coastline, plains, and, in the more medieval time period, a HELL of a lot of trees.

I honestly don't really want any more than that. Think of how much history in the real world that circle has. Keep it small and then give me all sorts of detail so I don't have to make up a bunch of stuff. I don't want the high altitude, three paragraph synopsis of a kingdom. I want family trees. I want the names of several towns, cities, and a shopping list of NPC's that live there.

That's my wishlist anyway.

 

[Minigiant]

If people would please provide definitions of "heroic fantasy", "sword & sorcery", "high fantasy", "epic fantasy" and "mythic fantasy" when they make surveys like that, that would be very nice. Because half of time these terms are used interchangeably and when asked to provide examples, the same classics like Lord of the Rings and Conan are as likely to be brough up an example either one of them. So I would like to see what the foundations of this survey are.

Post 44

 

[...m...]

Me, a 2024 setting would be small. I don't want a world. I want a continent, at most. From the central point, figure 3 weeks travel on horseback - so, a rough circle 500 miles in radius? Thereabouts.

I honestly don't really want any more than that. Think of how much history in the real world that circle has. Keep it small and then give me all sorts of detail so I don't have to make up a bunch of stuff. I don't want the high altitude, three paragraph synopsis of a kingdom. I want family trees. I want the names of several towns, cities, and a shopping list of NPC's that live there.

...i think 5.24 core rules start from the assumption of a cosmopolitain player character population in a cosmopolitain high-fantasy setting, which isn't readily compatible with a modest-scale low-fantasy world...

 

[Minigiant]

I would prefer if these meaningless subdivisions just crawled away into a hole and died.

I'll allow "high fantasy" so long as there is also "low fantasy" on the list. If something has an antithesis it's meaning is easier to pin down. Otherwise it comes down to "is a copy of [insert name of more famous work here]".

But as @Hussar says, if you include everything in 5e, then you are locking in high fantasy anyway.

I don't use high and low fantasy for a reason.

 

[whimsychris123]

What I'd like to see is a 200+ page book of just maps and random tables. We'll call the setting Bygone Empires.

This kind of sourcebook would allow the DM to make Bygone Empires any kind of setting they want. The maps would include a world map, regional maps, notable city and village maps, and notable locations (such as dungeons, groves, landmarks, etc.). The random tables would include kingdom structures, historical events, dominant species in a given area, potential foes (cults, NPCs, monstrous creatures), and so on.

That's what I truly want from a "setting" from WotC.

But if we are going more traditional, I just want something unique, regardless of genre or style. Eberron was something unique that truly hadn't been seen before. I don't know what that would look like today. If I did, I'd write it up and make it myself.

 

[tetrasodium]

The baseline is not really compatible with the question imo. I can't think of any conceptually coherent setting that could be designed to fit 5e PCs rather than simply managing to continue functioning in spite of the fact that the PCs are the very embodiment of starfish aliens with no ties to or dependency on anyone/anything in the setting.

Settings like eberron and darksun were possible because PCs had needs their players knew about and it was obviously possible to make big foundational lore choices at the setting level by tweaking how/if those needs are filled. I can't even say that wuxia/xianxia fits because those stories tend to involve characters who struggle under heaven's will & similar with real need for cultivation resources that allow them to skirt the line of power on top of actually having to depend on the world in various ways. At best author self insert isekai would kinda work as long as the table in question agreed which single PC was the main character and accepted that everyone else was nothing but sidekick or meat computer for The Star.

 

[Maxperson]

Hey, don't argue with me. I'm just going by the criteria set out in the OP.

But, even taking your point under consideration, how in the world would you do a low magic, low fantasy, human centric game using the 2024 rules? You'd have to toss out so much of the game that there's nothing left.

The setting would use fighter and rogue, the non-magical versions only. I know there's a non-magical ranger out there. That one would be allowed.

Magic could be a feat tree. Your 1st level Magic Initiate feat could give you one cantrip and one first level spell. At 4th level the next feat would give you one first level spell and one second level spell. 8th would give one second and one third. 12th one third and one fourth. And 16th would give one fourth and one 5th. So a high level PC focusing only on magic would 11 total spells, maxing out at 5th level. You could also have a 4th level Ritual Magic feat that would allow a few slow motion lower level spells, but could be expanded as you found more rituals. You could take that and then max out at 4th level spells through the Magic Initiate chain.

Given the rarity of high level PCs/NPC equivalent folks in the world, and that most of those wouldn't focus on magic, there would be very little magic casters running around, and they would have few spells that were relatively weak in power.

 

[Corinnguard]

I know there's a non-magical ranger out there

Level Up's Ranger is non-magical. And Pathfinder 1st edition does have a non-magical archetype known as the Skirmisher. It replaced spellcasting with Hunter's Tricks.