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

What Flavor of Setting would you like them to create?

  • Heroic Fantasy

    Votes: 21 29.2%

  • Swords and Sorcery

    Votes: 28 38.9%

  • Epic Fantasy

    Votes: 10 13.9%

  • Mythic Fantasy

    Votes: 13 18.1%

  • Dark Fantasy

    Votes: 15 20.8%

  • Bright Fantasy

    Votes: 10 13.9%

  • Intrigue and Politics

    Votes: 13 18.1%

  • Mystery and Investigation

    Votes: 14 19.4%

  • War and Battle

    Votes: 11 15.3%

  • Wuxia/Anime

    Votes: 18 25.0%

  • Modern Fantasy

    Votes: 13 18.1%

  • Urban Fantasy

    Votes: 12 16.7%

  • Science Fantasy

    Votes: 14 19.4%

  • Apocalyptic or Post Apocalyptic Fantasy

    Votes: 6 8.3%

  • Other (Please describe)

    Votes: 6 8.3%
doctorbadwolf said:
I like this, but it is hard to do in the current rules as a settimg that is defined by those rules.

Take Rome. If everyday Romans ar3 supposed to be playable, you cannot be restricted to that map. Many Romans come from further afield. If the people in the port should be understandable much less playable, the world needs more than southern Europe and SWANA region.

Truth is, unless ypu go way out of your way to close the known world in or go way back to the dawn of civilization, the known world has never been that small.
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Well, kinda/sorta. Most Romans didn't come from further afield. But, that's not really the point.

In a setting that large - say a very large island about 1000 miles in diameter (that's damn near a continent really), you have MORE than enough space to plonk down all 11 races, have enough biomes to handle pretty much any critter save the really extreme ones and more than enough space to have all sorts of communities.

I mean, just think of it in real world terms. How many different cultures would you find in that circle I defined? If we replace cultures with species, (not as analogues, just saying that where the Celts lived, now dwarves live in that region, where the Gauls lived, that's elves, where the Goths hung out, that's where you find the human nations, etc) you have more than enough geography.

I mean, good grief, Middle Earth is about that size. And we have, what, a half dozen different intelligent species? Elf, man, dwarf, hobbit, orc, goblin, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. If it's good enough for Tolkien, it's probably good enough for D&D. Doing a bit of Googling, and the Shire to Minas Tirith is the same distance as Oxford to Venice. So, yeah, that's LOTS of geography.
 

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Hussar said:
Well, kinda/sorta. Most Romans didn't come from further afield. But, that's not really the point.

In a setting that large - say a very large island about 1000 miles in diameter (that's damn near a continent really), you have MORE than enough space to plonk down all 11 races, have enough biomes to handle pretty much any critter save the really extreme ones and more than enough space to have all sorts of communities.

I mean, just think of it in real world terms. How many different cultures would you find in that circle I defined? If we replace cultures with species, (not as analogues, just saying that where the Celts lived, now dwarves live in that region, where the Gauls lived, that's elves, where the Goths hung out, that's where you find the human nations, etc) you have more than enough geography.

I mean, good grief, Middle Earth is about that size. And we have, what, a half dozen different intelligent species? Elf, man, dwarf, hobbit, orc, goblin, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. If it's good enough for Tolkien, it's probably good enough for D&D. Doing a bit of Googling, and the Shire to Minas Tirith is the same distance as Oxford to Venice. So, yeah, that's LOTS of geography.
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Middle Earth still had people from further away affected the action. In a dnd 5e setting version, you'd want to have playable Easterlings, which means knowing more than lotr ever showed about them.

Now i think you could set the action in such a small area, especially with how 5e treats setting lore. But the book would have half page sections on places outside the area of focus.
 

I will give an example using my own very 5e setting, humorously named Islands World.

The largest landmass in IW is a little smaller than Australia, and it isn't even where the focus of the setting lies. Instead, the real action is in the Arcipellago of the Turtle, which is roughly analogous to Indonesia but a little more spread out with a central island shaped like a turtle with its head looking to the side.

But the Arcipellago is defined in part by the old empires of the Lands of The Three Moons, which is that Australia sized landmass. The Empire of Capet is waning and the Empire of Albarona is aggresively waxing, and both have principalities of the Turtle that they have taken over within the last 15 years.

To define The Turtle, you have to describe the other lands at least a little, because there are many people from those placess in the arcipelago.
 

doctorbadwolf said:
Middle Earth still had people from further away affected the action. In a dnd 5e setting version, you'd want to have playable Easterlings, which means knowing more than lotr ever showed about them.

Now i think you could set the action in such a small area, especially with how 5e treats setting lore. But the book would have half page sections on places outside the area of focus.
Click to expand...
Meh, why would you have playable Easterlings? They barely appear in the stories and have pretty much no role.

Like I said, the point isn't to play Middle Earth Role Play. We already have that. The point is that in the area that the Lord of the Rings takes place in includes half a dozen or more different species. It's more than big enough to have the PHB species and still have tons of space left over.
 

I guess a future setting wouldn't be only a world or planet but a wildspace or solar system. Maybe it would be a cluster of wildspaces, with the option of using "stargates" to explore other worlds.

We should keep the idea of a possible Dark Sun spin-off where we can "borrow" our favorite elements but allowing creative freedom for player options and monsters.

An update of "Councyl of Wyrms" would need something like a dragon-monster class and this would mean a lot of work for game designers, and time for playtest and feedback.

A setting can't be only like a "snow globe" or a electric toy train always with the same railroad where the children only can watch. It has to be interactive and the players to feel inspiration to create their own stories. A setting has to be designed to allow multiple spin-off.

It needs its own style or identity, enough brand power.
 

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