D&D 5E A New Campaign Setting for 5E?

[ren1999]

What are your ideas? Forgotten Realms was by far the most popular world in terms of material published.

Here is my idea for the 5E Next world.

An alternate Earth of 20,000 years ago mostly set in Africa and Asia just like Robert Howard's Conan setting but we'll use a real map. Such as this one.

4A: Glacial Ages

We'll do some research on some animals living back in that period and match them to some of the monsters in the existing editions.

There is magic in this world and some use magic to travel back in time where they try to introduce their world, such as the Greek world, the Roman world, the Pulp Fiction world to this setting. That would explain how plate armor and long bows exist in an ancient setting. But these time traveling casters can't seem to get industry started. Furthermore, magic is more powerful than guns and tanks so the world stays in a pre-gun state.

All the previous D&D worlds exist in this place in some area of the map. A section for Greyhawk, Eberron, Kara-Tur.. Underdark etc.

What do you think?

 

[tlantl]

I think they can do pretty much what ever they please as long as there's stuff for me to mine for my own personal nirvana.

I buy nearly all of the campaign settings although I never use them in my games. I will take the stuff I like from them to use in my game world, though.

I have a hundred mile hex that is in permanent deep freeze, but I haven't run an adventure there in a very long time. You might say I've been there and done that with your idea.

There isn't a whole lot to be done with a setting like that though, it is focused too much on one aspect of the climate and the creatures able to survive there. nothing like drilling into a mile of ice to find an ancient city or burial mound.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't think 'new' is the point of 5e. The logical thing to do would be to bring back, update - not overhaul or massively mess with like 4e FR - and generally expand and detail like never before, one of the classic settings.

The obvious candidate would be Greyhawk.

Less obvious but maybe even better: Blackmoor.

Or (not sure how the IP would work for this one but it might be worth looking into): The City State of the Invincible Overlord. I know, it was Judges Guild, but it was one of the earliest really well-developed settings.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Blackmoor's ties to science fiction are pretty deep and aren't really in step with contemporary fantasy styles. I think it's best off as a self-published/3rd party setting. (Systemless core book with seperate systems books for various systems, like Freeport, would be my preference.)

I think an "ancient Earth," stylized in the tradition of JRRT or REH, would be a good starting point, but we've already got those settings and doing new versions of that in the 21st century run the risk of upsetting some of Hasbro's global audience: "What do you mean, MY PEOPLE are the Chaotic Evil bad guys?"

That said, I think a new setting contest would be a great way to get people interested in the second or third year of 5E's life.

 

[Blackwarder]

Now new setting, we got enough settings as it is, having a new setting with no support won't be fun, after all we still don't know what's happening with the PoL setting.

What I would love to see is some sort of community created world where WotC give some seeds in the core books and have a site dedicated to the new world where the community can post home made advantures, maps, cities and lore that they use in their own game and othe user rate them, every one that get x amount of likes (1000, 2000 or what ever) will automatically get added to the new setting.

For example, let say that we start Fellcrest and it's environment, some one post a map of the area directly south of nenthir vale and it gets 1000 likes, on the next update of the site that map will be added to the official map of the PoL setting, another one might post an influential marchent NPC and another 1000 people liked it so it get a place in the setting.

WotC could direct it by asking for specific stuff each period, starting from unlocking 20 places of Intrest in the nethir vale for one month and when that is done asking for 50 interesting NPCs with hidden (and not hidden) agenda for the next plus a 4 maps of small villages on the outskirts of the vale, and when the vale get filled they open for maps for the regions around the vale.

One cool aspect that can be done with this is that be introducing things by the players and DMs the community could direct how the setting changes. For example, let's say that one DM submitted Rolxar the dragon spawn, a fiendish half Orc half dragon, as a vilian for the vale who currently stay in the northern forest building an army to invade the vale and sack Fallcrest, during the following months people will report how they felt with him and based on that you can decide wether he got slain or stayed in the shadows and managed to get an army and move to his next stage.

As the time goes on the community and WotC could actually make this a living world!

What do you think?

Warder

 

[Starman]

While I'm sure we'll see 5E versions of many popular settings, I would be much more excited for something new. Let's stop rehashing so much and get some fresh ideas.

 

[Mercutio01]

I mentioned it in another thread, but they're still sitting on a setting Rich Burlew created. I want to know what he wrote.

I, too, would like to see a new setting, but I'd like it to be a bit more explicit (not in the sexual sense) than the PoL setting from 4E.

 

[Starman]

I mentioned it in another thread, but they're still sitting on a setting Rich Burlew created. I want to know what he wrote.

Me too.

 

[ren1999]

From all the comments, some of you want to revive old adventures in old worlds and others want new worlds. The best way to do that is to include all the worlds on one map but perhaps have them on different continents separate from each other.

To solve the "what do you mean my people come from an ancient evil race" problem, each continent will have a mix of people from all races except Africa.

I'd like D&D to try to recreate Howard's Africa and Asian of Conan and use a bit of history to do it. Gygax was always interested in historical campaigns. This is a way to include that historical element and mix it with fantasy and other worlds on one map.

 

[Andor]

If you want to do something new, you have to get pretty out there.

Remember the Megafauna the size of continents from Spell Jammer? The ones striding around a Dyson sphere the size of a Solar System with cities built on thier backs?

How about a world that is a Dragon. Soaring between the stars while civilizations rise fall and rise again, unnoticed as dustmites on his mighty back. The PCs could be from the stable empires that dwell on his back scales, or nomads from the chaotic regions near his shoulders wear scales slide and clash over each other with each beat of his mighty wings. Perhaps they serve the wizards who hide beneath the frills of his terrible jaws drawing power from his world devouring fires and praying to avoid the drops of his corrosive saliva.

The word for world is Dragon.