D&D 5E D&D "Core" Settings

[Remathilis]

I'm a fundamentalist about this stuff, so I'm still not a fan (I think it could be a lot better and more interesting if they dropped the idea of "generic" entirely), but I am encouraged by the eye they have toward settings and the knowledge that they have about the fact that the specific setting fiction shouldn't be dictating the mechanics for everyone.

So at the moment, the existence of Defaultsylvania is getting about three grumps on my 10-point grumpometer. Could be a lot better! But definitely not as bad as it otherwise could have been, either.

...presuming my impression is accurate, anyway.

I actually see it akin to how 2nd Edition was designed.

The PHB describes a default "D&D" world that defined the world but lacked proper nouns (towns, nations, rulers, gods, and history). It will leave modules and campaign books to fill in those details. Still, the core rules will still imply certain things (devils and demons being foes, drow worshiping a spider goddess, wizards wear bathrobes and wield butterknives) but leave the details to the DM.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I actually see it akin to how 2nd Edition was designed.

I didn't like it in 2e, either. The round hole of the One True Cosmology in that era did not fit so many of the square pegs that individual settings were.

If they're smart, they'll dodge that bullet in 5e, even with Defaultsylvania. I don't want the Orrey from Eberron kludged into the Great Wheel (for instance), I want it to stand on its own. If it's a light touch default that allows/encourages alternatives, that shouldn't be much of an issue if you approach it with open eyes -- you should be able to drop it whenever you aren't specifically working with it. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, history shows a tendency for an e's defaults to filter into unwelcome places in the individual settings. Planescape didn't need Vecna. Dark Sun didn't need githyanki or eladrin. Eberron didn't need the World Axis. FR didn't need "Returned Aebir." Dragonlance doesn't need the Blood War. The Nentir Vale doesn't need the Great Wheel. None of these intrusions of the default make the settings themselves any better.

Which is really my big fear about 5e settings, and why I'm kind of a fundie about the negative default effects. I don't want 5e to do that thing that D&D tends to do.

So three grumps. Could get down to one or two if they're good about handling the new settings. Could raise to six or so if they make the blunders that D&D has historically made and jammed Defaulsylvania's schnoz into every crevice or other settings.

 

[Shiroiken]

I want D&D to have a default setting and a default cosmos. The more you leave the "default" away from the game, the more the game loses it's identity and the more players you have walking away from the game. D&D used to be identified by it's default setting and flavor. Now it's like they are trying to be identified by it's mechanics first. Some people don't want to build their own world and cosmos, they want to jump right in and play from the get go.

There will be a default Cosmos (the Great Wheel, modified by Planescape), but it will be modular like everything else.

The need for a setting at launch is filled by the push of Realms early in the release. Anyone who doesn't feel like they can/want to make a setting can use Realms. If they don't like realms, they either need to make their own, wait for Ebberon to come out, or buy older books to use (I suggest 2E, but ymmv).

I really don't want any setting to become the default, because that tends to kill the setting. Greyhawk was made the default setting when 3E came out, and after the Gazeteers... nothing. A few modules, with the later ones only paying lip service. As a Greyhawk fan, this REALLY hurt. I wouldn't wish it on any other setting

 

[Remathilis]

I didn't like it in 2e, either. The round hole of the One True Cosmology in that era did not fit so many of the square pegs that individual settings were.

How much did it really interfere with them though? Unless your world used a LOT of planar elements, it really rarely mattered. I ran Eberron without ever touching on the planes, and the planes directly affect the world itself!

If they're smart, they'll dodge that bullet in 5e, even with Defaultsylvania. I don't want the Orrey from Eberron kludged into the Great Wheel (for instance), I want it to stand on its own. If it's a light touch default that allows/encourages alternatives, that shouldn't be much of an issue if you approach it with open eyes -- you should be able to drop it whenever you aren't specifically working with it. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, history shows a tendency for an e's defaults to filter into unwelcome places in the individual settings.

D&D is not Generic Fantasy; it can't (nor should it) handle fantasy from the Hobbit to Game of Thrones. Default assumptions will always filter through. You create a monster in the MM, give it stats and a pretty picture, and then the DM want's to know more. Where does it live? What does it do? Why is it in a dungeon guarding 120 silver pieces and a +1 sword? WotC has two choices: answer the question (and create a default assumption) or don't and tell the DM to "make it up" (which is hard, even for veteran writers to do).

Now, there is taking it too far: I don't want D&D to be tied to a specific pantheon (as 4e's deity feats were) for example. However, when you come up with a monster, you're going to have define a "default" so that the DM can accept or deviate from it. As long as the mechanics are strongly tied to it, that shouldn't be a problem.

Planescape didn't need Vecna.

Technically, he was only relevant when they decided to break Planescape. Otherwise, he was trapped on Oerth (where he belonged) or Ravenloft (where he didn't, but thankfully he was on an easily ignorable island, unlike Soth).

Dark Sun didn't need githyanki or eladrin.

Was there ever a reference to this? I recall in PS lore that Athas was "remote" and didn't have portals to the outer planes (just the elemental planes and stray portals to Sigil).

Eberron didn't need the World Axis.

Agreed here, but that's because Eberron specifically did a lot to be anti-Great Wheel when it came out, even breaking up the demons and devils across different planes. If it had used the default assumption to begin with, it never would have mattered.

FR didn't need "Returned Aebir."

Hey, that's nothing to do with planar crossover. Aside from being the worst way to fit in Dragonborn, that was pure Realms beginning to end.

Dragonlance doesn't need the Blood War.

Did Dragonlance even COVER a plane that wasn't the Abyss? Dragonlance worked just fine in the default assumption since it seemed the DM only cared about one plane anyway...

The Nentir Vale doesn't need the Great Wheel.

The default 4e cosmology is so damn close to the great wheel that I barely notice a difference.

None of these intrusions of the default make the settings themselves any better.

What intrusions? I don't recall the module where Dragonlance was overrun with baatezu and the tanar'ri chased them out, or when novel when the githyanki invaded Athas. Unless you had a DM who did a lot of plane-hopping and Spelljamming, it wasn't an issue. I ran my own setting for a long time and my PCs never ONCE cared to visit Faerun.

Which is really my big fear about 5e settings, and why I'm kind of a fundie about the negative default effects. I don't want 5e to do that thing that D&D tends to do.

D&D is built on them. To not be would be to make it GURPS.

Ignore the planes for a minute. Lets take the default D&D monster: orcs. Without a shred of "fluff" about origin or society, look at what we can tell about them:

* They're evil, often chaotically.
* They are strong and tough, but lack wits and smarts.
* They make good warriors and crummy casters.
* They can breed freely with humans and create hybrids.
* They tend to be horde creatures and are found in large numbers.
* They have the ability to use tools (weapons and such) but are very primitive otherwise (no heavy armors, no lands of their own).

Already right there, the default assumptions in their stat block rule out Warcraft-style orcs (which were not fully evil and are powerful shamans) and Tolkien orcs (which were corrupted elves and unable to breed without magic). So D&D creates its own mythology rather than just leaving it blank. Heck, by the planar logic they shouldn't be in the Monster Manual since neither Dragonlance nor Ravenloft even have them!

Lather, rinse repeat on everything form chromatic dragons to elemental-themed giants.

So three grumps. Could get down to one or two if they're good about handling the new settings. Could raise to six or so if they make the blunders that D&D has historically made and jammed Defaulsylvania's schnoz into every crevice or other settings.

Really, they have three options: defined world (akin to World of Darkness), tool-kit/generic (GURPS) or world lightly seasoned (D&D for most editions). I hope they keep the latter.

 

[I'm A Banana]

How much did it really interfere with them though?

At a higher level than individual tables, typically. When your publishing doctrine states that Defaultsylvania is the One Setting To Rule Them All, you stop imagining what else there could be. There was one cosmology during 2e, with all those campaign worlds -- I would've loved to see a hundred different ones. Eladrin being jammed into 4e Dark Sun means less word count devoted to the races native to that land, that make it distinct. If the Nentir Vale in 5e has to use the Great Wheel, you'll have things like the Feywild and Arborea fighting over who gets to have eladrin.

D&D is not Generic Fantasy; it can't (nor should it) handle fantasy from the Hobbit to Game of Thrones.

D&D is not generic fantasy. What it is, though, as a game, is a fantasy kitchen sink. Which means that it SHOULD be able to do the Hobbit and the Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and Conan and Elric and anime fantasy and steampunk fantasy and....heck, all of them at once, if that's what the group wants to play. It's not generic, but it's not a specific flavor, either. It's eclectic. It's a lot of flavors. It's an ecology of ideas, not one specific idea.

The game was built that way, as a thing you could throw basically any fantasy into. No reason it shouldn't remain that way.

You create a monster in the MM, give it stats and a pretty picture, and then the DM want's to know more. Where does it live? What does it do? Why is it in a dungeon guarding 120 silver pieces and a +1 sword? WotC has two choices: answer the question (and create a default assumption) or don't and tell the DM to "make it up" (which is hard, even for veteran writers to do).
...
when you come up with a monster, you're going to have define a "default" so that the DM can accept or deviate from it. As long as the mechanics are strongly tied to it, that shouldn't be a problem.
...
D&D is built on them. To not be would be to make it GURPS.

There's a third option you're ignoring: give multiple answers. Make them ambiguous and mutually exclusive. Present them as in-world gossip and rumor. Don't present a default, present options you can choose. No reason there has to be one truth. There can be millions.

Ignore the planes for a minute. Lets take the default D&D monster: orcs. Without a shred of "fluff" about origin or society, look at what we can tell about them:

* They're evil, often chaotically.
* They are strong and tough, but lack wits and smarts.
* They make good warriors and crummy casters.
* They can breed freely with humans and create hybrids.
* They tend to be horde creatures and are found in large numbers.
* They have the ability to use tools (weapons and such) but are very primitive otherwise (no heavy armors, no lands of their own).

Already right there, the default assumptions in their stat block rule out Warcraft-style orcs (which were not fully evil and are powerful shamans) and Tolkien orcs (which were corrupted elves and unable to breed without magic). So D&D creates its own mythology rather than just leaving it blank. Heck, by the planar logic they shouldn't be in the Monster Manual since neither Dragonlance nor Ravenloft even have them!

The error here is in presuming that this rules out Warcraft-style orcs (*cough*Eberron*cough) or Tolkien-style orcs. Certainly eveyrone who has used those orcs as inspiration for their own tables would dispute the idea that D&D doesn't contain them. The above is one specific vision of orcs, and not even one that's been consistent in "presumed default" accross the editions (2e's orcs were Lawful Evil!). It's not the only way orcs can or should be on D&D. It doesn't define what Orcs Are, it shows one way that they could be.

Really, they have three options: defined world (akin to World of Darkness), tool-kit/generic (GURPS) or world lightly seasoned (D&D for most editions). I hope they keep the latter.

There's a fourth option, one that is much more honest in how people actually play the game: multiple definitions that you can use a toolkit approach to swapping around.

 

[GX.Sigma]

The 5e core rules will reference all D&D settings. Remember this article by James Wyatt?

 

[DMZ2112]

D&D is not generic fantasy. What it is, though, as a game, is a fantasy kitchen sink. Which means that it SHOULD be able to do the Hobbit and the Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and Conan and Elric and anime fantasy and steampunk fantasy and....heck, all of them at once, if that's what the group wants to play.

I think [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] and I disagree with you on a whole different plane of thinking, KM.

For me, at least, D&D is not and never has been a generic fantasy RPG. GURPS Fantasy and D6 Fantasy are generic fantasy RPGs. D&D has always had its own mysterious backend churning away beneath the taverns and dragons and forgotten ruins. Whether it's Orcus' wand, or Gruumsh's missing eye, or the Book of Vile Darkness, when I'm homebrewing I expect to excise big chunks of story.

And that's the way I want it. Because sometimes, I'm not in the mood to homebrew from scratch. Sometimes I want to play /D&D/ -- not Greyhawk, not Forgotten Realms, and not any other of the deep-detail settings, but just /D&D/. When I have my players roll up an elf I want them to understand that the conflict between Corellon and Gruumsh is part of their racial backstory, to draw on as they see fit. I want them to stumble across the Deck of Many Things, spontaneously build a fortress, then see their hapless rogue get carried off by a lesser Death (what the hell is a lesser Death?).

Now, I thought the Nentir Vale setting and the World Axis cosmology was a great atttempt to codify all of that stuff into an actual setting, but when all is said and done I'm not sure we aren't better off with the mystery. Because you're right, fundamentally it is about what happens at our tables, not at the developers' tables. But you can't have a mystery without a hook, and D&D has some great hooks. Saying that they don't belong because D&D should be generic is doing the history of the game a great disservice.

I only just stumbled across the "History Check" column on wizards.com today, and I can't believe there are only five articles, but the five bits of "core setting" history that they do hit on are a great cross-section of what makes D&D more than just a set of rules that can adjudicate fantasy combat, exploration, and roleplaying.

 

[Mistwell]

The 5e core rules will reference all D&D settings. Remember this article by James Wyatt?

That is a great article. Those doubting support for their setting preferences should read it again.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For me, at least, D&D is not and never has been a generic fantasy RPG.

I'm in total agreement. But just because it's not generic doesn't mean it's one specific thing. D&D has never been one thing, it's always been a fantasy mashup. OD&D has threads of John Carter and Elric and Tolkein and Greek myth and whatnot all slammed together right from the get-go, and 40 years have only added to the mix. It doesn't ever draw into one cohesive whole. It doesn't need to. It shouldn't try to. Whenever it does that, it winds up ignoring the way the game is actually played.

Whether it's Orcus' wand, or Gruumsh's missing eye, or the Book of Vile Darkness, when I'm homebrewing I expect to excise big chunks of story.
...
Because sometimes, I'm not in the mood to homebrew from scratch.

That comment seems odd to me. Why would you expect homebrewing to have to excise those things? Most homebrews probably either use those things, or simply ignore them. Every D&D game you've ever played where Gruumsh's missing eye doesn't show up as a plot point is a homebrew where that bit of fiction was ignored. Homebrewing "from scratch" is just playing any D&D game that doesn't explicitly use a pre-published setting. It's not some exhaustive accounting process.

Sometimes I want to play /D&D/ -- not Greyhawk, not Forgotten Realms, and not any other of the deep-detail settings, but just /D&D/. When I have my players roll up an elf I want them to understand that the conflict between Corellon and Gruumsh is part of their racial backstory, to draw on as they see fit. I want them to stumble across the Deck of Many Things, spontaneously build a fortress, then see their hapless rogue get carried off by a lesser Death (what the hell is a lesser Death?).

The thing is that none of these things are "D&D." They're just specific bits within the broader D&D umbrella. A D&D game that uses different gods or that doesn't use the deck of many things is still a D&D game. A D&D game that has no gods or magic at all is still a D&D game. Because D&D is not one particular setting.

Saying that they don't belong because D&D should be generic is doing the history of the game a great disservice.

Given that comment, I don't think you understand my position. Which seems weird to me, because I certainly feel like I've spent a lot of word count on these boards on this (like I said upthread, it's kind of a thing for me).

But lets be clear: saying that D&D should not have a specific Defaultsylvania setting is not the same as saying that D&D should be "generic" and that the bits of history "don't belong."

I'm rather saying that the bits of history aren't mutually exclsuive, and should ALL be used, rather than picking one "favorite" and acting like it is some super special snowflake that needs to be crammed into everything published for the next 5 years as the "expected default."

The 5e core rules will reference all D&D settings. Remember this article by James Wyatt?

Yeah, it all sounds positive until he talks about how all these different kinds of dwarves aren't "really" different kinds of dwarves. Unless "culture" bears some mechanical weight, cramming all the different dwarves into one erases their valuable gameplay distinctions.

If my dwarves in DL don't feel any different in play, in the dice-rolling and mechanics, from my dwarves in Greyhawk or FR....that's gonna kind of suck. That makes them "generic," and erases history that "doesn't belong." That's not really what I'm looking for.

 

[TarionzCousin]

So at the moment, the existence of Defaultsylvania is getting about three grumps on my 10-point grumpometer.

So three grumps. Could get down to one or two if they're good about handling the new settings. Could raise to six or so if they make the blunders that D&D has historically made and jammed Defaulsylvania's schnoz into every crevice or other settings.

We need Kamikaze Midget's Grumpometer permanently stationed on the side of the front ENWorld page, along with cumulative or most recent commentary.

Right [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]?