D&D 5E D&D Needs New Settings

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Maybe for you, but not for me. When I run an adventure, the setting has to be in place before the story. There has to be a foundational world before I can make an engaging campaign. YMMV, though.

I fully understand your point because even I have do that a lot, but the mechanism I cite is not only a matter of tastes. There is something intrinsically conseguent in the chain adventure->world that works better than world -> adventure. And I can easily demonstrate that the best IP are originated from this A-W chain. In RPG we end always in building our A in a W somebody created as the place for his/her A. Even if we build our adventures in a CS that does not relate to a specific book or film, we always end to twist it to allow using some elements of our book or film experience. And given that it is not in contrast with a W-A chain because the A-W chain can be easily expanded into an A-W-a1-a2-a3 chain as per Adventures On Middle Earth, Conan the Barbarian etc etc. Why not to try, as WOTC with the money and the power it has, to reverse the usual path? Consider that D&D has a lot of non A related world basically to save the money to buy Rights. But now, for me, is the time to use the money to create something very hi-end quality starting from a very good set of adventures. The more I think about this issue the more I'm also convinced that it is not so different to build a world or to build an adventure, but the best world are sons of great adventures and not the opposite, so even if only to maximize the effort why not to try this path? You'll end up in having an adventure and a setting and not only one of these two.

 

[Faolyn]

Monks would be pretty rare, Paladins would be about as common as Monks, [...] and Wizards would be practically non-existent (unless there's a more primal subclass made for the world).

I'm not even sure that's the case. A monk, in the sense of someone who trained in specific martial arts styles in a monastery, would be nonexistent. But a person who learned to be really good at fighting with bare hands, with the whole ki thing as just meta-game rules? Probably fairly common.

Ditto for paladins--a "holy order" of people taking vows wouldn't exist, but people will swear oaths to the spirits or by their ancestors or whatever, and that's what you need for a paladin.

As for wizards, you don't need writing to have a spellbook. Quipu is a thing, and you can always say that art could be used to record a spell. Cave paintings exist; now imagine them on scrolls made of leather.

One thought for other spellcasters is, you have actually become physical host to a powerful spirit of some sort. Whether you end up as a bard, cleric, or sorcerer is up to you as the player, but the origin of the magic is the same. Warlocks and druids would remain the same, however, and wizards would be as above..

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not even sure that's the case. A monk, in the sense of someone who trained in specific martial arts styles in a monastery, would be nonexistent. But a person who learned to be really good at fighting with bare hands, with the whole ki thing as just meta-game rules? Probably fairly common.

That's kind of what I meant. By "pretty rare", I meant in comparison to Druids/Shamans, Barbarians, and Sorcerers. They'd still exist there, but would just be less organized and limited than in other worlds. For example, the monastic tradition of the Way of Mercy would probably not have been discovered yet, getting rid of a possible monk subclass from the setting.

Ditto for paladins--a "holy order" of people taking vows wouldn't exist, but people will swear oaths to the spirits or by their ancestors or whatever, and that's what you need for a paladin.

Same as above. No organized holy orders or paladin enclaves, but there would be the occasional paladin that swore themselves to a deity or aspect of the world. Still existent, just less organized and less common.

As for wizards, you don't need writing to have a spellbook. Quipu is a thing, and you can always say that art could be used to record a spell. Cave paintings exist; now imagine them on scrolls made of leather.

That's what I was saying above. The typical "scholarly wizard" would be practically nonexistent, but there could be a subclass or variant that used a unique method kind of specific to the time period.

One thought for other spellcasters is, you have actually become physical host to a powerful spirit of some sort. Whether you end up as a bard, cleric, or sorcerer is up to you as the player, but the origin of the magic is the same. Warlocks and druids would remain the same, however, and wizards would be as above..

I'm not sure what that would be. That seems like a Sorcerer, Cleric, or Warlock, maybe a Shaman.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

When adventures are Adventures, the adventure create is own world. And if you think deeply about it you'll find that the best worlds are built to be a cradle for a good adventure. We are looking the things from an aberrant point of view because we are used to move in the RPG world that has twisted this mechanism for marketing purposes. Let's go back to the basics: a good author -> a good story -> a good setting where everything is tailored around the story. This is how it works.

There's a difference between disconnected adventures and a campaign setting.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

There's a difference between disconnected adventures and a campaign setting.

I didn't talk about disconnected adventures in any of my post. Don't understand your post

 

[Mind of tempest]

I have not seen an adventure path in awhile. I doubt they will make one just to make a new setting.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I have not seen an adventure path in awhile. I doubt they will make one just to make a new setting.

My hope is they make very high quality adventures possibly setting agnostic OR they make very high quality adventures that ends up in creating a setting like what has happened in IA6 Ravenloft.

 

[Mind of tempest]

My hope is they make very high quality adventures possibly setting agnostic OR they make very high quality adventures that ends up in creating a setting like what has happened in IA6 Ravenloft.

I doubt that happening honestly they are much to corpo for that now.

 

[Scribe]

As D&D moves to the idea that you can build the PC you want, it should support settings that shine bright lights on the advantages and disadvantages of how your characters are made and how they act codified in rules and lore players fully know when they step into the setting.

Agreed. A Holy War type setting is something I'm after and would be including in my own.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Maybe for you, but not for me. When I run an adventure, the setting has to be in place before the story. There has to be a foundational world before I can make an engaging campaign. YMMV, though.

The WotC book campaigns have self-contained setting information. Yes, they're all based in the Forgotten Realms, but if none of the FR material had existed, and the first time anybody had hit on the idea of "the Underdark" or "House Do'Urden" was the publication of Out of the Abyss, it wouldn't have affected most people's interaction with the adventure. There's no real reason a published adventure's world couldn't be independent of other adventures. Most of the early adventures are that way. Some are set in the World of Greyhawk, but plenty of others are just kind of doing their own thing.