D&D General D&D Settings with No Problematic Areas?

[Coroc]

...

Dark Sun has slavery, but it is treated as an institution that absolutely must be opposed and destroyed if the world is to have any hope of being made better.

DS has counter slavery AND restore ecology, the second main topic makes me actually wonder why they did not release anything yet with all the protect the environment topics in the news. Must be the unresolved psionics/halfgiants/inferior equipment, but wait there is something else with darksun which is a bit loaded:

Multiple genocides in the past.

So can your orcs have good alignment? Does not matter they're all gone. What about gnomes, can I play an evil gnome? Nope. genocided.

 

[Zardnaar]

DS has counter slavery AND restore ecology, the second main topic makes me actually wonder why they did not release anything yet with all the protect the environment topics in the news. Must be the unresolved psionics/halfgiants/inferior equipment, but wait there is something else with darksun which is a bit loaded:

Multiple genocides in the past.

So can your orcs have good alignment? Does not matter they're all gone. What about gnomes, can I play an evil gnome? Nope. genocided.

Genocides came later in the original boxed set they mentioned nothing.

Even then it's in the ancient past. It's not advocating it and I prefer the original take.

Darksun was an allegory for the environment and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

 

[Coroc]

...

Darksun was an allegory for the environment band ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

Wow I did not know that

I am not offended by any fiction content or words, or even if there are parallels to RL, as long as it does not try to sell some agenda but is a pure intellectual challenge, it can get along with any sort of politically incorrect, offending etc. But that is just me.

I just thought that genocide has at least the same negative connotation as slavery (it should), so maybe if they want to stay off any potentially offending material.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wow I did not know that

I am not offended by any fiction content or words, or even if there are parallels to RL, as long as it does not try to sell some agenda but is a pure intellectual challenge, it can get along with any sort of politically incorrect, offending etc. But that is just me.

I just thought that genocide has at least the same negative connotation as slavery (it should), so maybe if they want to stay off any potentially offending material.

It's easily excused. It wasn't present in the original boxed set. You just couldn't be certain races they later revealed were genocided.

Yes the environment was a thing in the 90s.

One of the novels was dedicated to the victims in the former Yugoslavia iirc.

 

[Mercurius]

I think we run into problematic territory if we suggest that all settings must abide by the same frameworks and assumptions about races and such. Rather, I'd like to see WotC expand the core rules, make them more general and diverse, emphasize the customization element, and then provide the settings as essentially examples of the different types of worlds you can create.

Sure, tweak the individual settings in a variety of ways. But each have their own unique flavor and can incorporate the different "hot topics" in unique ways. WotC could highlight those differences, and then when they re-print the MM and other books, provide examples of "Faerun Orcs" and "Wildemount Drow," and so forth.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I think that settings should be 100% true to the creator's vision of the setting. The Realms should be the Realms; Greyhawk should be Greyhawk; Carcosa should be Carcosa.

Nobody really thinks Geoffrey McKinney advocates for human sacrifice (and other vile acts) because acts of sorcery in his world require it. His world is simply nihilist, true to his vision of Carcosa.

Removing and altering "troubling" elements should only be done if the creator's vision of the setting has also changed.

If a setting are deemed too problematic, I think the best option is to create new settings, not to modify existing ones away from their original vision.

Edit: Note that changing the wording of individual sentences and paragraphs to make it more inclusive, yet retains the spirit of the original word is just fine in my book.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

I think we run into problematic territory if we suggest that all settings must abide by the same frameworks and assumptions about races and such. Rather, I'd like to see WotC expand the core rules, make them more general and diverse, emphasize the customization element, and then provide the settings as essentially examples of the different types of worlds you can create.

Sure, tweak the individual settings in a variety of ways. But each have their own unique flavor and can incorporate the different "hot topics" in unique ways. WotC could highlight those differences, and then when they re-print the MM and other books, provide examples of "Faerun Orcs" and "Wildemount Drow," and so forth.

Great idea. Show how different races and monsters can be interpreted very differently in different contexts. I like it.

 

[Bagpuss]

If you read the critiques levied at FR, many of them are rooted in that the other regions are written from an "outsider looking in" perspective, unlike the Sword Coast which is written with the assumption of the familiar.

When you consider when these settings were made how small the industry was and who was both writing and playing at that time, I think that is only to be expected. Most of the players and authors were "outsiders looking in" bit unfair to expect the result to be anything but.

If you look at the bibliography on some of the sourcebooks like Oriental Adventures they at least did some research that involved sources of people more familiar with cultures, but there just weren't same pool of authors and voices involved RPGs that you have available today.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think Darksun could make a great ''main setting'', but would require WotC to make that daring move instead of the safe one, which is not always a paying move for companies.

With the general popularity of post-apocalypse stories (Wastelands, Fallout etc) and the dystopian future (Altered Carbon, Shadowrun etc), Darksun would probably interest a good portion of the D&D fandom as a base setting but...its really out there; this would mean psion as part of the PHB, more explicit rules for equipment management, a complete revamp of the paladin and cleric to remove the ''divine'' element of them and make them fueled by belief, faith and conviction, built-in more dangerous magic etc

Still the themes of fighting against oppressive figures and dealing with an environmental crisis would probably be well received.

 

[ChaosOS]

While I'm a huge fan of Dark Sun & Eberron, I don't believe they'd be good core settings. What makes them work well is they subvert the core assumptions of D&D - if they're no longer subversions it just doesn't work as well. I'd rather see something like 4e's Points of Light get promoted, where there isn't a ton of lore & worldbuilding. I've always had it in mind to run a game set in the universe of Galavant, since it would explain the odd decision to make Performance a core skill rather than just attach it to tool proficiencies.