D&D 5E How Do You Incorporate D&D Races & Classes Into Campaign Settings?

[Ruin Explorer]

You surely mean FR between Greyhawk and Mystara. FR has much more cultural differences in close proximity than Greyhawk does. And much less overall material detailing how the different countries interact with each other. Ok Greyhawk has a little less detail generally I give you that.

I definitely do not But I am referring to 1E/2E FR compared to 1E/2E Greyhawk, primarily! Very little was written about GH after 1E, and it all makes it look even more simplistic than it was. The FR actually has a similar thing - 3E and onwards FR has way less detail about cultural interaction and so on then 2E did. You read 3E or later FR stuff and compare it to 1E GH stuff and it's more similar. But there are entire FR books in 1E or 2E which are basically descriptions of culture and politics and trends, with relatively little game information (usually some spells/magic items though - some of which will fit with/into the cultural stuff). People sneer at that now, often brutally sneer, basically spitting on it, but at the time it was remarkable. GH's countries may have conflicts, but they don't have much of a sense that they evolved together, and many seem to have simply sprung into being. It's not as bad as Mystara of course, where it seems like someone just clicked some new hexes into place with an entirely novel and alien culture (which, in isolation, is cool, but in the context of surrounding countries is bizarre). Even the FR is far from Taladas, let's be clear on that, and GH isn't miles down the line towards Mystara.

Just as a note, Birthright was more up the Taladas end. Ravenloft is way down the Mystara end but it's entirely conscious and in-setting so works.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Taladas actually inspired some parts of Eberron. It certainly feels like a sort of proto-Eberron.

You’ve got the Tamire elves (prototype for the Valenar), the Thenoi (not sure if I spelled it right) who seem like a mix of Thrane and Karrnath, and the gnomes who stand guard over the most inhospitable area (kind of like the Ghaash’Kala orcs in the Demon Wastes).

Edited for clarity.

Huh. That is an interesting comparison. I feel like Zeb Cook would be pretty inspirational to any setting-writer reading his stuff. He came up with both Taladas and Planescape for goodness' sake, two of D&D's most amazing settings (perhaps the best two settings D&D has ever seen, I would personally suggest - but that is very much "like, just my opinion, man"!).

There's also something about the Glass Sailors that makes me feel they'd fit right into Eberron (they also have an interesting proto-Morrowind vibe).

 

[Chaosmancer]

I definitely do not But I am referring to 1E/2E FR compared to 1E/2E Greyhawk, primarily! Very little was written about GH after 1E, and it all makes it look even more simplistic than it was. The FR actually has a similar thing - 3E and onwards FR has way less detail about cultural interaction and so on then 2E did. You read 3E or later FR stuff and compare it to 1E GH stuff and it's more similar. But there are entire FR books in 1E or 2E which are basically descriptions of culture and politics and trends, with relatively little game information (usually some spells/magic items though - some of which will fit with/into the cultural stuff). People sneer at that now, often brutally sneer, basically spitting on it, but at the time it was remarkable. GH's countries may have conflicts, but they don't have much of a sense that they evolved together, and many seem to have simply sprung into being. It's not as bad as Mystara of course, where it seems like someone just clicked some new hexes into place with an entirely novel and alien culture (which, in isolation, is cool, but in the context of surrounding countries is bizarre). Even the FR is far from Taladas, let's be clear on that, and GH isn't miles down the line towards Mystara.

Just as a note, Birthright was more up the Taladas end. Ravenloft is way down the Mystara end but it's entirely conscious and in-setting so works.

Yeah, I've got a tiny little book for Greyhawk in 3.5 (an Atlas I think it) and there is some really interesting detail on the various countries and their relationships... in terms of who is fighting, who dislikes each other, and who is hiding where.

But, I also think that is perfectly understandable.

Writing a world with realistic interactions between a half dozen human kingdoms is a feat worthy of praise in literary circles, add in half a dozen different races and there kingdoms and histories... Honestly, the person who pulls off the perfect DnD world with realistic meshing of alien and human cultures is worthy of tons of praise.

 

[Coroc]

@Chaosmancer and @Ruin Explorer

But you know what, although i consider the group i am playing with and dming for to be very good roleplayers they tend to invest not to much interest in overall setting lore and politics unless it involves their current mission.
So it is mainly DM (me) who really cares and, hm, if i do not like any of the stuff Rule ZERO applies

 

[Imaculata]

I tend to remove elves, dwarves and halflings from my campaign setting, and add my own races. Classes don't really play a role in regards to npc's. I think of them as characters, not as classes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@Chaosmancer and @Ruin Explorer

But you know what, although i consider the group i am playing with and dming for to be very good roleplayers they tend to invest not to much interest in overall setting lore and politics unless it involves their current mission.
So it is mainly DM (me) who really cares and, hm, if i do not like any of the stuff Rule ZERO applies

I think that's very common but it is interesting how different approaches can influence the same players. For example, with my main group, they largely match that description, in that unless something is relevant to them, they don't typically care too much (or is fascinating or open to leveraging!).

But one of them has just started a campaign which we are playing some weeks and he managed to get the same players quite invested, at least initially, in the setting by providing useful prompts during character creation and getting people to be a bit more involved in the setting as a result. I guess we'll see we're all L14, if that sticks, though.

 

[Chaosmancer]

@Chaosmancer and @Ruin Explorer

But you know what, although i consider the group i am playing with and dming for to be very good roleplayers they tend to invest not to much interest in overall setting lore and politics unless it involves their current mission.
So it is mainly DM (me) who really cares and, hm, if i do not like any of the stuff Rule ZERO applies

Fair enough, it is really hard to get people involved. I've done it once or twice, but effort in does not translate well into the players enjoyment, which makes it hard.

 

[Zardnaar]

Depends on the setting.

Ones like Midgard are kinda self contained, Greyhawk I lean towards pre 3E, Everron, Spelljammer etc anything goes.

Homebrew I normally allow the phb races.

 

[Tony Vargas]

lately I've been thinking it'd be a lot more fun to incorporate race and class into the setting itself with the hopes that it may help players engage with it.

When you construct a campaign setting do you give a lot of thought into how the basic races in the PHB fit into the world?

Yes. I'd like the races to fit into the world, it's mythology, to have histories with eachother, cultural & physiological differences, and so forth. I might tweak 'em a bit here and there to do so.

I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel or anything .

Hey, if no one ever re-invented the wheel, we'd be tooling around in Sumerian chariots.

so far as class and race go But I'd like to have things like druidic orders, barbarian groups, etc., etc. actually tied directly into the setting. Does anyone here do that?

I'm increasingly liking the idea of PC classes being nearly unique to PCs. Sure, there are other scholarly wielders of arcane magic, other priests, other soldier, warriors, crooks, bandits, swashbucklers, and the like out there, but they're not all going to just be NPCs walking the same class progression as a PC.

 

[Bawylie]

I do whatever I can to justify excluding wizards & sorcerers, first.

Then I look at the setting and theme and work on excluding the obvious choice. For instance, in a game that will involve heavy wilderness exploration/trekking, I drop out rangers and whatever background negates challenges in the wilderness.

For races I tend to stick to the PH but cut or add according to theme. My Ravenloft games, for example, have humans, halflings, and dwarves only for playable races. But my home brew world allows any races at all. Except gnome.