D&D 5E is a campaign setting necessary?

[pukunui]

For my next campaign, I'd like to do something a bit more episodic. Essentially, I just want to take a bunch of short, unrelated adventures (from Dungeon and the like) and run them with minimal modification. Many such adventures aren't set in any specific campaign setting. Do you think it would work to just run them like that without giving the PCs a map or any hard-and-fast setting information? They're essentially just wanderers who go from place to place doing good deeds or whatever - but where those places are in relation to each other isn't clear and ultimately doesn't really matter.

Traveling and downtime would be things that mostly took place off-screen in between episodes. I was thinking I'd do it like the Adventurer's League does it, so after each adventure, PCs would earn a set number of downtime days that they could then spend off-screen doing whatever it was they wanted to do with them.

Would that work? Does that sound appealing to anyone? Do you think you could play in a campaign where you don't know exactly where your PC is on a map? Where there are no homogenous religions and cultures and such-like?

Or do you need to be able to ground your PC in the world and know where they are and where they came from and how town A interacts with town B and so on?

I'd love to know what others think. Thanks!

 

[jrowland]

It would work.

I think I spent most of the 80's and early 90's playing that way!

 

[MerricB]

That's fine. Campaign worlds grow from the details you give them. You'll find it growing of itself, even though you're not consciously designing it!

 

[The_Gneech]

I played in a completely episodic game like that once; the DM just made our "base village of the week" whatever base the adventure he was running said, and the premise was that we were wandering the world looking for work and adventure. It worked well enough, and there are enough core assumptions in "D&D-land" that it never felt too jarring.

-The Gneech

 

[Sunseeker]

In one game my friend is running on and off, our "setting" is that we're hired help for a wizard, he then sends us on adventures though his magic portal. The adventures don't need to be on the same plane, the same time period or have anything in common with each other.

 

[Mercurius]

I think it works, and many players actually don't care that much about the world and just want to focus on the adventure, the encounters, etc.

That said, as someone who has mainly been a DM and is an avid world builder, when I do have the luxury of being a player I'm really curious about the world and don't like it when the set feels paper thin, like an older Western movie. This goes for reading fantasy as well - I like the feeling that there is a deep history, that there's something off the edge of the map, which makes the world feel more alive to me.

 

[Remathilis]

It can work, but I think even if you avoid building a world from the beginning, you end up building one in the end, especially if the same characters play each adventure. Eventually, someone is going to seek a temple to cure an ailment, what god is worshiped there? Someone is going to want to return to that old blacksmith to buy plate armor, how long will it take to travel there? Someone might want to build a keep/tower/guild/church, will the local lord let me? Eventually, you'll begin to fill in those kinda details, and if you remain consistent, you get a world forming around these questions.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No. But also, yes.

No, it is not necessary to choose a prefabricated setting, nor is it necessary to flesh out lots of large-setting details before you begin. My Dungeon World game began that way; we agreed on neat ideas as we progressed, such as where and how the party Wizard got his education.

But at the same time, I genuinely believe a setting of some kind is a necessity--a necessary result, though, rather than a prerequisite. As the players wander the earth helping people, they will necessarily leave a trail of deeds, stories, friends, enemies, and locales behind. You will, whether you like it or not, begin constructing a world out of the things you decide to include, and the suggestions the players make. If you leave things undefined and weave in the players' ideas as they have them, a world will result. It may be sprawling and ill-fitting in some places, but it will nonetheless be a world.

For me, I think the best situation strikes a balance between the two. Enough setting for the players to sink their teeth into, but enough undefined (or at least malleable) stuff to let the world become its own thing, a creation of all participants, in time.

 

[Celtavian]

Campaign setting is only as necessary as the DM makes it. I tend to like having a campaign setting because I find it helpful in fleshing out the surroundings. I like to read the books for adventure and character ideas. I don't allow campaign settings to constrain adventure creation. I can plop an adventure just about anywhere. The players don't care much whether the setting is official or homebrewed.

 

[Queer Venger]

With the right group, this was how I played 1e back in my Air Force days