D&D 5E Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Official Campaign Settings

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I am often asking inconvenient questions of myself. Things like, "What is the one part of your body that disappears when you stand up?

Your lap?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Your lap?

There's the story of the college professor who gives his final out; the final has five pages of dense instructions. Within those instructions, every year, there is a single sentence- "If you read this, turn in your exam immediately without marking it for an 'A'." And every year, no one turns it in.

 

[AtomicPope]

I can think of psychological reasons why people want an official setting:

• Canon: provides a sense of stability and gives you bearing, a starting point from which every player and DM can deviate from or go back to.
• Official Setting: assurance that your world is supported and your part of an active world.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Before joining a game, for official settings, there is a large chance they have heard of it before and know the themes of the setting. A published, but non-official setting has less audience so they won't be immediately familiar (I know nothing of Mystara, for example, and I don't know if it would click with me). If it's a homebrew... you have to trust the GM. If you want "high fantasy" and the GM is putting you in a gritty world, you'll be disappointed. Leaving at session 0 would be bad form..

Just as a small aside, leaving at session zero is fine! This is much preferred to the standard approach of 'well, this doesn't sound like the game I wanted, but I guess I'll give it a go anyway' and then leaving at session three.