D&D 5E (2024) Preferences in a New Official 5.5e Specific Setting

[Paul Farquhar]

If people would please provide definitions of "heroic fantasy", "sword & sorcery", "high fantasy", "epic fantasy" and "mythic fantasy" when they make surveys like that, that would be very nice. Because half of time these terms are used interchangeably and when asked to provide examples, the same classics like Lord of the Rings and Conan are as likely to be brough up an example either one of them. So I would like to see what the foundations of this survey are.

I would prefer if these meaningless subdivisions just crawled away into a hole and died.

I'll allow "high fantasy" so long as there is also "low fantasy" on the list. If something has an antithesis it's meaning is easier to pin down. Otherwise it comes down to "is a copy of [insert name of more famous work here]".

But as @Hussar says, if you include everything in 5e, then you are locking in high fantasy anyway.

 

[...m...]

...the radiant citadel already offers everything D+D needs in a 5.24 setting; another, more in-depth campaign sourcebook would be welcomed but there's no need to reinvent the wheel...

 

[Hussar]

Now, if we're talking about a wish list of what we personally would like to see?

Me, a 2024 setting would be small. I don't want a world. I want a continent, at most. From the central point, figure 3 weeks travel on horseback - so, a rough circle 500 miles in radius? Thereabouts. That's more than enough space to put everything you need. To put that in perspective, it's about 1000 miles (give or take) from Rome to Paris. So, that's the diameter of the circle. That's a circle that would cover a good chunk of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia. Maybe a bit more bits and bobs.

That's 8 nations in the modern world. More than enough space for LOTS of history. Lots of geography too. That circle encompasses several mountain ranges, a desert or two, coastline, plains, and, in the more medieval time period, a HELL of a lot of trees.

I honestly don't really want any more than that. Think of how much history in the real world that circle has. Keep it small and then give me all sorts of detail so I don't have to make up a bunch of stuff. I don't want the high altitude, three paragraph synopsis of a kingdom. I want family trees. I want the names of several towns, cities, and a shopping list of NPC's that live there.

That's my wishlist anyway.

 

[Minigiant]

If people would please provide definitions of "heroic fantasy", "sword & sorcery", "high fantasy", "epic fantasy" and "mythic fantasy" when they make surveys like that, that would be very nice. Because half of time these terms are used interchangeably and when asked to provide examples, the same classics like Lord of the Rings and Conan are as likely to be brough up an example either one of them. So I would like to see what the foundations of this survey are.

Post 44

 

[...m...]

Me, a 2024 setting would be small. I don't want a world. I want a continent, at most. From the central point, figure 3 weeks travel on horseback - so, a rough circle 500 miles in radius? Thereabouts.

I honestly don't really want any more than that. Think of how much history in the real world that circle has. Keep it small and then give me all sorts of detail so I don't have to make up a bunch of stuff. I don't want the high altitude, three paragraph synopsis of a kingdom. I want family trees. I want the names of several towns, cities, and a shopping list of NPC's that live there.

...i think 5.24 core rules start from the assumption of a cosmopolitain player character population in a cosmopolitain high-fantasy setting, which isn't readily compatible with a modest-scale low-fantasy world...

 

[Minigiant]

I would prefer if these meaningless subdivisions just crawled away into a hole and died.

I'll allow "high fantasy" so long as there is also "low fantasy" on the list. If something has an antithesis it's meaning is easier to pin down. Otherwise it comes down to "is a copy of [insert name of more famous work here]".

But as @Hussar says, if you include everything in 5e, then you are locking in high fantasy anyway.

I don't use high and low fantasy for a reason.