Presentation! Saga Style

[grimslade]

SAGA Presentation- No on the square books. Looked bad in stores and on my shelf.

Forgotten Realms as default setting- again no. I think the problem with using any setting as the default is that it gets watered down by inclusivity of options not evident in the setting. It serves as a touchstone initially but then alienates fans. 3.0 greyhawk lite and altered was annoying. Why was Heironeus favoring a sword? Wee Jas hates undead. And Greyhawk does not have the same size fan base as FR, although I love it dearly.

4E did the right thing a loose default setting initially labeled 'Points of Light' and then associated more with the Nentir Vale. It did not intrude and served as a decent introduction to creating a home brew setting. As the edition grew, the Vale expanded with it but did not overwhelm it. It struck a nice balance.

So I say present a new undefined setting a loose collection of places to represent a new edition.

 

[Dausuul]

Now, I suppose there's going to be these reactions to my proposal...

You forgot this one: "What for?"

What is the goal of having a "default setting" in the core material? To put names on the gods? I'd rather do as 3E did, with domains such as Love, War, and so forth, and then have a sidebar or two saying "Deities of the Forgotten Realms: Sune (CG Love), Tempus (CN War), etc." Beyond that, I don't see any purpose to it at all.

Now, a sample town in the DMG, with expandable low-level dungeon attached, is a good idea. It's setting-agnostic and helpful for the newbie DM. BD&D had Threshold, 4E had Fallcrest, et cetera. Threshold got built out into Mystara eventually, but as originally introduced it was its own thing. If it's a small town, the sort of place that doesn't show up on a world map, it can be plugged into any setting you like. Even so, it should stay in its own section. DMs who don't want to use it shouldn't find references to it popping up all over the place.

 

[the Jester]

Terrible, terrible, terrible idea.

A "Forgotten Realms is the core setting!" approach would turn me off hard enough that the game would have to totally rule to get my buy-in, and it might fail even then.

Note also that I'm the kind of "Buy everything D&D RARRR"* customer that WotC wants to keep.

*Everything except setting stuff for settings I don't like, anyhow.

EDIT: I too prefer a setting-neutral set of books; while I get the need for 'sample deities' for cleric purposes and the like, I'd rather see an extensive list of gods from across multiple settings with a few lines about them and a note as to the setting they are from than a specific pantheon. 4e did a pretty good job of this, stealing from multiple settings to set up a good "advneturing pantheon". Nontheless, those examples will serve a lot of us as only examples. There is no Heironius or Bane or Raven Queen in my campaign, for example (though I did adopt Torog!).

 

[Frostmarrow]

The default setting of D&D is Planescape. I'm not a particular fan but I recognize Planescape's rightful claim of being the all encompassing D&D. Anything can be found in the planes, from the spaceship in the Barrier Peaks to the catacombs under Castle Ravenloft. Planescape is fantasy blown out of any reasonable proportion and that's how we collectively like it.

The laws of physics of the planes makes, actually, more sense in a role-playing game than real life physics does. A mindmap of gates is a better map for a fantasy adventure than an ICE map of Middle Earth, believe it or not. I'm not saying Sigil should be the default setting and god knows Union failed epically but still... The planes are a great place for high and low modular fantasy adventure.

Ps. I play in Sigil right now and honestly factions suck. Ds.

 

[The Little Raven]

The default setting of D&D is Planescape.

No. Not just no, but HELL NO. Angels and Demons getting together for a drink in a bar and debating alignment philosophy is NOT the default for D&D. Getting that angel to help you kick in that demon's face is.

No offense to anyone that likes/loves Planescape, but it's heavy-handed philosophical musings combined with its over-saturation of jargon is definitely not suited for a default setting.

 

[delericho]

I'm equating George Lucas's demand on the Expanded Universe franchise to remain true to itself (aka - a mostly solid canonical universe, even if there are a few ad-hocs here and there) with the general consistancy of the Forgotten Realms, along with a similar timeline with multiple eras. There is a question of where to have the starting point (somewhere in the middle? My FR lore isn't that strong to pick a point).

Sure. And as I said, "Forgotten Realms Saga Edition" is probably the approach they should take with the setting in 5e.

But don't make it the core, assumed setting of D&D as a whole. In fact, don't declare any setting to be the default setting, be it FR, Greyhawk, or Mystara. 4e was absolutely right to leave their default setting largely undefined, referring to it only as "Points of Light" - IMO, even fleshing it out as far as they did was a mistake.

The thing is, if they make FR default, they every DM who doesn't use FR suddenly has to work around, strip out, or reflavour the various FR-isms. It creates work for those DMs that we don't need. And causing us extra work is a strike against 5e. After the fracturing of the community with 4e (and Pathfinder), the last thing 5e needs is to be working with a handicap.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I don't want the core rules to be tied to any particular setting, especially since 5e is supposed to be a "modular" system.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

As someone who used to play in forgotten realms for many years:

What is wrong with greyhawk as core? I mean, I absolutely have no idea how to play in Greyhawk, but names of gods and names of wizards are familiar. Also the Setting is pretty classic.

3rd edition handbooks were quite well using Greyhawk as default, but not giving it too much weight.

I would also like an approach where Gods and pantheons of different settings are given as examples in the cleric chapter:

Gods of nature: Realms: Mielikki, Chauntea, Silvanus, Greyhawk: ... etc.

Usually this chapter is the most obvious setting specific one.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Am I the only one who saw the thread title and thought about Dragonlance Saga? I'd love it if DND Next came into a nice box with cards and other cool handouts...

 

[Dausuul]

The default setting of D&D is Planescape. I'm not a particular fan but I recognize Planescape's rightful claim of being the all encompassing D&D. Anything can be found in the planes, from the spaceship in the Barrier Peaks to the catacombs under Castle Ravenloft. Planescape is fantasy blown out of any reasonable proportion and that's how we collectively like it.

No. Freaking. Way. Maybe that's how you like it, but you do not speak for all D&D fans and I'm willing to bet you don't even speak for most of 'em. Speaking just for myself, the only version of the Great Wheel that I like is from the 1E Manual of the Planes, before Planescape was invented. Planescape has its fans, I'm happy they have something they love, and I hope for their sake that their chosen setting is supported in D&DN. But I don't want Planescape or its assumptions shoved down my throat. It is very much a niche concept.

Spelljammer has just as good a claim as Planescape to be the "all encompassing D&D." So how would you like it if the core game had giant space hamsters, phlogiston, and anthropomorphic hippos with guns?