D&D 5E (2014) Should 5e have a "default setting" and cosmology?

[IanB]

There should be a sample setting (example: the Known World from the Expert Set) but not a default setting (example: 4e.)

 

[timbannock]

3e had Greyhawk as the default setting. 4e had "points of light".

In the 2e and 3e days, "the Great Wheel" was the default cosmology with several products referencing it.

Should 5e have a default setting or cosmology?

I personally don't want a default setting or cosmology. I think the rules should avoid mentioning anything other than the bare basics of cosmology. (e.g. The spell "Contact Other Plane" would imply the existence of other planes, but doesn't say what the planes would be.) That would encourage DMs to design any setting or cosmology they want without having feel like they have to shoehorn them into the "official" D&D setting.

What do you think?

I don't want a default either, really, but I'm not who D&D has to market to in order to gain money and broaden the audience: I'll buy a new edition's "core" product regardless, but I'll be picky about supplements based on my own, well-developed tastes over the past 25+ years.

Based on that, I think that they indeed *should* have a default setting, and it should be Faerun. I mean, that's their money-maker, with video games, best-selling novels, and everything else tied to it. Give D&D a strong brand image that helps sell the game, and you've got win...but they have to make that image LOOK REALLY GOOD, so Forgotten Realms needs to look different than WoW visually, needs to set itself apart from Tolkien, and needs to scream "Adventures Await Those Who Enter."

My other tangential point would to keep cosmology out of the core product(s), though. Planar adventuring is great, but doesn't need to be in the first book right from the get-go, and therefore I don't think the typical buyer of a new edition (or the first-time buyer of a D&D product) gives too cares as to what Plane Moradin resides in, or whatever. Cosmology can be revealed in a Manual of the Planes type book, a Planescape type setting, or through DDI, and should probably default to higher-level play, though -- especially if Planescape is coming back -- it should have plenty of supplemental material that works for all levels.

And bring back the Factions, if you do that! Post-Faction War sucks.

 

[Tony Vargas]

'Universal' rules with a default setting/cosmology for those who want it would be the best of both worlds.

The 'old school fee' would be fascilitated by a default or even 'official' cosmology (like the old outer/inner/infinite-prime-material planes) that allows many different campaign-worlds to theoretically co-exist within it. Thus you could not only re-issue every past campaign setting, you could have crossovers among them, and give DMs avenues to take their custom campaigns for 'visits' to published adventure settings.

 

[Li Shenron]

I really don't need default settings or cosmologies.

Just mention the (probable) existence of other planes, and mention as examples those planes who are almost always present in campaign settings or have spells based upon: ethereal, astral, shadows, heaven & hell, elemental planes. Maybe even a plane of mirrors and a plane of dreams, since they would be very easy to imagine by beginners and casual gamers.

All this info could go to the DMG, and even spells based on planes may be presented (in the introductory section of magic on the PHB) as "tentative explanations" for the PCs, while the DM can always later explain how/why they really work in the chosen campaign.

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About the gods, just keep the PHB deities very generic and without a name, again make sure that they are only examples and the players can come up with their own Banjo if the DM allows, or (most probably) the DM has chosen beforehand what are the real gods in the setting.

Let's keep in mind that in 3e the deities were useful only to tell a Cleric character the following:

- alignment restrictions
- which domains she could choose from
- if she could either turn or rebuke undead
- her deity's favoured weapon, really useful for... 1 domain and 1 spell?
- fluff about religion, useful to generate a code of conduct

There is no way that someone could make a broken cleric if allowed to select all of the above freely*, instead of picking the PHB default combos. Hence there was/is no need to include a pantheon of a specific deity.

*and that would also last only as long as the group keeps playing without choosing a setting for themselves

 

[Salamandyr]

I think I'd prefer that there be no (or very little) cosmology in the Core system...just enough to support the core mechanics, which can probably be done by mentioning the Astral Plane and the notion that other worlds, dimensions, or planes exist. No real need for detail. I could just as well do without any gods info too.

I'd happily buy a supplement later detailing various cosmologies and pantheons, but by not putting it into the core rules, you get less of a sense that it's "official".

 

[boredgremlin]

I would like a default setting as a DM. I have 4 kids and a home based business. Squeezing in time to write adventures is hard enough without having to come up with an entire world. Anymore I am just going back to using worlds I wrote 5 or 10 years ago when i had time and I'm honestly a little bored with those worlds now. I think I'm probably not the only person with a time crunch who still enjoys running games either. So for people like me it would be great.

I dont want anything too detailed though. Just a good framework I can hang something around. Something like the old grey box for FR, or even the western heartlands in later versions of FR. Ravenloft was great for that too.

I liked the points of light concept for 4e. It was about the only thing about 4e that I did like. They wound up making it too detailed, but if they had just taken it back a notch or two that was the perfect world setting.

I mean if i had my ideal setting WoTC would just buy the rights to the warhammer fluff and I would use that world without having to re-write things. But since thats not likely to ever happen they just need to keep lots of open territory for beasties and lawlessness, some big centers of civilization that are detailed pretty well and for once, just once, finally include some of the info about the bad guys.

something like "in this large stretch of mountains there are scattered orc and dwarf holds. The most powerful of the orcs is a warboss named eatsomedwarf. He rules with an iron fist and this is his symbol. " Maybe include some info about his lieutenants and a common patrol you might run into along with a location for his base.

Things like that. A wide open sandbox is good. A sandbox with a merry go round and jungle gym is better. Lots of play room and some stuff already set out that you can play on and build with.

 

[Zaukrie]

Yes.

1. For new DMs and players.
2. For the shared experiences across the hobby.
3. For experienced DMs and players that don't have time to make it all up.

This does not impede people from using another setting, not in the least. But it does enable entry to the game for new people, and w/o new people, there is no DND eventually. It does give people who don't want to invent a new world, a world to work with. It does give us a shared experience.

For all the talk of the importance of story, I keep reading threads that ask for no story in the game. And I don't get that.

 

[Kaodi]

I am going to go way back to the first brand new Dragon I bought, #283 (May 2001). Specifically to the article "Realistic Religion" by John Dougal McCarty.

He lists a number of deity archetypes which might serve as a good bare bones cosmology. Forget proper names even (it worked for The Dark Six).

The Great Mother (fertility)
The Green Man (nature)
The Trickster (trickery and mischief)
The Destroyer (blowing stuff up)
The God of Revelry (leisure)
God of War and Storms (war... and storms)
The Sun God (light and time)
The Celestial Queen (night)
Keeper of the Dead (those who have shuffled off their mortal coil)

 

[IanB]

Yes.

1. For new DMs and players.
2. For the shared experiences across the hobby.
3. For experienced DMs and players that don't have time to make it all up.

This does not impede people from using another setting, not in the least. But it does enable entry to the game for new people, and w/o new people, there is no DND eventually. It does give people who don't want to invent a new world, a world to work with. It does give us a shared experience.

For all the talk of the importance of story, I keep reading threads that ask for no story in the game. And I don't get that.

What you describe doesn't have to be a *default* setting though; it can just be a sample setting. A default setting implies stuff from the world directly injected into stuff like classes or feats or prestige class/paragon paths in the core rules, which can be annoying to deal with if you're using another setting.

The core should be stuff like 'archmage'; the setting books can provide stuff like 'war wizard of Cormyr'. Now, sticking a map and some gazeteer type stuff at the end of the DMG for people to use as their sample campaign world to set stuff in, that's great, but where it crosses the line into a default setting is when the rules stuff has to have it stripped out, reflavored, etc., to fit into another game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There doesn't need to be a default setting.

New DM? Pressed for time? That's what the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (or whatever) is for.

I think the reason 4e had a strong default setting was grounded in Brand-ism ("You need your IP to be distinct from competitors' IP so that it stands out!"), and as with most design ideas that come from marketing teams, it's not a great idea. I think it did tremendous damage to my own enjoyment of the game, due to things like "Well, we need eladrin in Dark Sun since they're in the core rules, and so Dark Sun, an isoalted nonmagical world of the unnatural, now has an entire parallel universe or magical nature."

That's completely unnecessary.

Much better to be agnostic to cosmology and setting. If the mantra of 5e is that each group plays the game they want, then that mantra needs to be carried forward in the fact that there's no real cosmology.

Not that there can't be some suggestion, of course. I mean, pseudo-medieval-esqueries and some sort of implied deity or deities and possibly an afterlife or seven...these are implied by rules elements such as the cleric, the raise dead spell, the plane shift spell...and by iconic D&Disms like the Abyss, the Nine Hells, and the Far Realm.

But there doesn't need to be anything enforcing any particular viewpoint of what that is or means. There's a Far Realm possibly. The rules and stories that reference it are self-contained and possibly inherently contradictory. Add any or all or none of them as is you wont as a DM. Not every game needs the Far Realm, but some games may want it in certain ways, and here's some ways to add it, if you want.

Now my Tolkeinesque world doesn't need to shoehorn tentacled horrors into it if that breaks my world, and my friend's sword-and-sorcery world of post-apocalyptic dungeonpunk can embrace all the tentacular goodness he wants, and we can both be playing D&D, without the designers whispering in our ears about all the badwrongfun each of us is having.