The default campaign world - new article

[William Ronald]

Not that D&D is in anyway reflective of history, but it sounds like they have simply shifted the default political, technological, economic and social assumptions from a pseudo Western Europe of the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500 AD) to the Early Middle Ages (500-1000 AD). I don't think they will kill any tropes such as Full Plate armor. But I think the idea of being able to walk into a small village and ordering it from the Armorer off the shelf is probably going to be reflected in its cost and its availability on treasure tables. No black powder weapons even being an option would be a good guess.

However, each PHB/DMG cycle could allow for different defaults. PHB 2/DMG 2 could assume Late Middle Ages or even Renaissance setting. Hello gunpowder rules, rapiers, Gnome tinkers, great sailing vessels, guidelines for creating Empires, tables of royal titles, rules for building organized armies and constructing huge castles. Release a setting book shortly afterwards that supports such a background and you start giving DMs and players a couple of different sets of coherent visions for play.

Different areas of a campaign setting could have many different cultural assumptions. For example, in one area, a kingdom or empire may have collapsed, while civilization is thriving elsewhere. (For examples, contrast Western Europe, circa 500-1000 with the Byzantine Empire and other surrounding regions.)

In the Forgotten Realms, there are large areas of the North that have little formal government, and that is true for some other areas as well. Perhaps the implicit campaign setting implies that the setting is in need of heroes. However, it is hard to find a fictional world that is not in need of heroes. (Even in a strong civilized state, there are always dangers from within as well as from without.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I never bothered with default assumptions of a D&D campaign world. But these assumptions do fit well with a standard D&D campaign, where you don't have to come up with excuses why someone else other than the PCs have to do something. Or why there's all these monster out there, or why you'll have to roll up a random encounter...

This default assumption does fit with parts of Eberron too, if you consider that it's on a continent that just got out of a war that's like World War I + the 100 Years War. And there's all these small villages with many frightening things outside. However there's many big cities and "wide-magic" applications out there, which messes with this default assumption.

Dark Sun though works quite well under this default assumption. Depending on which era you're playing in, and soldiers from any city-state is pretty bad news, and the wilderness is assured to be deadly off the roads from dangerous monsters, cannibal halflings, elf bandits and more.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

However, each PHB/DMG cycle could allow for different defaults. PHB 2/DMG 2 could assume Late Middle Ages or even Renaissance setting. Hello gunpowder rules, rapiers, Gnome tinkers, great sailing vessels, guidelines for creating Empires, tables of royal titles, rules for building organized armies and constructing huge castles. Release a setting book shortly afterwards that supports such a background and you start giving DMs and players a couple of different sets of coherent visions for play.

I'm 100% certain that Rapiers will be in the PHB...

 

[hong]

Different areas of a campaign setting could have many different cultural assumptions. For example, in one area, a kingdom or empire may have collapsed, while civilization is thriving elsewhere. (For examples, contrast Western Europe, circa 500-1000 with the Byzantine Empire and other surrounding regions.)

In the Forgotten Realms, there are large areas of the North that have little formal government, and that is true for some other areas as well. Perhaps the implicit campaign setting implies that the setting is in need of heroes. However, it is hard to find a fictional world that is not in need of heroes. (Even in a strong civilized state, there are always dangers from within as well as from without.)

I've actually toyed with the idea of a campaign in mythic Earth, ca. 800 AD. This new campaign default sounds very much what I'm looking for. Yet more evidence why I love Mearls with pee-pee et al.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, but in 3e/3.5e that is all flavor text. If this is going to be in the core design for 4e its going to be imbedded in the game mechanics. No thank you.

How can a lack of strong nation states be embedded into mechanics?

All they're doing is changing the tone of the books from high fantasy to sword and sorcery -- something a lot of people say they want.

This would be a good Christmas to get everyone's D&D group a complete set of the Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser reprints from Dark Horse, methinks.

 

[Gentlegamer]

It sounds like the default setting will be very much like the Wilderlands of High Fantasy.

This doesn't rule out city adventures . . .

 

[Minicol]

A false reality in a make-believe fantasy world based on our dark ages.. oh wait, our renaissance.. or was it ... nm. Sounds like a huge problem...

Anyway, the opposite is just as unbelieable. If you have huge empires with humans firmly in control, how do adventures ever run into goblins, werewolves, ogres, giants etc. I mean, in an empire who has existed for thousands of years (who hasnt made those), why havent those expansionist and controlfreaks of inhabitants exterminated every single sad monstrous humanoid long ago. Because lets face it, in a realistic setting of this kind, they definitely have the ressources.

Cheers

Actually, even if you look at the dark ages, when things were indeed bleak, you'll notice that large kingdoms and empires were still around, but not necessarily where you needed them.

There were a lot of barbarian kings, but they did not like too much the idea of the caliphates or the byzantines showing up on their doors.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

IMHO, it seems that the default setting is going back to the idea of the nondescript, undeclared, potentially-patchwork "core" setting present in earlier versions of D&D, & even back to the initial forms of old settings like Greyhawk & (maybe) Blackmoor.

It makes more sense for a starting campaign, because it can be open, undefined, and expanded upon as the players learn about the game, with the setting growing as the player's knowledge and familiarity grow with it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think that a certain desperation and wildness seems like a good idea; it makes adventurers practically a requirement. The stakes are higher. I'm not sure that political intrigue has to fall by the wayside either - there could be all kinds of stuff to deal with inside the few major city states and kingdoms.

WHO RULES BARTERTOWN?

 

[Visceris]

WHO RULES BARTERTOWN?

BATMAN!