D&D 5E The Hypothetical Default 5E Setting (A Vision for WotC)

[TerraDave]

Mearls confirms here that we won't see a new setting anytime soon:

Interview with Mike Mearls, 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons team leader - National RPG | Examiner.com

That actually doesn't really answer the question of how setting will be approached in the core...

 

[Plane Sailing]

When D&D first appeared it didn't have any setting - everyone created their own campaign worlds (and found places in those worlds to site 3rd party adventures and so forth if necessary).

I would expect Core 5e to come with no more setting than 3e did - perhaps some deity names, perhaps some wizard names associated to spells, but nothing more than that. Certainly less than the 4e setting which although labelled as 'implied' actually said a huge amount about not just the world but the cosmology too.

So Core 5e with no setting, then setting modules - I could see that.

 

[Remathilis]

When D&D first appeared it didn't have any setting - everyone created their own campaign worlds (and found places in those worlds to site 3rd party adventures and so forth if necessary).

I would expect Core 5e to come with no more setting than 3e did - perhaps some deity names, perhaps some wizard names associated to spells, but nothing more than that. Certainly less than the 4e setting which although labelled as 'implied' actually said a huge amount about not just the world but the cosmology too.

So Core 5e with no setting, then setting modules - I could see that.

There is a lot more "implied" setting in almost any edition of D&D than most people think.

The most setting neutral version of D&D produced was 2nd edition, and even it had huge swaths of implied setting: the multiverse, the default "great wheel" cosmology, spell and magic item named after gods and wizards, monster ecologies, etc. Really, 4e's sin was coming out and "redefining" those things and thus bringing this new fluff to the forefront. I'm sure of 4e used the classic fluff; no one would've noticed beyond the Nentir Vale being defined in the DMG/modules.

 

[Plane Sailing]

There is a lot more "implied" setting in almost any edition of D&D than most people think.

The most setting neutral version of D&D produced was 2nd edition.

See, I respectfully disagree (for reasons I outlined in my original post).

OD&D? No setting in the book AT ALL! no map, nothing apart from a few random mage names, if that.

1e PHB/DMG/MM? pretty much nothing. It had a great wheel appendix in the back, but it was hardly central to the system, and was in no way prescriptive - it hardly had any relevance. Everyone 'knows' that Greyhawk was the implied setting, but only in retrospect - there was nothing that even hits at it in the original.

One of the things that made competitor RPGs interesting in the late 70's and early 80's at that time was that there were appearing with even sketchy campaign settings (one page map, one page potted history). Runequest benefited from being tightly coupled to its rather rich campaign setting, albeit only a fragment of Dragon Pass.

(4e, FWIWIMO overstepped the mark in their astral sea, ancient war between gods and titans, devils are this, demons are that, etc. etc. That isn't implied setting, that is nailing down a setting! 'Points of Light' was an implied setting. Fallen tiefling and dragonman empires is actual setting )

Cheers