D&D 5E The Un-Setting: the Default Core World in 5e

[Halivar]

I agree with the premise of the OP if and only if there is available, at launch, and for as cheaply as possible, a Greyhawk supplement to the core rules that establishes enough of the world to begin play for those DM's who do not want to design their own game worlds.

I strictly homebrew settings, but this is not a style of play I wish to force on anyone.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

1 implies too much emphasis on creating your own content, and 2 places an incredibly heavy burden on Wizards to support old content.

The only burden I'm envisioning is one neatly organized webpage for each defunct setting, with links to for-fee PDF downloads of each book from that setting.

DMs and players should be encouraged to create, but Wizards also needs room to grow. There's only so much they can ever produce for a given setting before they seriously saturate the market on the subject.

As far as new material, I understand that only the best-selling Worlds ought to be supported. The more obscure settings might see an occasional magazine article.

Encouraging DMs and players to create will always go a lot further than demanding it or deriding them for not doing so.

The words "Structure" and "Creativity" are not mutually exclusive. Imagine that RPGs didn't exist, and I was advocating that we make a game where there is a structural framework with 6 numbers representing a character, and a set of rules to adjudicate actions. Someone might say: "we don't need no numbers or rules, that just cramps our creativity! We just need some nice advice about how to tell a story."

Gamers are used to structured development of a character. But this generation is not used to structured development of a world. I'm advocating that be instilled.

 

[airwalkrr]

?! Gygax is rolling over in his grave.

It's sad that so many DMs are beaten down by 30 years of slick published settings that it sounds like heresy for there to be explicit rules for everyone to build their own campaign setting.

This is clearly where you stopped reading my post. Go back and read it in its entirety and you will have a better picture. I am not going to repeat myself though.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Now, I am not opposed to a section in the DMG (perhaps a world-building "module" if you will) that helps DMs build their own world.

Okay, as long as the world-building module is vigorous and crunchy. By crunchy I mean: concrete steps that lead the DM from dungeon adventures, to wilderness mapping, to making a full-blown Campaign Setting with its own logo and setting book.

Such tools are invaluable to DMs who want to do just that. But not every DM wants to build his own world.

Okay. In the OP, I mention that all of the pre-fab D&D Worlds ought to be dusted off for D&D Next. Yet I still declare that every self-respecting DM ought to slap their own name on any published setting and call it: "My World of Eberron". Why does only Ed Greenwood get to do that?

That would make for three modular options in the DMG:
1) How to make a world (a campaign setting) in a step-by-step process that is as detailed as PC generation.
2) How to do the same using random tables.
3) How to make a Published Setting your own. Include the suggestion of putting your own name or gaming group-name above the logo.

I actually have my own fantasy world. But to be honest, it does not begin to compete with the wealth of information that is available on these two published settings. And quite frankly, writing so much detail about my own world would probably be mostly lost on my players. But I can still enjoy a campaign setting-specific book even if I only use a part of it.

Who needs so much information and detail? This would be a later Step in the world-building process.

Yet another option would be:
4) How to use a D&D campaign to enact and simulate a Published Setting, keeping as close to the published information as possible.

I admit that I've been coming down hard against Option #4. Even Nerath is too much of a pre-fab setting for me. I think it's brave, healthy, and manly to place Option #1 in the limelight again.

I'm not trying to ban Pre-Made Worlds. In fact, I'm trying to give them each their own place, since they have nice parts to kit-bash, and each World has a certain beauty.

But it's not that hard to master World-Building. We're Dungeon Masters!

In the next post, I'll show how easy it will be in 5e to make a D&D World.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

D&D Next: Worldbuilding Module

The players have generated their D&D characters. Now you will be generating your own D&D World.

Step 1) Run the players through our introductory D&D Next adventure.
Step 2) After completing that adventure, pick another duneoneering adventure. Either make your own dungeon using the instructions and tables provided elsewhere in this DMG, or choose from many low-level adventures available from Dungeon Magazine and other publishers. Assume that these locations are within a day's walk from each other. Repeat this Step until you feel ready to map the local wilderness.
Step 3) Get a piece of paper and draw a map showing where all those dungeons are located, along with any villages that were featured in those adventures. Place them according to your own whim. Yet all these should be within a few miles of each other, since the PCs haven't started wilderness exploration. See sample cartographic styles and symbols.
Step 4) Give the PCs a copy of the map, and let them explore the wilderness as they visit other dungeon adventures that you place on the map.
Step 5) Send the PCs on an adventure off the edge of the map, either to another dungeon, or exploring, or to a city adventure. Tape another sheet of paper to your original map. This city might become a sort of home base for the characters.
Step 6) Taking this two-sheeted map, draw a line which will serve as the boundaries of a country that encompasses what the PCs have explored so far. Name the country. See table for name-generation.
Step 7) When you're ready to send the PCs beyond this country, make a wider map showing where this country is located. Draw a continent or sub-continental region however you wish. See sample maps of continents from existing D&D settings, such as the Flanaess, Faerun, the Known World, the Savage Coast, and others. Pick and choose countries from various D&D Worlds to make your own World. Make up names and/or take names from published sources.
Step 8) As the characters progress, let them explore those countries. Place our mid-level adventures wherever you wish.
Step 9) Eventually send the characters on a sea adventure. Add the islands from that adventure to the map wherever wherever you wish.
Step 10) Send the PCs to another continent. Add that continent to your map.
Step 11) Draw a world map. See the small sample maps of the D&D Worlds of Oerth, Krynn, Toril, Aebir, Mystara, Athas, Aebrynis, Pelinore, Ptolus, Iomandra, etc. Name your world (which was previously called "The World"). See table for generating a planet name.
Step 12) Now that you have a world map, and the characters are reaching higher levels, start compiling a Setting Book. See the table for generating a Campaign Setting name (if different from the name of the planet). Design a logo. See our history of D&D Campaign Setting logos.

For more, please see our upcoming Worldbuilding articles in Dragon Magazine, our Worldbuilding web articles, and the upcoming Worldbuilder's Guide. By the end of the WBG, you will have a PDF Campaign Setting book that approaches or exceeds the qualities of our own professionally published settings. We will have an officially-designated website called the World Serpent Inn, where all DMs may post a link to their Worldbooks. This will be for homebrew settings what the official fansites are for the published D&D Worlds.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Peole love building things. If you don't have the time, skill or inclination I'm sure you could buy someone else's creation. The OP's idea of only providing the tools and actively support the homebrew is sound. Why should game designers have all the fun? D&D should be a creative pursuit. Moving away from DIY will hurt sales. Ask Lego, Minecraft or Zynga if people love to build things.

Picture a box called Ravenloft filled with a board and some stickers with woods, castles and hills on them. Wouldn't it be great to do the map of Ravenloft yourself rather than have it all served? I mean the Nentir Vale map is beautiful but it's dull because I didn't make it myself.

 

[steeldragons]

Picture a box called Ravenloft filled with a board and some stickers with woods, castles and hills on them. Wouldn't it be great to do the map of Ravenloft yourself rather than have it all served?

I think you're onto something here.

But not stickers, COLORFORMS! so you can mix n' match and change things around from game to game.

All battlemats and maps should, henchforth, be done in "Colorform" format.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I think you're onto something here.

But not stickers, COLORFORMS! so you can mix n' match and change things around from game to game.

All battlemats and maps should, henchforth, be done in "Colorform" format.

I think you are onto something.

What do you know, it has already been done

Dungeons & Dragons Colorform Adventure Set | Dungeons & Dragons | RPGGeek

 

[airwalkrr]

Who needs so much information and detail?

There is a reason I bought every single 3e Eberron source book and adventure. I LIKE reading about Eberron because it spurs my imagination. Even if I do not intend to use Eberron exactly as printed in the book (and I do not), I love having lots of detail to pull ideas from and adapt to suit my own purposes.

But I think we are on the same page here on some level. One of my favorite Eberron books was Secrets of Xen'Drik. What I like most about it is that it presented a dozen or so seeds for adventure in various but non-specific parts of Xen'Drik. It was sort of a template for adventures in various types of settings, but it did not say exactly where those settings had to be. There was a ruin of a giant city, a hive of abeils, and so on, but you could pretty much put them wherever you wanted. I thought that idea was pure gold. And the Eberron books tend to have a lot of stuff like that. In fact, I find Eberron to be a very customizable setting, because aside from the city books (Stormreach and Sharn) there are very few stats for named NPCs aside from alignment, class, and level. What I like most about Eberron is that it is light on detail but heavy on ideas. That is something the 3e Forgotten Realms books did not do very well in my opinion.

Nevertheless, I feel compelled to point out that sometimes the setting really makes the game. My favorite setting and game system of all time is Rifts, published by Palladium Books. Rifts does two things very well. First, it has a very detailed setting with an elaborate background and some fantastic characters and locations that are heavily detailed. Second, it has vast swaths of the world map that basically say "Here there be Dragons," leaving these areas wide open for GMs to develop on their own. In my opinion, it is the best of both worlds. And Rifts is chock-full of books with random tables for generation of new alien races, cultures, cities, and groups. It also has lots of tables for GM-guided generation of the same kind of stuff. In a sense, Rifts is an elaborately detailed setting that gives a GM with little free time plenty of stuff for his players to explore while at the same time leaving the majority of the world open for GM creativity and development. But the system really expects that the GM is going to put his own creative touch on the setting, and Kevin Siembieda (owner of Palladium Books) has said as much countless times in many books.

I think if there are going to be world-building tools for D&D Next, that is great. But there should be significant support for a core setting (be it Greyhawk, FR, etc.) to help out fledgling DMs to at least give them a place to start and (more importantly) to show them what a well-developed setting looks like to spur their imagination.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Thanks for the Eberron examples that explicitly support DM crafting of the setting. That's starting to go in the direction I'm aiming for.

I think if there are going to be world-building tools for D&D Next, that is great. But there should be significant support for a core setting (be it Greyhawk, FR, etc.) to help out fledgling DMs to at least give them a place to start and (more importantly) to show them what a well-developed setting looks like to spur their imagination.

This is where I differ. Thrust of my OP is that there ought to be no Core setting whatsover in D&D Next. Instead, from the start, the default would be a make-your-own setting pieced together from the offered selection of 5e dungeons, various sample D&D deities, etc.

Just as the default world of 3e was Oerth, but of course many DMs used other published settings or homebrew settings, and just as the 4e default world is Nerath, but with many DMs using other published settings or homebrewing--Likewise, though many DMs will use a published setting, the default in 5e would be a nameless world that DMs are expected to name and piece together as they go. Just as 3e and 4e gave one name for the Core default world--"Oerth" and "Nerath"--so will 5e give a table of sample syllables or principles for naming, so that each DMs names their own. So the default 5e world will be named differently by each DM: "Noerth", "Naerth, "Yearth", "Erstara", "Athynis", "Urath", "Toras", "Ueril, "Abeith", "Yrd", etc.

Yet all D&D Worlds will continue to be supported. The less popular Worlds would only a dedicated page at the WotC website, containing for-fee PDFs of all materials ever released for that world (sourcebook, adventures, magazine adn web articles, novels, comic books, etc.), and perhaps an occasional Dragon magazine article. The more popular Worlds, such as Eberron, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk would have new 5e print products. But these would not be Core worlds. These would be cohesive Sourcebooks, but would be presented as Campaign Models to be kit-bashed.

Travis