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

[GreyICE]

A co-create or make it up as you go is not a game that I would play in. If the DM can't be bothered to create a map, create deities, create cultures for the setting, etc., I can't be bothered to take part in the game that they are running.

Cool. If a player truly of the mind that the DM should be the C in CRPG and make the world for them to mess around in, I don't really want them in my game. They're not going to make their own plot hooks, they're not going to creatively interact with the world, and they will not help me build a world that both me and the players enjoy.

So this works out perfectly.

 

[tlantl]

A co-create or make it up as you go is not a game that I would play in. If the DM can't be bothered to create a map, create deities, create cultures for the setting, etc., I can't be bothered to take part in the game that they are running.

Maybe this is why there are things called game settings, forgotten realms, eberron, etc.



I like to give the player the option of coming from anywhere to find their fortune. Some choose to be local some from some city far from the place they are now, unless they want it to.

Having a home world that isn't well known means I have total control of the setting. No one telling me the history of the place because it says it in some book I didn't write.

If a player needs a back story they can invent one if they want. I don't require or expect one since their past has little to do with the here and now.

If a player wants to be an escaped prisoner, slave, or wanted criminal from another kingdom sure I'm good with that, but they'd better be ready to get caught, or make some powerful friends before the pursuit catches up.

If a paladin or other cavalier type needs a powerful family then they have one. they need to remember there are other powerful families too.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't really think that's the argument people are making.
A: some people don't have the time, fair enough, people have jobs, lives, children, ect... that take away from when you could sit down and create your world.
B: some people don't have the creativity/skill. Fair enough, not everyone can be a painter nor everyone a mechanic. For some people, building a world from scratch of kitbashing is just beyond their realm of competence.
C: Some of those adventure settings are just durn good! I may not particularly like a vast majority of them, but that doesn't mean others feel the same.

I don't think the books should explicitly say: "You're not doing it right if you don't build you own setting!" I don't think the books should tell me how to run my games at all except for perhaps some general guidelines on how to create plot-hooks, challenge my players and have fun. If the books want to ENCOURAGE people to build their own worlds, that's great! But the default assumption shouldn't be that a DM must build their own worlds.

Actually in some ways it takes less time to make your own world - especially if you go for a grass roots, make-it-as-you-need it style. Any purchased setting has more detail in it than you would produce yourself, and is more time consuming to get familiar with!

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

Make up your own setting is easy for experienced players and GMs, but very difficult for beginners. And it's a lot easier for experts to ignore optional content than for beginners not having that optional content.

I disagree. Back with OD&D everyone was beginners, everyone made up their own worlds and it was great fun!

Some people did their worlds top-down, others did them bottom-up, others grew organically as needed by the campaign. It is actually ridiculously easy to do.

Cheers

 

[Greg K]

While co-creation is a more radical concept, "making it up as you go" is the method that Gygax and Arneson used to make Greyhawk and Blackmoor.

That is fine for them. The setting is what interests me. I am not saying the DM needs to have every single detail planned.

1. Map: Countries, forests, mountains, major cities and towns, etc.
2. Deities: Their spheres/domains. Tenets and vestments for the clergy, tailored spell lists. Are there animosities and, if so, how does they play out among the priesthoods?
3. PC Races
4. Cultural information. General information on the culture For example:
a. Subsistence: Are they hunter/gatherers? horticulturalists? agrictulturalists?
b. What are the religious practices? Ancestral worship led by Shamans? Demon worshipers? Are they led by Druids trying to preserve the "Old Way" against a new religion? Do they worship a pantheon of deities? etc. Do they practice ritual sacrifice?
c. What is the political organization (e.g., band level? tribal? plurocracy? mageocracy? matriarch?)
d. What is the economy (e..g, barter? market? mixed?)
e. What is the technology? Is it stone age? bronze age, iron age? How does this affect the starting armor and weapons?
f. body adornment practices, naming conventions.
g. What are the views on law and punishments? Are there unusual practices (e.g, shunning, banishment)? Do they practice more draconian measures (e.g, cutting on limbs and taking out eyes)? Rolemaster Standard System type cultural information. Common classes, class variants, common themes, prohibited starting classes
RMSS notes on cultures are a good example
h. how do they view other races or cultures? Are there racial or cultural animosities?

5. Who are the key NPCs and organizations that players starting in a culture would have heard of or might know.: Who are the key people and organiztions? Who rules the country or culture? What are the key organizations (churches, bard academies, druidic council, wizard academies, thieves guilds, etc.) Who are notable NPCs (Head priests for each church, Captain of the guard? Just names and

6. Any important things in current history? Is the King off leading the army in a holy war? Has someone usurped the throne? Is the ruler having young females abducted for sacrifices or for unknown reasons? Did one country invade another country? Did a dragon recently, drive out dwarves from their ancestral caverns?

7. `Some interesting locations: dungeons, ruins, creatures of note.

I am not saying the DM needs to hand their players dozens of pages in full details, but these are the things that help ground characters in the setting, and give the players potential hooks (should they choose them)- especially, when broken up and headed out as necessary.
1. A page or two giving a few sentence about the following: summary of the setting, an over view about each individual PC races and culturals; and an overview of the deities in the campaign
2. Another page or two of more detailed information for each specific culture and given out to a player interested in having their character being a member of that specific race/culture.
3. Another two pages or less of specific information/notes relative to a given choosing a specific class or organization given to the player (if needed). Player wants to be a cleric or paladin of a specific deity, you hand them the specific informaiton.

 

[Yora]

I disagree. Back with OD&D everyone was beginners, everyone made up their own worlds and it was great fun!

Some people did their worlds top-down, others did them bottom-up, others grew organically as needed by the campaign. It is actually ridiculously easy to do.

Cheers

When you have no choice, you need to make do with what you have. But 40 years later, there is a choice and I don't see any reason why the designers should make it harder on new DMs than it needs to be.

 

[Sunseeker]

Actually in some ways it takes less time to make your own world - especially if you go for a grass roots, make-it-as-you-need it style. Any purchased setting has more detail in it than you would produce yourself, and is more time consuming to get familiar with!

Cheers

For me I don't develop worlds that way, I like to make the general framework of the world ahead of time. Making it up as I go tends to really make the game feel like I'm making it up as I go.

 

[Greg K]

Cool. If a player truly of the mind that the DM should be the C in CRPG and make the world for them to mess around in, I don't really want them in my game. They're not going to make their own plot hooks, they're not going to creatively interact with the world, and they will not help me build a world that both me and the players enjoy.

So this works out perfectly.

It is not about being the computer. It is coming up with a setting and helping the players ground their characters in the setting when they come up with their characters and their backgrounds and plot hooks so they fit in the with the setting. For example in one of my campaigns, I had a two page handout with an overview of each culture and additional one to two page handouts for each each culture that contained more detailed information to hand out when a player took an interest in a culture :

1. Player chose to be a knight from a country where noble houses try to increase their power, prestige, and holdings through various means. One of the players came up with a whole background about being the lone survivor of a border patrol that had been ambushed. The ambush was orchestrated by a rival interested in taking over his character's House and marrying his fiance to merge their houses.

2. Two players decided to come from a land of northern barbarians. One of the bits of history was that powerful mages had attacked the Druidic council and nearly wiped them out as punishment for advising the chieftain not to support the Wizards Guild. The mages had also taken the chieftain's daughter.

One of the players chose to be a young druid that survived the attack. The player noted that the druid's were religious leaders, teachers, and ambassadors. He grabbed on to the ambassador role and requested to be an envoy to the mages and negotiate the release of the chieftain's daughter (the player decided that his mentor, also survived, but needed to say among the people) This would be his first "major" test as a druid.
The second player set his character's goal as becoming a powerful warrior, becoming the new chieftain, and marrying the, current, chieftain's daughter. He volunteered to be the druid's bodyguard.

The players worked out this whole relationship between the two characters where the warrior was impetuous and the smaller druid would either slap him upside the head or smack him upside the head whenever the warrior did something outside "wrong" and need to be "educated". The idea of "physical" punishment was to reinforce the notion that warriors were supposed to be tough and the druid's role as both teacher and someone that the barbarian was to respect (nobody else could strike the warrior and have it go unchallenged)..

3. A third player chose to be a Paladin raised in a temple of one of the deity's. The deities, their tenets, relationships between deities and major NPCs for his character's temple (each was only a name with a sentence or two description) were established. He came up with this whole thing using them and a missing PC from a previous campaign to establish his background.

4. A fourth player chose to play a rogue from an island ruled by a wizard's guild. He gave himself a whole background about wanting to escape the island, but lacking the funds. He also decided that if the character could ever "stick it" to the wizards ruling the island, he would do so. He blamed them for his poverty, because those without magic were treated as third class citizens. He joined the party to screw the wizards and then took refuge with the party when they escaped the island

Everything from the moment that the characters arrived on the island was driven by the players, their characters' backgrounds and goals, their choices, their actions. We also got more interplay between characters when differences in cultural and/or organizational beliefs came into conflict.

 

[GreyICE]

So the players can't do this without you there to hold their hands and give them little pointers? They need a DM to tell them that there's a tribe of northern barbarians? The DM has to tell the player that there's an island ruled by a wizard that the player could escape from?

See, I don't have a problem with the players telling ME that there's an island that is ruled by a powerful wizard's guild that they escaped from. I don't have a problem with the players telling ME about the tribe of northern barbarians.

The DM cannot create a complete world in one sitting, and as you noted, attempts to do this result in the '15 page handout that no one reads.' At the end of the day it is easier and saner to have the players tell the DM what the background of their character is, and have those elements incorporated into the world. It also makes for a MUCH more interesting story.

If you come up to me and say 'well I want to play a Barbarian, what Barbarians are there?' and I say 'I don't know, you tell me what Barbarian tribes are around, or where your Barbarian came from' then that's the player's cue to go make up a cool Barbarian tribe. And if his friend is a druid, then that interaction could be made easily. But I don't need to get involved, I don't need to sketch out backgrounds for every single class and race on the offchance a player might take one, which is a hell of a lot of wasted work (why sketch out four cool origins for a Dragonborn character if... no one makes a Dragonborn? Wasted effort ho).

 

[Zaukrie]

So, Dms that have families and other things they like to do, and don't want to build a world shouldn't be allowed to run a game for friends? This should be REQUIRED? I'm baffled that you think this is really a good way to sell a product to new users.