D&D (2024) Twelve actions for an even fresher 6th edition, or for an ultra-basic retooling of 5e

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

Department 7

Okay, so going back to "World-Hopping as the Core Setting."

This does the same thing for the entire D&D Multiverse as the "gate" concept did for 3e Forgotten Realms.

Examples of non-D&D settings which are based on world-hopping:

• Sliders
• Quantum Leap
• Stargate
• Monte Cook's new meta-setting: The Strange.

Examples of world-hopping aspects in TSR/WotC books:

• Queen of the Demonweb Pits. All those demiplanes.
• Tangents sourcebook for the Alternity scifi RPG (AD&D2e-era) (There's a review here.)
• Chronomancer sourcebook for AD&D2e. Had three time-travel character classes (chronomancer, temporal champion, and temporal raider).
• Dimension X campaign model from d20 Future. Had "dimensional rangers" as a character class.
• Alternate World Gates from the BECMI D&D book, AC4: The Book of Marvellous Magic by Frank Mentzer. Had gates from Mystara to the AD&D World of Greyhawk, to Boot Hill, to Gangbusters, to Dawn Patrol (WWI biplane setting), Gamma World, and Star Frontiers. (I cut-and-pasted the description of those gates at the bottom of this page.)
• The Nexus from the TSR UK BECMI adventure CM6: Where Chaos Reigns. (PDF here.)
• The World Serpent Inn from 3e (PDF download here)
• Sigil, the City of Doors, is poised as a world-hopping nexus.

Here's what I imagine:

1) The 6E Core Book would have a little section where the DM designs a village, and names it. This would be the beginning of a 6E Worldbuilding tradition. 6E is both Worldbuilding and World-Hopping.
2) There is an introductory adventure which involves an incursion of monsters from another world.
3) At the end, the characters are introduced to a world-hopping equivalent of the Pathfinder Society. They meet a Dimensional Ranger.
4) This organization is none other than Department-7 from d20 Modern. Here's the description from the d20M SRD:

"Department-7 is a fictional elite organization that the heroes belong to that deals with situations threatening the modern world. Depending on the campaign, Department-7 might have federal authority, or it might be a state or local agency, or perhaps a private institution. In some campaigns, it might have an international scope thanks to ties to the United Nations or some global conglomerate. Department-7 might deal with homeland defense, law enforcement, espionage and intelligence, or counterterrorism. In some games, it might have a charter to investigate paranormal activity or alien incursions or dimensional displacement.

"It is our hope that other publishers will use Department-7 as an example in their products, thereby providing a common feel for the game."

Department-7 exists in all D&D Earth timelines (i.e. d20 Modern campaign models), and are behind the Dimensional Rangers. But in 6E, they have a presence in not only the "D&D Modern" timelines, but also in the medieval fantasy worlds. Perhaps the name is slightly different in non-modern worlds: something like "The 7th Society", or "Fellowship of the Seven". They have a base in Sigil.

4) The characters receive devices (kind of like the Wayfinder compass from Pathfinder) which enable them to hop to other worlds (subject to the DM's preparaton.) They are simply an in-game device for enabling the DM to introduce the players to any of the D&D Excursions, from all worlds and times.

5) From there, the PCs are set to visit any world and time (that the DM has prepared!). The Excursions assume the PCs have arrived from another world, but the book can of course be used just as well by single-world campaigns.

6) However, at the same time, the DM is encouraged to design their own world, beginning with that home village.

Though some have expressed reservations that basing the Core Setting on world-hopping is too different than the usual D&D campaign, I am firmly behind this. Nearly all of the editions have had a Core Setting: 1e s Greyhawk, BECMI's Known World of Mystara, Black Box D&D's Thunder Rift, 2e Forgotten Realms (it was explicitly stated that everything that is published for 2e exists in the FR), 3e's genericized Greyhawk, 4e's Nerath, 5e's Forgotten Realms (though localization notes for other worlds are beginning to appear in the APs).

Likewise, my 6E would have the ultimate core setting: World-Hopping + World-Building. But there'd also be a sentence in the Core book saying: "Though the World-Hopping theme is the Core Setting, of course, longtimer DMs will know how to use this book for their own campaign."

And each Excursion would have three options for using the adventure:

A) The default option: The PCs just arrived via another world, as agents of Department-7.
B) The DM is localizing the content to another published setting. That's what the Localization Appendix is for.
C) The DM is cutting-and-pasting the adventure and its locale into the DM's own homebrew world.

For business model reasons, Option A would be the default segway--so that more and more groups are used to adventuring across worlds (which means buying Excursions to various worlds!). Yet Option B and C would be explicitly supported in all Excursions. That's not so bad is it?

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

World-Building is also part of the Core Setting.

So I covered the World Hopping. That would be one-half of the Core Setting. But only half. The other half is World Building.

Just as the 4E default theme was "Points of Light", 6E's default theme would be "World Hopping + World Building"

In previous editions, the starting village was already named and mapped out (BECMI's Threshold, 3e's Oakhurst, 4e's Fallcrest). But in 6E, there'd be a page showing different village layouts, and the DM would be guided to choose one, or mix-and-match layouts, or draw their own from scratch. And each DM would name their own village! There could be a table of random syllables, like: Oak-, Fall-, Elm--+ -ton, -ville, -stead, -wick.

In 6E, when the characters come back to their home village after Excursions to other worlds, and when the DM is ready, the DM could begin to have the PCs explore the environs of their own homeworld. Of course, this homeworld could be one of the "Big Twelve" D&D Worlds (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc), but the default Core World would be the Un-Setting: a Make-your-own-World.

From the very start, the Core D&D rulebook would explictly say that it a tradition in 6E for each DM to not only visit other worlds, but also to make their own world, beginning with this simple village. Like Worldhopping, Worldbuilding is not *required*, but it is the expected default tradition.
Worldbuilding would simply be part of the game.

There would be clear steps for Worldbuilding, as clear as PHB's step for character generation.

One way to go about it is to start with an adventure-driven, gradual building of the setting. Once the DM gets around to considering what lies beyond the village, just place any adventure site (e.g. dungeon). And then another and another. Connect and place them on the map as you go--not ahead of time. Then make an overland map showing where those dungeons are...the "seven hexes" micro-campaign world. Place a town in the hexes. Then visit a city, then map the country, then map other countries, then map the continent, then map the world.

And each DM is encouraged to cut-and-paste entire countries from the various Excursions they own, and stitch them together, and rename them. That guidance is all in the Core D&D booklet.

What if a DM is set on using a single, published world?

The Core D&D book makes clear that each gaming group's campaign is a distinct parallel Multivese, in distinction from WotC's D&D Multiverse.

So even when the PCs visit a published world such as Forgotten Realms, its's a distinct parallel version of the one published by WotC. Each campaign is an alternate timeline of the published world. (Another way of looking at it is that the published world is the alternate timeline!)

And so every self-respecting DM or Gaming Group is guided to come up with their own name for their version of the published world, even it it simply be: "So-and-So's Forgotten Realms" or "Such-and-such Gaming Group's World of Greyhawk".

Advanced Worldbuilding

As I said, the Advanced D&D book would be a gigantic Ptolus-sized tome, and the DMs section would contain a Worldbuillding smorgasbord...a distillation of:

• All the stuff from the 2E-era World Builder's Guidebook
• The stuff from 3e's Stronghold Builders Guidebook.
• 3e's Cityscape urban worldbuilding sourcebook.
• The dominion-creation rules from the Companion boxed set from BECMI D&D.
• All the planet creation and solar system creation rules from Spelljammer
• The plane and cosmology creation from various editions' Manuals of the Planes.

In the Advanced D&D tome, there'd be explicit guidance and tables for "How to name a Campaign Setting", using published setting names as examples. The name could be chosen...or rolled randomly!

A table something like this:

First Name Element:

Colors: "grey", "black", "red", "blue", "golden", "silver" etc.

Other adjective, usually mysterious: "forgotten", "dark", "savage", "hollow", "known", "unknown", "mystery", "hidden", "secret"

Monster: "dragon", "ghost"


Second Name Element:

Animal: "hawk", "wolf", "eagle", etc.

Geographic: "realms", "moor", "coast", "world", "isles"

Celestial: "sun", "moon", "star", etc.

Arms and Armor: "steel", "lance", "knife" "sword", "axe", "helm", "shield" etc.

Other: "walk", "way", "guard", "watch"


And the planet name might be different than the Campaign Setting name (e.g. Toril vs. FR):

"Earth"-like names: Oerth, Uerth, Aerth, Yarth, Nerath

Other names: Toril, Abeir, Mystara, Aebrynis, Athas. There'd be a table of suggested syllables for combining to name a planet.


There'd be a section on how to design a logo, explaining how all the TSR/WotC D&D logos were designed.


In 6E, self-publishing is part of the game!

And to cap it off, part of the "game" would be for the DM or Gaming Group to eventually publish their homebrew world! That's exactly what the D&D Compatible license is for.

To that end, there'd be a passage in the DM's section about how to write an Excursion/Worldbook. There'd be a template showing what needs to be included, which is really modeled on the published Excursions. The goal is to help DMs and gaming groups publish their world in a format which approaches professional quality.

Self-publishing becomes part of the game! An "optional" part, of course, but an explicitly supported part.

In conclusion, 6E would satiate both crowds: those who love the existing published worlds (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk), and those who love to build their own. Both approaches would be fully supported through a unique synthesis of World-Hopping plus World Building.