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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 4487284" data-attributes="member: 48692">I'm talking specifically about my own version of the D&D world, as a worldbuilder, writer and potential DM.  If you don't want elves in your games, that's fine-there's plenty of stuff I don't consider to be D&D as a worldbuilder, but that I'll cheerfully accept if I'm playing in another DM's setting.   That said, I don't consider-in my version of Oerth, at least-the Oriental part of the world to be really any different in many ways as the Occidental one.  The same Vancian magic system functions as it always does, magical items can be created, the level of technology is frozen in stasis, etc.  Humans are spread around the world, as are many of the other races, although they all have specific traits that are reflected no matter where they go.   Humans are the jack-of-all-trades who are good at everything but excellent at nothing.  Their drive and initiative make up for their short lifespans, and in this the Oriental humans are no different from their Occidental counterparts.   Dwarves are the master smiths and craftsmen, halflings have an intimate connection with the land, gnomes the master engineers, elves the most knowledgeable in magic.   None of this means that the Orient won't have its very distinct cultures, albeit modified somewhat to suit the needs of the game-after all, there were no adventuring bands of mixed races and social classes in Europe, either-and certainly it doesn't preclude such things as players replicating the story of the Forty-Seven Samurai, any Akira Kurosawa film you could name, fighting against or alongside the Mongol hordes under Ghengis Khan and his successors, or any other Oriental myth you might care to name.   In real-life historical Europe, for example, you would never, ever see magic-users and priests working together.  The priests would do their best to burn the witch/warlock/wizard at the stake for heresy, and it's highly unlikely they would be at all friendly with any sentient, nonhuman beings that happened to come around.  And yet these historic traits are overlooked in favor of one that's easier to game in.   I'm not so much interested in creating an "alternate" setting as I am in expanding the traditional D&D model to the rest of the world.  We've seen what Europe looks like through the lens of D&D tropes-how would, say, the Iroquois Confederacy or the Aztec Empire get along with elves or halflings?  How would the Empire of Mali, or the Kingdom of Burundi, be affected by the presence of dwarves or gnomes who could teach them more advanced forms of metalworking?  How would they be changed with the presence of sentient nonhumans and magic with tangible, visible  effects?   We could just as easily be having this discussion in relation to the Americas, Africa, or the Middle East.  And, again, all this is my personal view on things, and one I'd quite willingly set aside if I was playing in someone else's game.  I'm coming at this thread from the angle of a worldbuilder, and what I view as the ideal world.  To me, that ideal world includes orcs and elves spread worldwide, even as they're going to modify and be modified by the humans that are their neighbors.</blockquote>

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