D&D 5E What is your definition of a Vanilla setting

[Ruin Explorer]

Nah. This is bunk. The gods are quite different from baseline D&D, as is the cosmology in general. A symmetrical pantheon of balance, where an evil god dying means a good god has to retire/disappear because balance is the paramount priority of the gods as a whole, is not normal. It’s outright strange.

ROFL.

This is like a perfect encapsulation of why it is Vanilla, because the things you're talking about and calling "outright strange" are completely Vanilla stuff. There's no "baseline D&D" pantheon, so that's nonsense. And the rest of it? It's a slight deviation from a totally standard Vanilla model - still matches perfectly with what I said:

Religion-wise it absolutely must have a totally naughty word ridiculous pantheon that makes ZERO sense which is really loosely conceptually inspired by bad misunderstandings of pre-Christian European paganism meeting designer power-fantasies

It's absolutely that kind of pantheon

You very clearly had a conclusion and went searching for reasoning to get to it, here. Probably not gonna engage with you further on the topic.

And yet you did. I could say the same about what you were saying. It's a pointless thing to say. It's not true either.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This also picks up a lot of other FRPGing eg default Rolemaster, Pendragon and Prince Valiant, I think WHFRP (I know it by reputation, but I think it fits this).

Depending exactly how you conceive of "heroic adventurers" this might leave some of those other systems behind.

And this starts to get a bit more distinctive to D&D. Although it depends a bit how you squint when you look at it; a certain approach to this sort of ridiculous pantheon can yield something closer to REH's Conan stories.

I associate this mostly with FR, but maybe that's unfair on my part? Anyway it made me laugh (likewise your swipe at St Cuthbert of the Cudgel).

I dunno about Prince Valiant, does that have a pantheon? I think having a really dumb pantheon is a big part of being Vanilla. I always assumed Prince Valiant was set in a Christianised setting.

Pendragon definitely not because it is post-Christian and has multiple separate religions and there's no "dumb pantheon". Religions are actually treated with a degree of respect.

Rolemaster? Probably yeah. Certainly some other TT RPGs are going to have settings that are D&D-vanilla, given how profoundly inspirational D&D was. Some novels do too, largely post-D&D ones, like Paksenarrion, who lives in a very Vanilla D&D-type setting (it's little edgier, but only a little).

WHFRP I think is too far off tonally to actually count. It definitely doesn't expect "heroic adventurers". Also the whole Chaos thing being huge is, for me, enough of a deviation. There's an obsession with seeking out and destroying Chaos corruption and stuff that just doesn't fit with Vanilla approaches.

Many but not all OSR and D&D-spin-off games have Vanilla settings too ofc.

FR's pantheon is particularly spectacularly ludicrous, for sure. And the cosmology associated with it, if you're familiar with it, is about as "deviant" as that of DL (i.e. "superficially"), what with all the godswars and the Wall of the Faithless and all that nonsense. It's still super-Vanilla though because you're still worshipping this irrational pile of Greco-Roman-style personified gods (plus assorted demons etc.).

 

[Maxperson]

I missed this before.

Nah. This is bunk. The gods are quite different from baseline D&D, as is the cosmology in general. A symmetrical pantheon of balance, where an evil god dying means a good god has to retire/disappear because balance is the paramount priority of the gods as a whole, is not normal. It’s outright strange.

I don't agree with that. Balance has been a huge point with the default D&D game since Basic/1e. Dragonlance just gave a little variation on the point with its pantheon. Not enough to move it from vanilla to something else.

Your dismissal of other elements (what does whatever hang up you have with Kender have to do with whether or not they’re vanilla!?) is just as silly, really. You provide nothing to support the dismissal, you just declare it. Well, my reply is, you’re wrong.

Kender are just fearless halflings with kleptomania. Just another halfling subrace basically. They're vanilla.

To be non-vanilla, you need a major shift of some kind. Ravenloft, Birthright, and Dark Sun are examples of non-vanilla settings. I think there's a good argument that Spelljammer is also non-vanilla as it changed the prime planes into crystal spheres and added the phlogiston to connect them all together. That's a pretty major change in the way the default D&D multiverse worked.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't agree with that. Balance has been a huge point with the default D&D game since Basic/1e. Dragonlance just gave a little variation on the point with its pantheon. Not enough to move it from vanilla to something else.

Kender are just fearless halflings with kleptomania. Just another halfling subrace basically. They're vanilla.

To be non-vanilla, you need a major shift of some kind. Ravenloft, Birthright, and Dark Sun are examples of non-vanilla settings. I think there's a good argument that Spelljammer is also non-vanilla as it changed the prime planes into crystal spheres and added the phlogiston to connect them all together. That's a pretty major change in the way the default D&D multiverse worked.

Yeah, no to pretty much all of that.

You’re just seeking out any excuse to call a setting vanilla, except the ones that don’t feel vanilla to you.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, no to pretty much all of that.

You’re just seeking out any excuse to call a setting vanilla, except the ones that don’t feel vanilla to you.

No I'm not. I've laid out exact reasons for what is vanilla and what is not. Minor changes can't make a vanilla setting into something else. Major changes do. Nothing in Dragonlance is a major change to default.

 

[Parmandur]

At the very start of Chapter 1, the 5E DMG spells out five core assumptions of base D&D (before discussing how you might shift those assumptions in your own game):

• Gods oversee the world
• Much of the world is untamed
• The world is ancient
• Conflict shapes the world's history
• The world is magical

Drawing from these, and the "Flavors of Fantasy" section on page 38 which defines the Heroic Fantasy genre as "the baseline assumed by the D&D rules," both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms fulfil the role of being "vanilla" baseline Settings per the rulebooks. Dragonlance deviates from the Heroic Fantasy norm, going with Epic Fantasy assumptions instead, though it fits the five basic assumptions pretty well.

 

[Minigiant]

I would say the most vanilla setting is Points of Light. It encapsulates the core requirements of a D&D setting built for traditional adventuring: (1) vast unknown wildernesses, (2) post apocalyptic, and (3) weak modern civilization. Those three elements give the PCs (1) lots of places to adventure, (2) lots of stuff to find, and (3) the ability to influence and change the game world. The fact that there's basically nothing else in the setting by design to leave it open for DMs as a blank canvas is exactly what makes it the most vanilla. Some people will mix in chocolate chips, some people will mix in fruit and berries, and some people will mix in mint.

I'd say Points of Light is Vanilla if you don't start in a bordertown. It's just a smidge to dangerous but it hits all the "points" of vanilla.

The 4E Points of Light setting was pretty much designed to run Heroic Fantasy with a high sense of Player Agency and DM Freedom. It is exciting enough to allow for all the D&D tropes but bland enough to be flavored in any direction.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd say Points of Light is Vanilla if you don't start in a bordertown. It's just a smidge to dangerous but it hits all the "points" of vanilla.

The 4E Points of Light setting was pretty much designed to run Heroic Fantasy with a high sense of Player Agency and DM Freedom. It is exciting enough to allow for all the D&D tropes but bland enough to be flavored in any direction.

It’s hard for me to classify a setting with common fantastical races living and trading together as vanilla, tbh.

 

[Minigiant]

At the very start of Chapter 1, the 5E DMG spells out five core assumptions of base D&D (before discussing how you might shift those assumptions in your own game):

• Gods oversee the world
• Much of the world is untamed
• The world is ancient
• Conflict shapes the world's history
• The world is magical

Drawing from these, and the "Flavors of Fantasy" section on page 38 which defines the Heroic Fantasy genre as "the baseline assumed by the D&D rules," both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms fulfil the role of being "vanilla" baseline Settings per the rulebooks. Dragonlance deviates from the Heroic Fantasy norm, going with Epic Fantasy assumptions instead, though it fits the five basic assumptions pretty well.

One could argue that Much of the world you campaign in on the FR is not untamed as there are intelligent societies of humanoids all over.

One could argue that Much of the world you campaign in on Greyhawk isn't magical as its mostly concentrated into a few people and places.

It’s hard for me to classify a setting with common fantastical races living and trading together as vanilla, tbh.

It's not vanilla fantasy.
That's vanilla D&D.

That's the disconnect. D&D hasn't been a generic fantasy game ever. It's is own set of weirdness that creates a default within it's own subcategory.

 

[Parmandur]

One could argue that Much of the world you campaign in on the FR is not untamed as there are intelligent societies of humanoids all over.

One could argue that Much of the world you campaign in on Greyhawk isn't magical as its mostly concentrated into a few people and places.



It's not vanilla fantasy.
That's vanilla D&D.

That's the disconnect. D&D hasn't been a generic fantasy game ever. It's is own set of weirdness that creates a default within it's own subcategory.

The main relevant area of the FR, for D&D product purposes, is the Sword Coast: if you look carefully at the map, and do the math, most of the territory is dangerous wilderness chock full of random encounters (as seen in the Adventure books). The "safe" or "civilized" areas are the exception, not the rule.

Greyhawk's magical distribution matches the core rulebooks, which is what matters for the question at hand. The DMG discusses lower and higher magic Settings, but Greyhawk is not low magic.

Vanilla isn't a bland lack of flavor: indeed, vanilla is one of the most expensive spices in the world, desired precisely for a rich and intense flavor. "Vanilla Fantasy" in the context of this thread means "Dungeons & Dragons Default Assumptions Fantasy."