What kinds of New Settings do you want?

[jonesy]

How about a "Hard Mode" setting? Or "Vibrate"?

Council of Wyrms.

 

[Kaodi]

The thing with elves is, I think, that logically they actually fit rather well into the position that indigenous peoples had during the early colonial period. They have extremely long lives, and because of this, they are easily pushed back by short lived and more prolifigate races. Also, because of those same long lives, they lend themselves well to representing ways of life that have basically stayed the same for thousands of years. At the same time, later in the colonial era it became rather common for there to be substantial groups that had mixed background. I do not know how exactly this played out in Mexico, but up here in Canada the Metis are well known and a major cultural group. Thus how I saw half-elves should absolutely have a prominent place in such a setting. Obvious elven and half-elven cultures in a Wild West setting should not be mere copies of real world ones, but I think that matching roles played in the setting lore is appropriate.

I could live without tieflings and dragonborn being common races in the new edition, but I expect that will be a vain hope. Thus, my suggestion that they would be better to have some relationship with the elves as mystically endowed "priest-class" races. That gives them a role in the setting that fits thematically, while keeping them rare. Keep in mind too, that the tropical regions adjoining the fantastic "Wild West" need not be a focus of setting details or gameplay, but I think there should at least be the feeling that they are out there.

Dwarves are obviously going to be the big time mining experts in such a setting, which is why I think they would work better as one of the invaders as opposed to one of the natives. If I were to establish a firm place for halflings as invaders as well, I think I would assign them the role of the pilgrim and missionary types who fled religious and racial persecution to establish themselves in a new land. And finally, gnomes as Inca was mostly based on what I was thinking of "Which of these races would be cool as people who live in high mountain cities like Macchu Picchu?" It would give them a bit of a distant quality as well. Alternatively, instead of giving the devas/aasimar some role in the elf/tiefling society, perhaps they are the ones who live high in the mountains, with gnomes making up sort of lost forest tribes.

 

[Kynn]

The thing with elves is, I think, that logically they actually fit rather well into the position that indigenous peoples had during the early colonial period.

There's something not quite right about making the native peoples into magical non-human creatures and only (some of) the Europeans are "real humans." This is at least part of the problem with your idea.

 

[Kaodi]

There's something not quite right about making the native peoples into magical non-human creatures and only (some of) the Europeans are "real humans." This is at least part of the problem with your idea.

A valid concern, but not one that can easily be reconciled with the tropes of D&D without getting rid of every race other than human entirely. This is why in one of my earlier posts as well that I mentioned that I would advise not using any of the traditionally non-PC races in such a setting (such as orcs, hobgoblins, and gnolls), to avoid metagame questions of whether it is alright to kill so and so out of hand because they are one of the "bad races" (because that would definitely NOT be appropriate, given the atrocious history of colonization).

I had hoped that these sort of concerns would be allayed somewhat as well by the fact that, as opposed to how colonizers thought of natives as worse than human, we usually think of elves in particular as better than human.

 

[Leatherhead]

You know all those ruins and ancient weapons of legend that are scattered about? I want to play in the setting where those haven't been made yet, or are just being constructed.

If not that, then something set in the pseudo 1920's. Just to get an old-timey feel without that over saturated "punk" stuff. It would be fun to play a bootlegger dwarf.

 

[patrick y.]

Of the previous suggestions given, I'd also like to see a black powder setting, and a "video game" setting, as I think there's a lot of potential in both.

I'd also like to see a setting that draws heavily on fairy tale sensibilities, if for no other reason than the art would be amazing.

 

[Elf Witch]

I would love a fantasy wild west type setting. With human, elves, dwarves with rules for some kind of gun like weapon.

I would also like an ancient world setting with the ancient gods. I have been working on a ancient Greek setting along the lines of Xena and Hercules meet DnD.

A dark age setting would also be interesting.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Wild West Harry Potter. "Go fer yer wand."

 

[GM Dave]

A valid concern, but not one that can easily be reconciled with the tropes of D&D without getting rid of every race other than human entirely. This is why in one of my earlier posts as well that I mentioned that I would advise not using any of the traditionally non-PC races in such a setting (such as orcs, hobgoblins, and gnolls), to avoid metagame questions of whether it is alright to kill so and so out of hand because they are one of the "bad races" (because that would definitely NOT be appropriate, given the atrocious history of colonization).

I had hoped that these sort of concerns would be allayed somewhat as well by the fact that, as opposed to how colonizers thought of natives as worse than human, we usually think of elves in particular as better than human.

I think it would be better as story material if the native races were the traditional Orcs, Gnolls, and Hobgoblin types.

This would encourage the view that might makes right which the settlers used to justify the problems they caused.

The players will then have to work against their prior instincts if they want to avoid massacres or see the truth in the word of massacre compared to their normal slaughter ways.

Killing 30 elves would be seen in a regular game as 'wrong' but what would the view be of killing 10 orcs in a wild west game?

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Another interesting period to re-skin with Fantasy might be WWI (or Napolenoics). Books like Levithan and Goliath have been working on doing Steampunk with this period. There have also been several Super Hero RPGs that have re-written this period of history and even a few horror/Vampire games that have used this perod.

 

[Sanglorian]

I do like the idea of redoing the Great Setting Search, though. And it would be healthy for the new game to encourage lots of people to homebrew settings. We'd see a lot of playtesting, discussion and that sort of thing.