D&D 5E What should an official Indian subcontinent inspired setting have?

[humble minion]

One of the more common criticism of D&D is that the PCs have very few attachments to society. i.e. The hobo part of being murder hoboes. But you're right, ignoring those institutions is certainly an option. It's the least interesting option in my opinion but it is an option.

There's plenty of ways to attach PCs to society that's don't require skeevy things like the caste system or droit de seigneur (which is also at least quasi-apocryphal...) being implemented in game settings. Hell, at session zero, simply require that PCs detail all the members of their family (no orphans!) and where they actually live. If this doesn't work, a bit of enforcement of the encumbrance rules can often do the job. So, Mr Str 8 Rogue - you want to go to an audience with the local petty noble. Do you have any family members or guildfellows or old school chums here that can obtain an introduction for you? No? Well, you're just going to have to dress to impress then. Do you have a set of decent boots? Other than the ones you've been wearing while wading through the Deathsewers of Glop the Slimelord? How are you carrying them? In your bag of holding next to the collection of drippy monster bits that you're planning to sell to the alchemist in the next town, huh? I wonder what they smell like now. How are you keeping your court clothes clean? There's no ziplock plastic bags in Faerun, you know. Are you even CARRYING a hairbrush, or a razor, or soap? Go to a barber? He's not going to even let you in the door looking like that. Oh, BUY a new set of clothes? Well, again, you'll have to convince a reputable tailor to let you through his door, but first, how do you know who the respectable court tailors ARE in this city? And are you aware of the significance that wearing certain colours has with respect to local politics? No? Well, you're just going to have to take your chances and hope you don't wear violently revolutionary anti-aristocrat colors by mistake. Jeez, it's be nice if you actually knew someone trustworthy here you could ask...


Though of course quite often game settings are deliberately designed with weak, loose 'society' simply because that means there's more lawless bits, wilderness, bandits, abandoned settlements etc for PCs to interact with (and because paying taxes in-game is no fun!) But arguing that PCs need institutions like sati or nostril-slitting or enclosure-driven starvation in-game to actually bind them to a society is a bit of a false dichotomy. Hell, these are things that in fact might drive people to WANT to abandon society! There's piles of other social practises that can do the job of reducing the incentive to murderhobo without wallowing in the worst injustices of human history.

 

[humble minion]

You should look up warhammer frgp.

It's been a long time and I'm a couple of editions behind, but I mostly remember WHFRP PCs being perennially poor and easily killable (except the peasantry in Brettonia, whose lives sucked in every way possible). The impact of prevailing social customs etc on PCs isn't something that can easily be rules-encoded in any system, after all. It's something that DMs have to work on making relevant at their individual tables. And hell, some DMs and groups just don't enjoy that kind of thing, and that's ok too.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The marketing advices to be ideologically neutral about certain threads. And players would rather freedom to do things in a fantasy world in the real middle age wouldn't be allowed. Slavery is totally wrong, but if in D&D there was a module about to rescue slaves in a mine (it was with the DM screen in AD&D ed, I bought it) in Pathfinder has become a taboo by Paizo.

I don't like the caste system in the real India, where the dalit are as "ex-convicts", the lowest class because theorically they were criminals in their previous life, and even help them in the name of the mercy is tagged as "wrong for the karma".

* Why not a contest by Asian players to publish their homebred ideas?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Well, you're just going to have to dress to impress then. Do you have a set of decent boots? Other than the ones you've been wearing while wading through the Deathsewers of Glop the Slimelord? How are you carrying them? In your bag of holding next to the collection of drippy monster bits that you're planning to sell to the alchemist in the next town, huh? I wonder what they smell like now. How are you keeping your court clothes clean? There's no ziplock plastic bags in Faerun, you know. Are you even CARRYING a hairbrush, or a razor, or soap? Go to a barber? He's not going to even let you in the door looking like that. Oh, BUY a new set of clothes?

There are cantrips for all that.

 

[humble minion]

There are cantrips for all that.

Do you know all of them?

 

[MGibster]

here's plenty of ways to attach PCs to society that's don't require skeevy things like the caste system or droit de seigneur (which is also at least quasi-apocryphal...) being implemented in game settings. Hell, at session zero, simply require that PCs detail all the members of their family (no orphans!) and where they actually live.

For the most part, I've found settings in D&D to be one of the weakest and least interesting parts of the game. Even settings I really like, such as Ravenloft, feel like theme parks to me rather than an actual living breathing world. Or perhaps renaissance fair might be a better descriptor? I would love to see the negative side of feudalism in D&D settings including the treatment of peasants, struggles between nobles vying for power, or perhaps a little strife brought on by disagreements over religious issues? Don't get me wrong, I don't want the grim dark aesthetic to permeate D&D. But I don't really feel as though D&D has ever been a game that was very good at getting players to engage with the setting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

WotC worries about to sell crunch, but you are totally free to create a mash-up version with a grimmdark touch, only using names the rest of players know. Also you can drink other sources, for example Exalted and Dread-Lands by Onyx-Path.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

This is probably been posted elsewhere on this thread, but maybe we should all just read Ajit George's article on how he built some Ravenloft domains, partly inspired by India. It's a great case study for any cultural adaptation, but is especially relevant to this thread.

Ajit George: The Beautiful Challenge of Bringing India to D&D’s Ravenloft

Writing for Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft was one of the most exhilarating and daunting game writing experiences of my life. I am the first writer of Indian origin to write Indian-inspired mater…

terribleminds.com

 

[MGibster]

WotC worries about to sell crunch, but you are totally free to create a mash-up version with a grimmdark touch, only using names the rest of players know. Also you can drink other sources, for example Exalted and Dread-Lands by Onyx-Path.

Not counting generic games like GURPS or Savage Worlds, D&D is unique for me because it's the only RPG I purchase without regards to a specific setting. Partly because after decades of gaming D&D just comes natural, but also because I tend to view D&D itself as kind of its own setting. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and even Eberron are all essentially the same to me. At least they all play the same to me.

 

[Ancalagon]

It's been a long time and I'm a couple of editions behind, but I mostly remember WHFRP PCs being perennially poor and easily killable (except the peasantry in Brettonia, whose lives sucked in every way possible). The impact of prevailing social customs etc on PCs isn't something that can easily be rules-encoded in any system, after all. It's something that DMs have to work on making relevant at their individual tables. And hell, some DMs and groups just don't enjoy that kind of thing, and that's ok too.

What I mean is that this was a setting with profound social inequality and exploitation. You had said "The vast majority of western-influenced D&D settings blithely ignore the institutions of serfdom, pogroms, class immobility, feudal obligations, indentured servitude, child marriage etc."

I'm not sure that "vast majority" is quite accurate, although I'll concede that warhammer is not D&D