D&D 5E What would you want for a *new* 5E campaign world?

[Ryujin]

Because information technology is poor to non-existing in most fantasy settings and people would only know the direct surroundings of their village, the road to the city and stories bards tell them which are more often fabrications than the truth.
That such people have no clue about the world apart from what they deal directly with makes sense.

Which makes me think that a setting in which news travels quickly might be interesting. Perhaps cities are built around ancient artifacts, that transit visual and audible messages in real-time? OK, so it's "trope world", but it's also something that could radically alter the structure of a medieval society enough to make it an interesting D&D setting.

It also doesn't preclude the presence of Bards as 'infotainment.' After all, if our society can support the presence of Fox News and MSNBC, then there's no reason why Bards couldn't also slant the news to fit their audiences.

Considering the experience WotC had with "something totally new" (Eberron and 4E) I don't think that will happen.

I kind of saw Eberron as a "How can we possibly justify having literally everything in the books, in one world?" world, rather than "something totally new."

 

[Derren]

I kind of saw Eberron as a "How can we possibly justify having literally everything in the books, in one world?" world, rather than "something totally new."

Thats already done by the FR.

 

[Ryujin]

Thats already done by the FR.

And so doubly unoriginal.

 

[Lwaxy]

Considering the experience WotC had with "something totally new" (Eberron and 4E) I don't think that will happen.

Eberron was a success as far as I am concerned, all my players love it and two of them would be fine never to play anywhere else anymore


Also there is a difference between making a new game that does not fit in at all with what they did before and just a setting. A setting is take it or leave it. The game not so much if you don't have the old materials.

I mainly would want some original races, a logical environment for them and a world less fixated on medieval Europe.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

going back to the old folklore and starting over can work. For example, I'm not using goblins or kobolds in my newest campaign world. instead I'm using "Knockers" which live in the dark corners of cellars, in mines and caves and other secret places. If present in small numbers, they can be propitiated with milk and bread or honey, but when larger numbers come, or they feel threatened, these shadowy forms, which can slip anywhere the moment your back is turned, will turn nasty. Traps, throttling, "accidents" and such are their modus operandi. The most you ever see of them is a gleam of an eye, a claw, or a footprint, a tapping sound in the dark, etc...

You could walk through a whole dungeon and never see one, never lay hand on one, but they could cause the deaths of a dozen PCs...

Then again, I play E6 DnD, and am about to try running a campaign of DungeonWorld. Full out mega-dnd might not work with these critters. We'll see what happens...

Yeah, that sounds cool, I can't wait! (although my character, yet to be born, curses you). I think taking that sort of game onward into higher levels would require projecting the central ideas of "bad things lurking in dark corners" and elaborate on it. Maybe the 4e Banderhobbs would make a pretty good basis, though there are also earlier sorts of monsters. Eventually you could graduate to demons, ghosts, undead, etc. A Vampire would work well in that milieu I would think. So would sneaky demons that possess people. Maybe obscure figures. Rakshasa or secretive hags that make deals to buy souls. There could be mysterious and obscure practices, and weird little things. Steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes and use them to have some sort of vision, etc. A kinda creepy symbolic magic. You could do it.

 

[Gilladian]

That sounds really cool. Pennies from a dead man as fuel for a scrying ritual! I'm stealing that!

 

[Oligopsony]

One of the design goals for Eberron was indeed "everything that has a place in D&D has a place here." But Eberron also has a lot of distinctive elements beyond that, from the organizing fact of the political situation to the light magitech to the mechanical changes to allow for greater moral ambiguity and so on. I think Eberron stands out as well as Planescape or Dark Sun for having a fairly clear idea of what it's trying to do thematically. (Indeed, Planescape is also "everything in the Monster Manual," but you can't accuse it of being unoriginal.)

Settings like Golarion and the Forgotten Realms are, in their own way, no less tightly designed. Golarion in particular has a very clear idea of what it's doing. But you wouldn't really need Golarion for that if you had the Forgotten Realms IP.

 

[Lwaxy]

For me the advantage of Golarion is just that i don't know it as well, yet, as FR

 

[NewJeffCT]

One of the design goals for Eberron was indeed "everything that has a place in D&D has a place here." But Eberron also has a lot of distinctive elements beyond that, from the organizing fact of the political situation to the light magitech to the mechanical changes to allow for greater moral ambiguity and so on. I think Eberron stands out as well as Planescape or Dark Sun for having a fairly clear idea of what it's trying to do thematically. (Indeed, Planescape is also "everything in the Monster Manual," but you can't accuse it of being unoriginal.)

Settings like Golarion and the Forgotten Realms are, in their own way, no less tightly designed. Golarion in particular has a very clear idea of what it's doing. But you wouldn't really need Golarion for that if you had the Forgotten Realms IP.

I like Golarion overall, but what do you mean it has a "very clear idea of what it's doing"? I think it's kind of a generic world where you can plug in many published D&D adventures without a lot of work, other than maybe the gods. (You can say the same for Greyhawk, Kalamar and a few others as well...)

 

[Oligopsony]

I like Golarion overall, but what do you mean it has a "very clear idea of what it's doing"? I think it's kind of a generic world where you can plug in many published D&D adventures without a lot of work, other than maybe the gods. (You can say the same for Greyhawk, Kalamar and a few others as well...)

Precisely so. Also, the other utility for Paizo is that it owns the IP. Had it owned FR or Greyhawk, there wouldn't be a great deal of point in creating another.