D&D 5E (2014) What would you want for a *new* 5E campaign world?

[Mishihari Lord]

Setting: a gas giant with a breathable air in a certain altitude range. Archipelagos of countless floating islands drift with the winds, ranging from tiny to the size of Greenland. Flying ships ply the skies, trading, exploring, and warring.

Culture: Earthsea meets Pirates of the Caribbean. There are literally millions of islands, so there's also plenty of room to put in other cultures and room off the edges of the map to put in empires on archipelagos other than the one the PCs are in. If a DM wants bog-standard fantasy, just ignore the fantastic elements of the setting by putting all of the action on one large, isolated island.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I wasn't actually saying I wouldn't run a "young world" - more pulling AbdulAlhazred's leg (he IS my older brother, and introduced me to DnD lo these many decades ago...). I think that a young world would work if the PCs were interested in being "larger than life" and were able to actively compile their mythology together; if, when the orc and the dwarf became allies fighting off the very first ghoul hordes, they knew that they were forever shaping how the future would be... and when the elf PC sneered at them, and refused to assist them because he's immune to the touch of a ghoul, it forever colored their racial relationships.

THAT would be fun, but I'm not sure standard DnD would handle it very well. It would take a pretty good DM, and a group willing to discuss metaplot as well as play the game at hand.

Hehe.

I think there are of course certain things that would go with the Young World trope, but that's the idea. We HAVE generic fantasy. I couldn't even begin to touch WoG or FR in terms of depth of material or detail, so if you want generic fantasy IMHO those are the products for you. If there are elements of them you don't like, or you have tired of whatever meta-plot they offer, just edit that stuff out. Golarion, Midgaard, Mystara, etc etc etc etc offer more options that are all minor variations on the same theme.

The Young World would simply offer a whole different sort of game, which is the only point of a new setting. Nor is it IMHO as limited as you might think. Its a new world, but that doesn't mean there has NEVER been anything going before. Remember "Land of the Lost"? The Sleestak, the pyramids, etc, there was plenty of "dungeon" sort of stuff going on there. You can do all sorts of things. OTOH you can do things that no other setting can do. You'll probably never have urban adventure or court intrigue show up in such a setting (unless it happens on some other plane of existence or something) but you could certainly work in most traditional adventure module type setups in some form or other, just with a bit different fluff and some creative twists. At least the players might feel like they weren't just recapitulating the game they played in 1980!!!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Setting: a gas giant with a breathable air in a certain altitude range. Archipelagos of countless floating islands drift with the winds, ranging from tiny to the size of Greenland. Flying ships ply the skies, trading, exploring, and warring.

Culture: Earthsea meets Pirates of the Caribbean. There are literally millions of islands, so there's also plenty of room to put in other cultures and room off the edges of the map to put in empires on archipelagos other than the one the PCs are in. If a DM wants bog-standard fantasy, just ignore the fantastic elements of the setting by putting all of the action on one large, isolated island.

Sounds entertaining. I'd probably ditch the pseudo-sci-fi 'gas giant planet' aspect and just leave that open-ended, land areas float around in "the sea of air", etc. draw your own conclusions about the physics or lack thereof.

 

[steeldragons]

The World of Orea.

The perfect campaign world setting for all D&D editions.

 

[Celebrim]

Setting: a gas giant with a breathable air in a certain altitude range. Archipelagos of countless floating islands drift with the winds, ranging from tiny to the size of Greenland. Flying ships ply the skies, trading, exploring, and warring.

In other words, a Trope World.

So, other than the visuals, what does your world explore with this ocean of clouds that you couldn't explore on a bog standard world with water for oceans and regular islands? What about 'Pirates of the Carribean' or 'Earthsea' couldn't you do on say one half of a bog standard world that happened to have a 'South Seas' style area of extensive islands (Indonesia, etc., just a bit further from land)? There is plenty of room on an average earth style world for all of that. Just consider how small of a portion of the earth all of 'Western History' occurred in. Move your 'Europe' to a different geography, or focus on the non-European inspired portions first.

 

[TwoSix]

Just thought of something to add. I want a 365 day calendar with 12 months and fourish weeks to the month. Or something very similar. Anything fancy-schmansy may look great, but I'll never use it because I'd have to stop and think about it every time I tried to. I'll take the Bloody Obvious for $500 Alex. (Yes, I've tried to use special calendars in the past, and it never worked.)

I'd disagree. If there's one thing that bugs me in published campaigns, it's calendars of 12 months of 30-31 days, but they all have different names. Guess what, I'm going to end up calling the first month January anyway.

Make a calendar that isn't anything like ours, but still communicates recognizable concepts. Make a calendar based around seasons, for example. My own homebrew has 4 79 day months, which are called Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The summer and winter solstices are on 40th of Summer and 40th of Winter, which are also the birthday festivals (something I stole from Midkemia.)

 

[Viking Bastard]

In other words, a Trope World.

So, other than the visuals, what does your world explore with this ocean of clouds that you couldn't explore on a bog standard world with water for oceans and regular islands?

Why would you go for bog standard visuals when you could go for an ocean of clouds?

 

[Dausuul]

Why would you go for bog standard visuals when you could go for an ocean of clouds?

Because the number of people who want to run a campaign set in an ocean of clouds is rather limited. It's a great idea for a niche setting, but not if you're trying to create a "showcase setting" for a game that's meant to encompass all the editions of D&D.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Because the number of people who want to run a campaign set in an ocean of clouds is rather limited. It's a great idea for a niche setting, but not if you're trying to create a "showcase setting" for a game that's meant to encompass all the editions of D&D.

Is this thread about showcase settings? I thought it was about what kinda setting you'd like to see.

 

[Dausuul]

Is this thread about showcase settings? I thought it was about what kinda setting you'd like to see.

Fair point. In that case: I don't want to run a campaign set in an ocean of clouds, unless I come up with a very specific campaign idea built around that concept. Otherwise I prefer something more... grounded. Settings like that require a lot of thought to make sure that one's default assumptions about the world still hold good; that's extra work for me as DM (and even as a player) that I don't want to do without a compelling reason.