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

[Viking Bastard]

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.

Sure. And I prefer the ground to be optional.

But I dig visuals. I dig imagery. And cool imagery is what I steal from published products more than anything else.

 

[Celebrim]

Sure. And I prefer the ground to be optional.

There is no reason why in a bog standard world the ground need be particularly important to the campaign. You can always have flying ships on a bog standard world, floating islands, cloud giant kingdoms, blimp whales, floating gasbladder plants, and all the rest. Bog standard doesn't have to be 'Earth', it just needs space for the guy who likes merfolk too.

 

[Kinak]

I'd like to see a simple setting. One big country (or no countries to speak of) rather than dozens of countries to keep track of.

A failing or failed empire where the towns are increasingly threatened by outside forces and increasingly insular is basically perfect. Give enough detail to describe the empire, include a nice high-level map of the known terrain, explain why there are dungeons everywhere, throw in some sample towns, and done.

Basically, I just want something more structured than the Points of Light, but without the baggage of Forgotten Realms or even Greyhawk. The setting equivalent of pick-up-and-play introductory rules.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Gargoyle]

I would like to see a campaign world that is not a finished, complete description, and never will be. Most of all, I want no future support. No endless succession of cataclysms or times of trouble, no shake up in the pantheon, no reforming of land masses. I don't want any revisions, any additions to the incomplete timeline, and no novels detailing the backstory of its sketchy NPCs. This would be a one-shot product, and would be marketed as such.

I want a framework of a campaign world, with incomplete descriptions of cultures, kingdoms, deities, factions, threats, and NPCs. The maps should feature a lot of blank spaces, not just with a missing continent somewhere over the sea, but in between more developed areas.

It should come incomplete with unfinished adventures, and even the artwork could feature characters and settings that are partially finished, with half of the composition as a sketch. There should be lots of adventure hooks, a few unfinished adventures, a timeline featuring many "dark ages" where the historical record has been lost, and not every type of monster or race should be confirmed to be present in the world. There should be several versions of the cosmology, all of them naturally incomplete descriptions, and any one (or all of them) the true one.

This incomplete world should be in a boxed set, loaded with maps and books for both players and DMs. The DM book should give some guidelines on how to grow the campaign world around the player characters with suggestions on possible plots. The player book should describe only what a lower level player character might know. There should be large player and DM maps, the former very incomplete and probably inaccurate, the latter merely incomplete.

I want the DM without a huge amount of time to see this as a useful bootstrap for starting a campaign of their own making, with plenty of space to add entire cultures, kingdoms, and conflicts yet enough material that they don't feel the burden of doing all the foundation and heavy lifting. I want a world that sparks the imagination but doesn't smother the flames with overwhelming detail, one that a DM can pick up, learn everything there is to know about it in an evening or two, and launch a campaign the next day that feels like a complete world to the players yet is undeveloped just over the horizon. As soon as that first session comes to an end, the DM should be motivated and ready to start fleshing out the blank spots, building their world tailored to the player characters' adventures as the campaign develops.

In short, I want a campaign kit, not a finished world. And I don't want anyone to build it up for me with future releases.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I'm bored to death of bog-standard fantasy. Furthermore, I have no need to buy a generic fantasy setting. I have material from Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk which is perfectly adaptable to any RPG. 90+% of setting material is not dependent on rules anyway. If I'm going to pay money for campaign material I want something imaginative (Eberron) or deep (Harn) that would be too much work for me to do well myself. Given that D&D has never really gone for deep campaign settings, I'd like an imaginative one.

I don't really agree with the idea of standard fantasy vs trope worlds anyway. Every setting is unique. LOtR and Arthurian fantasy are both considered pretty standard but they lead to radically different types of world and games. Reading this discussion it seems to me more like D&D-as-a-setting which is what we've had in the game for ages, as opposed to everything else than standard vs trope worlds. I'm not really a fan of D&D as a setting. There definitely needs to be a place in the world for a D&D-as-a-setting game for the people who want that, but I don't otherwise see it as anything special that needs to be the focus of the world.

 

[Evenglare]

Honestly I'd like to see some sort of Fantasy Scifi Setting. Phantasy Star online esque anyone?

 

[Grimmjow]

id like to see several new settings not just one. An anime/Asian one would tickle me fancy thoguh

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I want a setting that is rife with interesting personalities and organizations and has accessible plot hooks throughout it.

 

[aco175]

I would like something modular, that would allow me to buy supplements as I wanted/ needed them. I get to play once a week and do not have the time I used to to develop the campaign the way I used to. I don't need a whole world like Fr where I'm only interested in one or two 'kingdoms' of the world. A book on The North, or The Dales, Cormyr, etc., I would buy a full book about each of these.
Something that details a few towns enough, a few maps where some things are designed for follow-on material and a few places designed to be left alone for each Dm to populate. This way I could plan to built towards published modules if I wanted or go on my own.
I would also like a book of modules that would go with each Kingdom book. the old FR book Daggerford was great because it contained a mostly detailed town and a few modules that went with the town and it's people already instead of trying to modify them. There was a few pages of setting up characters to be from the area and some sections on history and politics. You could run the mini adventures or you had enough to create your own.

 

[Bow_Seat]

I would really like to see something that actually feels medieval. Most of the fantasy worlds come closer to early renaissance than medieval structure. Peasants aren't loyal citizens, they're just people who happen to live within a warlord's domain. Kings are usually illiterate warmongers who retroactively justify their conquering. The idea of a nation didn't even really exist yet.