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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7950011" data-attributes="member: 6677017">I look at it in comparison to the 2 editions that specifically did have default settings.In 3e, Greyhawk was the default setting. The PHB had that pantheon (and only that pantheon) right there in the cleric section. They put out a "D&D Gazetteer" early on that was basically a super simplified Greyhawk Campaign Setting. In the core rules, every single example of a culture, character, magic item, etc, was taken from Greyhawk. Most of the supplements that weren't explicitly set in other worlds also only used examples taken from Greyhawk. You had prestige classes based on Greyhawk cultures and societies, etc. All of this was in books that didn't have a "Greyhawk" label. It was baked in. Almost all materials relating to any other campaign setting were segregated into their own books. The Forgotten Realms had an extensive line, but FR material was only found in that line. Eberron material was only in explicitly Eberron books. (There were a few specific exceptions that were directly called out--like a sidebar in a monster entry in MM2 or FF that specifically mentioned how a certain monster related to the Forgotten Realms.) You might have thought that they had separated out the IP of other campaign settings and weren't legally allowed to include anything other than Greyhawk in the core lines (which wasn't true). Now, maybe that changed in late 3.5e, but it was that way at least into early 3.5e.I didn't follow 4e for the whole line, but isn't that basically the same thing it did with its vaguely defined Points of Light setting?That's a default. The books assumed that you were using those gods, those lands, those cultures, unless you explicitly chose otherwise by buying a setting specific book with material that completely replaced it, or you home-brewed your own setting material. If you didn't intentionally choose to use something else, your game automatically defaulted to Greyhawk or Points of Light.With 5e, from the very start, the core books have provided examples and content from a variety of D&D settings. They mention them by name. The give example gods from various pantheons in the cleric entry (as well as in the appendix). They mention named characters from a variety of settings. Of the books since then, only the adventures and campaign settings have been setting specific (and not always Forgotten Realms!) They've put out supplements with the names of 2 characters from FR and 1 from GH, but each of those supplements was actually universal D&D material presented with some in-character flavor from NPCs. It is very different than 3e where a supplement would either be universal/default material or FR, but not both.Unless your impression is being formed by purchasing the first 3 campaign adventures that WotC put out (which were all set in the FR), your game doesn't default to anything. You have to choose what setting to play in from the very start. The PHB doesn't say, "we recommend the Forgotten Realms for those new to the game," nor does the DMG. And at this point, even buying official adventures doesn't stick you into the Forgotten Realms by default, because they have adventures that aren't set there.Now, I suppose I can give some weight to the example human ethnicities in the PHB being chosen from the Forgotten Realms as something that might cause someone to default that direction, but there isn't anything else in the core rules that does that, and the fact that they provide a Dragonlance example right alongside the Forgotten Realms example in the section about character Backgrounds is really clear evidence that there is no default. If there was, that example wouldn't make any sense.Nobody is disputing that there is more adventure content published for the Forgotten Realms, but I don't think relative quantity of adventure content creates any sort of default. There was probably more eventual Forgotten Realms adventure (and other) content in 2e than there was from any other setting by the end of the line, but there wasn't any default setting in 2e. The spells and magic items in the PHB and DMG had the classic Greyhawk names they've always had, but other than that you had to make your own setting or run across a campaign setting on a shelf to know it even existed. The main difference with 5e is that it tells you about the various settings that exist and provides support (example pantheons and other elements) right in the core books so you know what already published options are available to you.I mean, I see where you're going with popularity and number of fans, but I think default implies more than that, and better communication can be had with clearer terms. If it were still the first couple of years of 5e, I'd be willing to call the Forgotten Realms the "featured adventure setting", but by now even that isn't true.With the continuing expansion of setting publication, in a couple more years, we might have new players coming in asking us to explain why us grognards keep saying that the Forgotten Realms is the "default setting".I'm assuming your talking early edition? Because the quasielemental (and paraelemental) planes were established in the 1e Manual of the Planes.</blockquote>

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