D&D 5E (2024) WotC Should Make 5.5E Specific Setting

Hell, Tolkien would like to have a word with you. Elves, dwarves, orcs, men, hobbits, and goblins all have their own towns. That's six right there. And, by and large, that's considered the gold standard for fantasy settings.
Dunedain didn't. They roamed and most made their home in the Rivendell when they were staying someplace. The Black Numenoreans also did not. They stayed in human cities in the south, but had no towns or cities of their own. Half-elves were so rare there weren't enough of them to have even a village of their own.
 

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How many of those countries list a Dragonborn or Tiefling or Goliath population?
Many of them. It's called Demihumans many, few or none. There were a lot of vague populations without specific number. Those would include Dragonborn, Tieflings, Goliaths, Tortles, Loxodon and any others you want.

That and the lore is so sparse that you could literally drop a village of (insert race here) into almost any country and nothing is disrupted.
 

No. I really, really can't. What dragonborn community is within a hundred miles of Phandelver? Saltmarsh? The Free City of Greyhawk? Waterdeep? What Tiefling community exists within the same circles? In canon if you please. Make stuff up is certainly an answer. Sure. We're all capable of doing that. But, again, I don't want to just make stuff up. What's the point of playing a published setting if I have to just "make stuff up"?

The whole point of using a published setting is that I DON'T make stuff up. I use what's there. I leverage the connections built into the setting.

I want to leverage what is already there. I don't want to make stuff up. If I'm going to just make stuff up, I might as well not bother using the setting.
You don't need a dragonborn community to have deep ties to the area, populations, governments, factions, etc. And all without making anything up. You can have deep ties to Harpers, The Lord's Alliance, Zhentil Keep or wherever and whatever is already written.
 

It's not called Eleven towns. It's Ten Towns because that's all that are there.
In these kinds of remote locations, one can have small communities of different cultures coexisting near each other, even speaking different languages.

There can be the Ten Towns all sharing the same culture and government, and in the middle of it a Dragonborn subglacial city-state with its own pandragon culture speaking Draconic and forming its own local government. I would have the Silver-White Dragonborn in a region neighboring the Ten Towns, but they would still be near enough for traderoutes and so on.
 

I am not sure I understand what you are saying here.

Any number (literally) of things could make a theoretical new setting unique. The only constraint is "if it is in 5.5E, it is in this setting" -- just like Eberron did with 3.5. it doesn't mean the setting would be limited to that, or that it somehow had to use all the adventures and stuff that came before.
give me a hard example of what you who add, or subtract which would make your new setting unique. The realms has freaking everything. here are some my examples.
1. One set of gods for everyone. With any other gods being npc accessible only. So, if I say Greek only. Then Tiamat is only available for dragon cultists.
2. 5 playable species only.
3. No Darkvision.
 

In these kinds of remote locations, one can have small communities of different cultures coexisting near each other, even speaking different languages.

There can be the Ten Towns all sharing the same culture and government, and in the middle of it a Dragonborn subglacial city-state with its own pandragon culture speaking Draconic and forming its own local government. I would have the Silver-White Dragonborn in a region neighboring the Ten Towns, but they would still be near enough for traderoutes and so on.
The ten towns don't share the same culture. And the loose confederation they form isn't really "the government." Each town also governs itself.
 

No. I really, really can't. What dragonborn community is within a hundred miles of Phandelver? Saltmarsh? The Free City of Greyhawk? Waterdeep? What Tiefling community exists within the same circles? In canon if you please. Make stuff up is certainly an answer. Sure. We're all capable of doing that. But, again, I don't want to just make stuff up. What's the point of playing a published setting if I have to just "make stuff up"?

The whole point of using a published setting is that I DON'T make stuff up. I use what's there. I leverage the connections built into the setting.

I want to leverage what is already there. I don't want to make stuff up. If I'm going to just make stuff up, I might as well not bother using the setting.
Side question to all this: are we only worried about the 10 PHB species or do we also want tabaxi nations, haregon villages, and the Triton population of Waterdeep?
 

give me a hard example of what you who add, or subtract which would make your new setting unique. The realms has freaking everything. here are some my examples.
1. One set of gods for everyone. With any other gods being npc accessible only. So, if I say Greek only. Then Tiamat is only available for dragon cultists.
2. 5 playable species only.
3. No Darkvision.
I am not positing a setting. I am saying D&D 5.5 should have a setting made specifically for it. I think we can all imagine what sorts of elements might be incorporated intoa setting to make it unique while still allowing for "if it is in the 5.5 core books, it is in this setting." Settings I have created for 5E and 5.5E that fit the bill (all made for convention campaigns) include one where the gods have fallen to the earth and are powerful boss monsters, one where some species are local and the rest colonizers, and one in which the PCs are reverse dungeon delvers, returning looted objects to their proper tombs, vaults, etc.
 

The ten towns don't share the same culture. And the loose confederation they form isn't really "the government." Each town also governs itself.
That can be too. Tho I understand the Ten Towns to be one Human culture. At the same time, there are many immigrants to the Towns, including from other Human cultures.

Note any species can be members of a culture.
 

Side question to all this: are we only worried about the 10 PHB species or do we also want tabaxi nations, haregon villages, and the Triton population of Waterdeep?
Those things already exist somewhere. It's not hard to say that there's a Tabaxi village in High Forest, or a Harengon warren in plains east of the Wood of Sharp Teeth, and a large Triton city in-between Waterdeep and the Moonshae Islands.

All a made for 5.5e setting is going to do is what the Forgotten Realms already does. Shove Dragonborn somewhere like Tymanther, Genasi in someplace like Calimshan, and so on. They still aren't all going to have written villages everywhere in the world that the players want to adventure.
 

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