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

[mamba]

The vast majority of human history is unknown to - everyone really. Most events pass by unremarked and unrecorded. And even when they are recorded, most people only know local stuff (and a lot of that is wrong). Even professional historians have specialisms and don’t know that much outside of those.

History does record the name of kings, generals, etc. at least, unless you go back a thousand years plus. What’s more, setting books can be very clear about what happened when without losing anything to the two thousand years that have passed between the event and today.

Your dragonborn might have been foot soldiers, but they did not have an empire or a royal line even with ‘regular history’, and even more clearly so in a setting book.

You can always squeeze some things in, but fitting a small tribe in somewhere that pretty much never got noticed is not the same as having an empire with an expansive history. If you want the latter, you need to retroactively change the setting or create a new one

 

[Maxperson]

then either you have to retroactively change history, so they can have kingdoms or whatever and affected events in history, or they have no past and just happened to be around while things happened without playing much of a role in it.

I can understand why the latter might not be satisfying for everyone, and why some do not like the former either

Or, like is fact, the Realms history is so vague and full of holes I could write historical impacts for several dozen new races covering thousands of years without contradicting anything.

No retroactively changing any history. No existing with no impact.

 

[SkidAce]

D&D's approach to deities, mythology, and cosmology is and has always been sadly lacking and feels so artificial. Each culture should have its own religion, beliefs, and cosmology. That said, I'm also a big proponent of fill in as you go—because unless it's relevant to the players, NPCs, or the adventure then there's no need to detail it.

Agreed, i do my counties/regions by religion etc.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

WotC can't or shouldn't create a setting only for metagame reasons but to create a multigenre franchise. It has to be designed to can be adapted into different genres like novels, videogames or cinematographic productions, and it has to be a fresh and original IP.

Each videogame of Final Fantasy is a different world but only a little group of characters are popular. It is not about how to create a new world but how to do it in the way later it became popular.

A setting can't be only a compilation of names of places but it has to be itself a source of inspiration of possible adventures.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Or, like is fact, the Realms history is so vague and full of holes I could write historical impacts for several dozen new races covering thousands of years without contradicting anything.

No retroactively changing any history. No existing with no impact.

The goal is not to haev something that you can write yourself. I think that's also an important part of any setting, that it leaves rooms for the players and GMs to expand and tell their own stories.

And Forgotten Realms might have large holes - but the problem is, it also has a rich story, so I don't really know without deep knowledge where those holes are and where I'd actually be ignoring canon content. Maybe I can easily put in two rivaling Dragonborn mercenary companies in Waterdeep or wherever - but then i forgot that there was an old adventure that mentioned that the Waterdeep citizens disallow non-humans from commanding mercenary companies, or the adventure I got for my campaign set in the FR suddenly reveals that Waterdeep has only one such company and it's also evil. And now I scramble how to re-align this. Of course, this can happen to some extent with almost anything you make up in those holes - some adventure might come in to find a different content for the hole to fit in. But it's less likely if Dragonborn are better established in the setting and you already have likely places where your Dragonborn comes from, and don't need to make up something like a Dragonborn company or a Goliath fighting college in places where little is detailed about Dragonborn.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I really don't understand what this thing with entire companies of dragonborn mercenaries is. There aren't enough dragonborn on the planet for every major city to have a company of dragonborn. They might have a couple of dragonborn mercs in town, and maybe one or two in other occupations, but there wouldn't be a whole company of them.

 

[Maxperson]

The goal is not to haev something that you can write yourself. I think that's also an important part of any setting, that it leaves rooms for the players and GMs to expand and tell their own stories.

And Forgotten Realms might have large holes - but the problem is, it also has a rich story, so I don't really know without deep knowledge where those holes are and where I'd actually be ignoring canon content. Maybe I can easily put in two rivaling Dragonborn mercenary companies in Waterdeep or wherever - but then i forgot that there was an old adventure that mentioned that the Waterdeep citizens disallow non-humans from commanding mercenary companies, or the adventure I got for my campaign set in the FR suddenly reveals that Waterdeep has only one such company and it's also evil. And now I scramble how to re-align this. Of course, this can happen to some extent with almost anything you make up in those holes - some adventure might come in to find a different content for the hole to fit in. But it's less likely if Dragonborn are better established in the setting and you already have likely places where your Dragonborn comes from, and don't need to make up something like a Dragonborn company or a Goliath fighting college in places where little is detailed about Dragonborn.

Why would you have to scramble to re-align? It really doesn't matter if something in the future says one evil Dragonborn company, because in your setting it has three and two are not evil. DMs are not beholden to what is written in a setting and never have been. If the PCs in my game destroy Zhentil Keep and raze it to the ground, salting the earth, and then the next week a Zhentil Keep adventure is released, well that adventure just doesn't apply to my game. The keep doesn't grow back so the adventure can take place.

The Forgotten Realms are not as rich and lore as many people think. All of it combined, as much as it is, still spells out less than 1% of the setting, leaving 99%+ for the DM to just make up.

I just don't ascribe to the idea that something new has to be put out with written information on literally everything in 5e/5.5e so that DMs don't have to make up anything. Making stuff up is literally the DM's job.

 

[Yaarel]

What I am saying is if you are the IP holder of a game and you make another version of that game making significant changes to the mechanics and options of their game you should make at least one setting for that game with those options and mechanics were pondered while the setting was being crafted for sale.

For example if I made a game about vampires and then I later update the game with an inclusion of werewolf I should create at least one optional setting that either explains the new inclusions of werewolves into the setting or was designed as if the vampires and werewolves were both there existing when the setting was created.

As far as I understand you.

I view the 2024 Forgotten Realms setting as serving well the player options of 2024 core. I agree with those who want to see Dragonborn and Goliath more prominently integrated into the Sword Coast region. But this is a tweak of degree, not possibility. I find a significant but isolated community of Dragonborn in the Mere of Dead Men to be a satisfactory solution. I will decide later for a remote mountainous wilderness for the Goliath, near other Giants and a bit away from the dense Orc region. While official elaboration is nice, all the necessities are already in place.

I honestly dont perceive what else needs to happen to be "2024".

 

[Yaarel]

It occurs to me, if there is to be an official setting that explicitly represents all of the 24 core rule player options as true, then it must be Greyhawk, because this is the official setting that comes with the 24 Dungeon Master Guide.

All calls for more prominently integrated lore need to scrutinize Greyhawk to find solutions.