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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8487054" data-attributes="member: 7030755">Let's say you have a party that consists of: human, half-elf, kenku, tiefling, a goblin, and firblog.  This immediately throws up all sorts of world building questions: what communities do these characters come from (where, physically on the FR map, are those located)?  What are these communities like (culture(s), territory, political structure, trading, languages/dialects)?  Is this diversity of races representative of the world at large (a 'cosmopolitan' setting), and if not, how do npcs react to this group (and as a dm, do you want to make constant npc reactions a feature of your game)?Kitchen sink settings like FR don't answer these questions very well.  It's simultaneously human-centric  and yet doesn't work out the real consequences of being human centric.  Many culture-forming groups exist in a kind of wilderness ether, existing to be randomly encountered without any of the components of culture (society, art, trade, etc) yet within stones' throw of major, cosmopolitan cities.  Languages don't vary or become dialects, even across thousands of miles of supposedly sparsely inhabited land.It's like dungeon ecology.  I'm perfectly happy to suspend disbelief and not think about how the massive dragon got inside the tiny dungeon, or what waste disposal system the cave-dwelling goblins were using.  But if you think about it for more than two minutes, all sorts of problems and inconsistencies show up.  And don't even get me started on cantrips!</blockquote>

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