# Should There Be a Core Setting?



## Levistus's_Leviathan

This is a simple question and hopefully a larger discussion about the direction that the 3 core rulebooks in 6e could take; Should there be a Core Setting in 6e? That is, should the 3 core rulebooks and the rest of the base edition assume that a certain setting is being used in the flavor-text for the PHB race, the Monsters in the Monster Manual, and the descriptions of the world(s) in the DMG (though, the 5e DMG has much less setting-assumption than the PHB and DMG)? Should there be named spells like "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion" and "Bigby's Hand" in favor of "Magnificent Mansion" and "Arcanist's Hand"?

What are your thoughts on this?


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## Minigiant

6e should have a core setting.
That core 6e setting should be designed *from scratch.*
Official settings and playstyles should be the 6e core setting with modifications and name changes.

In fact there should be multiple "core" settings. A core setting for the base lore and assumptions and 1-2 alternate cores to displays how one could modify the core.


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## pemerton

AcererakTriple6 said:


> This is a simple question and hopefully a larger discussion about direction that the 3 core rulebooks in 6e could take; Should there be a Core Setting in 6e? That is, should the 3 core rulebooks and the rest of the base edition assume that a certain setting is being used in the flavor-text for the PHB race, the Monsters in the Monster Manual, and the descriptions of the world(s) in the DMG (though, the 5e DMG has much less setting-assumption than the PHB and DMG)? Should there be named spells like "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion" and "Bigby's Hand" in favor of "Magnificent Mansion" and "Arcanist's Hand"?
> 
> What are your thoughts on this?



D&D already has a "core setting", that is implied by the entries for races, classes (especially the more colourful ones like warlocks and druids), and monsters.

I thought that 4e D&D did the best job of presenting all this as a coherent package decided to support exciting game play over 3 tiers of play. The presence of names like Bigby and Mordenkainen and Hadar and Vecna is all part of that.


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## Charlaquin

I’m kinda torn. On one hand, I loved what 4e did with its assumed setting - just enough implied lore to pique the reader’s interest and get the creative energy flowing, but vague enough to leave plenty of room to make it your own. On the other hand, they caught lightning in a bottle with PoLand, and I don’t think it’s likely they can pull it off again. Maybe no assumed setting is better than a poorly executed one.

This is all academic though, as I think it’s pretty much a sure bet 6e _will_ have an assumed setting. It’s just a question of how intrusive it will be. And I think 4e is the right level of assumed setting intrusiveness to shoot for. So I guess I’ve talked myself into a yes, at about 4e level, which is more than 5e in some ways, but less in others… I guess that balances out to “roughly 5e level”?


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## R_J_K75

Nope.  Leave it out of the core books and put it where it belongs in a setting book.  Concentrate on making the rules as clear, easily understood and organized as possible.  Any space devoted to a setting in the core books is space taken away from doing the latter.  Regarding deities and clerics, break it down to its lowest common denominator such as domains/spheres, portfolios or dogma but they dont need to reference a specific deity.  Players can fill in those blanks themselves.


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## overgeeked

Yes. Bring back the points of light setting as the default.


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## Malmuria

The core books have an implied setting as @pemerton  notes.  I think this could be leveraged to create a new points of light setting consistent with the implied world building of the core books.  But this would require them to make some world-building choices that they currently handwave.  The kitchen sink high fantasy forgotten realms facilitates this handwaving by how cartoonish it is (which, maybe they want a cartoonish implied setting).

Are there plenty of low-level clerics running around _creating water_ and sorcerer kids creating havoc by spamming _minor illusions_, or are spellcasters rare (and feared/persecuted)?  What does an orc society look like, if they are not inherently chaotic evil (or, are all societies multi-racial)?  How rare/frequent are other monsters...are there 10 dragons in the world, or 1000?  

In any case, I'd love a return to there being *one* core rulebook, rules cyclopedia style, with a little setting in the back.


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## Vaalingrade

Voted Setting agnostic only because they would never make a good setting like Eberron or Spelljammer the core.


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## Minigiant

R_J_K75 said:


> Nope.  Leave it out of the core books and put it where it belongs in a setting book.  Concentrate on making the rules as clear, easily understood and organized as possible.  Any space devoted to a setting in the core books is space taken away from doing the latter.  Regarding deities and clerics, break it down to its lowest common denominator such as domains/spheres, portfolios or dogma but they dont need to reference a specific deity.  Players can fill in those blanks themselves.



I don't think that is possible.

You have to supply lore. D&D is past the point where it can be fluff dry. 

The question is if 6e has 

one heavily implied core setting, 
one lightly implied core setting, 
multiple equally implied core setting, 
has no core setting but heavily implies common or popular tropes and names
has no core setting but multiple popular trope and naming option


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## R_J_K75

Minigiant said:


> I don't think that is possible.
> 
> You have to supply lore. D&D is past the point where it can be fluff dry.
> 
> The question is if 6e has
> 
> one heavily implied core setting,
> one lightly implied core setting,
> multiple equally implied core setting,
> has no core setting but heavily implies common or popular tropes and names
> has no core setting but multiple popular trope and naming option



I dont recall there being any mention of a core setting in the 1E or 2E core books besides named spells, but its been over 20 years since Ive read any of those and I could be mistaken.  But I think it could be done.  Just my opinion and its what I would want if I had my choice.


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## pemerton

R_J_K75 said:


> Regarding deities and clerics, break it down to its lowest common denominator such as domains/spheres, portfolios or dogma but they dont need to reference a specific deity.  Players can fill in those blanks themselves.



This is already choosing a setting. Eg is the storm god associated with war? Wrath? Leadership? Life-granting rainfall? Is the god of the sun a friend or enemy (as might be the case for desert dwellers)? Etc


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## R_J_K75

pemerton said:


> This is already choosing a setting. Eg is the storm god associated with war? Wrath? Leadership? Life-granting rainfall? Is the god of the sun a friend or enemy (as might be the case for desert dwellers)? Etc



No its not.  Like I said let the players/DM figure that out unless people need the core books to cover every little detail.


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## Tonguez

I went with No, but minor assumptions is fine. As others have said their is an implied core setting due to the nature of the rules, races and class presentation. The implied setting is fine, but beyond that I think the core rules should be toolbox guide to create unique settings and stories


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## Shiroiken

The game is going to have some base assumptions on genre, which could be described as a "setting," which IMO is the only type of core setting they should use. To create a new setting as core is to immediately shoehorn new DMs into that setting, rather than encouraging them to make their own. This was a huge complaint with the Starter Set of 5E, with everyone crying that "Forgotten Realms is the core setting!" The worst thing that happened to Greyhawk was becoming the "core setting" of 3E, because everything unique about the setting was ignored, generating the feeling that Greyhawk is just "vanilla." While I'm not a fan, Nentir Vale/Points of Light of 4E was a unique setting designed to go with the edition, lacking any existing baggage, which I think is the only other acceptable option for me.


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## pemerton

R_J_K75 said:


> No its not.  Like I said let the players/DM figure that out unless people need the core books to cover every little detail.



If the core rules give a sun domain with healing magic, or a storm domain that is distinct from a rulership domain, or a dark domain that is associated with Undead, then they are establishing setting.

Likewise if they give paladins of vengeance or "the green" but not (say) liberation or domination.


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## R_J_K75

pemerton said:


> If the core rules give a sun domain with healing magic, or a storm domain that is distinct from a rulership domain, or a dark domain that is associated with Undead, then they are establishing setting.
> 
> Likewise if they give paladins of vengeance or "the green" but not (say) liberation or domination.



OK then.


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## pemerton

Shiroiken said:


> To create a new setting as core is to immediately shoehorn new DMs into that setting, rather than encouraging them to make their own. This was a huge complaint with the Starter Set of 5E, with everyone crying that "Forgotten Realms is the core setting!"



Who voiced this complaint? The new players and GMs? Did this complaint affect sales of that set?


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## Ath-kethin

R_J_K75 said:


> I dont recall there being any mention of a core setting in the 1E or 2E core books besides named spells, but its been over 20 years since Ive read any of those and I could be mistaken.  But I think it could be done.  Just my opinion and its what I would want if I had my choice.



No, you're right, there wasn't any. Aside from named spells, which only imply that sometimes spells are known to be associated with a specific caster. Maybe that caster invented the spell, maybe that caster just used it a lot. It's flavorful but non-distinct.

Dripping hints if different settings in a core book is OK, I guess, especially since there's such a wealth of material over the years. But these should be examples of how to make a setting and customize ideas, not nailing in any kind of default.


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## tetrasodium

I'd like to be able to vote "No, but some descriptions of specific settings and their races/monsters cultures are okay." Except I can't in good conscience do that because then we wind up with 5e's "core books are generic [as long as generic is almost exclusively FR and basically never contradicts FR without considering the needs of settings that differ from FR]".  So far we have to settings thst needed  some amount of new/different system mechanics to fit the themes  that need to run them as if they are basically FR with a coat of paint


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## Ruin Explorer

If you're going to have a core setting, 4E is the right way to do it.

5E's approach is messier and less compelling, and I'd rather have no core setting than that.

From WotC's perspective I'm pretty sure they think a core setting is important to the success of the IP so will continue to have one in any 6E, though I could see a custom one rather than the FR - albeit I think retaining the FR is more likely.


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## R_J_K75

Ath-kethin said:


> Dripping hints if different settings in a core book is OK, I guess, especially since there's such a wealth of material over the years. But these should be examples of how to make a setting and customize ideas, not nailing in any kind of default.



This is exactly how I feel.  Id prefer generic examples, ideas, etc but tying the core books to a setting to me seems limiting and may give the impression to new players that they need to buy in and play in that setting.  OTOH I understand that there needs to be some catering to new players to give them guidance on how to develop adventures and campaigns.


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## Ath-kethin

R_J_K75 said:


> tying the core books to a setting to me seems limiting and may give the impression to new players that they need to buy in and play in that setting.



It might seem limiting to us, but of course to a publisher who needs to sell books it's just the keys to the kingdom. Giving players the impression they need to buy more books/products is exactly how you sell more books and products.

It's the same with miniatures: implying that you need additional toys to play the game works great as a marketing strategy when, conveniently, you have a toy line to sell for that very purpose.

None of this is evil. It's just business, and a business needs to think that way to thrive. But the fact that I understand it doesn't mean I like it.


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## Charlaquin

R_J_K75 said:


> I dont recall there being any mention of a core setting in the 1E or 2E core books besides named spells, but its been over 20 years since Ive read any of those and I could be mistaken.  But I think it could be done.  Just my opinion and its what I would want if I had my choice.



While a setting may not be explicitly mentioned, there are always setting implications. For example, the cleric class implies that there is some sort of deity or deities that invest divine power in chosen agents, and these deities oppose undead. Alignment implies that law and chaos and/or good and evil are tangible cosmic forces, and the paladin’s code of conduct implies a great deal about what is good and lawful. The names of different levels of classes carry a lot of setting implications, like the how the druid hierarchy works. The equipment lists imply the setting’s general level of technology. But yeah, no explicit default setting.


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## Paul Farquhar

Charlaquin said:


> Alignment implies that law and chaos and/or good and evil are tangible cosmic forces, and the paladin’s code of conduct implies a great deal about what is good and lawful.



Alignment is dead, I'm sure this won't be an issue in our hypothetical 6e.


Charlaquin said:


> The names of different levels of classes carry a lot of setting implications, like the how the druid hierarchy works.



And this hasn't been a thing since 2nd.


Charlaquin said:


> The equipment lists imply the setting’s general level of technology. But yeah, no explicit default setting.



I would like to see tech levels (and perhaps magic levels) included in equipment lists.


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## Charlaquin

Paul Farquhar said:


> Alignment is dead, I'm sure this won't be an issue in our hypothetical 6e.
> 
> And this hasn't been a thing since 2nd.



Yes, I was responding to a claim that 1e and 2e didn’t have default settings.


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## tetrasodium

Charlaquin said:


> While a setting may not be explicitly mentioned, there are always setting implications. For example, the cleric class implies that there is some sort of deity or deities that invest divine power in chosen agents, and these deities oppose undead. Alignment implies that law and chaos and/or good and evil are tangible cosmic forces, and the paladin’s code of conduct implies a great deal about what is good and lawful. The names of different levels of classes carry a lot of setting implications, like the how the druid hierarchy works. The equipment lists imply the setting’s general level of technology. But yeah, no explicit default setting.



There are clerics in eberron where existence of the gods is explicitly unprovable by design.  Darksun may not have clerics, but they do have elemental priests & whatever a gm decides to allow but what you are talking about (especially the underlined bits)  Both of those settings take a wildly different spin on alignment than the one from FR & Greyhawk you are referencing.  I'm not sure about undead in darksun, but it's quite te rabbit hole in eberron & I'm not even sure where to start on it because of the deity thing.  We haven't even gotten into the role played by the SKs & The Draconic Prophecy vrs "deities that invest divine power in chosen agents either".  And _then_ there is Ravenloft & The Dark Powers...

All of your post is pretty much exemplifying how the core 5e books & core rules are FR First Last & Only. 5e's approach denies all of those other settings the tools they need to feel like the game fits the setting.


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## Charlaquin

tetrasodium said:


> There are clerics in eberron where existence of the gods is explicitly unprovable by design.  Darksun may not have clerics, but they do have elemental priests & whatever a gm decides to allow but what you are talking about (especially the underlined bits)  Both of those settings take a wildly different spin on alignment than the one from FR & Greyhawk you are referencing.
> 
> I'm not sure about undead in darksun, but it's quite te rabbit hole in eberron & I'm not even sure where to start on it because of the deity thing.  We haven't even gotten into the role played by the SKs & The Draconic Prophecy vrs "deities that invest divine power in chosen agents either".  And _then_ there is Ravenloft & The Dark Powers...



So you’re saying those settings take a different approach from the default presentation? I agree. My argument was only that 1e and 2e did indeed have implied default settings.



tetrasodium said:


> All of your post is pretty much exemplifying how the core 5e books & core rules are FR First Last & Only. 5e's approach denies all of those other settings the tools they need to feel like the game fits the setting.



I was talking about 1e and 2e.


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## Marc_C

If it's Greyhawk (because of named artifacts, named spells and other iconic Gaxyan stuff) then yes. Otherwise no. Just publish separate setting books.


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## Scribe

Minigiant said:


> 6e should have a core setting.
> That core 6e setting should be designed *from scratch.*
> Official settings and playstyles should be the 6e core setting with modifications and name changes.



I agree with this, but it will sell less because people want things to continue. 5e rebounded in part by saying 'we are still the same thing you had in 3e!' in terms of the setting.

I 100% agree that a new setting needs to happen to detach from all the things Wizards seems to want to leave behind, but I do believe it will sell less.


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## Micah Sweet

R_J_K75 said:


> I dont recall there being any mention of a core setting in the 1E or 2E core books besides named spells, but its been over 20 years since Ive read any of those and I could be mistaken.  But I think it could be done.  Just my opinion and its what I would want if I had my choice.



There were plenty of implied setting elements in the DMG and MM.  D&D is not generic fantasy and it never has been.


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## J.Quondam

I voted "No, with minor assumptions," though I would very specifically _*ex*_clude NPC-named spells. (Eg, justsaying Tiny Hut, or Freezing Sphere, or Groping Hand is fine.) I think the 5e SRD sits pretty close to a good balance. 

(However, I would LOVE to find newer, more neutral class names!)


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## Malmuria

I think a point of light setting that provides basically what the starter set/essentials kit provides but not in the FR would be perfect.  Similarly, many games include a starting adventure scenario, why not dnd?  The lack of a starting adventure exacerbates the fact that, imo, the world and adventure building advice in the dmg is not good.

What other game products do this well?  Some:

Return of the Lazy DM actually builds a starting scenario and adventure alongside its advice, so you get the general principles and then examples like in any textbook.  

Worlds Without Number has fantastic and comprehensive world building tools and an example setting.  If I ever make a new setting this is what I would turn to first.  One reviewer wrote



> If you look just at the prose Worlds Without Number is not all that more verbose than the Dungeon Master’s Guide of Fifth Edition, but it never stops at the prose and there are always tools and tables to help any GM of any skill level find inspiration or make exactly what they want.




The Black Hack 2e has a lot of great tables (including drop tables) for creating a starting situation (town, mini-hex map, dungeons, npcs).  As this reviewer wrote, it's very much a "gm workbook" approach, which I find very helpful.  By comparison, the dmg dungeon stocking tables are I think copied from the 1e dmg and are overly mundane for a modern game.  

As mentioned, the Rules Cyclopedia has an appendix titled "The D&D Game World" that's a super quick 20 page gazetteer on Mystara, mostly maps.

A big company like Wizard's invest in some digital technology to help with world and adventure building.  Or, imagine an interactive map of a points of light setting where you could click to see location information, rumors, npcs. 

In terms of the implied setting, one thing I tend to do is extrapolate out various aspects of the core rules to think about what it would be like to be in a fantasy world based on those rules.  Mostly, what kind of world pervasive low level magic would produce (or is it pervasive).  But probably you are not meant to think about that sort of thing too much, at least in 5e


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## King Babar

I think D&D should have a core setting (that's not the Forgotten Realms) and lean into it more than it does with this edition. To me, all the lore presented in books like Volo's and Mordenkainen's is the fluffiest of fluff because it feels divorced from a real setting. The lore in these books is interesting, don't get me wrong, but it's not memorable because it feels detached from any real sense of place.

And don't tell me, "oh, the core setting is the D&D multiverse with Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and everything else altogether", because to me that's just WotC wanting to have its cake and eat it too. 

Either have a core setting, and design the system around it, or don't and create a truly neutral rules system. Don't try to have it both ways.


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## Steampunkette

I would recommend a different format for 6e rather than DMG, PHB, MM.

Core Rulebook: Baseline game design stuff. This is where the classes are, the DMG stuff is, how to build a character, and some basic races. This should be a weighty tome on the lines of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, and be 100% Setting Agnostic. Oh, sure, named spells or whatever, because it's fun to have those, but not needed.

Monster Manual: Just a mess of generic monsters without a core setting identity. Still have depth to them (Like the upcoming A5e book is setting out to do) but no specific locales or callouts to previous settings.

Player's Handbook*S*: World-specific races, class-kits, setting fluff, and additional rules. Player-Facing Campaign Settings.

Dungeon Master's Guide*S*: World-specific systems, lore, setting design, and additional rules. DM-Facing Campaign Settings.

Release the two books for each setting at the same time and available as a Bundle. With or without the Adventure for that season.

So for an -example- release schedule for 2025-2026:

2025
Jan: Core Rulebook, Monster Manual, Old Adventure Set. Probably Greyhawk or Mystara, something presented as setting-agnostic.
Feb: DM's Screen, Digital Bundle Stuff
Mar: Setting Specific Novel, Setting Specific Dice
Apr: Setting Specific Minis
May: Player's Handbook: The Setting for the Year, Dungeon Master's Guide: The Setting for the Year, Setting Specific Adventure part 1.
June: Nada
July: Setting Specific Adventure part 2
August: Setting Specific Digital Bundle
September: Setting Specific Novel
October: Setting Specific Adventure 2 part 1
November: Digital Materials for another setting
December: Setting Specific Adventure 2 part 2

2026
Jan: Digital Bundle related to new setting
Feb: Player's Handbook: The Setting for the Year, Dungeon Master's Guide: The Setting for the Year, Setting Specific Adventure part 1.
Mar: Setting Specific Novel, Setting Specific Dice
Apr: Setting Specific Minis
May: Setting Specific Adventure part 2
June: Nada
July: Setting Specific Digital Bundle
Aug: Setting Specific Adventure 2 part 1
Sep: Digital Materials for next setting
Oct: Setting Agnostic Adventure Bundle
Nov: Setting Specific Adventure 2 part 1
Dec: Player's Handbook: The Setting for Next Year, Dungeon Master's Guide: The Setting for Next Year, Setting Specific Adventure part 1.

Could also swap those Digital Bundles for some setting agnostic material (Draconomicon, Tasha's Guide, Etc)


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## Neonchameleon

First, the presence or absence of a default/core/implied setting in the core rulebook is something for new DMs rather than us grognards who are used to previous editions.

Second I'd say the Nentir Vale/PoLand was just about perfect - which is precisely it shouldn't be used again. The lore of the Nerathi, Turathi, and Arkhosian empires and the Dawn War pantheon was significant enough to provide names and setting details - but because it was entirely new for 4e it wasn't large and deep enough to intimidate _anyone_. If you had the core books when 4e came out you had everything and it was explicitly yours to do what you wanted with.

Using the Nentir Vale again for another edition would take away that freshness. It would just be another setting with some deep lore and where you knew you didn't have all the material. We'd need a new history with a new pantheon to be able to do the same thing anything like as well. Especially as the lore of the Nentir Vale was added to in most of the splatbooks so there's more to it than would reasonably go in a PHB.


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## Mercurius

One of the strengths of Pathfinder is the feeling of cohesion that the products have, and this is largely due to Golarion. Similarly with Midgard and Kobold Press, although it is less comparable to D&D in that has far fewer products.

I like what @Minigiant said, but would alter it slightly. Have a core setting that is built from scratch, and then offer alternate settings ala the current publishing schedule. But I think the game would have a more cohesive quality if the rules were embedded within a context, rather than in abstract "D&D Land."

A new core setting would also allow for WotC to adjust the lore in a way that wouldn't freak out "setting diehards" ("That's now how elves are in the Realms!").

But that only works if they offer alternatives, otherwise it becomes a kind of codified One True Wayism. We don't want D&D to be forced into a singular modality of play (well, most of us don't). And furthermore, it should be emphasized in the intro of every rulebook that this is just the default mode - make the game as you want it to be.


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## Malmuria

Mercurius said:


> One of the strengths of Pathfinder is the feeling of cohesion that the products have, and this is largely due to Golarion. Similarly with Midgard and Kobold Press, although it is less comparable to D&D in that has far fewer products.
> 
> I like what @Minigiant said, but would alter it slightly. Have a core setting that is built from scratch, and then offer alternate settings ala the current publishing schedule. But I think the game would have a more cohesive quality if the rules were embedded within a context, rather than in abstract "D&D Land."
> 
> A new core setting would also allow for WotC to adjust the lore in a way that wouldn't freak out "setting diehards" ("That's now how elves are in the Realms!").
> 
> But that only works if they offer alternatives, otherwise it becomes a kind of codified One True Wayism. We don't want D&D to be forced into a singular modality of play (well, most of us don't). And furthermore, it should be emphasized in the intro of every rulebook that this is just the default mode - make the game as you want it to be.



Do pathfinder fans get into arguments about Golarion the same way that FR fans argue about canon FR?


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## the Jester

I voted "No, but some assumptions fine", but also want to vote, "No, but examples from various settings are cool".


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## Mercurius

Malmuria said:


> Do pathfinder fans get into arguments about Golarion the same way that FR fans argue about canon FR?



Ha, no idea. Probably, knowing gamers. But maybe not, as I think Golarion lore has remained consistent from 1E to 2E. Someone with better knowledge might say otherwise.


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## SehanineMoonbow

I was going to originally say no, but I settled on undecided, because my feelings are currently mixed.


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## R_J_K75

Charlaquin said:


> While a setting may not be explicitly mentioned, there are always setting implications. For example, the cleric class implies that there is some sort of deity or deities that invest divine power in chosen agents, and these deities oppose undead. Alignment implies that law and chaos and/or good and evil are tangible cosmic forces, and the paladin’s code of conduct implies a great deal about what is good and lawful. The names of different levels of classes carry a lot of setting implications, like the how the druid hierarchy works. The equipment lists imply the setting’s general level of technology. But yeah, no explicit default setting.



I agree, though Im not sure setting though Im not sure "campign" setting should be applied but more of the micro setting when reading the PHB/DMG/MM.  

To each their own, which is why I love playing D&D.  We all have our own take on it.


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## R_J_K75

Micah Sweet said:


> There were plenty of implied setting elements in the DMG and MM.  D&D is not generic fantasy and it never has been.



Sure, the gnome does this, the Fighter does that, and the Cleric worshps Thor. I guess...as Gary put it a milieu.  I dont see it as a setting as more of a chasis to bolt your setting to.


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## Faolyn

Malmuria said:


> In any case, I'd love a return to there being *one* core rulebook, rules cyclopedia style, with a little setting in the back.



What _I'd_ like to see is something like this, but where the setting isn't just presented but actually built, in the same way that D&D builds a sample character. Maybe include a bunch of tables (random race, monster, climate/terrain, settlement, government style, attitudes toward magic, random gods--stuff like that). Similar to that "This Is Your LIfe" generator from Xannie's. Have the region cover, I dunno, a 7-hex area (one hex and all surrounding hexes). 

Give the region a name and then reference it throughout the PH (or PH/DMG combo). Like, include sidebars that says that in Region, elves typically live in the Leafy Forest (in the races section) and the headquarters of the Legion of Paladins is in the Lightning Plains (in the classes section).


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## Malmuria

Faolyn said:


> What _I'd_ like to see is something like this, but where the setting isn't just presented but actually built, in the same way that D&D builds a sample character. Maybe include a bunch of tables (random race, monster, climate/terrain, settlement, government style, attitudes toward magic, random gods--stuff like that). Similar to that "This Is Your LIfe" generator from Xannie's. Have the region cover, I dunno, a 7-hex area (one hex and all surrounding hexes).
> 
> Give the region a name and then reference it throughout the PH (or PH/DMG combo). Like, include sidebars that says that in Region, elves typically live in the Leafy Forest (in the races section) and the headquarters of the Legion of Paladins is in the Lightning Plains (in the classes section).



Exactly: provide tools and instruction for world building, town building, and adventure building, and provide examples along the way.  By the end you've taught a new dm how to prepare for the game and provided them with a starting setting and adventure.


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## DammitVictor

To think that it's possible for any version of 6e to be completely "setting agnostic" just goes to show much D&D's extruded fantasy product has poisoned everyone's brains. Everything, _every single thing_, about how D&D is designed from its classes to its races to its _individual magic systems_ is a setting-specific design decision that only applies to "generic fantasy settings" that are _directly based_ on D&D's design decisions. The weapons and the armor and the equipment lists are all _incredibly _setting-specific, given the inclusion of rapiers and articulated plate armor without firearms.

Everything points to a very specific (and _consistently inaccurate_) picture of a time and place on Earth with the same specific fantasy elements drawn, more or less entirely, from the same small pool of fantasy authors.

Trying to make the next edition of D&D more "setting agnostic" effectively means leaning into those very specific elements and homogenizing whatever "official" settings are supported in 6e towards that very specific setting and away from the very specific settings they already were.

What D&D should do instead is provide more tools _for dungeonmasters_ to reexamine and redesign those decisions for their own game worlds.


----------



## tetrasodium

Shroompunk Warlord said:


> To think that it's possible for any version of 6e to be completely "setting agnostic" just goes to show much D&D's extruded fantasy product has poisoned everyone's brains. Everything, _every single thing_, about how D&D is designed from its classes to its races to its _individual magic systems_ is a setting-specific design decision that only applies to "generic fantasy settings" that are _directly based_ on D&D's design decisions. The weapons and the armor and the equipment lists are all _incredibly _setting-specific, given the inclusion of rapiers and articulated plate armor without firearms.
> 
> Everything points to a very specific (and _consistently inaccurate_) picture of a time and place on Earth with the same specific fantasy elements drawn, more or less entirely, from the same small pool of fantasy authors.
> 
> Trying to make the next edition of D&D more "setting agnostic" effectively means leaning into those very specific elements and homogenizing whatever "official" settings are supported in 6e towards that very specific setting and away from the very specific settings they already were.
> 
> What D&D should do instead is provide more tools _for dungeonmasters_ to reexamine and redesign those decisions for their own game worlds.



While true that d&d is d&d rather than any flavor of generic fantasy, there are a few d&d settings that exist.  As d&d settings they should have their needs in mechanics & themes supported by the core ruleset and/or it's optional components .  5e just was written exclusively for the needs of FR & FR's themes. With FR eing basically greyhawk with the serial numbers filed off it mostly fits that too.   With eberron Darksun & ravenloft playing up/down various elements that were stripped & made difficult to reinsert those of course are more difficult than simply replacing some of the FR themes with themes of those settings.  It is very possible to be agnostic among d&d settings to some degree but FR is very much not that.


----------



## pemerton

Shroompunk Warlord said:


> What D&D should do instead is provide more tools _for dungeonmasters_ to reexamine and redesign those decisions for their own game worlds.



I agree with your description. But I don't think I agree with this prescription.


----------



## TheSword

I find it hard to take 6e seriously when 5e is so absolutely, clearly on the ascension. The profit growth of another year shows almost doubling profits. for what it’s worth though I think Forgotten Realms works as the default setting that keeps on giving. Though I don’t think it really matters where an adventure is set as long as it is set somewhere. I can file the numbers or Greyhawk as easily as I can file them off Forgotten Realms or Golarion.





*My first ever meme by the way. Inspired by P Anckorn


----------



## Minigiant

TheSword said:


> I find it hard to take 6e seriously when 5e is so absolutely, clearly on the ascension. The profit growth of another year shows almost doubling profits. for what it’s worth though I think Forgotten Realms works as the default setting that keeps on giving. Though I don’t think it really matter where an adventure is set as long as it is set somewhere. I can file the numbers or Greyhawk as easily as I can file them off Forgotten Realms or Golarion.
> 
> View attachment 141571
> *My first ever meme by the way. Inspired by P Anckorn



I don't relies think this is a discussion about the nonexistent descent of 5e but the acknowledgements that 5e has. The one in this thread is about default setting.

FR works as a setting designed to work with almost every new rulebook. This has advantages and disadvantage. Especially since FR has a history. So it comes of a cramped and complex as it attempts to contain most of the past, present, in it simultaneously.

That's why I think a new setting that only worries about the current and future fluff and crunch of its choice is best for 6e.


----------



## R_J_K75

tetrasodium said:


> While true that d&d is d&d rather than any flavor of generic fantasy, there are a few d&d settings that exist.  As d&d settings they should have their needs in mechanics & themes supported by the core ruleset and/or it's optional components .  5e just was written exclusively for the needs of FR & FR's themes. With FR eing basically greyhawk with the serial numbers filed off it mostly fits that too.   With eberron Darksun & ravenloft playing up/down various elements that were stripped & made difficult to reinsert those of course are more difficult than simply replacing some of the FR themes with themes of those settings.  It is very possible to be agnostic among d&d settings to some degree but FR is very much not that.



WTF is that?  Im too drunk to =ead, just saw the pictu=e.


----------



## Scott Christian

Minigiant said:


> 6e should have a core setting.
> That core 6e setting should be designed *from scratch.*
> Official settings and playstyles should be the 6e core setting with modifications and name changes.



This. 
All other books could deal with other settings in different planes (places that already exist like Eberron or Dark Sun). This way they can avoid the race debate. They can add a gazillion new classes. They can add science fiction if they want. Whatever. Each half year or quarter, come out with a new place and an adventure that accompanies it. Then also, come out with an adventure and region of the made from scratch setting. 

Developing something new will get the writers going. Old timers seeing their past represented will make them happy. And, most importantly for me, a clear demarcation regarding one area's classes and races and sub-rules will exist.


----------



## Vaalingrade

The druid thread is a great case for going setting agnostic. Because the designers made a flavor decision, people treat it like a literal real-world taboo instead of making their own choices. It's like a smaller version of the LG Paladin thing.


----------



## R_J_K75

TheSword said:


> I find it hard to take 6e seriously when 5e is so absolutely, clearly on the ascension. The profit growth of another year shows almost doubling profits. for what it’s worth though I think Forgotten Realms works as the default setting that keeps on giving. Though I don’t think it really matters where an adventure is set as long as it is set somewhere. I can file the numbers or Greyhawk as easily as I can file them off Forgotten Realms or Golarion.
> 
> View attachment 141571
> *My first ever meme by the way. Inspired by P Anckorn



I think I almost soiled myself.  Keep in mind Im browsing the thread, came upon this and saw it and thought its Right Said Fred" when it actually was I laughed my ass off.


----------



## R_J_K75

Steampunkette said:


> I would recommend a different format for 6e rather than DMG, PHB, MM.



Id much prefer a single or duo PHB/DMG/MM format of the core books.


----------



## Northern Phoenix

Yes. To me, the game is about playing as fantasy archetype characters in variety of fantasy story archetypes. To this end, it is helpful to have a solid set of core assumptions that exist beyond "it can be anything at all, maaan". The books say "make it your own" every 10 pages at least, which i don't mind, but i am of the opinion that it is much better to have a solid core you can deviate from, than a bare mold where you have to do everything yourself.


----------



## TheSword

R_J_K75 said:


> I think I almost soiled myself.  Keep in mind Im browsing the thread, came upon this and saw it and thought its Right Said Fred" when it actually was I laughed my ass off.



I’m posting that in every 6e thread I see until the mods tell me to stop!


----------



## R_J_K75

TheSword said:


> I’m posting that in every 6e thread I see until the mods tell me to stop!



I pissed myself,...literally!


----------



## Remathilis

AcererakTriple6 said:


> This is a simple question and hopefully a larger discussion about direction that the 3 core rulebooks in 6e could take; Should there be a Core Setting in 6e? That is, should the 3 core rulebooks and the rest of the base edition assume that a certain setting is being used in the flavor-text for the PHB race, the Monsters in the Monster Manual, and the descriptions of the world(s) in the DMG (though, the 5e DMG has much less setting-assumption than the PHB and DMG)? Should there be named spells like "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion" and "Bigby's Hand" in favor of "Magnificent Mansion" and "Arcanist's Hand"?
> 
> What are your thoughts on this?



Yes. D&D is the only non-generic RPG I know of that doesn't have an implicit setting. Pathfinder has Golarion, D&D should have a similar. Be it Realms, Nentir Vale or Greyhawk, they're should be a default in the core.

It's Dungeons & Dragons, not Generic Fantasy Simulator d20.


----------



## Urriak Uruk

So before I give my own opinion on 6E, I have to ask... does 5E even have a Core Setting?

My gut instinct would say "Yes, and it's Forgotten Realms." But it's not _really_. It gets mentioned a lot in the core rulebooks, and its definitely the default in 90% of released adventure books, but it's not really the Core Setting. Yes the core rulebooks all work perfectly with FR... but they work just as well with Greyhawk, Exandria, or the majority of homebrew games. I don't even think the core books are better suited for FR than those other settings.

So anyway, I guess I'm voting for "no, but some setting assumptions/descriptions are ok."


----------



## Northern Phoenix

Urriak Uruk said:


> So before I give my own opinion on 6E, I have to ask... does 5E even have a Core Setting?
> 
> My gut instinct would say "Yes, and it's Forgotten Realms." But it's not _really_. It gets mentioned a lot in the core rulebooks, and its definitely the default in 90% of released adventure books, but it's not really the Core Setting. Yes the core rulebooks all work perfectly with FR... but they work just as well with Greyhawk, Exandria, or the majority of homebrew games. I don't even think the core books are better suited for FR than those other settings.
> 
> So anyway, I guess I'm voting for "no, but some setting assumptions/descriptions are ok."




That's the point of the core setting though. It's supposed to be solid enough to inspire you and guide you without ever completely restricting you.


----------



## Vaalingrade

Urriak Uruk said:


> So before I give my own opinion on 6E, I have to ask... does 5E even have a Core Setting?
> 
> My gut instinct would say "Yes, and it's Forgotten Realms." But it's not _really_.



FR is just the one that REALLY try to sell you. But there's still a generic semi-setting there like how a lot of people are openly racist against teiflings, druids are too dumb to wear metal and there is special power to be had in taking a paladin oath then noping out of it.


----------



## PsyzhranV2

I voted "no, but some descriptions of specific settings and their races/monsters cultures are okay." For the mainline books, that's what I would be happy with. HOWEVER:

My demand for 6e: an SRD that is ONLY rules content. Outline the ability stats and proficiency bonus, explain how ability checks, attack rolls and damage, and saving throws work (or whatever their equivalent would be in 6e), and a list of skills that is as setting-agnostic as possible. I'm wondering if that SRD should even include character classes or if there should only be advice on how to build your own classes. Maybe if classes in 6e are more modular then a template class could be included in the SRD.

This SRD wouldn't replace a hypothetical PHB+MM+DMG (or a single core rulebook if they make the decision to condense the core system into one book, in which case I would be infinitely grateful). Rather, this would be a designer or homebrewer's resource: a clear outline of how the game system works with as little fluff attached as possible, for use to design one's own settings within the D&D mechanics without being bound by D&D's thematic stereotypes or being confused by any potential ambiguity between crunch and fluff.


----------



## Urriak Uruk

Northern Phoenix said:


> That's the point of the core setting though. It's supposed to be solid enough to inspire you and guide you without ever completely restricting you.




Isn't that the definition of genre, not setting? Or is this thread just using those words interchangeably to mean each other?


----------



## Malmuria

PsyzhranV2 said:


> I voted "no, but some descriptions of specific settings and their races/monsters cultures are okay." For the mainline books, that's what I would be happy with. HOWEVER:
> 
> My demand for 6e: an SRD that is ONLY rules content. Outline the ability stats and proficiency bonus, explain how ability checks, attack rolls and damage, and saving throws work (or whatever their equivalent would be in 6e), a list that is as setting-agnostic as possible. I'm wondering if that SRD should even include character classes or if there should only be advice on how to build your own classes. Maybe if classes in 6e are more modular then a template class could be included in the SRD.
> 
> This SRD wouldn't replace a hypothetical PHB+MM+DMG (or a single core rulebook if they make the decision to condense the core system into one book, in which case I would be infinitely grateful). Rather, this would be a designer or homebrewer's resource: a clear outline of how the game system works with as little fluff attached as possible, for use to design one's own settings within the D&D mechanics without being bound by D&D's thematic stereotypes or being confused by any potential ambiguity between crunch and fluff.



Something like this but official would be really helpful.  I can't fathom why they included guidelines in the dmg that the designers themselves don't use.









						5e monster manual on a business card
					

Lately I’ve been doing statistical analysis on D&D 5e monsters to see how they’re built, and I’ve learned some interesting things: the DMG monster-creation guidelines don&#821…



					blogofholding.com


----------



## cbwjm

I'm undecided. I don't specifically think DnD needs a core setting, 2e was pretty light on setting information in the core rulebooks, other than named spells and magical items it may as well have been setting agnostic as I don't think it called out any setting around at the time. However, having a core setting as an example I think could be useful to serve as inspiration, even if only minor information is revealed in the core books, it doesn't have to do a deep dive into the information on the setting but being able to give a list of gods as examples, maybe a faction and patrons (assuming these would be part of the main rules) would be useful and they may as well belong to a specific setting.


----------



## Northern Phoenix

Urriak Uruk said:


> Isn't that the definition of genre, not setting? Or is this thread just using those words interchangeably to mean each other?



The setting is more specific, it includes assumptions about the... setting the game is assumed to take place in (pre- individual table customization) that do not necessarily match the wider "genre" (the 5e PHB presents a wildly different setting than Game of Thrones, or Mistborn, or even Lord of the Rings).


----------



## Urriak Uruk

Northern Phoenix said:


> The setting is more specific, it includes assumptions about the... setting the game is assumed to take place in (pre- individual table customization) that do not necessarily match the wider "genre" (the 5e PHB presents a wildly different setting than Game of Thrones, or Mistborn, or even Lord of the Rings).




Yeah, I disagree with this.

Genre can be very narrowly defined; Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings, may be in the same broader genre of "fantasy," but they aren't of the same more narrow fantasy categories... Game of Thrones can also be described as a "fantasy drama" while Lord of the Rings is more "heroic fantasy."

Dungeons and Dragons can also more narrowly defined as_ heroic fantasy_. One could even say that the "established" settings share an even more narrow genre, being "Pre-Industrial, near-Medieval Heroic Fantasy."

Here's a line from the DMG:

_This book, the Player's Handbook, and the Monster Manual present the default assumptions for how the worlds of D&D work. Among the established settings of D&D, the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Mystara don't stray very far from those assumptions. Settings such as Dark Sun, Eberron, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and Planescape venture further away from that baseline. As you create your own world, it's up to you to decide where on the spectrum you want your world to fall._

And here's another one;

_Empires rise and fall, leaving few places that have not been touched by imperial grandeur or decay. War, time, and natural forces eventually claim the mortal world, leaving it rich with places of adventure and mystery. Ancient civilizations and their knowledge survive in legends, magic items, and their ruins. Chaos and evil often follow an empire's collapse._

Those above 4 lines don't really define a setting, they define a genre of fantasy. It's not setting specific as it can be applied to innumerable works of fantasy fiction. It can be applied to Tekumel even! This is not setting specific in any measurable way.


----------



## Malmuria

One thing implicit in the phb and mm (and spelled out in the dmg), are aspects of a particular cosmology.  I almost wonder if that's too much already for a points of light setting.  On the other hand, extraplanar beings have a history with dnd going back to near the beginning (esp, things like githyanki, etc).


----------



## Faolyn

PsyzhranV2 said:


> This SRD wouldn't replace a hypothetical PHB+MM+DMG (or a single core rulebook if they make the decision to condense the core system into one book, in which case I would be infinitely grateful).



Sadly, I doubt they could cover all three in a single book unless they serious trimmed down the number of monsters that were available in it, while still having enough for a full game. For instance, maybe only have one type of dragon (probably with different breath weapons and a list of options so it could stand in for all the different types of dragon). Which, yeah, they could do if they were also planning on going back to the multiple full monster books.


----------



## Hex08

I chose "No, but some minor assumptions are fine". While I started playing earlier, AD&D 2e is where my fondest memories lie and the rules then were pretty setting agnostic except for things like spell names so that's kind of my preference. Also, the game has had many settings that have been published over the years and while I haven't played D&D since 3.5 and so am not aware of the current state of most settings it seems to me that the only way to accommodate Wizards publishing more than one is to keep the core rules setting agnostic.


----------



## EzekielRaiden

There should be no core setting. Some amount of setting-particular stuff is gonna leak through (that's product identity, it WILL happen), but the books should rather support a panoply of settings rather than one singular setting.

In the ideal case, the books would actually break down _how_ and _why_ various elements appear in various settings, as part of a package of information to help DMs and players put together settings they'll enjoy running and playing in.


----------



## J.Quondam

Bad core setting assumptions lead to madness like the ongoing "Can your druids wear metal armor?" thread.


----------



## DammitVictor

J.Quondam said:


> Bad core setting assumptions lead to madness like the ongoing "Can your druids wear metal armor?" thread.



Honestly, _any_ core setting assumptions are going to get that exact same response. What they want is a "generic" fantasy system that will work for their own personal setting _out of the box_-- which is impossible-- and one that says D&D _on the box _and is played by millions of other people whose own personal settings are not theirs.


----------



## EzekielRaiden

Shroompunk Warlord said:


> Honestly, _any_ core setting assumptions are going to get that exact same response. What they want is a "generic" fantasy system that will work for their own personal setting _out of the box_-- which is impossible-- and one that says D&D _on the box _and is played by millions of other people whose own personal settings are not theirs.



Which is why it should focus on providing robust analysis of _what setting elements can do_, and well-structured advice for _how you can do what you intend_.

Simple example, class and race availability. There's the obvious "core four by four" so-traditional-it-makes-my-eyes-bleed option, Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard x Human/Elf/Dwarf/Halfling, which has a lot of weird idiosyncrasies because of how it formed (e.g. taking Tolkien's juggernaut worldbuilding out of context can leave it...weird or disappointing). But there's also, say, a world where the races are Human/Tiefling/Dragonborn/Kobold and the classes are Paladin/Druid/Monk/Warlock. That leads to a distinctly different feel, perhaps one where dragons and fiends are the central focus, where fae stuff takes a back seat to the raw primal power of nature, and most magic is bestowed or stolen, where most people have SOME amount of magic but most people also learn some martial skill too. Dark Sun, for example, curates both things, adding its own bonus stuff for flair (psionics and thri-kreen, frex) in order to really bring home how _different_ its world is from a typical D&D context.

Such stuff ACTUALLY empowers DMs, because it doesn't TELL them what to run. Instead, it shows them what they COULD run. As I said, some amount of product identity is gonna creep in no matter what, so getting hung up on that is pointless. We can still create works that emphasize the unique tools available to DMs and actually help them use them well, rather than telling them "this is what IS, unless you decide to change it, in which case...you figure it out!"


----------



## DammitVictor

EzekielRaiden said:


> Which is why it should focus on providing robust analysis of _what setting elements can do_, and well-structured advice for _how you can do what you intend_.




Absolutely, one hundred percent agreed.


----------



## cmad1977

No more so than there already is.


----------



## Mirtek

R_J_K75 said:


> I dont recall there being any mention of a core setting in the 1E or 2E core books besides named spells, but its been over 20 years since Ive read any of those and I could be mistaken.  But I think it could be done.  Just my opinion and its what I would want if I had my choice.



Especially the 2e MM had as much if not more space dedicated to the ecology of the monsters than to their stats.


----------



## Jaeger

King Babar said:


> And don't tell me, "oh, the core setting is the D&D multiverse with Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and everything else altogether", because to me that's just WotC *wanting to have its cake and eat it too.*
> 
> Either have a core setting, and design the system around it, or *don't and create a truly neutral rules system.* Don't try to have it both ways.




In It's defense, D&D has done a fairly good job at taking advantage of its market leader status, and having its cake and eating it too.

D&D has always been _very coy_ with its implied settings... It has _always_ tried to have it both ways.

Luckily being the market leader; most players squint or ignore what they want  so that they can say that they are playing in their 'unique' setting.

But in reality the 'unique' D&D setting = "Parts of D&D I restricted or house-ruled to do what I want, keeping the rest of the base D&D setting and genre assumptions, and calling it 'unique'."




Urriak Uruk said:


> hose above 4 lines don't really define a setting, they define a genre of fantasy. It's not setting specific as it can be applied to innumerable works of fantasy fiction. It can be applied to Tekumel even! This is not setting specific in any measurable way.




Except for the fact that mechanically in the PHB and DMG Lots of setting specific assumptions are made. Particularly in Cosmology and Magic.

How Cosmology and Magic in the PHB and DMG works and effects the core classes is a HUGE setting assumption baked right into the D&D rules.

D&D is not 'generic fantasy' by any measure. It has been and always will be its own style of 'D&D fantasy'.




Shroompunk Warlord said:


> ...What they want is_ a "generic" fantasy system that will work for their own personal setting out of the box--* which is impossible*_-- and one that says D&D _on the box _and is played by millions of other people whose own personal settings are not theirs.




So much this.

If you are playing D&D out of the three core books, you are playing _D&D Fantasy_. You may dress it up with various setting veneers to give you a 'different feel'. But you are still very much playing _D&D Fantasy. _Too many genre and setting assumptions are hard wired into the core system.

Pathfinders Galorion is a simple tacit acknowledgement of this fact, which is then leveraged to sell their AP's.

But as in my reply to King barber, TSR and now WOTC D&D has done a fairly good job of selling 'D&D Fantasy' = 'Generic Fantasy'.

The fact is that the game tropes of D&D have been so influential on the fantasy genre that D&D forms many people perceptions of what fantasy is. So to many people 'D&D Fantasy' does = 'Generic Fantasy'!

It makes for a nice self reinforcing feedback loop that has allowed D&D to have it both ways for decades now.


----------



## Northern Phoenix

Jaeger said:


> The fact is that the game tropes of D&D have been so influential on the fantasy genre that D&D forms many people perceptions of what fantasy is. So to many people 'D&D Fantasy' does = 'Generic Fantasy'!
> 
> It makes for a nice self reinforcing feedback loop that has allowed D&D to have it both ways for decades now.




This is an interesting point. Before DnD got truly huge, it still had influence on the fantasy genre by, through game developers that played, having a huge influence on the design and assumptions in countless Fantasy video games that were (and are) played by tens of millions of people, shaping how people see fantasy even if only 1/1000 of the people who played those video games actually played old DnD.


----------



## Urriak Uruk

Jaeger said:


> D&D is not 'generic fantasy' by any measure. It has been and always will be its own style of 'D&D fantasy'.




I think you need to read my post again, because at no point did I say that D&D reflects generic fantasy. It doesn't. It reflect "Heroic Fantasy," and even "Pre-Industrial Heroic Fantasy," but its not much more narrow in genre than that.

The core rules do make several assumptions, but few that are particularly setting-specific. In the cosmology section, it points out how you can run almost any cosmology you can imagine; it even gives an outline for how to do this.

The section on magic is much the same; the DMG provides questions for you to answer when making your world;

_Consider these questions when fitting magic into your world;_

_Is some magic common? Is some socially unacceptable? Which magic is rare?_
_How unusual are members of each spellcasting class? How common are those who can cast high-level spells?_
_How rare are magic items, magical locations, and creatures that have supernatural powers? At what power level do these things go from everyday to exotic?_
_How do authorities regulate and use magic? How do normal folks use magic and protect themselves from it?_

The answers to those questions result in a very wide number of possible settings, so I find it hard to accept there are enough "setting assumptions" that the core books result in a "Core Setting."


----------



## Malmuria

Urriak Uruk said:


> I think you need to read my post again, because at no point did I say that D&D reflects generic fantasy. It doesn't. It reflect "Heroic Fantasy," and even "Pre-Industrial Heroic Fantasy," but its not much more narrow in genre than that.
> 
> The core rules do make several assumptions, but few that are particularly setting-specific. In the cosmology section, it points out how you can run almost any cosmology you can imagine; it even gives an outline for how to do this.
> 
> The section on magic is much the same; the DMG provides questions for you to answer when making your world;
> 
> _Consider these questions when fitting magic into your world;_
> 
> _Is some magic common? Is some socially unacceptable? Which magic is rare?_
> _How unusual are members of each spellcasting class? How common are those who can cast high-level spells?_
> _How rare are magic items, magical locations, and creatures that have supernatural powers? At what power level do these things go from everyday to exotic?_
> _How do authorities regulate and use magic? How do normal folks use magic and protect themselves from it?_
> 
> The answers to those questions result in a very wide number of possible settings, so I find it hard to accept there are enough "setting assumptions" that the core books result in a "Core Setting."



That's right, though currently I feel the books do a poor job of addressing how answering those fundamental questions might tangibly result in different settings.  There's some gloss of "high fantasy" vs "sword and sorcery" etc in the dmg, but like everything in that book it is quite half hearted and not very useful beyond just saying, 'these genres exist.'  They could do that by releasing setting books, in the way that Ravenloft seeks to be a more general toolkit for horror games.

The more I think about it what I really want a 20 pg starting adventure scenario (town, npcs, small region, 3-5 locations, simple plot) included in the core books, maybe annotated to teach new dms.    I don't know why I'm invested in that because I could easily create such a thing myself, but I think it's because I see the many many OSR products producing succinct and evocative adventure environments, and I think that the more mainstream play culture could benefit from an ethos focused on emergent gameplay and creativity.  

So, for me, what a core setting should _not_ do is lock any of the implied setting into place, but what it _should _do, as others have noted, is provide a springboard for individual creativity.  I think moving away from the FR would help along these lines, in the sense that a new points of light setting could do a better job of "drawing maps and leaving blanks."


----------



## Neonchameleon

King Babar said:


> Either have a core setting, and design the system around it, or don't and create a truly neutral rules system. Don't try to have it both ways.



A "truly neutral rules system" doesn't exist and indeed can not exist. GURPS tried and did a reasonable job. 

But the entire D&D spell system including slots and levels dictates things about the setting. As does the way characters level and the power curve. As does the hit point and healing mechanics. What IMO you should do is develop the default setting around the rules.


----------



## Jaeger

Urriak Uruk said:


> I think you need to read my post again, because at no point did I say that D&D reflects generic fantasy. It doesn't. It reflect "Heroic Fantasy," and even "Pre-Industrial Heroic Fantasy," but its not much more narrow in genre than that.




I disagree. Heroic or pre-whatever; D&D does D&D style fantasy.

What is "Heroic Fantasy" ?
What is "Pre-Industrial Heroic Fantasy" ?

_Strong_ definitions needed.

And I can almost guarantee that our definitions of what those genre's encompass will not line up.




Urriak Uruk said:


> The core rules do make several assumptions, but few that are particularly setting-specific. In the cosmology section, it points out how you can run almost any cosmology you can imagine; it even gives an outline for how to do this.




An outline... sure. That's not running the game as written. That's work. Also changing the magic and cleric classes to match the new hotness is more work...

The overwhelming majority are just gonna run with what is hardcoded into the rules and PC classes.

WOTC didn't change a thing about the D&D cosmology for Ravenloft; an allegedly "different setting".  




Urriak Uruk said:


> The answers to those questions result in a very wide number of possible settings, so I find it hard to accept there are enough "setting assumptions" that the core books result in a "Core Setting."



Disagree:


Neonchameleon said:


> But the entire D&D spell system including slots and levels dictates things about the setting. As does the way characters level and the power curve. As does the hit point and healing mechanics. ...




Magic to cosmology, to how HP affect the way players play their characters, D&D is _Loaded _with a combination of genre and setting assumptions.

It just does both with a broad enough brush that most don't bother to look at the man behind the curtain.




Malmuria said:


> I feel the books do a poor job of addressing how answering those fundamental questions might tangibly result in different settings. There's* some gloss of *"high fantasy" vs "sword and sorcery" etc in the dmg, but like everything in that book it is quite half hearted and not very useful beyond just saying, 'these genres exist.'




And that is all that it is:  "some gloss of".  

It is all just a setting veneer over the core D&D gameplay.


----------



## Malmuria

Jaeger said:


> Magic to cosmology, to how HP affect the way players play their characters, D&D is _Loaded _with a combination of genre and setting assumptions.
> 
> It just does both with a broad enough brush that most don't bother to look at the man behind the curtain.



For example, here's a question that might lead to different implied settings.  If you play a high elf, you can choose a wizard cantrip. Does that mean that _every _high elf knows a cantrip, or _just _the PCs.  For the latter, racial abilities just apply to the PCs and don't necessarily extend further (per last year's UA).  If the former, then you have significantly increased the magic level of the world.

If cantrips and 1st level magic were even somewhat available in the real world it would solve a whole bunch of problems (and probably create new ones).  But I feel most groups don't really play this way, and instead inhabit a medieval times world where only the PCs, and not everyone, can spam goodberry and minor illusion.

This video is interesting on this topic: 





Jaeger said:


> And that is all that it is:  "some gloss of".
> 
> It is all just a setting veneer over the core D&D gameplay.



It is weird how self referential dnd has become.  In 1e the touchstones were appendix N.  Now the touchstones are just other versions of dnd.  For me it produces, at times, a somewhat hollow experience


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

Remathilis said:


> Yes. D&D is the only non-generic RPG I know of that doesn't have an implicit setting. Pathfinder has Golarion, D&D should have a similar. Be it Realms, Nentir Vale or Greyhawk, they're should be a default in the core.
> 
> It's *Dungeons & Dragons*, _not _*Generic Fantasy Simulator* *d20*.



IMHO, that's a distinction without a difference. D&D is a fantasy TTRPG. It's the first one, the one that has had the largest impact on the fantasy genre in general. It's the most popular one, the one with the most resources for it to get products and expansions, and is the easiest for new players to get into (largely due to simple rules, it being more popular and easier to find games/tables for, and it having a vast range of playstyles and subgenres). Its overall genre is Fantasy. Its genre isn't "Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Exandria/Dragonlance fantasy", because Dark Sun, Eberron, Ravnica, Ravenloft, and Theros are official D&D settings in 5e, and they all have very different subgenres and themes. Fantasy is the genre, and all types of fantasy should be available to play in D&D, and most should be supported by the core rulebooks so people that want to play X-subgenre of fantasy don't have to buy further books. There should be equal support for most (if not all) general subgenres of fantasy in the core books of D&D 5.5e/6e.


----------



## cmad1977

The secret is this:

The core setting was inside YOU all along!


----------



## EzekielRaiden

Jaeger said:


> In It's defense, D&D has done a fairly good job at taking advantage of its market leader status, and having its cake and eating it too. D&D has always been _very coy_ with its implied settings... It has _always_ tried to have it both ways. Luckily being the market leader; most players squint or ignore what they want  so that they can say that they are playing in their 'unique' setting. But in reality the 'unique' D&D setting = "Parts of D&D I restricted or house-ruled to do what I want, keeping the rest of the base D&D setting and genre assumptions, and calling it 'unique'."



While I take your point that D&D (like all systems) imposes certain shapes and ideas on the games people play with it, I think you're being more than a little excessively strident here. Having things in common, even with every other D&D setting, is not the same as being _effectively equivalent_. E.g., _Shadowrun_ is very clearly influenced by D&D concepts, but has a substantially different theme, tone, and primary goal than most D&D settings today, hewing closer to the old-school "heist" approach. Then my _Dungeon World_ game (a PbtA system specifically aiming for the feel its designers remember of old-school D&D) takes inspiration from _Al Qadim_, GURPS Arabian Nights, the actual _Thousand and One Nights_, the _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_, the _Muqaddimah_ of Abd Ar Rahman bin Muhammed ibn Khaldun, and my (limited) knowledge of the Islamic Golden Age and Al-Andalus: monotheism, genies, political intrigue, financial motivation, saving face being sometimes more important than combat victory...

You can still do a lot, and still have _actually_ unique settings. Just because there are structural similarities doesn't mean they aren't unique. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, mustard seed, and turnip are all from closely-related _brassica_ species (the first four are all the _same_ species, _brassica oleracea_), but I'd call broccoli and cabbage unique vegetables nonetheless. I mean, with one you eat the leaves, and another you eat the unbloomed flower buds!



Jaeger said:


> D&D is not 'generic fantasy' by any measure. It has been and always will be its own style of 'D&D fantasy'.



I have to agree with the above poster that I'd call it "heroic fantasy" rather than narrowly "D&D fantasy." "D&D fantasy" IS a thing, and it's had a huge influence on (for example) the MMO genre. But even games _heavily_ influenced by D&D, such as Final Fantasy, can end up somewhere pretty radically different despite sharing that common root. FFXIV, a game I play frequently, has a cosmology that would never work in a D&D system, and explicitly notes that all forms of combat discipline, including the "purely physical" classes like Monk and Warrior, manipulate aether (="do magic") in order to function, they just do so by channeling that aether through their own bodies, rather than into external collections of magic. And even "pure magic" classes sometimes do the same, e.g. Black Mage has to carefully spool up fire-aspected aether (fire magic) inside their own bodies before deploying it--a small mistake can potentially kill the user, burning them from the inside out. (The player character is protected by their "job stone," the soul crystal that you use to learn how to be a Black Mage.)



Jaeger said:


> But as in my reply to King barber, TSR and now WOTC D&D has done a fairly good job of selling 'D&D Fantasy' = 'Generic Fantasy'.



I don't think it's all on their shoulders. Tolkien basically rewrote the book on fantasy settings. He didn't _mean_ to, mind; he was just very serious about world-building and really making_ use_ of his knowledge as an expert on Anglo-Saxon literature. (His _Beowulf_ translation is still fairly authoritative, as I understand it.)



Jaeger said:


> The fact is that the game tropes of D&D have been so influential on the fantasy genre that D&D forms many people perceptions of what fantasy is. So to many people 'D&D Fantasy' does = 'Generic Fantasy'!
> 
> It makes for a nice self reinforcing feedback loop that has allowed D&D to have it both ways for decades now.



Well, let's be real. "Generic Fantasy" is probably a phantom to begin with anyway. That is, what could ever qualify? "Fantasy" literally means "imagination unrestricted by reality" or "imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained." "Generic Fantasy" would literally just be "whatever you can come up with." Nothing that _has a context_ can ever be "Generic Fantasy."

So when people speak about a "generic fantasy setting," they're implicitly talking about something embedded in a context. In this case, "a fantasy setting in which role-playing a character is well-supported." That's still pretty broad, and I'd still grant that D&D narrows things further than that...but not so much further as to be radically excluding huge parts of that shared context. Now, I find that a lot of _players_ artificially limit even what D&D actually does provide access to (and then many of them try to present this as "true" D&D or as "actually" generic, when truly it's just "the stuff I grew up with, so its assumptions dissolve into the background rather than seeming aggressively brought to the surface.")



Northern Phoenix said:


> This is an interesting point. Before DnD got truly huge, it still had influence on the fantasy genre by, through game developers that played, having a huge influence on the design and assumptions in countless Fantasy video games that were (and are) played by tens of millions of people, shaping how people see fantasy even if only 1/1000 of the people who played those video games actually played old DnD.



I mean, while that's fair, D&D "got truly huge" in the 80s. The early to mid 80s is when we had the D&D cartoon, for example, which reached millions of people even if they didn't play the game. A lot of the people who played D&D in the early 80s were out of college no later than the late 90s, and that's when you started seeing the profusion of MMOs, which are pretty clearly one of D&D's two biggest impacts on video gaming as a medium (the other being single-player RPGs). I fully grant that you can see D&D's influence at least as early as 1987, with _Final Fantasy_, but...well, video gaming in general had only had two generations of consoles at that point, and PC gaming itself was still in its infancy.

More or less, I'm saying there really weren't _that_ many video games that _pre-date_ D&D  getting "truly huge." D&D looms so large over the market in large part because its boom-times were literally right at a formative juncture for video gaming, and then that boom time heavily influenced a whole generation of story-heavy, mechanically-heavy gaming experiences. (There had been classic Adventure games before that, but RPGs took those in a new direction, marrying in elements of action and statistical improvement that have become core traits of CRPGs today.)

For goodness' sake, _Pong_ as a home-playable game didn't come out until the mid to late 70s--and indeed it was originally proposed within Atari _the same year D&D was published_. So....yeah. D&D got big at almost exactly the same time video games got their act back together (after the crash of '83). And that timing could not possibly have been better for centralizing D&D concepts into the video gaming sphere.


----------



## Jaeger

Malmuria said:


> It is weird *how self referential dnd has become.*  In 1e the touchstones were appendix N.  Now the touchstones are just other versions of dnd.  For me it produces, at times, a somewhat hollow experience




It’s actually not that "weird",  In that it was an intentional design decision made during the creation of 3e that WOTC has stuck to since.

I do however agree with you that in many areas it has gotten to be a pastiche of a pastiche, i.e. a copy of a copy, to the point that a lot of the lore and fantasy assumptions have become so divorced from the touchstone of myth and legend that they have a very hollow ring to them for me.


----------



## tetrasodium

AcererakTriple6 said:


> IMHO, that's a distinction without a difference. D&D is a fantasy TTRPG. Its genre is Fantasy. *Its genre isn't "Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Exandria/Dragonlance fantasy",* because Dark Sun, Eberron, Ravnica, Ravenloft, and Theros are official D&D settings in 5e. Fantasy is the genre, and all types of fantasy should be available to play in D&D, and most should be supported by the core rulebooks so people that want to play X-subgenre of fantasy don't have to buy further books. There should be equal support for most (if not all) general subgenres of fantasy in the core books of D&D 5.5e/6e.



I strongly agree with most of this, especially the bolded bit.  The core rulebooks for 5eitself are so deeply tuned to that "Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Exandria/Dragonlance" end of the spectrum* that having some of it split into a second book would probably be an improvement.

* Unfortunately  wotc tuned it to about an 11 for a very specific style of that by cutting the needs of settings like "Dark Sun, Eberron, Ravnica, Ravenloft _[I didn't read much of Theros]_" down to like a 4-6 without caring how deep into the point of diminishing returns they were  the more they focused exclusively on supporting the "Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Exandria/Dragonlance" end of the spectrum


----------



## Neonchameleon

Malmuria said:


> It is weird how self referential dnd has become.  In 1e the touchstones were appendix N.  Now the touchstones are just other versions of dnd.  For me it produces, at times, a somewhat hollow experience



I think this might be why I'm far more interested in the Tasha's subclasses than the Xanathar's ones or even the PHB's; Tasha's feel a lot fresher while with the exception of the Warlock, Barbarian, and Paladin the PHB subclasses were all trying to be D&D (and even there they were mostly being 4e rather than trad D&D).


----------



## Neonchameleon

EzekielRaiden said:


> I mean, while that's fair, D&D "got truly huge" in the 80s. The early to mid 80s is when we had the D&D cartoon, for example, which reached millions of people even if they didn't play the game. A lot of the people who played D&D in the early 80s were out of college no later than the late 90s, and that's when you started seeing the profusion of MMOs, which are pretty clearly one of D&D's two biggest impacts on video gaming as a medium (the other being single-player RPGs). I fully grant that you can see D&D's influence at least as early as 1987, with _Final Fantasy_, but...well, video gaming in general had only had two generations of consoles at that point, and PC gaming itself was still in its infancy.
> 
> More or less, I'm saying there really weren't _that_ many video games that _pre-date_ D&D  getting "truly huge."



And those that there are, like Colossal Cave Adventure, DnD [sic], Wizardry, Zork (which called itself Dungeon until a TSR Cease & Desist) Ultima, and Rogue are frequently openly D&D inspired as were MUDs/Multi-User Dungeons. 1975-77's Colossal Cave Adventure (a game so influential the entire Adventure genre was named after it) was explicitly an attempt to create a computer-mediated D&D game for a group that couldn't organise sessions.

Indeed I believe that D&D almost dominated PC/mainframe gaming before it got big because the most complex games you could play were text based (rather than really primitive graphics) - and if you're doing that then dungeons are awesome as is a combat system. And anyone who'd played D&D would have a huge advantage knowing what they wanted to do when there were no templates. Oh, and if D&D was niche it was nerd-niche, as was programming games.


EzekielRaiden said:


> D&D looms so large over the market in large part because its boom-times were literally right at a formative juncture for video gaming, and then that boom time heavily influenced a whole generation of story-heavy, mechanically-heavy gaming experiences. (There had been classic Adventure games before that, but RPGs took those in a new direction, marrying in elements of action and statistical improvement that have become core traits of CRPGs today.)



As mentioned Adventure games were named after Colossal Cave Adventure (a.k.a. Adventure) which was an attempt to play D&D when they couldn't schedule.


EzekielRaiden said:


> For goodness' sake, _Pong_ as a home-playable game didn't come out until the mid to late 70s



Correction: Pong was an improved copy of a Magnavox Odyssey game. The Odyssey was the first home console and came out in 1972.


EzekielRaiden said:


> So....yeah. D&D got big at almost exactly the same time video games got their act back together (after the crash of '83). And that timing could not possibly have been better for centralizing D&D concepts into the video gaming sphere.



The Atarishock (it only applied in the US) only really affected console gaming and only in the US; I'm not even sure it affected PC gaming that much (but then it was a niche thing at the time anyway). The thing was that D&D already owned PC gaming but although Adventure made it to the Atari 2600 it took The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to show how to do an RPG on console, and even Dragon Quest/Dragon Warriors and Final Fantasy were pretty mechanics heavy. Dragon Warriors was a deliberate reaction against having to know the D&D rules - and Final Fantasy's original battle system was explicitly based on D&D and Wizardry (which was also D&D derived)


----------



## Dire Bare

I'm joining the thread late, so please forgive me if I cover ground well trod . . .

I didn't vote in the poll, as none of the options really felt right for me, although the sixth option is the closest (_no, but some descriptions of specific settings and their races/monsters cultures are okay_).

I really like how the 5E books handle things right now (_the core three, that is_). The default setting is ALL THE SETTINGS, or the D&D multiverse more broadly. I like how the examples presented come from a variety of D&D sources, leaning heavily on the Realms. The various "everything" supplements (Volo's, Xanathar's, Tasha's) follow this approach, even through Volo and Xanathar are Realmsian characters. Each adventure has a different implied setting, mostly the Realms of course, but are done with a light enough touch they are easily adaptable to other campaigns.

Love it.

With the possible exception of Greyhawk, none of the many existing, official settings really sit at the center of the D&D genre and core assumptions of the game. Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, and the Realms are close . . . but any of them, if tightly integrated into the core rules and assumptions, would change the game enough to upset fans of other settings, and probably not even make fans of the chosen setting happy either. WotC could create a new setting designed to flesh out the existing core assumptions of the game, but . . . they tried that during 4th Edition with the Nentir Vale setting, and everything about 4E was controversial.

And ultimately, it's just not necessary and allows a lot of fluidity and freedom for gamers, and for the designers of the game. Current adventure releases are Realms-heavy . . . but the current paradigm allows for occasionally something different like Ghosts of Saltmarsh. There's also space for using a different setting, and even creating a new one for future adventures and/or "everything" supplements (Volo's, Xanathar's, Tasha's).


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

Vaalingrade said:


> The druid thread is a great case for going setting agnostic. Because the designers made a flavor decision, people treat it like a literal real-world taboo instead of making their own choices. It's like a smaller version of the LG Paladin thing.



Agreed. I don't want specific setting assumptions built into my mechanics. Sure, some thematic fluff and descriptions other than physical appearance and capabilities are necessary, I feel that much of this can be rolled back from how 5e approaches it (especially with Druids and similar races). Volo's Orcs originally had a -2 to Intelligence, which is a setting-assumption that made its way into the ruleset, even though settings with non-evil, non-stupid orcs are fairly common and have been popular for decades, like Eberron. 

You need a definition of the concepts, but more often than not, I've found that small descriptions work better to inspire and encourage creativity than in-depth ones that have their setting-based themes baked into their mechanics, both for DMs and the official game designers. The LG paladin restriction is gone, as are strict racial-alignments, as are many other setting-specific assumptions that are based into the game. People like choice, and less setting assumptions often promote choice.


----------



## Urriak Uruk

Jaeger said:


> I disagree. Heroic or pre-whatever; D&D does D&D style fantasy.
> 
> What is "Heroic Fantasy" ?
> What is "Pre-Industrial Heroic Fantasy" ?
> 
> _Strong_ definitions needed.
> 
> And I can almost guarantee that our definitions of what those genre's encompass will not line up.




I'm going to focus on specifically this part of your response, because I don't want to get bogged down in three largely different arguments.

Firstly, saying D&D does D&D-style-fantasy is like saying World of Warcraft does Warcraft style fantasy. I mean, yeah it's true, it also doesn't mean _anything_. It's like saying your dog is a canine; it's circular.

I'm not a literary professor, so I'm not going to try and provide my definitions for what "Heroic Fantasy" is; just google it or look at it's Wikipedia article. My personal definition probably isn't going to line up exactly with yours, and I don't care. The exact definition doesn't matter, the approximate definition (extraordinary people doing adventures) is all that's necessary.

Now, what _does _do a good job of explaining D&D's genre for me? Why, it's 5E's appendix E from the Player's Handbook;






Now, there are a couple books here that stand out from as black sheep (I mean, HP Lovecraft doesn't really scream D&D), but most of these books have a lot of commonalities. More importantly, most of these books are the inspiration for the many settings of D&D and it's core tenets; how wizards do magic for example (forgetting their spells) is pulled nearly directly from Jack Vance. Does that mean that D&D Fantasy is actually Vancian Fantasy? I doubt it, because Vance's books are usually set in Earth's far future. So is it more like Moorcock, set on a completely different world?

Anyway, the point is that D&D is inspired by an amalgamation of several different writers. And, the core rulebooks, while providing one easy outline for how to run a setting, also provide several alternatives in cosmology and even magical systems. So I find it silly to say 5E has a core setting at all, although I think it is fair to say it hedges to a specific genre of fantasy (as shown by the Appendix E).


----------



## The Green Hermit

Neonchameleon said:


> I think this might be why I'm far more interested in the Tasha's subclasses than the Xanathar's ones or even the PHB's; Tasha's feel a lot fresher while with the exception of the Warlock, Barbarian, and Paladin the PHB subclasses were all trying to be D&D (and even there they were mostly being 4e rather than trad D&D).



I could barely read Tasha's. I have it, but I doubt I will use it much.


----------



## Scott Christian

EzekielRaiden said:


> I have to agree with the above poster that I'd call it "heroic fantasy" rather than narrowly "D&D fantasy."



@Jaeger For both of you, maybe I'm just not in the know. But I have never heard the term "D&D Fantasy" to describe anything. I understand the statement, and partially agree with it. Yet, there are too many other descriptors out there that categorize the fantasy genre. No where, on any RPG book I have ever picked up, nor any podcast with a writer, nor any interview with a movie or tv producer have I ever heard them describe anything as D&D fantasy. 
When you say this, do you mean generic fantasy?


----------



## pemerton

D&D wizards, and warlocks for that matter, more closely resemble Dr Strange than they do any fairy tale wizard, or Gandalf, or Ged from the Earthsea books.

And they are found in a world populated by all manner of quasi-human peoples - many more such diverse peoples than in JRRT's stories, let alone REH Conan or Le Guin or Jack the Giant Killer.

And in that self-same world are found druidical nature priests, and chivalric knights, and wuxia martial artists. There are various warriors of comparable puissance - those knights, those martial artists, totem warriors - but not (for example) doublet-wearing fencers. (AC too low.)

It's just not all that generic, in my view.


----------



## Northern Phoenix

pemerton said:


> D&D wizards, and warlocks for that matter, more closely resemble Dr Strange than they do any fairy tale wizard, or Gandalf, or Ged from the Earthsea books.
> 
> And they are found in a world populated by all manner of quasi-human peoples - many more such diverse peoples than in JRRT's stories, let alone REH Conan or Le Guin or Jack the Giant Killer.
> 
> And in that self-same world are found druidical nature priests, and chivalric knights, and wuxia martial artists. There are various warriors of comparable puissance - those knights, those martial artists, totem warriors - but not (for example) doublet-wearing fencers. (AC too low.)
> 
> It's just not all that generic, in my view.




Think you're using a different definition of generic here. Generally, if people come into DnD from fantasy video games or other modern fantasy stories, they can probably expect to find the sort of things they've seen there in DnD. DnD has all the fantasy stuff, so colloquially, it is "generic fantasy".


----------



## Jaeger

Urriak Uruk said:


> Now, what _does _do a good job of explaining D&D's genre for me? Why, it's 5E's appendix E from the Player's Handbook;




The compilation in Appendix E is not from a single genre of fantasy.



Urriak Uruk said:


> the point is that* D&D is inspired by an amalgamation of several different writers. *And, the core rulebooks, while providing one easy outline for how to run a setting, also provide several alternatives in cosmology and even magical systems. So I find it silly to say 5E has a core setting at all, although I think it is fair to say *it hedges to a specific genre of fantasy (as shown by the Appendix E).*




That D&D is an amalgam of several different writers points to the fact that D&D is very much it's own thing because many of the sources it draws from are very different from each other.

The only specific 'genre' of fantasy that D&D hedges to is D&D fantasy.

Appendix E is just sources of inspiration. The books listed have very different types of fantasy in them. 

They are not by any measure all the same 'genre' of fantasy. Even though they are all put under the 'fantasy' label.

Tolkiens vision of fantasy is different from Moorcocks. Burroughs tales are very different in tone than Pratchetts. Howard, Dunsany, And Martin are very different in tone, worldbuilding, and magic levels.

Listed in appendix E you have everything from weird fantasy, original mythology, sword and planet, sword and sorcery, pastiches based on D&D itself! Along with Tolkien and pastiches of Tolkien.

D&D has taken inspiration from all that to then make its own unique thing.

The unique genre assumptions D&D hard codes into its rules set bear this out. 

This is not a bad thing. It's just the way it is.

That D&D is its own genre of fantasy is hardly a controversial statement, and I am not by any stretch the first one to point this out.

Now as to whether or not the D&D rules set can do "All fantasy genre's"
This argument has largely been dealt with before:








						D&D 5E - D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs
					

edit: two posts have pointed toward the title as indicative of conflict, interpreting “vs” as competitive rather than comparative as I intended, so I’ve changed the title.   So, there is a lot of traffic on the internet dedicated to the idea that DnD is a very limited game, and if you want to...




					www.enworld.org
				




I'll defer to the arguments and counterarguments presented in the linked thread.


----------



## pemerton

Northern Phoenix said:


> Generally, if people come into DnD from fantasy video games or other modern fantasy stories, they can probably expect to find the sort of things they've seen there in DnD. DnD has all the fantasy stuff, so colloquially, it is "generic fantasy".



Well, if people come to D&D from material that is inspired by D&D then they will find what they're looking for.

But the most obvious thing about D&D - what the hell with the "cleric" class, ie armed and armoured healing priests? How is that generic?


----------



## Northern Phoenix

pemerton said:


> Well, if people come to D&D from material that is inspired by D&D then they will find what they're looking for.
> 
> But the most obvious thing about D&D - what the hell with the "cleric" class, ie armed and armoured healing priests? How is that generic?




You can find that sort of thing in most any game that has many different types of magic or classes in it, either explicitly or obliquely (i.e in Dark Souls). Sometimes you find a more clear split between the "Cleric/Priest" and the "Paladin" (or "Acolyte" and "Templar" if they're trying too hard to be unique), but that's all minutia. And it also gets back to the fact that DnD ultimately has _a lot of stuff_. The only thing DnD doesn't have, is strong limits on what is in it. You can find all the stuff from _Game of Thrones _or _Lord of the Rings, _in DnD, but you can't (usually) find _just_ those things, they exist along a multitude of other fantasy... stuff.


----------



## pemerton

Northern Phoenix said:


> You can find that sort of thing in most any game that has many different types of magic or classes in it



I'm sure you can. That would mean they're not generic either.

But there are approaches to RPG design that can increase or decrease how generic the game is. A system based on "choose a race, choose a class" where classes are defined by all these little packets of ability (especially spells) is going to struggle to be as generic as a system which is a bit more open-ended in its approach to PC build.


----------



## Malmuria

There are games that integrate setting and genre into the core rules, and games that are designed around being open ended, but 5e doesn't do either.  Instead, it is  purposefully vague as to what kind of world its mechanics and core lore would actually produce.  We've seen this in recent discussions here as to what 5e does well, if 5e (or any dnd) can really do horror, etc, with the inevitable responses of either yes, it works well enough for anything or no, you need a more specific or more customizable game.  I'm assuming they don't want to produce a 5e version of the d20 system and license, since I feel that didn't work out to well for them in the 3e era, but that's what a setting agnostic version of 5e would look like.  I suppose they could use setting books to swap out aspects of the core, but that would reduce cross compatibility (for example, a dark sun setting could and probably should come out and say only x,y,z classes and subclasses are available here, but they would never do that)


----------



## pemerton

Malmuria said:


> There are games that integrate setting and genre into the core rules, and games that are designed around being open ended, but 5e doesn't do either.  Instead, it is  purposefully vague as to what kind of world its mechanics and core lore would actually produce.  We've seen this in recent discussions here as to what 5e does well, if 5e (or any dnd) can really do horror, etc, with the inevitable responses of either yes, it works well enough for anything or no, you need a more specific or more customizable game.  I'm assuming they don't want to produce a 5e version of the d20 system and license, since I feel that didn't work out to well for them in the 3e era, but that's what a setting agnostic version of 5e would look like.



I think there are features of 5e that make "generic" or "setting agnostic" a challenge: central to its design are (i) lists of PC build elements that are put together within certain pre-established frameworks ("classes", "races/ancestries/heritages"), (ii) lists of monsters/opponents for the GM to use in confronting those PCs with challenges, and (iii) a focus on _task_ and _process_ as the core of the resolution system.

If you compare to more generic systems - say, HeroQuest revised or Cortex+ Heroic - they differ in all of these respects: PCs are built from descriptors, opposition is likewise built from descriptors, and resolution is mostly based around _framing_ and _intention_ with task and process being secondary concerns or even byproducts of resolution rather than inputs into it.

This is not an _evaluative _comparison. It's just a comparison. For similar reasons to 5e, Apocalypse World is not a generic system - it uses distinct suites of moves (playbooks) plus thematically-conceived basic moves as the core of its resolution process, and these bring task and process to the fore also. In the same way that the way you move from AW to (say) DW is to come up with new playbooks and new basic moves, so the way to move from 5e D&D to some other sort of fantasy or some other genre would be to come up with new class, race and skill lists, and new monsters lists. I gather this is how Adventures in Middle Earth does it.


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## Malmuria

pemerton said:


> I think there are features of 5e that make "generic" or "setting agnostic" a challenge: central to its design are (i) lists of PC build elements that are put together within certain pre-established frameworks ("classes", "races/ancestries/heritages"), (ii) lists of monsters/opponents for the GM to use in confronting those PCs with challenges, and (iii) a focus on _task_ and _process_ as the core of the resolution system.
> 
> If you compare to more generic systems - say, HeroQuest revised or Cortex+ Heroic - they differ in all of these respects: PCs are built from descriptors, opposition is likewise built from descriptors, and resolution is mostly based around _framing_ and _intention_ with task and process being secondary concerns or even byproducts of resolution rather than inputs into it.
> 
> This is not an _evaluative _comparison. It's just a comparison. For similar reasons to 5e, Apocalypse World is not a generic system - it uses distinct suites of moves (playbooks) plus thematically-conceived basic moves as the core of its resolution process, and these bring task and process to the fore also. In the same way that the way you move from AW to (say) DW is to come up with new playbooks and new basic moves, so the way to move from 5e D&D to some other sort of fantasy or some other genre would be to come up with new class, race and skill lists, and new monsters lists. I gather this is how Adventures in Middle Earth does it.



I've heard good things about Adventures in Middle Earth.  Homebrew classes/subclasses/races in 5e seem very hit or miss, and rely a lot on the designer's instinctive feel for the game and/or access to playtesting.  Whereas something like the white hack feels like a toolkit for creating your own osr game.  But other impediment is probably more to do with the business side of things, where they want all their content to be usable across different kinds of settings and genres, but don't want those supplemental books to necessarily reference each other.

For those of you who play ebberon, do you feel like the high magic aspect of that setting has a better feel for 5e mechanics (compared to any of the faux medieval settings)?


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## Doug McCrae

Neonchameleon said:


> But the entire D&D spell system including slots and levels dictates things about the setting.



I think that's true. Vancian casters, to be balanced against non-casters, require many dangerous encounters, typically monsters, over a short space of time. That means D&D dungeons, and D&D dungeons are more plausible in a kitchen sink world that's filled with monsters.

The most important source for Vancian magic, "Mazirian the Magician", feels D&D-y in a way that almost all other fantasy fiction doesn't: not only does the protagonist encounter many different monsters and other dangers, these are gathered together in a small geographic area. D&D and "Mazirian the Magician" are _monster dense_.


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## pemerton

Malmuria said:


> Homebrew classes/subclasses/races in 5e seem very hit or miss, and rely a lot on the designer's instinctive feel for the game and/or access to playtesting
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But other impediment is probably more to do with the business side of things, where they want all their content to be usable across different kinds of settings and genres



Right. Part of moving towards different genres is feeling free to produce material that is not mutually compatible.

For instance, a variant wizard/sorcerer who doesn't have Dr Strange-style blasts but has stronger summoning than a D&D wizard might be a good fit for a Conan-esque game, which would downplay combat balance and 6-8 encounters per day as core to the game, focusing on other arenas of conflict as just as important and being more ready to say "time passes" between scenes.

This different sort of game can easily enough accommodate the existing fighter and rogue, I think, because making long rests more common has only a modest impact on their balance. But this different game with its variant arcanist is obviously not going to be compatible with the inclusion of the PHB casters, who (i) will break it due to  nova-ing, and (ii) may not be a good fit given the wide range of their other abilities that tend to undercut Conan-esque adventure.

EDIT: I see this post as highly compatible with @Doug McCrae's just upthread.


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## SkidAce

pemerton said:


> D&D wizards, and warlocks for that matter, more closely resemble Dr Strange than they do any fairy tale wizard, or Gandalf, or Ged from the Earthsea books.
> 
> And they are found in a world populated by all manner of quasi-human peoples - many more such diverse peoples than in JRRT's stories, let alone REH Conan or Le Guin or Jack the Giant Killer.
> 
> And in that self-same world are found druidical nature priests, and chivalric knights, and wuxia martial artists. There are various warriors of comparable puissance - those knights, those martial artists, totem warriors - but not (for example) doublet-wearing fencers. (AC too low.)
> 
> It's just not all that generic, in my view.



I feel you just described a generic setting i.e. mixing pot of all kinds of different things thrown together.

Of course I look at D&D as a tool kit so...


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## tetrasodium

Malmuria said:


> *There are games that integrate setting and genre into the core rules, *and games that are designed around being open ended, but 5e doesn't do either.  Instead, it is  purposefully vague as to what kind of world its mechanics and core lore would actually produce.  We've seen this in recent discussions here as to what 5e does well, if 5e (or any dnd) can really do horror, etc, with the inevitable responses of either yes, it works well enough for anything or no, you need a more specific or more customizable game.  I'm assuming they don't want to produce a 5e version of the d20 system and license, since I feel that didn't work out to well for them in the 3e era, but that's what a setting agnostic version of 5e would look like.  I suppose they could use setting books to swap out aspects of the core, but that would reduce cross compatibility (for example, a dark sun setting could and probably should come out and say only x,y,z classes and subclasses are available here, but they would never do that)



5e very much does that.  Basically everything is setup for Forgotten Realms and the d&d settings that are very similar to it.  official d&d settings that differ from that to any notable degree barely rank as an afterthought for consideration in the core rules.


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## Malmuria

tetrasodium said:


> 5e very much does that.  Basically everything is setup for Forgotten Realms and the d&d settings that are very similar to it.  official d&d settings that differ from that to any notable degree barely rank as an afterthought for consideration in the core rules.



I mean games like blades in the dark, apocalypse world, or even osr games like mork borg that have a relatively specific setting or genre in mind and create, or at least intend to create, a play experience centered around that genre.  Then there are games like fate, white hack, or (reputedly, because I haven't looked at it much) gurps that are more toolkits that allow for players to match mechanics to their preferred genre.  

5e has produced a lot of content for the forgotten realms, but there are disconnects between the core rules and the FR.  But then, it's not clear to me that FR is very internally coherent as a setting to begin with, so maybe I'm reacting more to that than to the implicit 5e setting.

If you look at something like acquisitions incorporated, especially the past couple of years where they are bouncing around between various planes and different settings, what genre is that?  Whatever genre that is, I think it's a good fit for 5e mechanics (even though it is a stage show and so very different from home games)


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## tetrasodium

Malmuria said:


> I mean games like blades in the dark, apocalypse world, or even osr games like mork borg that have a relatively specific setting or genre in mind and create, or at least intend to create, a play experience centered around that genre.  Then there are games like fate, white hack, or (reputedly, because I haven't looked at it much) gurps that are more toolkits that allow for players to match mechanics to their preferred genre.
> 
> 5e has produced a lot of content for the forgotten realms, but there are disconnects between the core rules and the FR.  But then, it's not clear to me that FR is very internally coherent as a setting to begin with, so maybe I'm reacting more to that than to the implicit 5e setting.
> 
> If you look at something like acquisitions incorporated, especially the past couple of years where they are bouncing around between various planes and different settings, what genre is that?  Whatever genre that is, I think it's a good fit for 5e mechanics (even though it is a stage show and so very different from home games)



I'm familiar with them but there's a pretty significant chasm between 5e's FR  & FR-like hefty slant & gurps or something.  Past editions of d&d managed to float somewhere in that chasm  5e isn't just focused on the genre of FR, it's focused on one specific type of FR or FR-like setting campaign


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## Yaarel

I feel the Players Handbook can do much to feel more setting neutral.

Importantly, the player-facing text can tell the player that most settings dont have all of the options that are in the Players Handbook. The DM typically chooses specific races and classes to be in a setting, and to consult with the DM to see how a character concept that seems atypical for that setting might fit in.

Give examples from official settings, for how different settings can be, like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, and Magic The Gathering.

The Players Handbook is more useful when avoiding setting assumptions, like how the multiverse works or belief systems work. This kind of stuff belongs in the DMs Guide as part of a setting-building toolkit.

Of course, the DM can always use an official setting as a pregen. But official settings differ significantly, and ideally the DM homebrews ones own.


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## EzekielRaiden

I am still somewhat impressed that the "yes, 5e's way is fine" and "no, but some concessions are okay" options remain basically neck-and-neck, and then the next step down is both of the _more extreme_ positions: "there should be _more_ of it" and "no, but talking about setting-specific _examples_ is fine."

Like...I know this poll is unrepresentative and stuff. But I don't think I could ask for a more dramatic demonstration of a bimodal distribution. Some people want a presumed core setting that is inherently baked-in, others want books as setting-neutral as possible but make some allowances. I'm...not sure it's actually possible to properly _please_ both groups.


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## TwoSix

EzekielRaiden said:


> Like...I know this poll is unrepresentative and stuff. But I don't think I could ask for a more dramatic demonstration of a bimodal distribution. Some people want a presumed core setting that is inherently baked-in, others want books as setting-neutral as possible but make some allowances. I'm...not sure it's actually possible to properly _please_ both groups.



It isn't.  I think that's why they default to a light touch, it's easier to attach more specific setting info in supplements than to detach the setting info embedded into the core if you want to use another setting.

I mean, I can't imagine trying to play PF1 or PF2 and not use Golarian, the rules are simply too focused on establishing the setting.


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## Neonchameleon

pemerton said:


> But the most obvious thing about D&D - what the hell with the "cleric" class, ie armed and armoured healing priests? How is that generic?



One of the missed opportunities I felt from Tasha's was allowing clerics an optional class feature to give up all armour and shields and allow their wisdom to AC.


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## Vaalingrade

A neutral core and more frequent and detailed setting books would probably come close.


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## Micah Sweet

Yaarel said:


> I feel the Players Handbook can do much to feel more setting neutral.
> 
> Importantly, the player-facing text can tell the player that most settings dont have all of the options that are in the Players Handbook. The DM typically chooses specific races and classes to be in a setting, and to consult with the DM to see how a character concept that seems atypical for that setting might fit in.
> 
> Give examples from official settings, for how different settings can be, like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, and Magic The Gathering.
> 
> The Players Handbook is more useful when avoiding setting assumptions, like how the multiverse works or belief systems work. This kind of stuff belongs in the DMs Guide as part of a setting-building toolkit.
> 
> Of course, the DM can always use an official setting as a pregen. But official settings differ significantly, and ideally the DM homebrews ones own.



This.  It would be great if the core books were more clear that a DM isn't expected to have every option in the books available for every campaign.  As it is, players almost always expect they can grab anything in official 5e and the DM has to let it in.


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## Micah Sweet

EzekielRaiden said:


> I am still somewhat impressed that the "yes, 5e's way is fine" and "no, but some concessions are okay" options remain basically neck-and-neck, and then the next step down is both of the _more extreme_ positions: "there should be _more_ of it" and "no, but talking about setting-specific _examples_ is fine."
> 
> Like...I know this poll is unrepresentative and stuff. But I don't think I could ask for a more dramatic demonstration of a bimodal distribution. Some people want a presumed core setting that is inherently baked-in, others want books as setting-neutral as possible but make some allowances. I'm...not sure it's actually possible to properly _please_ both groups.



Which is why the presentation will probably remain the same.  Well, that and a desire on WotC's part to keep product identity and branding front and center.


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## GuyBoy

With the rider that I think, and hope, that 6e is several years away, I voted yes. This raises the question of what the core setting should be. 

If it was up to me, I’d go for Greyhawk because it ticks all my grognard boxes, is both vanilla enough and large enough to accommodate multiple cultures and it resonates with the rich history of the game from Acererak to Tenser and from the Steading to Hommlet. 
And this is why it should up to me.....or anyone else as an individual for that matter. 

There are as many arguments against Greyhawk as there are for it. The same can be said for FR, Eberron, Dark Sun etc. Just imagine the setting wars on these messageboards!
If 6e is going to have a core setting, it needs to be as new as 6e. The best comparison would be Nentir Vale for 4e. 

I am trusting enough of WOTC to believe they would come up with a setting that worked, and was supported by campaign books, adventures, novels etc. 
Of course, not everyone would like it and that would be fine. One could always play FR, Eberron or a 3PP setting or whatever suited. 

For me, I’d try the new setting if I liked it, or you might find me DMing in Steampunkette’s S&S setting....or maybe in the Yatil Mountains.


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## Doug McCrae

Doug McCrae said:


> The most important source for Vancian magic, "Mazirian the Magician", feels D&D-y in a way that almost all other fantasy fiction doesn't: not only does the protagonist encounter many different monsters and other dangers, these are gathered together in a small geographic area. D&D and "Mazirian the Magician" are _monster dense_.




This post describes the resemblances between Jack Vance's short story "Mazirian the Magician" and D&D in more detail. It was published in 1950 as part of _The Dying Earth_. The spell memorisation and casting is very similar to D&D. But it's also a story about resource management, and those resources getting used up by a large number of encounters with monsters and other dangers.

"Mazirian the Magician", like D&D, distinguishes between spells known and spells memorised. The former are much greater than the latter:

Only a few more than a hundred spells remained to the knowledge of man. Of these, Mazirian had access to seventy-three.​​Mazirian, by dint of stringent exercise, could encompass four of the most formidable, or six of the lesser spells.​​Mazirian made a selection from his books and with great effort forced five spells upon his brain: Phandaal's Gyrator, Felojun's Second Hypnotic Spell, The Excellent Prismatic Spray, The Charm of Untiring Nourishment, and the Spell of the Omnipotent Sphere.​
The story mostly consists of a pursuit thru a very dangerous wilderness. Mazirian is chasing T'sain, with the aim of imprisoning and enslaving her.

Mazirian's spell use is as follows:
He uses Phandaal's Gyrator to kill a deodand. "Thrang the ghoul-bear" is slain by the Excellent Prismatic Spray. Mazirian casts the Charm of Untiring Nourishment to follow T'sain underwater. When he is trapped beneath stone blocks he frees himself with the Spell of the Omnipotent Sphere. He uses his last magic, Felojun's Second Hypnotic Spell, to deal with "vampire-weed". Now out of spells he is killed when he encounters animate trees that use their branches like whips, and T'sain is able to escape.

Resource management is explicitly a concern: "Mazirian paused indecisively. It was not good to use so many spells and thus shear himself of power."

Mazirian's Live Boots, similar to Boots of Speed or Boots of Striding and Springing in D&D, are also a limited resource: "The spring and drive began to leave the Live Boots, for they had come far and at great speed." "Mazirian made one effort to follow, and discovered that his Boots hung lax and flaccid—dead."

It can be seen from the examples above that this story, like D&D, features a lot of monsters and a lot of magic. Outside, there are also Twk-men, who are tiny and ride dragonflies, and pelgranes, dangerous flying beasts. Mazirian's mansion contains a carnivorous plant, a miniature dragon – which Mazirian uses to threaten Turjan, a wizard he has imprisoned and miniaturised – and an artificial man, like a homunculus. T'sain is also an artificial being, created by Turjan in a previous story. T'sain had two spells memorised – "the Charm of Untiring Nourishment and a spell affording strength to her arms" – and also possessed an anti-magic rune that protected her from Mazirian's spells.

The only other comparably 'monster dense' story from the same period I know is Manly Wade Wellman's "The Desrick on Yandro" in _The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction_ (June 1952). This has many brilliantly weird monsters – the Toller, the Flat, the Bammat, the Behinder, the Skim, and the Culverin. However they are all part of a single encounter.


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