I'm a huge fan of RPGs - a whole double fistful, not just D&D.
Now, don't get me wrong: I am not dissing D&D in this thread; I like 5e; I DM a group as close to weekly as our schedules allow, and I wouldn't do that if I didn't like it.
But something has always seemed odd to me about D&D - and that is the default "fantasyland" setting ( to quote Matt Coleville ) always being there.
We all know it like fish know water: take one cup of idealized psuedo-Western European medieval/Renaissance societies, add 3/4 cup of Tolkien, sprinkle in a few hundred standard monsters, fold in a few more hundred spells of Vancian Magic, and shake. If you like, move the "kingdoms" around, and change all the geo-political names - but the monsters, spells, classes, etc. - those all stay labeled from the factory.
That's 99.999...% of games out there. And if that's what you like playing, and you're having fun doing it, that's fine - enjoy! I know I do when I'm there :)
But RPGs have the potential to simulate a practically infinite number of fantasy worlds - even a practically infinite number of high fantasy worlds; even purely D&D worlds.
We have the possibility - even if almost none of us use it - to leave the default "fantasyland" setting behind and try something new. That doesn't make the default setting wrong, or bad. After all I really like pasta, and the fact that I might not want to eat it every meal for the rest of my life, doesn't suddenly make pasta bad.
Nature and History are infinitely varied, even in our world with the absence of objectively demonstrable wielding of magic, or the undeniably overt intervention of Gods. So why do worlds which have both, always need to have Tolkien Elves, and Dwarves, and Gnomes, etc. Why do we have the same lists of spells, and types of casters in every world. Why is the same central cast of creatures always here?
The answer of course is that the don't have to be. Non-human intelligences not only don't need to be Elves, they don't need to be humanoid, or even completely comprehensible ( although probably they do to be playable races ) - after all we suspect that intelligent alien life in our universe won't be ( if they exist ). Nature is infinitely variable in different ecologies, so the cast of creatures can be infinitely different. Human cultures dealing with non-humanoid intelligences may adapt cultural aspects never found ( and never needed ) in our world.
Now - there may be a slippery slope here: rip out too many elements, and eventually you get to something that is a high-fantasy RPG, but not actually D&D ( although where that line sits is a highly subjective opinion ).
And - it's undeniable - a DM's time can already be heavily taxed fitting all their campaign story planning in alongside real life. Taking the time to create whole world from the ground up including novel biology, evolution, and cosmology is a work of a whole other level of magnitude!
So - I'm curious - who else out there has experimented with leaving the pseudo-European Tolkien-esque "Fantasyland" aspects behind? What has been your experience?
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Because we are all coming together with an agreed upon setting and set of rules to play D&D, so we play using the tools provided to play D&D. I have my own world that we play in, which is based on our version of fantasy (in our group) which is... not European at all as that isn't our interest. It's our own set of gods, our own set of planes-- but we still use the tools D&D gives us: Races, spells, classes. If we didn't want to use any of that stuff, we'd play in a different system, or make our own, but if you're throwing out every tool the game gives you, the common ground that you have with your potential pool of players, I have to ask: Why are you playing this game in particular?
Because we are all coming together with an agreed upon setting and set of rules to play D&D, so we play using the tools provided to play D&D. I have my own world that we play in, which is based on our version of fantasy (in our group) which is... not European at all as that isn't our interest. It's our own set of gods, our own set of planes-- but we still use the tools D&D gives us: Races, spells, classes. If we didn't want to use any of that stuff, we'd play in a different system, or make our own, but if you're throwing out every tool the game gives you, the common ground that you have with your potential pool of players, I have to ask: Why are you playing this game in particular?
I have to disagree that I'm "throwing out every tool the game gives [me]".
I agree that - for me at least - once you start ripping out magic systems, classes, or abandon the High Fantasy style, you do leave that core behind, as you're ripping out system mechanics ( although how much UA "semi-official" rule variants can you include before you do the same? ) - and you end up with something that isn't D&D anymore. It might be something in the D20 ecology of systems, but not 5e. I can "homebrew" the 5e system into a political intrigue game of cybernetic vampires in space - but I think few people would consider it D&D.
I might abandon the standard Races, and the pseudo-Medieval patterns of societies - and re-skin or homebrew my creatures - but that's about as deep as I'm willing to cut.
I think we're coming back to the line where each of us has to answer "what is the essential core of D&D and what is mutable"? I take it from your answer is that - for you at least - the core includes that Tolkien-esque overlay of Elves and Dwarves and MM creatures.
Nothing wrong with that at all; that just seems to be your particular "line in the sand".
And as to "why play this game in particular", you touched on one: it's a common starting point or a shared game vocabulary. You're dead on when you say the shared tropes of the default "fantasyland" setting are a good starting point for a "common ground". It's an excellent starting point. I'm just not convinced the "fantasyland" default setting - even inside D&D - is a required stopping point.
But moving over another entire system - that's really a hard option - even with the resurgence in the interest in tabletop RPGs, the vast majority of new blood coming into the community is aimed squarely at D&D - because that's what they see on Critical Role,High Rollers, or Dice Camera Action - and many, even though they might really want to play a game of cybernetic space vampires, don't realize that it's an option without warping D&D out of it's High-Fantasy shape.
Try posting a Roll20 gaming group for something non-D&D. I haven't tried, but I just don't see any online games for anything other than maybe the top 6-7 systems.
Maybe you'd view me as "wanting to play a different system" and "poaching the D&D community" to get players. I don't think that's accurate, but I could see how that interpretation might arise. I still like the system, and I like the High Fantasy setting, and much of the shared RPG "vocabulary" with my players.
I'm just think we can exercise more freedom in out settings - and I'm wondering what peoples' experience has been when they do so,
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I'd just like to go on record as someone who despises the phrase 'Tolkienesque' in reference to things that existed in various world mythologies in various forms before D&D... Tolkien took from folklore, as D&D takes from folklore and multiple fantasy sources including, and not limited to, Tolkien. Hobbits are even based on folkloric small people written about centuries before Tolkien was born.
These things aren't Tolkienesque - they are fantasy, mythology, and folklore, things that we as human beings have been fascinated with for many millennia. (Signed, someone who has never gotten into The Hobbit/LOTR as it doesn't resonate with them, and doesn't understand why everything goes back to that when folklore is so much older and cooler :P )
I have elves in my game who were created by a deity as vanguards of magic, preventing mortals from accessing the power of gods, who were expelled from her plane of the fey when they failed to prevent a human incursion into her source of magic, which created a boom in spellcasters and birthed a massive war. So I have elves, yes. They use the abilities that are written out and balanced in the 5E book (Fey Ancestry, Ability Score Improvement, Etc. Etc. Etc...) but they aren't "Tolkienesque" and they aren't true to D&D's lore either. They aren't Forgotten Realms elves... And though based more on a folklore story I liked as a kid, they aren't a direct creation from folklore, either. They fit the world I've created, and still give something to players that say "Look at this familiar thing. You understand this familiar thing, meaning that even if you've never played in my world-- you know this piece of it."
What I'm saying is that: We can create our own world without breaking the implicit contract of DM and player. Expecting your players to grasp an entirely new fiction when they play D&D, where things are so divided from what they can explore in the rulebooks they have in their hands, is a misstep, in my opinion. It's great as a storyteller, but there's a difference between storyteller, and Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master has to provide a game with agreed upon rules that the players are invested in. If for your players that means you don't stick to most of what the rulebook presents -- but I find most players (who aren't brand new) like the game because of what it is. That player wants to play an Aasimar, so when you said that they don't exist, now they've got to come up with a second choice. Maybe they'll like it, or maybe they'll just be disappointed that they couldn't play an Aasimar.
I just feel like there's a difference between making mechanical changes and making lore/aesthetic changes, the latter of which is just part and parcel of running any homebrew world. Of course you're going to make those changes, or introduce homebrew aspects. But it's when you do so much that players have to study and learn a whole new world before they sit down and play that I think you lose sight of the forest for the trees.
I feel like asking my players to learn my world like it's a new system is just going to create pain-points in playing the game which is the reason we're sitting round the table in the first place.
(Also I might advise against using "quotes" unless you're actually quoting something someone said. Putting quotes around some kind of inflammatory statement such as (poaching the D&D community) when no one has stated that is a little odd... I've seen people on this site get mad for less ;) )
I agree that Tolkien didn't create much of the archetypes that he used. I'm being lazy in using the term, as I think that if you grabbed 100 random players and asked them to name the fictional source for the races in D&D the majority would say Tolkien. I agree that's not completely correct; I was using it as a handy shorthand - I'll stop.
I think you've made an excellent point: you can't throw players into the deep end without their foreknowledge or consent. To resort to my previous hyperbole, if I as a DM suddenly were to make a surprise announcement to my group that we're now playing cybernetic space vampires, my players would be totally justified in being upset. As you say, you can't violate the implicit DM-Player contract. However, I'm not a fan of implicit anything - and my pre-campaign discussions with player groups tend to be pretty broad. All homebrew changes we currently run under were discussed as a group, and agreed upon by everyone.
But, if you don't have a willingness in both the DM and the Party to hammer out the details and agreements that way - the players just want to pick up and play - then, yes, you present an excellent reason for keeping the status quo.
I suspect that I may have been handed an opportunity that most DMs don't start with, and which I didn't appreciate at the time: most of my player group came to me as relatively inexperienced, and needed to learn how the world worked anyway.
I also suspect that part of why it seems to be working for us as a group, is that we're working on a collaborative setting. I'm very happy to work player wants, character needs, and character backstory elements into the campaign world. My players know ( I hope ) that if they wanted to play an Aasimar, then while the stock Aasimar might not exist in the world, I'd sit down and ask why and what aspects of the Aasimar appeal to them, and figure out a way to pull something out of the world which accommodates that. I'm doing that now with a player who is creating a non-human Druid character. We worked out what he wanted to play in a non-human character, couldn't find a current in-world species that matched, created a new species to match those wants, tried to make sure that it was game & mechanically balanced, and we're now introducing his character as the only survivor of a crashed Spelljammer.
Again - I realize that such a group composition, group agreement, and collaborative world-building approach might be way out on the fringes, and not at all how the vast majority of games are set up.
As a side note: I think it's possible to roll learning the world and playing the game together if you utilize the outsider trope. Say you wanted to incorporate Planescape into 5e. Having the party step through a gate into an alternate world they've never seen and don't know how it works is now expected and acceptable. Exploration is supposedly one of the three core aspects of D&D. I also realize that's not the type of game that most people play.
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I got back into TTRPGs about 2 years ago. For the first several months, we played Shadowrun. That didn't mesh so well with everyone, so after some looking at other systems, we decided on D&D because it's tried and true.
Being a newer DM, I appreciate that most of the work is done for me. I'm more interested in learning the game as is than going in and tinkering. And my friends who play in my game wanted to play because they had a preconceived notion of what "D&D" is, and changing the setting too much might give them a fun experience, but not the advertised experience they signed up for.
I think more hardcore experienced gamers are the ones who tend to really crave a "custom tailored" experience, in that they've played all of the tropes for years and are over the cliches. In my experience, which is with mostly new players, they want the typical high fantasy they've heard about. So I've decided to start with a published 5e adventure in the FR setting. Once this wraps up, we'll do a new Session 0 and see if the players want to try something a little different or stick to what's familiar.
If I want to do a non-Tolkein fantasy... there's a bunch of other RPGs out there that I will tap into rather than just remake this one. Too much work for little gain.
Being a newer DM, I appreciate that most of the work is done for me. I'm more interested in learning the game as is than going in and tinkering. And my friends who play in my game wanted to play because they had a preconceived notion of what "D&D" is, and changing the setting too much might give them a fun experience, but not the advertised experience they signed up for.
...
I don't disagree - having a "pre-packaged" set of world concepts which everyone knows backwards and forwards is great for "pick up and go" games without having to have any discussion with players.
Flexibility & novelty comes at the price of higher DM/Player overhead - at least at the start.
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If I want to do a non-Tolkein fantasy... there's a bunch of other RPGs out there that I will tap into rather than just remake this one. Too much work for little gain.
Except, good luck getting a gaming group together for a "non standard" system.
Having a novel setting in a familiar system is a less hard sell that a novel system and setting both.
Admittedly, I haven't actually tried - but if you check sites like Roll20 & Meetup for RPG groups, it's almost exclusively variants on D&D - with a sprinkling of Shadowrun, CofC, etc.
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Except, good luck getting a gaming group together for a "non standard" system.
I already have people who've done just that with me. *shrugs* My group is pretty open minded when it comes to trying out new game systems and new things. In my personal experience, the same people who don't want to try a non-D&D game are also unlikely to want to do a non-standard D&D setting, so the two issues are kind of linked.
So we're really coming back down to peoples' opinions being: Fantasyland is an integral part of the total game; you can't change the base Fantasyland concepts without making it non-D&D.
Which is fine. I knew that going in; If that wasn't the prevailing attitude, we'd see a lot more non-standard settings than we do.
But what I was wondering - and my original question was: "who else out there has experimented with leaving the pseudo-European Fantasyland aspects behind? What has been your experience?"
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Story elements are important to gamers, not just mechanics. And I have to point out that its not like story and mechanics are unrelated - the two very much work together, so if you remove one, you suddenly have issues that don't really fit well together, a half puzzle missing pieces. Story inspires mechanics, which in turn uphold the themes of said mechanics.
It depends on your group, really. There's a number of factors in play - mechanics and story being intertwinned, large amount of housrules causing distress at the table, feeling disconnect between what is on the table and expectations. Some people just can't handle everything.
And its also just harder to get people to be interested in unique settings. It might very well appeal to you as the DM, and that's important, but you also need to consider that your setting won't resonate with others. The default Tolkien is fairly widely accepted, but something homebrew will not. Even within D&D's various settings, there are things like people having really bad reactions to Spelljammer, and the like.
MellieDM already raised the point - and I agreed - that you can't disconnect from standard player expectations without a fair amount of DM-player negotiation.
I agree that the further you get from a standard setting, the harder it is to find players who will engage with it. That was my point with "Except, good luck getting a gaming group together for a non standard system". I've seen discussion threads about people walking away from groups because they had to many house rules for their taste.
I'm not trying to pitch a non-standard setting to a group; I already have a group which seems pretty happy with a collaborative non-standard setting already - although it took a lot of discussion and negotiation back and forth up front to make sure that no one ran into any unexpected surprises halfway into the campaign.
I'm not interested in converting people; I recognize this a practice that is out there on the fringes of how most people play. I'm already aware of the potential problems.
But I also know - from experience - that it's not impossible, or invariably doomed to fail.
So, what I was ( and am ) asking is what is the story and experience of people who've tried it.
If you're saying that you've tried it, and that was your experience - then thank you, I appreciate the feedback. I'm sorry it didn't work for you.
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Once and only once....about halfway through creation i drove myself nuts with trying to think up all the different things (gods/spell/creatures) that were somehow different than what was already out there.
However, I will note that it is very possible. if you look at the work James M. Ward is doing with 77 Worlds and other projects that use the Ward Card system, i believe it can be done.
Once and only once....about halfway through creation i drove myself nuts with trying to think up all the different things (gods/spell/creatures) that were somehow different than what was already out there.
So far that hasn't been an issue - but, I am perhaps cheating in that I started the group on a smallish island ( 5 small municipalities, about 50K total population, only one of city size ), and only created enough gods/creatures/races as were needed for the adventure. Which means a smallish pantheon appropriate to an agriculturally based culture. Foreign gods have been restricted to a name, a follower aesthetic, and a role - for now.
I haven't tried anything with the magic system; spells are still spells - still using Vancian magic.
As they've adventured, they've run across NPCs from other cultures - again, I've created just enough detail as is needed.
Perhaps I'll start to feel more strain as they're now starting to branch out and explore the island nations of the local sub-continental land mass, and they are just now starting to encounter non-human intelligent civilizations - although they've been exposed to a lot of the human/non-human history already.
I'll say that it's really exercising my improvisation skills, forcing me to keep notes on everything, and spurring me to dive deep into real world history and mythology for patterns - but I'm getting better at coming up with non-canonical world details on the fly.
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weird, i had edited my post to include that with the work James M Ward has done with 77 Worlds and his Ward Card System, i know it is possible and people will try it.
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I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
I use my own setting from a series of novels I'm writing. Granted, I still use lots of resources, particularly maps (because drawing those is a PAIN!) but I use my own world, even to the point of altering canon Monsters. This not only means that I can avoid parts of the established setting that I don't like, I can also throw veterans familiar with the MM a few curve balls.
'What? Yes, Skeletons usually take Piercing damage the same as other creatures, but these seems to be resistant for some reason...'
Elves in my more adult games are ripped from Norse mythology. They are not fantasy elves at all but rather the type of elves that were ruled over by the Vanir (also ripped from norse mythology) who created elves as servants. In these games however, the Vanir are not entirely like the nature Gods of Norse mythology - rather they have much more in common with the Succubi from standard D&D lore.
Instead of being Gods of nature - my Vanir are Gods of pleasure and desire. They are dark Gods who seek to corrupt mortals and turn them to their cause and ultimately consume their souls
As a result of being Gods of pleasure and desire, they quite literally couldn't keep their hands off of their own creations and it wasn't long before the Vanir were well - using their elven servants for more than domestic work. This resulted in many children of the Vanir being born to elven parents, whom in short order were taken as lovers by the Vanir - birthing yet more children.
The result is a dark and twisted lineage that leads down through the ages and has created elves and elven culture that is nothing like the standard d&d fantasy elves.
Often in these games, you will find elves who live in the mortal realm to be tempresses/seducers of mortals (especially human) they run brothels where you can satisfy your deepest, darkest carnal desires and all you can eat eateries where you can fill your belly with the finest most exotic food and ale that can be found in the mortal realm and where no request is off limits. They also keep gardens full of sweet smelling flowers and plants from the realm of the Vanir that entices and ensnares mortals.
Elves also employ many other ways of sacrificing mortals to their Gods but they all have one thing in common - every mortal who falls into the clutches of the elves is destined to become food for the Vanir who feed off of the souls of mortal beings. So seductive and manipulative are the Vanir however, that few mortals realise what is happening to them as their soul is slowly sucked from their body.
This is the terrible truth of my Vanir - to satiate their apatites they have become Gods of pleasure and desire and elevated death to the highest form of ecstasy and to ensure the continued supply of food, they have created the elves who are essentially unquestioning servants, bound to the will and desires of their gods by a fate they can never escape.
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I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
I have one game (currently on hiatus) that's set in the Forgotten Realms and I've done nothing to change the lore or reinvent aspects of the world. That's what we wanted to do going in, and that's what we were doing, and it was lots of fun. My other semi-ongoing group is all about collaborative world-building (using a system that isn't D&D but is D&D adjacent). I don't see why you can't do some of that collaborative world-building in D&D (even if I prefer doing it in a system that gives the GM the tools to shape that collaboration) and there's nothing inherent about D&D and the genre it trucks in that requires "Tolkienesque" mythology and lore.
That all said, I think there's a much more interesting question here--one that has been touched on. One of the things that Adam Koebel talks a lot about, and is something that's very evident in the "Apocalypse Engine" games, is how a system's rules are both informed by and work to reinforce genre. The Powered by the Apocalypse games are shining examples of how a system's mechanics can work to create the feel of a very specific genre, and while we like to think of the d20 system (which 5e is still a version of, right) as being genre-agnostic, it really isn't. That's not to say that generic high fantasy is the only genre that D&D can do and "fantasyland" is the only setting that works in that genre. But there is an important question here of how much can we bend the system before it breaks. I'm all for "re-skinning"--elves don't have to be elves, the lore of the world doesn't have to parallel the lore of the Forgotten Realms, or Tolkien, or whatever--but when we start really working to change the feel of the game, that's when we need to start just looking for a different game. (And the idea that players are completely unwilling to try new systems is total rubbish, I'm sorry; my group of "D&D and D&D only" players have grown quite curious and excited about other systems because I've worked to sell the systems in a way that appeals to them.)
The question here seems to really be "is it okay to reskin D&D" and the answer is yes, of course it is! But if it's "how much can we hack D&D to change how it fundamentally feels," at the end of the day, well, not very much, and that's actually a good thing--it means D&D is really good at what it seeks out to do; it doesn't need to be all things to all styles of players.
I'm a huge fan of RPGs - a whole double fistful, not just D&D.
Now, don't get me wrong: I am not dissing D&D in this thread; I like 5e; I DM a group as close to weekly as our schedules allow, and I wouldn't do that if I didn't like it.
But something has always seemed odd to me about D&D - and that is the default "fantasyland" setting ( to quote Matt Coleville ) always being there.
We all know it like fish know water: take one cup of idealized psuedo-Western European medieval/Renaissance societies, add 3/4 cup of Tolkien, sprinkle in a few hundred standard monsters, fold in a few more hundred spells of Vancian Magic, and shake. If you like, move the "kingdoms" around, and change all the geo-political names - but the monsters, spells, classes, etc. - those all stay labeled from the factory.
That's 99.999...% of games out there. And if that's what you like playing, and you're having fun doing it, that's fine - enjoy! I know I do when I'm there :)
But RPGs have the potential to simulate a practically infinite number of fantasy worlds - even a practically infinite number of high fantasy worlds; even purely D&D worlds.
We have the possibility - even if almost none of us use it - to leave the default "fantasyland" setting behind and try something new. That doesn't make the default setting wrong, or bad. After all I really like pasta, and the fact that I might not want to eat it every meal for the rest of my life, doesn't suddenly make pasta bad.
Nature and History are infinitely varied, even in our world with the absence of objectively demonstrable wielding of magic, or the undeniably overt intervention of Gods. So why do worlds which have both, always need to have Tolkien Elves, and Dwarves, and Gnomes, etc. Why do we have the same lists of spells, and types of casters in every world. Why is the same central cast of creatures always here?
The answer of course is that the don't have to be. Non-human intelligences not only don't need to be Elves, they don't need to be humanoid, or even completely comprehensible ( although probably they do to be playable races ) - after all we suspect that intelligent alien life in our universe won't be ( if they exist ). Nature is infinitely variable in different ecologies, so the cast of creatures can be infinitely different. Human cultures dealing with non-humanoid intelligences may adapt cultural aspects never found ( and never needed ) in our world.
Now - there may be a slippery slope here: rip out too many elements, and eventually you get to something that is a high-fantasy RPG, but not actually D&D ( although where that line sits is a highly subjective opinion ).
And - it's undeniable - a DM's time can already be heavily taxed fitting all their campaign story planning in alongside real life. Taking the time to create whole world from the ground up including novel biology, evolution, and cosmology is a work of a whole other level of magnitude!
So - I'm curious - who else out there has experimented with leaving the pseudo-European Tolkien-esque "Fantasyland" aspects behind? What has been your experience?
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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Because we are all coming together with an agreed upon setting and set of rules to play D&D, so we play using the tools provided to play D&D. I have my own world that we play in, which is based on our version of fantasy (in our group) which is... not European at all as that isn't our interest. It's our own set of gods, our own set of planes-- but we still use the tools D&D gives us: Races, spells, classes. If we didn't want to use any of that stuff, we'd play in a different system, or make our own, but if you're throwing out every tool the game gives you, the common ground that you have with your potential pool of players, I have to ask: Why are you playing this game in particular?
I have to disagree that I'm "throwing out every tool the game gives [me]".
I agree that - for me at least - once you start ripping out magic systems, classes, or abandon the High Fantasy style, you do leave that core behind, as you're ripping out system mechanics ( although how much UA "semi-official" rule variants can you include before you do the same? ) - and you end up with something that isn't D&D anymore. It might be something in the D20 ecology of systems, but not 5e. I can "homebrew" the 5e system into a political intrigue game of cybernetic vampires in space - but I think few people would consider it D&D.
I might abandon the standard Races, and the pseudo-Medieval patterns of societies - and re-skin or homebrew my creatures - but that's about as deep as I'm willing to cut.
I think we're coming back to the line where each of us has to answer "what is the essential core of D&D and what is mutable"? I take it from your answer is that - for you at least - the core includes that Tolkien-esque overlay of Elves and Dwarves and MM creatures.
Nothing wrong with that at all; that just seems to be your particular "line in the sand".
And as to "why play this game in particular", you touched on one: it's a common starting point or a shared game vocabulary. You're dead on when you say the shared tropes of the default "fantasyland" setting are a good starting point for a "common ground". It's an excellent starting point. I'm just not convinced the "fantasyland" default setting - even inside D&D - is a required stopping point.
But moving over another entire system - that's really a hard option - even with the resurgence in the interest in tabletop RPGs, the vast majority of new blood coming into the community is aimed squarely at D&D - because that's what they see on Critical Role, High Rollers, or Dice Camera Action - and many, even though they might really want to play a game of cybernetic space vampires, don't realize that it's an option without warping D&D out of it's High-Fantasy shape.
Try posting a Roll20 gaming group for something non-D&D. I haven't tried, but I just don't see any online games for anything other than maybe the top 6-7 systems.
Maybe you'd view me as "wanting to play a different system" and "poaching the D&D community" to get players. I don't think that's accurate, but I could see how that interpretation might arise. I still like the system, and I like the High Fantasy setting, and much of the shared RPG "vocabulary" with my players.
I'm just think we can exercise more freedom in out settings - and I'm wondering what peoples' experience has been when they do so,
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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I'd just like to go on record as someone who despises the phrase 'Tolkienesque' in reference to things that existed in various world mythologies in various forms before D&D... Tolkien took from folklore, as D&D takes from folklore and multiple fantasy sources including, and not limited to, Tolkien. Hobbits are even based on folkloric small people written about centuries before Tolkien was born.
These things aren't Tolkienesque - they are fantasy, mythology, and folklore, things that we as human beings have been fascinated with for many millennia. (Signed, someone who has never gotten into The Hobbit/LOTR as it doesn't resonate with them, and doesn't understand why everything goes back to that when folklore is so much older and cooler :P )
I have elves in my game who were created by a deity as vanguards of magic, preventing mortals from accessing the power of gods, who were expelled from her plane of the fey when they failed to prevent a human incursion into her source of magic, which created a boom in spellcasters and birthed a massive war. So I have elves, yes. They use the abilities that are written out and balanced in the 5E book (Fey Ancestry, Ability Score Improvement, Etc. Etc. Etc...) but they aren't "Tolkienesque" and they aren't true to D&D's lore either. They aren't Forgotten Realms elves... And though based more on a folklore story I liked as a kid, they aren't a direct creation from folklore, either. They fit the world I've created, and still give something to players that say "Look at this familiar thing. You understand this familiar thing, meaning that even if you've never played in my world-- you know this piece of it."
What I'm saying is that: We can create our own world without breaking the implicit contract of DM and player. Expecting your players to grasp an entirely new fiction when they play D&D, where things are so divided from what they can explore in the rulebooks they have in their hands, is a misstep, in my opinion. It's great as a storyteller, but there's a difference between storyteller, and Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master has to provide a game with agreed upon rules that the players are invested in. If for your players that means you don't stick to most of what the rulebook presents -- but I find most players (who aren't brand new) like the game because of what it is. That player wants to play an Aasimar, so when you said that they don't exist, now they've got to come up with a second choice. Maybe they'll like it, or maybe they'll just be disappointed that they couldn't play an Aasimar.
I just feel like there's a difference between making mechanical changes and making lore/aesthetic changes, the latter of which is just part and parcel of running any homebrew world. Of course you're going to make those changes, or introduce homebrew aspects. But it's when you do so much that players have to study and learn a whole new world before they sit down and play that I think you lose sight of the forest for the trees.
I feel like asking my players to learn my world like it's a new system is just going to create pain-points in playing the game which is the reason we're sitting round the table in the first place.
(Also I might advise against using "quotes" unless you're actually quoting something someone said. Putting quotes around some kind of inflammatory statement such as (poaching the D&D community) when no one has stated that is a little odd... I've seen people on this site get mad for less ;) )
I agree that Tolkien didn't create much of the archetypes that he used. I'm being lazy in using the term, as I think that if you grabbed 100 random players and asked them to name the fictional source for the races in D&D the majority would say Tolkien. I agree that's not completely correct; I was using it as a handy shorthand - I'll stop.
I think you've made an excellent point: you can't throw players into the deep end without their foreknowledge or consent. To resort to my previous hyperbole, if I as a DM suddenly were to make a surprise announcement to my group that we're now playing cybernetic space vampires, my players would be totally justified in being upset. As you say, you can't violate the implicit DM-Player contract. However, I'm not a fan of implicit anything - and my pre-campaign discussions with player groups tend to be pretty broad. All homebrew changes we currently run under were discussed as a group, and agreed upon by everyone.
But, if you don't have a willingness in both the DM and the Party to hammer out the details and agreements that way - the players just want to pick up and play - then, yes, you present an excellent reason for keeping the status quo.
I suspect that I may have been handed an opportunity that most DMs don't start with, and which I didn't appreciate at the time: most of my player group came to me as relatively inexperienced, and needed to learn how the world worked anyway.
I also suspect that part of why it seems to be working for us as a group, is that we're working on a collaborative setting. I'm very happy to work player wants, character needs, and character backstory elements into the campaign world. My players know ( I hope ) that if they wanted to play an Aasimar, then while the stock Aasimar might not exist in the world, I'd sit down and ask why and what aspects of the Aasimar appeal to them, and figure out a way to pull something out of the world which accommodates that. I'm doing that now with a player who is creating a non-human Druid character. We worked out what he wanted to play in a non-human character, couldn't find a current in-world species that matched, created a new species to match those wants, tried to make sure that it was game & mechanically balanced, and we're now introducing his character as the only survivor of a crashed Spelljammer.
Again - I realize that such a group composition, group agreement, and collaborative world-building approach might be way out on the fringes, and not at all how the vast majority of games are set up.
As a side note: I think it's possible to roll learning the world and playing the game together if you utilize the outsider trope. Say you wanted to incorporate Planescape into 5e. Having the party step through a gate into an alternate world they've never seen and don't know how it works is now expected and acceptable. Exploration is supposedly one of the three core aspects of D&D. I also realize that's not the type of game that most people play.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
To me it's just ease of use.
I got back into TTRPGs about 2 years ago. For the first several months, we played Shadowrun. That didn't mesh so well with everyone, so after some looking at other systems, we decided on D&D because it's tried and true.
Being a newer DM, I appreciate that most of the work is done for me. I'm more interested in learning the game as is than going in and tinkering. And my friends who play in my game wanted to play because they had a preconceived notion of what "D&D" is, and changing the setting too much might give them a fun experience, but not the advertised experience they signed up for.
I think more hardcore experienced gamers are the ones who tend to really crave a "custom tailored" experience, in that they've played all of the tropes for years and are over the cliches. In my experience, which is with mostly new players, they want the typical high fantasy they've heard about. So I've decided to start with a published 5e adventure in the FR setting. Once this wraps up, we'll do a new Session 0 and see if the players want to try something a little different or stick to what's familiar.
If I want to do a non-Tolkein fantasy... there's a bunch of other RPGs out there that I will tap into rather than just remake this one. Too much work for little gain.
I don't disagree - having a "pre-packaged" set of world concepts which everyone knows backwards and forwards is great for "pick up and go" games without having to have any discussion with players.
Flexibility & novelty comes at the price of higher DM/Player overhead - at least at the start.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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Except, good luck getting a gaming group together for a "non standard" system.
Having a novel setting in a familiar system is a less hard sell that a novel system and setting both.
Admittedly, I haven't actually tried - but if you check sites like Roll20 & Meetup for RPG groups, it's almost exclusively variants on D&D - with a sprinkling of Shadowrun, CofC, etc.
Non-"mainline" systems are almost totally absent.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I already have people who've done just that with me. *shrugs* My group is pretty open minded when it comes to trying out new game systems and new things. In my personal experience, the same people who don't want to try a non-D&D game are also unlikely to want to do a non-standard D&D setting, so the two issues are kind of linked.
So we're really coming back down to peoples' opinions being: Fantasyland is an integral part of the total game; you can't change the base Fantasyland concepts without making it non-D&D.
Which is fine. I knew that going in; If that wasn't the prevailing attitude, we'd see a lot more non-standard settings than we do.
But what I was wondering - and my original question was: "who else out there has experimented with leaving the pseudo-European Fantasyland aspects behind? What has been your experience?"
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Story elements are important to gamers, not just mechanics. And I have to point out that its not like story and mechanics are unrelated - the two very much work together, so if you remove one, you suddenly have issues that don't really fit well together, a half puzzle missing pieces. Story inspires mechanics, which in turn uphold the themes of said mechanics.
It depends on your group, really. There's a number of factors in play - mechanics and story being intertwinned, large amount of housrules causing distress at the table, feeling disconnect between what is on the table and expectations. Some people just can't handle everything.
And its also just harder to get people to be interested in unique settings. It might very well appeal to you as the DM, and that's important, but you also need to consider that your setting won't resonate with others. The default Tolkien is fairly widely accepted, but something homebrew will not. Even within D&D's various settings, there are things like people having really bad reactions to Spelljammer, and the like.
MellieDM already raised the point - and I agreed - that you can't disconnect from standard player expectations without a fair amount of DM-player negotiation.
I agree that the further you get from a standard setting, the harder it is to find players who will engage with it. That was my point with "Except, good luck getting a gaming group together for a non standard system". I've seen discussion threads about people walking away from groups because they had to many house rules for their taste.
I'm not trying to pitch a non-standard setting to a group; I already have a group which seems pretty happy with a collaborative non-standard setting already - although it took a lot of discussion and negotiation back and forth up front to make sure that no one ran into any unexpected surprises halfway into the campaign.
I'm not interested in converting people; I recognize this a practice that is out there on the fringes of how most people play. I'm already aware of the potential problems.
But I also know - from experience - that it's not impossible, or invariably doomed to fail.
So, what I was ( and am ) asking is what is the story and experience of people who've tried it.
If you're saying that you've tried it, and that was your experience - then thank you, I appreciate the feedback. I'm sorry it didn't work for you.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Once and only once....about halfway through creation i drove myself nuts with trying to think up all the different things (gods/spell/creatures) that were somehow different than what was already out there.
However, I will note that it is very possible. if you look at the work James M. Ward is doing with 77 Worlds and other projects that use the Ward Card system, i believe it can be done.
I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
So far that hasn't been an issue - but, I am perhaps cheating in that I started the group on a smallish island ( 5 small municipalities, about 50K total population, only one of city size ), and only created enough gods/creatures/races as were needed for the adventure. Which means a smallish pantheon appropriate to an agriculturally based culture. Foreign gods have been restricted to a name, a follower aesthetic, and a role - for now.
I haven't tried anything with the magic system; spells are still spells - still using Vancian magic.
As they've adventured, they've run across NPCs from other cultures - again, I've created just enough detail as is needed.
Perhaps I'll start to feel more strain as they're now starting to branch out and explore the island nations of the local sub-continental land mass, and they are just now starting to encounter non-human intelligent civilizations - although they've been exposed to a lot of the human/non-human history already.
I'll say that it's really exercising my improvisation skills, forcing me to keep notes on everything, and spurring me to dive deep into real world history and mythology for patterns - but I'm getting better at coming up with non-canonical world details on the fly.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
weird, i had edited my post to include that with the work James M Ward has done with 77 Worlds and his Ward Card System, i know it is possible and people will try it.
I just want to tell everyone "happy gaming" and actually mean it. Whatever your game is, just have fun with it, it is after all, just a game.
I use my own setting from a series of novels I'm writing. Granted, I still use lots of resources, particularly maps (because drawing those is a PAIN!) but I use my own world, even to the point of altering canon Monsters. This not only means that I can avoid parts of the established setting that I don't like, I can also throw veterans familiar with the MM a few curve balls.
'What? Yes, Skeletons usually take Piercing damage the same as other creatures, but these seems to be resistant for some reason...'
Elves in my more adult games are ripped from Norse mythology. They are not fantasy elves at all but rather the type of elves that were ruled over by the Vanir (also ripped from norse mythology) who created elves as servants. In these games however, the Vanir are not entirely like the nature Gods of Norse mythology - rather they have much more in common with the Succubi from standard D&D lore.
Instead of being Gods of nature - my Vanir are Gods of pleasure and desire. They are dark Gods who seek to corrupt mortals and turn them to their cause and ultimately consume their souls
As a result of being Gods of pleasure and desire, they quite literally couldn't keep their hands off of their own creations and it wasn't long before the Vanir were well - using their elven servants for more than domestic work. This resulted in many children of the Vanir being born to elven parents, whom in short order were taken as lovers by the Vanir - birthing yet more children.
The result is a dark and twisted lineage that leads down through the ages and has created elves and elven culture that is nothing like the standard d&d fantasy elves.
Often in these games, you will find elves who live in the mortal realm to be tempresses/seducers of mortals (especially human) they run brothels where you can satisfy your deepest, darkest carnal desires and all you can eat eateries where you can fill your belly with the finest most exotic food and ale that can be found in the mortal realm and where no request is off limits. They also keep gardens full of sweet smelling flowers and plants from the realm of the Vanir that entices and ensnares mortals.
Elves also employ many other ways of sacrificing mortals to their Gods but they all have one thing in common - every mortal who falls into the clutches of the elves is destined to become food for the Vanir who feed off of the souls of mortal beings. So seductive and manipulative are the Vanir however, that few mortals realise what is happening to them as their soul is slowly sucked from their body.
This is the terrible truth of my Vanir - to satiate their apatites they have become Gods of pleasure and desire and elevated death to the highest form of ecstasy and to ensure the continued supply of food, they have created the elves who are essentially unquestioning servants, bound to the will and desires of their gods by a fate they can never escape.
I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
I have one game (currently on hiatus) that's set in the Forgotten Realms and I've done nothing to change the lore or reinvent aspects of the world. That's what we wanted to do going in, and that's what we were doing, and it was lots of fun. My other semi-ongoing group is all about collaborative world-building (using a system that isn't D&D but is D&D adjacent). I don't see why you can't do some of that collaborative world-building in D&D (even if I prefer doing it in a system that gives the GM the tools to shape that collaboration) and there's nothing inherent about D&D and the genre it trucks in that requires "Tolkienesque" mythology and lore.
That all said, I think there's a much more interesting question here--one that has been touched on. One of the things that Adam Koebel talks a lot about, and is something that's very evident in the "Apocalypse Engine" games, is how a system's rules are both informed by and work to reinforce genre. The Powered by the Apocalypse games are shining examples of how a system's mechanics can work to create the feel of a very specific genre, and while we like to think of the d20 system (which 5e is still a version of, right) as being genre-agnostic, it really isn't. That's not to say that generic high fantasy is the only genre that D&D can do and "fantasyland" is the only setting that works in that genre. But there is an important question here of how much can we bend the system before it breaks. I'm all for "re-skinning"--elves don't have to be elves, the lore of the world doesn't have to parallel the lore of the Forgotten Realms, or Tolkien, or whatever--but when we start really working to change the feel of the game, that's when we need to start just looking for a different game. (And the idea that players are completely unwilling to try new systems is total rubbish, I'm sorry; my group of "D&D and D&D only" players have grown quite curious and excited about other systems because I've worked to sell the systems in a way that appeals to them.)
The question here seems to really be "is it okay to reskin D&D" and the answer is yes, of course it is! But if it's "how much can we hack D&D to change how it fundamentally feels," at the end of the day, well, not very much, and that's actually a good thing--it means D&D is really good at what it seeks out to do; it doesn't need to be all things to all styles of players.
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)