Lets Build an Implied Setting

[Trask]

Hello good people.

For those of you that play D&D 5e what kind of setting do you think would arise if you took all the most essential assumptions about D&D and the implied setting (through equipment, magic, races classes etc.) and made a setting out of it. At the most bare bones (and assuming you have a place for all official material and every class can be played) what kind of world would you have?

For example

A popular assumption about almost all D&D worlds is that there is a lot of wilderness, compared to the size and splendor of the cities. Usually this wilderness is populated heavily with monsters of varying shapes and sizes that are almost all entirely without merit and without any capability for goodness/law.

There may be some objections or variations to that but we'll roll with it.

If I were to build upon this basic, necessary assumption in order to run a game of D&D I could come out with a couple of different reasons for it in a setting.

A very common one. The Empire has fallen. Some great and splendorous empire without compare has recently collapsed, and it collapsed hard. Its cities are in ruins, overrun with barbarians(?) and monsters who now crawl through its bones. But the monsters are disorganized and feud constantly, and so have not established coherent kingdoms out of the empire's ruin as much as they are living off the fat of the carcass. Roads have broken down, trade has all but ceased to exist, and people huddle in dependence to their local warlords to protect them, who of course vie for power among one another. Magic items cant be purchased because trade is abysmal and all the people who knew how to make them either died or were made into slaves of the monsters. You can find them though in the ruined villas and underground temples of the old empire.

Hey this sounds really similar to the fall of the Roman Empire

So what other very basic assumptions can we build on for the most bare bones D&D setting possible.

[Sizzlefoot]

I get the feeling it would end up looking a lot like the Forgotten Realms, since that's being pushed as the "default" setting by WotC.

[Trask]

I'm not sure I agree with that. What defines forgotten realms for me is not only the kitchen sink appeal but also its faux-tolkien histories and extensive regional detail. These things are by no means an inherent conceit to any D&D game.

[raygun goth]

I'm not sure I agree with that.

You can not agree all you like, but it's the default setting assumption in the Player's Handbook. I don't like it, either.

What defines forgotten realms for me is not only the kitchen sink appeal but also its faux-tolkien histories and extensive regional detail. These things are by no means an inherent conceit to any D&D game.

*checks Player's Handbook*

We're talking about the book with the dragon-people and races based on glorified muppets and humans with achondroplasia, that has magic you sing, magic you punch into people, magic you read out of a book like a dirty joke, and magic you get by signing a literal deal with devils? Right out of the Player's Handbook we have a pretty hefty sink full of dirty dishes. About the only archetype the book doesn't cover is if you actually want to play someone who makes gizmos and magic items, and I'll admit, neither the weird fantasy nor pulp speculative fiction that D&D is based on don't have nice things to say about inventors.

FR has extensive regional detail because it's old and less of a too-many-cooks situation and more of a "this is the buffet table, foods that are from thousands of years and miles apart get to cohabit on the same plate with the three-day-old shrimp." It's also really kitchen-sink-y, what with its deserts created by evil windsocks, open teleportation gates that anyone can use, airships run by turtle power, lion-centaurs, wizard Microsoft (are the Thayans still wizard Microsoft? I don't think they are anymore), oh, right, setting whiplash, up to and including the gods getting into a bar brawl on the surface. Oh! And the elves all have secret space ports, and they let the "lesser" races squabble over politics and territory as a private joke.

Did I mention I despise this setting?

Anywho.

If we're taking implications - one of my favorites, and one NOBODY TALKS ABOUT, is that the Tabaxi in Volo's Guide all have Mesoamerican names.

[Lacuna Caster]

A very common one. The Empire has fallen. Some great and splendorous empire without compare has recently collapsed, and it collapsed hard. Its cities are in ruins, overrun with barbarians(?) and monsters who now crawl through its bones...

...Hey this sounds really similar to the fall of the Roman Empire

It's more-or-less a prerequisite for having large dungeons to crawl through that you have a fallen empire of some kind with extensive urban ruins littering the landscape. Not every D&D game need necessarily be all about the dungeon crawl, but that is what the core rules are optimised for and what a great deal of expectations centre around.

The other component, of course, are the dragons- i.e, something gnarly and formidable and intelligent enough to be threatening that squats within the dungeon and must be smote and speared and overcome, but is inhuman and malignant and sufficiently 'other' that you don't feel guilty about it. Because, as the good book tell us, D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money.

It is actually something of a constraint on building out the setting. You could have 'dungeons' in a forest or a cave system or an extant temple, of course, and you don't strictly have to be on the side of the angels (or kill every monster you meet), but the game starts to creak at the hinges if you start looting the treasury of king's landing after butchering all of the kingsguard.

[Trask]

It's more-or-less a prerequisite for having large dungeons to crawl through that you have a fallen empire of some kind with extensive urban ruins littering the landscape. Not every D&D game need necessarily be all about the dungeon crawl, but that is what the core rules are optimised for and what a great deal of expectations centre around.

The other component, of course, are the dragons- i.e, something gnarly and formidable and intelligent enough to be threatening that squats within the dungeon and must be smote and speared and overcome, but is inhuman and malignant and sufficiently 'other' that you don't feel guilty about it. Because, as the good book tell us, D&D at its heart is about breaking into other peoples' homes, stabbing them in the face, and taking all their money.

It is actually something of a constraint on building out the setting. You could have 'dungeons' in a forest or a cave system or an extant temple, of course, and you don't strictly have to be on the side of the angels (or kill every monster you meet), but the game starts to creak at the hinges if you start looting the treasury of king's landing after butchering all of the kingsguard.

You know funnily enough I've heard arguments that classic modules like Keep on the Borderlands opened it up for you to be able to kill and loot the Keep as much as the caves. Extensively listing out the guards and the keep rooms with all its treasure.

But yeah youre right, the average game, and a very baked in default assumption of D&D, is that you need some monstrous others to wail on and take treasure from and not feel bad about it.

I find one of the best ways to do that is to have monsters be portrayed by the PC's culture as conquerors of their old and glorious empire and any treasures they take are just reclaiming it for the glory of our fallen civilization.