The big tent of D&D settings: strength or weakness?

[Libertad]

Due to its popularity, age, and the OGL being a Godsend for 3rd party publishers, Dungeons and Dragons has more variant settings than any other rules system out there.

From the whacky sci-fi world of Spelljammer to the Gothic Horror of Ravenloft, it seemed that there was a D&D campaign for just about every fantasy archetype.

But the system of D&D isn't as open-ended as GURPS.  It assumes a linear progression of power dependent on magic, inter-party class balance, and a steady progression of equipment and wealth.  The grim and gritty noir setting that Eberron tried to emulate doesn't work well in d20 past 6th level or so, while the "low magic" approach of settings like Ravenloft do not take into account the massive potential of world-altering spells at high levels.

Is "big tent" approach to fantasy archetypes and genres ultimately a strong or weak point?

I personally think that it's a very strong point, albeit one that needs to be ironed out better in order to work.  I think that it's great that game designers are trying to be inclusive of various fantasy tropes and settings, but several don't do enough to change the rules for better emulation.

What are your thoughts?

[linklord231]

If there were more support for low-magic games, then the "big tent" approach would be perfect.  But as it is, the fact that so many settings claim to be "low magic" or "gritty" or whatever tends to cause more harm than good.  People see settings like that and think "See, it's perfectly valid to play D&D without any magic items.  We're going to do that," and then are surprised when the party can only take on CR -8 challenges.  D&D is not a gritty game, and certain classes (especially the non inherently magical ones) do not function without magic items. 

That being said, if designers of low-magic worlds put more effort in to adapting the system to their setting, it would work much better.  For example, if a low- or no-magic world flat out said "there are no spellcasting or manifesting or meldshaping characters in this world, period, DON'T ADD THEM IN," then took out all monsters with SLAs, then adjusted monsters' ACs and attack bonuses to match the (now much lower) abilities of the party, then did a bunch of other work...
It would probably not turn out horribly. 
But clearly since there's so much work to be done, and so much that isn't compatible with "normal" D&D any more, most designers aren't going to do that.  At that point, it might actually be less work to just design your own system from scratch, especially since that would have the added bonus of being tailor-made to the type of game you were trying to play.

BUT, I do think that the variety of settings is a huge advantage for D&D.  Even if certain settings don't always work out as well as they were supposed to, just the fact that you can adapt the rules to fit any setting is a huge selling point.  In fact, that's one of the things I'd like to see in 5e - less emphasis on new rules (because it tends to introduce power creep), and more emphasis on alternate setting books and the like.

[kitep]

I think it's a plus.  People can play in whatever world suits them.  For example, I like high-magic worlds, and don't have as much fun when we try a low-magic world (or a gritty world either, for that matter).

I do think it requires a DM to know when to say "no" to make it work though.  Trying to setup a world flavor, then allowing the characters to have an "anything goes" mentality can ruin it.

That said, I have yet to actually play in any of the published worlds.  A module here and there, yes, but we usually create our own worlds.

[Unbeliever]

Strength.  Fantasy is a pretty protean genre, despite its many conventions. 

I agree with the OP, though -- D&D makes certain assumptions about the setting and the way things operate within it, and the game should fit with them.  It assumes a fairly magical heroic fantasy environment -- more Diablo than Game of Thrones.  I feel the AD&D ones were better about this, though that might just be nostalgia.

GURPS also makes such assumptions, in some ways sort of the opposite of D&D's (viz. lethality).  But, it's more transparent about them and gives more options (of greater and lesser value or ease of use) for modifying them.  Ideally, I'd love some homebrew that did something along these lines for D&D.  My games sometimes have done so, such as deciding what magic items exist within the narrative and which ones are just "under the hood," but that's mostly been at the margins. 

[veekie]

It definitely is a strength for the GAME, but specific settings should be more liberal with removing core options that don't necessarily fit, rather than going with purely additive processes.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I loved the 2e Planescape setting, mostly for the details.
There is a continuum of 1e to 3.Xe about the Outer Planes.
Most of the other edition fluff texts, ought to be usable.
4e changed enough things, to cause mini (many) problems.

Still ... you can posit the 4e universe as just "another" semi-walled-off
section of the astral, that behaves mostly like the previous editions.
Throw in the Far Realms - technically everything can be encompassed.
Everything.  That's a pretty big tent right there.

Who's to say that the whole entire corpus of D&D including variants,
isn't floating around in the Far Realms ... and doubled in size ?? !!
 

[oslecamo]

It definitely is a strength for the GAME, but specific settings should be more liberal with removing core options that don't necessarily fit, rather than going with purely additive processes.

On the contrary, the core rules themselves state the DM can veto whatever he feels like won't fit his campaign.

I find the problem people usually have with specific settings to be the exact oposite. Players always want to import stuff from other places. Guns, gods, specific monsters/organizations, whatever, they'll be asking "why can't we have that as well", not "why is that already there".

[veekie]

Settings, not games(if the terminology is unclear, settings are the specific subgames like FR, Eberron, etc. games are individual DMs and their players, the game refers to D&D overall).

Settings tend to add things to the core game, and players generally, like additions to the game. Players have an often negative reaction to removing parts from the core game, even if it would improve the tone of the game, and rightly so, because the most common reason given for removing parts of the game is 'thats overpowered' or 'thats unrealistic'. Even matters like removing easy undoing death.

[oslecamo]

Irrelevant. What matters is what the people are playing. And I've yet to see anyone anywhere play a "pure" setting, they always add and/or remove stuff depending on their tastes. The setting cannot play itself.


Also what easy undoing death? Level 9+ clerics aren't exactly growing in trees in any D&D setting I know, and even if they are, you need even higher level casters to deal with exotic deaths like having been turned into an undead, body burned to ashes or nommed by a Barghest to name a few. If your enemy thinks just stabbing your heart will stop you at mid-high levels, then he deserves what's coming for him.

And no, only powergamers have negative reactions to removing parts, because, well, it limits their power. Groups that aren't that worried about their characters being the strongest have little problems with DM restrictions as long as they're clearly stated at character creation.