What makes a setting don't feel generic a.k.a. not DnD?
>>97191156When the characters have nice tits.
>>97191156just have one unique idea that functions as either a tool the party can utilise, or an extra hurdle they need to take into account (ideally, both)
>>97191156The game is actually fun.
>>97191156Limits and restrictions. What makes a setting feel generic, usually, is the kitchen sink approach to it.Avoid that and you 90% of the way there.
>>97191156Actual effort and quality.
>>97191156D&D can feel not-generic though. Look at Eberron.
>>97191156The setting isn't designed for "the modern audience".
>>97191217Most retarded post on all of /tg/ right now.
>>97191156Define generic, coombrain
>>97191156>Make dungeons actually dangerous and not tourist spots>No high magic, and if you do in fact have high magic actually consider how that will affect history other then everyone getting a fridge>Have creatures that are actually evil>Don't have a California melting pot of races. If you do however consider each races strengths and weaknesses and what roles they would play in said society>Don't have high powered PC's that are stronger then the rest of the world. If you do have this, consider how the world would actually react to that kind of thing>Take the game seriously instead of always being subversive or joking quips all the time
>>97191173BIG BOOBS NAKED
>>97191156>Lust provoking image>Unrelated question
>>97191156>Excited to play Dungeon World>Expecting it to literally be a planet sized dungeon with different biomes on each floor and some floors being safe "enough" for towns to be>It's just PbtA D&DNow I want an actual Dungeon Planet
>>97191254Make one, that sounds really fun
>>97191217>>97191226Eberron is nice. Sharn is a cool city.
>>97191254It's called 13th age.
>>97191230>Have creatures that are actually evilDnD has that
>>97191287If you are going to lie to my face at least make it entertaining.
>>97191230>Don't have a California melting pot of races. If you do however consider each races strengths and weaknesses and what roles they would play in said societyThis is one that keeps coming up, whereas the opposite would actually not mirror real life at all.Major trade hubs always had people coming in from hundreds, even thousands, of miles away.The problem is that people take the fact that games usually use such hubs as the base of a pc adventure and then spread that to the entire setting when I have yet to see that to be the case. I think people's tendency to align fantasy races to irl races across the entirety of irl earth is fucking up people's mindset.In short, its real midwit thinking.
>>97191173Unironically true in current year. The designers being unafraid of the social media censorship mob is a major green flag.
>>97191254>Now I want an actual Dungeon Planet>its another pbta that isn't an entire planet of dungeons ffs
>>97191156Gigantic insects used for transport. Morrowind did it and it is more or less its biggest variation from the bog-standard fantasy mileu.
>>97191334What if many or even most of the tits are furry?
>>97191230>Make dungeons.>Not DnD.Failed at the first hurdle anon.
>>97191156A lack of spam threads.
>>97191396For me, it depends on how furry, but everyone has their limits.
>>97191156Canonically, no panties make a setting feel real. That's why Star Wars was so successful originally, George Lucas locked that shit down. No panties, and no bras in space.
>>97191156Try D&D 4e, there are fags insisting it doesn't feel like true D&D.
>>97191156Retvrn to blending fantasy and sci fi instead of being terrified of triggering the kind of people who eat one item on their plate at a time.
>>97191156You either have the spark or you don't. If you gotta ask, it's better to give up.
>>97191855Wilderlands of High Fantasy was so good, man
>>97191156D&D is designed to be shallow as fuck American Fantasy Western with a coat of Medieval Paint.
>>97191156Hidden threads
>>97191156If a setting has no dungeons and no dragons then it won't feel like dnd
>>97191156Give it a strong focus. DnD is generic because it doesn't try to BE anything, it just serves as a big pile of every idea they have ever stolen from other genre fiction. A fantasy setting that is actually about something and has strong themes is never generic, because it cuts away the parts of the setting that distract from those themes. In a fantasy setting the go-to shorthand for what the themes of the work are will always be its magic system and hows its used, because those are the metaphysics that the author got to invent from whole cloth so if the magic system doesn't play into any themes that means the author designed this setting with no thoughts head empty. A magic system where all power is derived from making contracts and bending other beings to your will to exploit them for power with magic contracts and a magic system where basic is based on the power of belief and the collective unconscious are not just different ways to make fireball happen, they result in fundamentally different worlds geared to tell very different stories.
The First Murderer was marked by God for protection and punishment, doomed to wander the Land of Nod and found the First City, Enoch. Tieflings, are his descendants, bearing the mark. They are seen as both cursed with a propensity for violence and gifted with a divine mandate for innovation, civilization, and restless ambition. The Watchers, angels sent to observe humanity, fell in love with human women and taught forbidden knowledge—metallurgy, cosmetics, astrology, weaponry. Their children were the Nephilim, in modern times, giants of great power and terrible hunger. God punished the Watchers and drowned the Nephilim in the Flood, but some bloodlines survived as Aasimar, diminished but marked.
>>97191230>>Don't have a California melting pot of races. If you do however consider each races strengths and weaknesses and what roles they would play in said society"You're playing the game of pretend wrong and I don't like it! >:C"
Dungeons & Dragons, especially in its modern iterations, generally avoids direct, named reference to real-world religions, especially when dealing with the core cosmology of devils and demons. This is primarily a commercial decision to maximize the game's appeal across diverse cultures and to avoid Satanic Panics.
>>97191156Just fucking do it differently than DnD. Though, DnD has a few mainstream settings and some of them are very different than one another. So you just find the common points between them, usually things bound up in the mechanics, and you do something else.
>>97191156By not playing D&D. Even the Forgotten Realms feels completely different if you run it in GURPS. But Carbon 2185 feels just like D&D with a neon coat of paint even though the game has nothing to do with dungeons or dragons.
>>97192467You make an interesting point about the magic being the first litmus test for the metaphysics of the world. I wonder if it applies to other aspects like aesthetics.
>>97191156DND feels generic because it borrows from other settings without really putting a unique spin on them.>oh look, a Tolkien dwarf, and a Tolkien halfling, and a Tolkien elf, and a Tolkien orc>here's the dwarf city, here's the halfling town, here's the elf city, and here's the orc village Borrowing from other works of fiction is fine, but just copying and pasting makes the setting feel more like a zoo than a fantastical world.
>>97191156build the world building and lore around the characters, not a bunch of passages better read as a wikipedia article than a fantasy story
>>97191226Eberron was pretty solid.Spelljammer was batshit.Planescape was pretty wild.Individual supplements like Hollowfaust and Magic of Incarnum were dope.D&D is only generic if you got a surface level knowledge of it. Would much rather play other systems though and 5e really shat the bed hard by pretty much not doing any stand alone setting books.
>>97191156You just wanted to upload a big breasted anime woman image.
>>97191293Ogre still evil in dndBoogins still evil in dndGoblin still evil in dndBugbear still evil in dndTroll stil evil in dnd
>>97191156If your understanding of "generic" is "ye olde medieval fantasyworld with dwarves, elves and humans" you are the problem.
>>97195195Just add modern political sensibilities and that's about as generic a setting as you can possibly make in current year.
>>97195199modern sensibilities make everything feel generic just like adding shit to a sandwich makes any sandwich taste like shit
>>97191324Even if that were true, and I seriously doubt even a major trade hub would have *that* many visitors, the issue with that in game terms is that it makes every location feel exactly the same. The same thing happened with the Witcher TV show, every location had similar designs and suspiciously spot-on gender and ethnic diversity and at times this genuinely made it difficult to tell locations apart.
>>97195199You know, perhaps a good way to satisfy both modern sensibility and uniqueness would be to give multiple origin stories to each race. Multiple explanations and theories, but the true one lost to history.
>>97195236Creationism vs darwinism, or some such?
>>97195243Yeah, but also competing myths some positive others negative, others that can be viewed as both. Perhaps this race was punished for attempting to steal fire from the gods, so it is seen both as a punishment but some as a celebration for liberation against the tyranny of the gods. Meanwhile another myth about their predecessors climbed the World Tree and spoke with their god, learning the name of the spirts, and descended blessed as the first shamans. While other races saw them with envy.
>>97191396That's safehorny in current year
>>97191156Traditional games?
Before the Flood, the Apkallu, seven sages sent by the god Enki—taught humanity civilization: writing, law, architecture, magic. One sage, Adapa, grew proud and refused to accept mortality. He bargained with the gods for immortality but was granted only the mark of immortality: eternal bloodline, but not eternal life. His descendants bear horns like the bull-gods, eyes like the star-gods, and tails like the serpent of wisdom. Loki the Trickster fathered monstrous children with the giantess Angrboda. The gods feared them and bound them, wolf beneath the earth, serpent in the sea, death-goddess in the underworld. But Loki also lay with human women, and THOSE children could pass as human... almost. The horns (like Hel's crown), the tail (like Jörmungandr), the eyes (like Fenrir's gaze). They are chaos-marked, neither fully bound nor fully free.Long ago, humans and Asuras (titans who oppose the Devas/gods) made a pact. The Asuras would grant humans power to resist divine tyranny; humans would provide the Asuras with worship and descendants. The children of this pact bear the marks of both realms, horns like the demon-kings, eyes like the hungry ghosts, skin touched by the hells. They are caught in eternal war between gods and titans.The Branded descend from Cain, the first murderer, who slew his brother and was marked by God. He founded the first city in defiance of divine will, and his children learned forbidden arts. The mark breeds true through generations, horns for pride, tail for serpent's wisdom, eyes that reflect hellfire. They can be redeemed through suffering and faith, but their blood inclines them toward fratricide and rebellionBefore the Tuatha Dé Danann brought order, the Fomorians ruled beings of sea, storm, and chaos. When the gods defeated them, some Fomorians fled to human settlements and interbred. Their descendants carry the marks: twisted horns, eyes that see through glamour. They are the OLD blood, from before civilization, before law.
>>97191324>Major trade hubs have a lot of different races>Most D&D games start in backwater towns where there are Drow and Goblins standing in the middle of the street during the day talking about the weather as a Dragonborn and Tabaxi gay couple are getting married down the street.Do you see the problem?
>>97191396Are we talking about hot catgirls or brony shit?
>>97191156Avoid "kitchen sink" world building, instead of throwing every fantasy race and magic ability into your setting, don't stitch together random historical kingdoms and call it a day (So no Camelot right next to Revolutionary France) you have t learn to say no to ideas that sound nice in your head but wouldn't make sense in the setting as a hole. Like why do the dwarfs or gnomes have industrial tech but not humans or Elves? etc.
>>97191156What's maked a ESL not spelling goodish?
