17th-century campaign world

[Redhood101]

I'm bored out of my mind in quarantine and decided it might be fun to build a new world/campaign just in case I ever get a group. I thought it might be cool to make a setting based on our real-life 17th century with a mixture of the conquistador, pirates, and the seven years war. (IE the cool parts from the Spanish landing to the American revolution) I have two major issues.
Issue 1
It is very much just real life 17th century. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it feel more fantasy-like?
An idea I had was to replace the midwest with some fey land that is rich in druidic magic and the like. Or give the old world races more advanced technology in some ways while still keeping the 17th-century feel.
Issue 2
I have no ideas for any plot or big bad or the like. I feel like many interesting stories could come from the tensions of the real-time period that could make cool adventures. I thought maybe doing a slew of shorter 2-4 session adventures that each stood as their own with time gaps between them. Allowing the world to change based on the player's actions and allow for more adventures to arise without it feeling like the players can't rest for ten minutes without something exploding.

If anyone has any ideas or thoughts, I'd love to hear about it.

I made changes cause I was so in my own head I was unaware of how insensitive some of my original ideas were. I want to thank people for letting me know how it could be perceived.

[Paeleus]

I think it would be a lot cooler to switch up your races with the real world counter parts. Like maybe not do the orc thing.

Btw, this post is not long for this earth. I think there may be some rules against comparing real world stuff to fantasy stuff, most definitely for the possible negative connotations.

Edit: Perhaps take the most glorious time periods from all major civilizations and make then all at once, ie. Orc Warriors mirroring Samurai culture, Dwarves mirroring Mali Empire, elves as the Azteca, etc. Maybe have humans as lowly chatle for the fantasy genotypes, the underdog of the world.

[Unoriginal]

I would really avoid the whole "fantasy species are real life nationalities" thing, especially in the context of atrocities from history.

[NRSASD]

Good rule of thumb is to never map a fantasy faction to a real world faction. In addition to avoiding unfortunate implications (as mentioned above), it also gives the world a whole new unique flavor. For example, in my own campaign, I have a nation that blends the Republic of Rome with 14th century Italian city states. The resulting mix is a society that earns its wealth through trade and is constantly being torn apart by political intrigue and assassinations, but views civic military service as an honor and has an expansionist outlook. In this society, the military is the only occupation that manages to stay above the political conniving through a widely agreed truce between the noble families. Everything else is fair game.

[Duff]

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest anyone of African American descent might take a dim view of being played by an orc in your setting. Maybe others as well. If you want to go historical, probably better to keep us all human. If you want to go fantasy races, better to walk away from real people.
Also, the history would be fundamentally different if each land was inhabited by a different fantasy race. German people living for dwarvish lifetimes would have very different monarchs.

Also when worldbuilding, it helps to think about how societies work. The bits that are fun to play come out of the bits that are pretty ugly. You won't have the US Civil War without slavery and the moral, economic and legal issues which went with it. Do you want those themes in your game? Are you sure all of your group has the same ideas about how to do that?
If you go a not-particularly politically sensitive approach (which your use of the fantasy races suggest you might) you'd really annoy anyone in your group who's even a little bit politically correct.
If you want to seriously address the serious issues, you're going to make your one politically incorrect player look pretty bad

[Dienekes]

To skirt around board issues as best I can.

It is generally regarded that taking a fantasy race and mapping them directly onto a culture is in bad taste. And yet, Bright did very well. So what is generally regarded to be true can be somewhat malleable.

I would suggest if you do this, make certain you’re respectful. Having Orcs be slaves taken to new lands from their homes is a take. I would however advise against using the fictional races as a means of even unintentionally portraying racist ideology as accurate.

If the slavers rationalize that the orcs should be enslaved because they are stupid or perhaps aren’t as socially developed as their slavers. I would take great pains to develop the orcish culture to disprove that notion.

[Taevyr]

I'd like to add my voice to those saying not to directly mirror fantasy races with real-life nations. The homebrew setting I'm currently working on (set in a "migration/early colonization era", roughly) tries to mix various influences into each nation: the Gnome Archipelago, for example, is geographically based on Indonesia, and politically a mixture of the Commonwealth of Nations and Sakoku Japan, for example. All of the islands are part of the greater Gnome Commonwealth and reap its benefits without giving up that much independence, but the largest northern island is the main power behind the Commonwealth and staunchly protects its members from those who would threaten them; It is also closed to those who aren't part of it and strongly regulates all outgoing trade.

I'd also advise to mix the more fantastic elements in with the general world development and geography: for my setting, the recently "discovered" northern continent is strongly connected to the Feywild, and thus the first place elven civilizations are found outside of the small enclaves that were known before. Said civilizations are also not strictly based on real-world colonial ones: The high elves, for example, have Rivendel-like cities that generally don't develop into larger civilizations, and partially cross over into the Feywild. Each is essentially an independent city-state with an exceedingly long-lived population, without much incentive for growth.

[Lorka]

17th century is a great setting. The birth of science and the technology is perfect for gaming with both pirates, guns and knights in full plate harness all at once. It’s the age of sail and your players can go from on end of the other much easier than anytime before.

Have a long talk with your players about how to handle the horrors of colonialism. It can be a great way to learn some history, but also if mishandled a racist clusterf*ck.

[Telwar]

It's going to be best, as others have said, if you don't assign real world ethnicity to fantasy races. Instead, mix them in, living everywhere amongst all the other races in all nations, rather like in Shadowrun. Perhaps armies prize half-orcs and goliaths as grenadiers and halflings and elves as skirmishers, aarakocra as scouts, etc. Dwarves tend towards engineering and the faculty of universities are packed with gnomes.

[KorvinStarmast]

Issue 1
It is very much just real life 17th century.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it feel more fantasy-like? An idea I had was to replace the midwest with some fey land that is rich in druidic magic and the like.
a. Read Tim Powers, Stranger Tides and The Drawing of the Dark

b. My nephew did something like this: a new world late age-of-exploration period with muskets. There were not orcs and there were not goblins. There were plenty of Fey and the wood elves who were not that keen on all of these humans coming across the ocean to settle and cultivate their lands. He homebrewed up a bunch of fey and beasts that I'll not get into here. And then the campaign died due to IRL scheduling issues.

c. Socially, in the new world you want to create, I'd strongly recommend against dragging slavery into your game. What you can borrow from history, though, is indentured servants (a not uncommon way for someone to get their passage paid to the new world in exchange for seven years of labor). You can research the details on your own (we were taught about this in Virginia in 4th grade social studies/history).

There was a sci fi author back in the 80's who wrote a series of books about an alternate world where there was a lot of magic out in the wilderness and people were raising tobacco for a cash crop. I'll try and find the name of the author and the series (Angus something). I think he'd fit perfectly well into you time frame.

Here's why the 'indentured servant' scheme might be a good fit for a D&D campaign. It allows for an origin for some PCs, or, plot hooks "do this and your friend {name}'s seven year contract is fulfilled after only two years" or some such. Having the major tension be "fey versus encroaching humanity and technology" makes for a lot decent story hooks. Also suggest you include a few portals into the Feywild, and perhaps Shadowfell.

If you want to toss in a Jungle/Central American/Brazil kind of place, just cut and paste Chult from Tomb of Annihilation and change a few names.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Masque of the Red Death, or Gothic Earth, is more 1800's than 1700's, but the material might give you some ideas. After divorcing it from it's horror aspect, of course. Or not if you enjoy that.

[Cygnia]

7th Sea took place in a 17th Century equivalent and mixed magic in as well, if you're looking for ideas.

[KorvinStarmast]

7th Sea took place in a 17th Century equivalent and mixed magic in as well, if you're looking for ideas. Yep, but that's kind of set in Europe, isn't it?

[Cygnia]

1st edition 7th Sea, yes. 2nd edition expanded more equivalents of various regions of Asia, Africa and the Americas.

[KorvinStarmast]

1st edition 7th Sea, yes. 2nd edition expanded more equivalents of various regions of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Ooh, sorry, wasn't aware of that.

For the OP: my initial answer was going to be "choose a different game system, play 7th Sea" but I figured that it was too Eurocentric and was not aware that it had an America's expansion.

So I suggest that as your better idea.
Different game system, but it seems purpose built for the game you have in mind.

[rlc]

Keep the 17th century technology, but lose the politics. Demographics are obviously going to be a thing, but try to make it more steampunk influenced than scramble for Africa influenced.