Dungeons and Dragons (2022)

[InvisibleBison]

Okay you try to cross the street and you just barely missed being stepped on by a cloud giant that wasn't looking where he was going, perhaps he was drunk, well he tripped over a horse through and fell on top of the stable crushing several horses to death after drinking several gallons of ale as he fell unconscious. Meanwhile you see a red beholder floating down the street being chased by a blue, a yellow and a green ghost. The beholder chomps down on a fruit stand, and suddenly the three ghosts turn tail and run away as the beholder chases after them chomping and trying to eat the ghosts! Just you typical scene in your small fantasy town, right?

The farmer leads ole Bessy down the street, and passes three houses in a row, one make of straw, the next one made out of sticks, and the third one made of bricks. He sees an orc peering through one of the windows as a mangy wolf walks down the street huffing and puffing, the farmer turns the corner and didn't see what happened, but there was a sudden gusts of wind that smelled like bad breath, and straw suddenly fell out of the sky, "my what strange weather they have around here," the farmer commented.

It's not a normal setting that you're describing, but there's nothing wrong with it aside from being a bit too on-the-nose in its imitation of its inspirations.

[Dexam]

Wasn't there an Australian series involving a mage travelling to modern day Australia to escape the havoc of his world?
Only someone from his past paying him a visit rewriting reality quite literally!

This is The Wizards of Aus, if you're looking for it.

[Tom Kalbfus]

It's not a normal setting that you're describing, but there's nothing wrong with it aside from being a bit too on-the-nose in its imitation of its inspirations.

You can have a serious campaign or a silly campaign, usually the serious ones have a bit more suspense. I think the first good movie should be suspenseful, rather than a comedy starring Bill and Ted.

[Rodin]

The obvious example of a realistic racially diverse setting is Discworld. Specifically, the city of Ankh-Morpork.

It started as a human city, but people go where the money is. There's a huge Dwarven population that send money back to their families in the mountains, just like real-life immigrants do. Trolls that weren't interested in sleeping and eating rocks all day came down and got jobs as heavy laborers, bouncers, and bodyguards. The Undead are a small minority that mostly keep to themselves, but there's a zombie in the City Watch and a Vampire news reporter. Small demons like Imps have found new employment powering small magical devices that act like modern technology like cameras, personal organizers, etc.

There's no indication that the whole world is like that - when the story travels to Uberwald we see humans as the minority living above a massive Dwarven city.

I'm not familiar enough with the various D&D settings to build a similar scenario, but I'm betting it would be just a few strokes of a pen to come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for why there are a variety of races living in a large city.

[Dienekes]

The obvious example of a realistic racially diverse setting is Discworld. Specifically, the city of Ankh-Morpork.

It started as a human city, but people go where the money is. There's a huge Dwarven population that send money back to their families in the mountains, just like real-life immigrants do. Trolls that weren't interested in sleeping and eating rocks all day came down and got jobs as heavy laborers, bouncers, and bodyguards. The Undead are a small minority that mostly keep to themselves, but there's a zombie in the City Watch and a Vampire news reporter. Small demons like Imps have found new employment powering small magical devices that act like modern technology like cameras, personal organizers, etc.

There's no indication that the whole world is like that - when the story travels to Uberwald we see humans as the minority living above a massive Dwarven city.

I'm not familiar enough with the various D&D settings to build a similar scenario, but I'm betting it would be just a few strokes of a pen to come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for why there are a variety of races living in a large city.

Honestly as long as travel is cheap and relatively safe-ish there will always be travel. If we go by the medieval world as a basis people traveled far more than most people think.* Pilgrimages were huge. English peasants found their way to Jerusalem or Rome. Merchants from Sub-Saharan Africa reached Scotland. Mongols could raid from China to the Middle East and Hungary.

If anything the fact D&D world has teleportation and mental projected communication means there should be far far more of that. Of course like today different metropolises should probably favor only a few species in demographics. But assuming no overwhelming speciesism or other forces separating cultures (massive and continuous wars or raiding or opposed economic alliances and even then this shouldn’t drop cross culture trade to 0) there should probably be quite a bit of diversity in major cities.

*At least in the High or Late Medieval Period. Early Medieval seems far more restricted.

[InvisibleBison]

You can have a serious campaign or a silly campaign, usually the serious ones have a bit more suspense. I think the first good movie should be suspenseful, rather than a comedy starring Bill and Ted.

Why do you think a multi-racial society has to be comedic?

[Tom Kalbfus]

Why do you think a multi-racial society has to be comedic?

Imagine a city full of all the intelligent monsters found in all the Monster Manuals, imagine orcs rubbing shoulders with beholders, medusa, giants and dragons of different sorts, and try to imagine how that's going to work? Will pixies show up at the bar with storm Giants and Dragons? There never was a city like this, and frankly it's hard to imagine how these creatures would deal with each other and get along.

[The Glyphstone]

Imagine a city full of all the intelligent monsters found in all the Monster Manuals, imagine orcs rubbing shoulders with beholders, medusa, giants and dragons of different sorts, and try to imagine how that's going to work? Will pixies show up at the bar with storm Giants and Dragons? There never was a city like this, and frankly it's hard to imagine how these creatures would deal with each other and get along.

That is literally what Sharn is in the Ebberon setting, a massively multiracial cosmopolitan metropolis.

[EggKookoo]

Imagine a city full of all the intelligent monsters found in all the Monster Manuals, imagine orcs rubbing shoulders with beholders, medusa, giants and dragons of different sorts, and try to imagine how that's going to work? Will pixies show up at the bar with storm Giants and Dragons? There never was a city like this, and frankly it's hard to imagine how these creatures would deal with each other and get along.

[dancrilis]

Why do you think a multi-racial society has to be comedic?

From DnD 5th Edition:

Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied.

The comforts of home are the goals of most halflings' lives: a place to settle in peace and quiet, far from marauding monsters and clashing armies; a blazing fire and a generous meal; fine drink and fine conversation.

Any setting which includes both of these in the same settlement getting along in numbers is either going to be comedic, horrific or unfaithful to one or both of them.

Imagine a city full of all the intelligent monsters found in all the Monster Manuals, imagine orcs rubbing shoulders with beholders, medusa, giants and dragons of different sorts, and try to imagine how that's going to work? Will pixies show up at the bar with storm Giants and Dragons? There never was a city like this, and frankly it's hard to imagine how these creatures would deal with each other and get along.

Sigil kindof acts a bit like that.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And here I was expecting a crowd scene from Zootopia.

[InvisibleBison]

Imagine a city full of all the intelligent monsters found in all the Monster Manuals, imagine orcs rubbing shoulders with beholders, medusa, giants and dragons of different sorts, and try to imagine how that's going to work? Will pixies show up at the bar with storm Giants and Dragons? There never was a city like this, and frankly it's hard to imagine how these creatures would deal with each other and get along.

The logistics of species of radically-varied sizes and shapes living alongside one another are going to be difficult, yes. But I've never said anything about a setting with all intelligent creatures living in one city, just one that's more varied than human/elf/dwarf/halfling/gnome. You could very easily have a society that's a mixture of lizardfolk, ettercaps, centaurs and blink dogs.

Any setting which includes both of these in the same settlement getting along in numbers is either going to be comedic, horrific or unfaithful to one or both of them.

I don't see why a new setting has to be faithful to an old setting's racial descriptions.

[Keltest]

I don't see why a new setting has to be faithful to an old setting's racial descriptions.

Past a certain point, you deviate from them too much and you don't have the original creature anymore, you just have something with the same name. Orcs being green humans is, well, boring.

[dancrilis]

I don't see why a new setting has to be faithful to an old setting's racial descriptions.

A new setting doesn't - but unless you have 'everyone is merely a funny looking human' then you would expect some cultures that would not interact for a lot of reasons - an Illithid merchant might be fine upstanding honest person but as a race if they are not mind enslaving monsters who eat brains then from a certain point of view they are not really Illithids (the merchant might have given up on that life - but then they might be better using a disguise).

Saying everyone is merely a funny looking human is fine if that is what you want - but at that point it kindof isn't really DnD any longer, and you could argue that it is also not that diverse.

[Dienekes]

From DnD 5th Edition:




Any setting which includes both of these in the same settlement getting along in numbers is either going to be comedic, horrific or unfaithful to one or both of them.




Sigil kindof acts a bit like that.

Just for the record. There are certain cultures that {scrubbed} interacted quite similarly to the description of orcs.

And those cultures still had traders, diplomats, and non-combatants. And 5e itself allows members of any playable race to be of any alignment. So not all orcs need to be of the raging bloodthirsty variety.

[InvisibleBison]

Past a certain point, you deviate from them too much and you don't have the original creature anymore, you just have something with the same name. Orcs being green humans is, well, boring.

A new setting doesn't - but unless you have 'everyone is merely a funny looking human' then you would expect some cultures that would not interact for a lot of reasons - an Illithid merchant might be fine upstanding honest person but as a race if they are not mind enslaving monsters who eat brains then from a certain point of view they are not really Illithids (the merchant might have given up on that life - but then they might be better using a disguise).

Saying everyone is merely a funny looking human is fine if that is what you want - but at that point it kindof isn't really DnD any longer, and you could argue that it is also not that diverse.

You don't need to make everyone a funny looking human to make a multi-racial setting. I don't know where you got that idea from. You only have to bend the existing descriptions, and even then only in some cases. Orcs, for example, can be bloodthirsty and fond of violence without being genocidally racist against all non-orcs. And yes, there are some species that won't be able to integrate into a multi-racial society, but I've never said that a multi-racial society would have to have all species.

[Kantaki]

I mean sure, orcs in general might match that description.
The orcs hanging out in the city?
They either don't- which is why they live among other folks -or they are smart enough that there's better living in letting weaker people pay them for keeping them safe from such attacks. Or to inflict them on others.
They (and others) would be outlayers, atypical for their race, but so are adventurers.

Okay, throwing everything and the kitchen sink in can turn silly fast. Or it's Sigil.
But some orcish mercs*, lizardfolks offering their services as guides through the swamp/selling swamp fish or hobgoblins working as guards for some (underworld?) business wouldn't be out of place.

*Or maybe a weapon smith who figured that if those pesky heroes are gonna pick up her weapons anyway they might as well pay her.

[Legato Endless]

Honestly as long as travel is cheap and relatively safe-ish there will always be travel. If we go by the medieval world as a basis people traveled far more than most people think.* Pilgrimages were huge. English peasants found their way to Jerusalem or Rome. Merchants from Sub-Saharan Africa reached Scotland. Mongols could raid from China to the Middle East and Hungary.

If anything the fact D&D world has teleportation and mental projected communication means there should be far far more of that. Of course like today different metropolises should probably favor only a few species in demographics. But assuming no overwhelming speciesism or other forces separating cultures (massive and continuous wars or raiding or opposed economic alliances and even then this shouldn’t drop cross culture trade to 0) there should probably be quite a bit of diversity in major cities.

*At least in the High or Late Medieval Period. Early Medieval seems far more restricted.

Yeah, the demographic realism argument is fairly daft as, bluntly, DnD is typically nothing like the Middle Ages. I see no reason beyond dramatic license to keep with it being a historically illiterate parody. We've certainly past the time when nerds dreamed of fantasy properties getting a proper budget, now we've moved to actually letting a film paint a cinematic picture with various peoples would imply...something? It's not like Guilds, armor, cultural identity, or anyone of a thousand other things in DnD actually resemble the time period. Medieval DnD is mostly a caricature of the time period, and one stuck firmly in some chiefly Anglo-French territory therein.

I'm also not sure why, semiotically, the different races of DnD would have to correspond one to one to large cultures. If instead they stand in for various more tribal identities, then you'd have a good license to have a diversee roster, and you'd actually be closer to implying what life was like for people back then. A town where 80% of people are French isn't really a thing for the Medieval period, a time when France was infamously decentralized in any way you cut it, a place of independent principalities and towns, warring imperial powers, and the millennia of migrant movements and displaced peoples weren't all bumping up against each other, depending on time and geography.

[Kitten Champion]

I would suggest a D&D movie would and probably will resemble Star Wars in terms of diversity. The protagonist will be human while a certain percentage of the supporting cast will be non-human but still human-enough that the actors can freely emote.

Don't worry about the actual rationale for why certain races are where they are, the important point is those actors in costume/puppets/visual effects need to be positioned in such a way as to establish a fantasy atmosphere for any crowd scene. You don't have a tavern scene without some expensive visual oddities wondering about, and do you really think they'd not have that tavern scene? In any modern fantasy adventure movie, much less one called Dungeons & Dragons?

[Rodin]

It's not like Guilds, armor, cultural identity, or anyone of a thousand other things in DnD actually resemble the time period. Medieval DnD is mostly a caricature of the time period, and one stuck firmly in some chiefly Anglo-French territory therein.

The pedant in me needs to point out that guilds were very much a thing in Medieval times. I visited the Merchant Adventurers Hall in York last year and found it fascinating*.

There may not have been a "Fighters Guild" or a "Thieves Guild" but the core idea of craft practitioners forming a larger organization is well established. It's one of the more realistic ideas of the setting.

Of course, you have to leap through some weird logical loops to get to that point. A Fighters Guild requires a sufficient threat for local warriors to go out and fight, but not a big enough threat for the local lord to send troops after it, and it requires a sustained threat for the Guild to keep finding work.

All of that is baked into D&D on an intrinsic level, so a guild makes perfect sense.

Again, so pedantic that I can't believe I wrote all that, but sometimes I need to write this stuff down.



*Coolest thing I learned was of a local lady who defied the Guild's monopoly and started an independent grocery store. Despite efforts to shut her down she was successful enough that the Guild backed down and let her join years later for a tiny fee, long after it was irrelevant. That grocery business eventually transitioned into chocolate, and it's the reason why many chocolate companies (including Cadbury's) exist today.

[Cazero]

Orcs being green humans is, well, boring.

It's impossible to make up a sapient creature that cannot be described as "human, but with X" because in that context human is synonym with sapient.
Orcs are green humans. They've always been since the day they became green.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

It's impossible to make up a sapient creature that cannot be described as "human, but with X" because in that context human is synonym with sapient.
Orcs are green humans. They've always been since the day they became green.

"Human, but with scales, and wings, and lots of treasure on which they sleep, and also they're huge, and they always abduct princesses for some reason" is just a tad unwieldy...

[Peelee]

The pedant in me needs to point out that guilds were very much a thing in Medieval times.

I've been to Medieval Times like three or four times, and the closest thing they have to a guild is the gift shop!

"Human, but with scales, and wings, and lots of treasure on which they sleep, and also they're huge, and they always abduct princesses for some reason" is just a tad unwieldy...

Some of us have princessess who enjoy our company and came on their own volition, thankyouverymuch

[Tvtyrant]

The gift shop guild is notorious for its markups.

[Peelee]

The gift shop guild is notorious for its markups.

Ain't that the truth.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Yeah, the demographic realism argument is fairly daft as, bluntly, DnD is typically nothing like the Middle Ages. I see no reason beyond dramatic license to keep with it being a historically illiterate parody. We've certainly past the time when nerds dreamed of fantasy properties getting a proper budget, now we've moved to actually letting a film paint a cinematic picture with various peoples would imply...something? It's not like Guilds, armor, cultural identity, or anyone of a thousand other things in DnD actually resemble the time period. Medieval DnD is mostly a caricature of the time period, and one stuck firmly in some chiefly Anglo-French territory therein.

I'm also not sure why, semiotically, the different races of DnD would have to correspond one to one to large cultures. If instead they stand in for various more tribal identities, then you'd have a good license to have a diversee roster, and you'd actually be closer to implying what life was like for people back then. A town where 80% of people are French isn't really a thing for the Medieval period, a time when France was infamously decentralized in any way you cut it, a place of independent principalities and towns, warring imperial powers, and the millennia of migrant movements and displaced peoples weren't all bumping up against each other, depending on time and geography.

Do you want a guy in a leather jacket and wearing a pair of sunglasses swinging a sword? How about a monk sporting a spikey mohawk? How about a wizard in a jumpsuit of a fighter in a bikini with breastplate, do you want those tropes?

[dancrilis]

Do you want a guy in a leather jacket and wearing a pair of sunglasses swinging a sword? How about a monk sporting a spikey mohawk? How about a wizard in a jumpsuit of a fighter in a bikini with breastplate, do you want those tropes?

Shadowrun is a fine setting, but it is not what I think of when I think Dungeons and Dragons.

[Legato Endless]

The pedant in me needs to point out that guilds were very much a thing in Medieval times.

Oh certainly.

There may not have been a "Fighters Guild" or a "Thieves Guild" but the core idea of craft practitioners forming a larger organization is well established. It's one of the more realistic ideas of the setting

Kind of. But going into more depth would be a divergence, and I'm making my will save to avoid nitpicking DnDisms too much on a tangent.

Do you want a guy in a leather jacket and wearing a pair of sunglasses swinging a sword? How about a monk sporting a spikey mohawk? How about a wizard in a jumpsuit of a fighter in a bikini with breastplate, do you want those tropes?

Yeah I'm not following there. It looks like you're trying to make an appeal to extremes, but I don't see how even if we took this to it's illogical conclusion and decided to make every single member of the cast a different race, we'd in any way end up with a punk band.

[Tom Kalbfus]

I like medieval realism, at least with regards to weapons and armor. I don't like fantasy character with too many anachronisms.

[Peelee]

I like medieval realism, at least with regards to weapons and armor. I don't like fantasy character with too many anachronisms.

Fantasy characters live in entirely different worlds, they cannot have anachronisms.

Or, well, I suppose they can, but they'd be much different. Like people talking about the spell plague before it went off, or things like that.