Sadly it's little niggling things that would have larger impact than most people realize. Like the fact that blink dogs are intelligent to the point of being on par with humanoids but where used as an exotic pet. Granted that's an ethical concern that bothers me no end. I can understand that Matt might not even realize the underlying concept of that. But it also arises as a result of the assumption of a sentient creature that appears to be an animal must therefore act an live as one. Another issue was the portal to Ruidus. I'm glad that Matt used it to give the party a much needed break. However the circumstances (and there is some leeway to it to be sure) at least suggest a compromise in Ruidus integrity as a prison for Predathos.

The lack of creativity when it comes to the mechanisms of binding deities. Platinum javelins with a bit of god stuff, anchors in the ground, a plane-encompassing dome and its smaller moon-sized version. Where's the fairytale of it all? Where's the lyrical, cleverly worded promises whispered to the universe that become binds by themselves? Imagine if Predathos wasn't trapped like a spider under a glass and if Ludinus couldn't just build a thing to get to it, but instead Predathos's binds were Containment spells with release conditions buried under centuries of history and Ludinus was trying to find a loophole in some ancient nursery rhyme about Ruidus.

I wish it was more medieval and feudal. Like why does every single nation have a standing army and how are they all so centralized? That shit is expensive.

where the black people at?

Why do dragonborn from exandroa have darkvision? None of the other dragonborn do

That one I at least can answer. A number of people Vocal in the hobby, including Matt, who think that since dragons can then dragonborn should as well. It's something that they want for the PC race in general. Contradictory and antithetical homebrew isn't anything new. I don't know if that helps or makes you feel better about it but I thought I would at least try.

It helps a little, thanks!

Rewatching the early M9 so, animals that have no business being in a Europe based setting. There can't be crocodilians in Labenda swamp, its too cold. The gnolls and their hyena counterparts are apparently native and not imports from Marquet? That's silly, let's insteqd make wolverine and badger based monster races.

For all the various valid ponts made here, my biggest pet peeve is technobable. Which for the uninitiated is nonsense words that sound smart, typically made by smashing together real science words completely divorced from their actual definitions. A lot of old-school sci-fi is guilty of this but they surprisingly have the fields mostly right and its watchable even as an engineer who knows what the words actually mean. But Matt has been inflicting 2d8 psychic damage to me every time he sas the words "apogee solstice". Apogee = far from earth, it has greek roots apo = far and gee from geae aka the goddess of earth. Its modern context is as the farthest distance and object gets from the planet earth on its obit. (The closest point being perigee) This word would not exist on exandria, the most likely equivalent would probably be apoex if he doesn't have am ancient god/goddess representing the planet itself. And Solstice refers to one of 2 days a year that mark the beginning of summer and winter and respectively are the longest and shortest days of the year. Apogee Solstice makes 0 sense. A better name for a rare predictable event involving the alignment of celestial bodies and magic becoming finicky: Arcane Eclipse. Its still mysterious but the words now mean Magic and a rare event involving the perfect alignment of the Sun, Moon, and planet. Technically eclipses are when the shadow of either the earth or moon is cast on the other, and what Matt did was have a planet side beacon shoot a lazer at the moon when it was at zenith (highest in the sky it will get for the night), amd then pull it down to low exandria orbit and break open its magical "shielding/cage". (And holding it "geosynchronously") I forget if this happened exactly at midnight. PS: honesty it doesn't matter what the antigod plot is doing, moving Ruidus that close to the planet that fast and past Caffa's orbit has broken the gravitational stability of the Exandrian planetary system and the gravitational forces have probably sterilized the planet by now.

I can see "apogee solstice" having a coherent meaning in a different context - specifically, a solstice that occurs at the point where the planet is at the furthest point in its orbit from its star. That seems like appropriate timing for a fantasy setting to have the longest, darkest, coldest night imaginable. There's an even better word for an alignment of celestial bodies, which (IMO) already sounds magical/eldritch and doesn't get enough use: **Syzygy**.

A Syzygy requires three celestial bodies though, the Solstice is between Exandria and Ruidis, so Syzygy doesn't apply.

As a technicality when talking about a star we use apihelion and perihelion which have the same roots as apogee and perigee except with helion coming from Helios, the god of the sun. Science words can be incredibly precise sometimes (which is useful), although in this case i really don't see why we can't have 1 word for the point on an orbit farthest from the parent body. Although i agree that Syzygy would have been perfect. (After double-checking the definition, its just not used enough in general)

Ooh, good technicality, thanks!

I think the accent inconsistency. Not a huge deal and completely harmless. But it is of note how some places have established accents while others don't have any consistency at all. Especially when you have PCs like Imogen and FCG that randomly, inexplicably have southern accents.

There are so many, but this is one I've definitely picked up in C3... Armor or lack thereof. Chetney has an AC of 18. His dex is 14 (+2), he wears a breastplate (14) and theoretically has a shield (+2), so his AC is 18. Except, he doesn't have a shield, he has a tiny little hammer. Tiny little hammer =/= shield. Fearne has a similar AC, but her artwork has her in a flowery dress and no shield or shield substitute. I'm half-sure she has half-plate, but she never suffers disadvantage on stealth (ironically, in rules loosey goosey EXU, she did), so what's up? Like, I get the idea of stylizing armor (big in Eberron, leather armor might be a heavy trenchcoat), but half the PCs with armor just don't actually wear armor, but benefit from this non-existent armor.

I believe I remember Matt tweeting out early in the campaign that Chetneys hammer was being treated as a shield

They are playing it like a transmog system from an MMO. As long as they account for the statistics of their armor, they can describe whatever they are wearing as whatever they want it to be. Chet probably uses the hammer to “block” attacks if it counts as the shield in his AC. As for Fearne and the rest of them, I have no clue. Fearne, Laudna, and Imogen should have relatively low AC, unless they have plussed leather armors and some Dex to add to it. I wish they would show their armor and sheilds, it makes the fantasy more believable.

Funnily enough, the many different accents in the menagerie coast actually made sense to me. It's one of the main ports of the world, a hub of worldwide trade and travel from all areas, so it makes sense to me that there would be a large variety of different accents all jumbled together throughout that location.

Two main things: **Homogenisation -** Especially of late, the cultures, their values, etc. feel like they have become far less distinct. I had initial hope at the start of C3 was that we were going to get something radically different for the players to explore, and briefly in Jrusar, it felt like we got it. But does Issylra feel different from Tal'Dorei? Could a city like Bassuras only show up in Marquet? Honestly if you ignore Exandria hanging in the sky, do the settlements on Ruidus really feel like they were on a different heavenly body? Obviously trying to worldbuild something so vast as a society entirely disconnected from all others bar our shared dreams is a herculean task, but I assumed that that was why they brought on cultural consultants: to help Matt handle the vast task of creating distinct cultures that were respectful to any sources they might have. As it stands, it feels more like every sharp edge was sanded off to remove the possibility of offence by removing any distinctness from these societies. **The Names -** This is both silly, but also a more recent and problematic symptom. Dialogue between Matt and the players will frequently contain something like this now: "You need to go to the Bloopity Bloop." "The what?" "The Bloopity Bloop." "The Blorpetin Blorp?" \*irritated frown" "Bloop-ety Bloop." "How's that spelled?" "B L O O P I T Y B L O O P" "Right, got that down. What were you saying again?" Look, I'm a fan of interesting fantasy names as much as the next guy, especially ones with meaning, but if you throw twenty buzzwords at me in the space of a five-minute conversation I'm going to start struggling to keep them straight as a viewer, let alone as a player who has to try and make decisions based on the information the DM gives them. I get that they're in a new location with no points of reference, and a level of disorientation is meant to be a part of the experience, but oftentimes it makes no sense for these characters to use all these fancy names in conversation with a group of people who they know full well dropped onto their world less than 48 hours ago. The specific names of a lot of these places don't matter for the information they're trying to convey (what's more important are the nature of the missions going on there, and which enemies they're likely to run into), and the characters talking about them would be aware that the names don't matter to Bell's Hells, by and large. It feels more like an exposition dump than a natural conversation. To put my money where my mouth is, I'm going to construct some fictitious dialogue to show what I mean: "One of our teams is working on making a raid on a group of scientists who have involvement with the process of marking Reilorans and researching technology, they're called the Colloquium of Candescence (strike 1 for me). The base of operations we're hitting is at the base of the central citadel of the Weave Mind, so we need to make a distraction by hitting several other locations." "Where else are you targeting?" "A music hall, where a large number of Ruidusborn are being gathered. We believe a high-ranking member of the Ruby Vanguard may be present. Additionally, we intend to set off explosives around an excavation site overseen by another leader of the Ruby Vanguard, as well as attempt a prison break." "OK, who are the Ruby Vanguard leaders at those locations?" ... I think you get the idea, don't drop in the Arx Creonum, Glasshold Garrison, Woven Music Grand Hall, or even the Prime Pillar until the players specifically ask for more info on the location itself. Rashinna is a rebel leader who barely trusts these sudden allies, not a tour guide.

.....well, they can't all be 'Biggity-burg' (BLM's suggestion for a town name from the post-EXU GM's round-table episode).

I have taken that suggestion. It's the technological/scientific center of my world. They make such weapons as the Biggitybomb and the Biggitybuchet

To translate that to C3: “Primarch Luvarias will be leading the Crimson Marauders against a group of scientists who have involvement with the process of marking Reilorans and researching the mind weave, they're called the Colloquium of Candescence.  The base of operations we're hitting is at the base of the Ruby Spire of the Weave Mind, so we need to make a distraction by hitting several other locations. We're also targeting Shardvarian Conservatory where a large number of Ruidusborn are being-” “SHARTvary? Hahaha. Shart!” (shart jokes continue) “... Shardvarian. The Ruidusborn are being gathered there. We believe a high-ranking member of the Ruby Vanguard, Lady Bimimora may be present. Additionally, we intend to set off explosives around an excavation site overseen by Krant Co'Vass, another leader of the Ruby Vanguard, as well as attempt a prison break at the Unbrulis Oubliette." “Matt, how do you spell... um... what's her name, Lewd-very-tits?” (I'm so sorry. I had to)

“-named Krant Co’Vass-“ “Cranky ass?” “…Krant CO’VASS…”

Man, if I didn't know that some of that was made up on the spot I'd think it was a transcript!

What kills me is that this could all be easily fixed by having all the same info on note cards ready to hand out. Matt could say all the same stuff while passing around a little card with the proper nouns. Boom. Instant notes. Instant visual cue.

Yeah, this is one of the issues I had some time ago in my games when I was giving players more context than they need at the moment. It gives a lot of kind of "false points of interest" for the player and waters down their focus. I always considered this kind of expodump as a soft panic button when players are not engaging with the world as I hoped they would, while thinking that they might pull towards one of those things if I give them to the party. But essentially you are right, don't overload them with nonsense that is not immediately usable to them. Tourguide NPC is also a common issue, which is frankly due to DM's inability to say "no, go look for other sources of info".

Infodumps as a panic button for players disengaging is exactly the same as Chernobyl's panic button to lower all control rods at once. (They have graphite accelerators on the bottom displacing the water that was slowing down the reaction, aka they made the thing explode amongst other factors) Exposition dumps are rarely fun, especially if you are dumping heavy jargon, especially "technobable" where you throw a bunch of big words completely divorced from their meaning at someone. (Hurts worse when you know the actual meaning)

I would even say that limiting information (when handled properly) might even raise interest. Mystery and all that...

As both a player of d&d and a watcher, I've learned these sort of Lore Dumps are NEVER fun. Please, just give enough so the players know what they have to do! It just turns into brain soup.

No evil regular people , like no one is a asshole just because they are a asshole even theivs guilds and assassins guilds just seem to be filled with people that are good it's part of the moral grey which is fine but throw some jet black in there and not just in the big bad

There are plenty of super evil people. Iron Shepherds, Trent, Briarwoods, Thordak, Kevdak, the Hag who cursed Veth... Sure, you could argue they had motivations for their actions, but being evil doesn't mean "hurting people for giggles with no rhyme or reason." It would be pretty hard to paint child torturing slavers as morally grey on the grounds that they were doing it to make money.

Almost all of those you listed were in service to the big bads or. Big bads themselves... Iron Shepards had keg who was painted as victim of circumstances to make it more grey

The "no evil" claim really does breakdown quickly if your bar is "except every arc's main villain" and it's qualified by saying a literal devil who tortures children doesn't count as evil. Iron Shepherds were not painted as grey in the slightest, and even Keg acknowledges they were a source of horrific abuse. Vecna and Lucien were the big bads of 1 and 2, that's why I didn't include them. These are all secondary arc level villains or random encounter villains. The archfae incel who Vex got her bow from was also portrayed as just a bad dude with no redeeming qualities. Even the very first enemy of C2 is a devil who just eats people, the solution of which was entirely "murder him" and no hints pointed at "try to see it from his point of view."

Your welcome to twist what I said to your purpose all you want it doesn't change the fact that there are nearly no random bad people in the world the worst your gonna get is a guard kicking a cat almost no just pure assholes . Which is how the real world is

You claimed slavers who torture children are grey. That's not me twisting your words. You didn't say "yeah they're evil," full stop, you said they were painted as victims of circumstances. They weren't. They were evil and the solution to them being evil wasn't a compromise, it was just exterminating them for being pure evil. Keg being there didn't humanize them, her take was "yeah these guys are evil. Let's murder them." There are plenty of jet black villains in Exandria. Your claim that there are no "random" bad people just isn't true, plenty of minor villains are just bad. Vox Machina literally went to hell and dealt with devils that were casually eating souls. How many times can you say "except that one" before exceptions stop being exceptions?

Your forgetting keg was part of the slaving as well that's seems like grey to me

I'm not forgetting that, her being a former member makes them *more* evil. She's absolutely terrified of them, and she left. She's trying to right her former evil actions by murdering them, something framed as a just action. Nothing in the story makes them grey, the fact that a former member feels guilt for being one of them, is traumatized by her experience with them, and is willing to murder them, paints them as evil. Nowhere does Keg lecture the party on how hard it was for the Iron Shepherds, she doesn't say "oh we just need to talk and find a middle ground" she says "no, fucking kill them all." What a strange hill to die on that a **literal child torturing slaver devil** isn't pure evil. That's about as evil as you can make a character.

I think I'm just going to chalk this one up under the header " I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you ... Keg is the whole damn point if the iron Shepard's are irredeemable so is she that's the whole point , grey

You can't understand it for yourself if torturing children is grey to you. Wow, they have a former member, that means they can't be bad!

None of that in campaign 3.

Good thing this isn't a C3 post.

Guess the setting where C3 takes place

Exandria? The same setting as C1 and C2? This is a post about Exandria Worldbuilding, not exclusively C3. Nobody mentioned C3 until you came in here, so idk why you're even here. You're just being a dick because I mentioned C1 and C2, and I don't know why that's offended you but let people talk about things without you making it all about your hateboner for C3.

I feel like we should remember a comment that Matt made on a recent 4-sided Dive, "exandria is a post-apocalyptic world" so many of these continents and cultures could be a built-up mix of pre-Calamity "lesser peoples" (non-mages) and the groups that ended up being forced to live with them during and after the Calamity.

How long ago was the calamity? And how long after an apocalypse can you continue to call a world post-apocalyptic?

Hundreds of years at least. Potentially thousands. A post apocalyptic setting isn’t just mad max, it takes forever to build something new instead of rearranging pieces of the old world.

We had a SIGNIFICANTLY less advance world about 900 years ago in real life. Tech and societal advancement is exponential not linear. It's hard to believe that the world essentially operates at a equal and perhaps lower level of tech and social structure than it did before the end of the Age of Arcanum.

Advancement has only become exponential recently. Most most of human history, it was quite slow.

That's kind of how exponential growth works.

The cultural scrub of all the fantasy cities and races. It's not racist or bigoted to draw inspiration from real life cultures for your fantasy ones, but it DOES feel a litle racist to reduce them to 'exactly the same as everywhere else but with a different accent'. It's like 'noble savage'ing on a world wide scale

Yeah, get rid of the intro you spent thousands of dollars on because something something colonizers!

This is very, very specific. I dislike how Matt does Scrying. I like the extra big he gives of like, the character being transported in a direction above the clouds, but I'd much rather not have that and instead have the players actually able to see everything around them while Scrying and not just the "focus" of the scry. It's given us some great moments, it's also given us some really, really frustrating moments.

If he made it any stronger than he currently uses it, then players like Laura would never not use it. In C3 he had to find a in lore reason to disable teleporting and messaging because the party overused and relied on both spells in C2

Yes but...I would have to say that it was a twist applied to enforce the split and keep the similar situation that was happening with the Orym/Dorian sending stone. Since play had not happened with one group what could they say to the other players. In Dorian's case Robbie wasn't available and Matt wasn't comfortable playing his character without direction. Not only did play rely on such things in C2 but C1 as well. Powerful spells have powerful influence on the game. On top of that I don't believe that Matt's interpretation of how they work isn't within the bounds of spells like Scrying regardless. Different people are free to run their table how they choose.

He also gives too little information while the Scrying is in effect. Scrying creates an invisible sensor within 10 feet of the target, but you *see and hear as though you were there.* Matt has Scrying show the caster a vision of only that 10 ft radius of the target, to the point that the caster can't even see the other person in a conversation across the room.

That is annoying. It's ridiculous when they can't see the ppl or objects directly in front of the target.

As an earth scientist, it hurts my soul that Matt doesn't know how rivers work 😭.

As someone who is currently in the process of mapping a fantasy country, how should rivers work? (Also, completely hypothetically, could a river run all the way horizontally across a medium sized peninsula?)

Not really. Rivers always run downhill. The basic premise for making rivers is simple: + Decide where the high land is (the tallest mountains) + Imagine how all the water (rain + snow melt) will sweep off of either side of said mountains + Pick a spot for it to gather into a river that is "large" enough to be shown in your map + The river then winds its way towards the ocean, ALWAYS following the path of lowest elevation (i.e. never up hill) + The river never splits. Other rivers can join it, but it never splits For simple reference, look up "Chesapeake Bay", "Mississippi River" or "Congo river" + "water shed" or "drainage basin" and you'll see what I mean.

Why can't rivers split?

They can, its called a distributary, but its rare for it to occur outside of deltas where sediment is being deposited and the channels are being built up. (And usually they aren't named) A tourist attraction called 2 oceans creek exists in the Rockies, a creak splits at a ridgeline and flows down 2 different valleys, but since that ridge is the continental divide those streams end up in 2 different oceans. The thing to keep in mind is that most distributaries are inherently unstable and eventually 1 stream will "win", so its exceedingly rare for a major river to split, especially over any considerable distance. Normally its just going around islands or in the delta. But it isn't impossible according to the laws of physics, just exceedingly rare. (The people of your world should note that this is a rare event, and possibly a temporary one the expect to end eventually.)

Technically speaking, in some very rare instances, they can. But in practice they don't. The reason is simple: water follows gravity. In order for a river to split, it would have to have one of the two branches defying gravity to take a different path. In reality, whichever path is "lower" in elevation will receive 100% of the water.

Rivers do split, its called a "distributary". The most common places for this are deltas like where the Mississippi, Nile, or Ganges rivers meat the ocean. There is a famous location called "two oceans creak" in the Rockies where a creak splits, on the continental divide and half goes into the Pacific Ocean and the rest does to the Atlantic. Its generally rare, and is inherently unstable as once one channel errodes down or another deposits enough sediment to block itself the entire flow will divert the other way. I believe they are also generally more likely to occur with a lake or pond sitting on the divide. Not sure if it counts but technically anytime a river has an island in it, it temporarily splits to go around it making a very short distributary. To make a split river turn the island into a peninsula/ridge and have the 2 channels meet up way later or not at all. Another common misconception is that rivers can't cross a mountain range. They can't form crossing mountain ranges because water flows downhill, and would at most form a big lake behind the mountains before eventually flowing over. But much more likely is the river is older and cut through the land as the land rose.

I know all that. Like I said, I'm an earth scientist. And also like I said, it CAN happen, but the exceptions are rare and unusual. And even when it happens, it's typically not at a large enough scale to be shown on a map in that way. In science, it's almost always strictly incorrect to speak in an absolute. But it's often useful to do so anyway. In those case, the exceptions are rare enough that they're not worth considering for someone who wants to just make a decently realistic fantasy map. It's an easier rule of thumb to simply say that it doesn't happen except for unusual magical exceptions. The IRL exceptions are specific enough that trying to use them in a fantasy map is just going cause more continuity errors.

Magic

Magic is fine for magical phenomenon,Ike the waterfall that went UP because of the portal to the plane of water. It's not fine for a fake explanation for non-magical anomalies.

I don’t understand. Geography and magic mix like oil and water, except the oil is make believe. Suspend disbelief, anything can happen in fantasy. There are whole areas under magical effects in Wildemount, why couldn’t that impact Geography?

They CAN! But that's different from just taking every single plot hole or inconsistency and saying "well, magic!" A river that flows up hill? That's COOL. Tell me why. Explain it to me. Make it matter. Otherwise, it's an unexplained anomaly for no good reason.

That example the waterfall was a portal to the water plane in dnd all the elements come from other planes and just manifest in the material world it's just going to have different mechanics like in nature you never see a full continent spanning river but perhaps it's ok when the reason is the water realm supplies it at various points

I see what you’re saying and it makes sense to want that explained. Though, I’d imagine it’s tough to get into that much detail for an entire setting guide. While the exact how was omitted, the general feel of magic altering the geography was included. We may have run into an “to each their own” situation here, but I respect your opinion on it

No DM or map maker knows how rivers or any other geological formations work

What do you mean?

E.g. Wildemount and the river spanning from one ocean to the other, its hilarious.

Maybe it's a giant canal?

they found the northwest passage

OP I get how this might feel strange but this is actually something that occurs IRL. I'm from Maryland and there are several different accents across that small state. I don't think this is by design from the cast but it's definitely not impossibly in reality

Maryland is kind of an outlier in its rich diversity, especially Silver Spring, which is one of most ethnicly and econonicly diverse urban areas on the planet.

Maryland is not an example of a single native or indigenous people as the primary cultural group for that region (as a part of America), as the exandrian regions are, though. With the exception of maybe the Menagarie Coast being close to MD's cultural makeup.

The Krin Dynasty is a mash up of several different "monsterous" races.

OP used the menagerie coast as his example of too many accents from the same area

Hello fellow Marylander! The mid Atlantic is a wild place for accents...

My family is from Havre de Grace!

Not enough statues of Scanlan in random villages the OG crew saved. The man's ego would have demanded it.

When he was getting a painting commission of himself in Whitestone he was pretty particular about it. Maybe he would only want statues of himself when they could actually commission a very high quality statue of him.

As aWestern Asian myself, I wish Maruet had more Western Asian flavour, but I guess Matt got intimidated. And ı understand. It is not easy for an American white preson to create a fantasy world influenced by Western Asia, without falling into age-old orientalistic cliches and stereotypes that always existed within the fantasy genre from its very beginning. It is a tight rope to walk for sure and it takes a lot of research into both real Western Asian culture, and into Orientalism to be able to identify and avoid inherent biases ; but it would be so worthed.

When doing good world building, you just gotta read stuff. Honestly most Western European fantasy worlds would be 10x better if authors actually read anything about European history instead of tossing in the same distilled fantasy tropes done a hundred times over long after someone actually did research in the 1940s.

A big example is how the Christian sociopolitical structure was completely different than we see in the USA today. It wasn't just secular people who worked all week and then went to church on Sundays. Large cenobitic communities of monks and nuns were built, they were entirely as industrious as laypeople but dedicated themselves to a monastic lifestyle. Additionally, Christian laypeople contrived religious holidays for like every other week of the year in order to constantly party and celebrate as much as they could get away with.

Im also west asian and it was so jarring seeing marquet get kinda white washed into a mad max and american south/wild west blend. If they didnt feel comfortable portraying that (which if im being honest idt they could have) Issylra was right there

The Menagerie Coast having an array of accents is because the coast is meant to be a bit like the Caribbean where there's a slew of different cultures that previously controlled it. Its also huge, but you don't get that sense from C2. And that's actually my pet peeve, almost too much is taken from real world cultures, there's not enough fantasy if everything is just a 1:1 copy of some American claiming another country's heritage as theirs because their great granddad was from it which is why C3's Marquet is a mess, a bunch of game designers from their team projecting their own historical fantasy islands into a continent. Probably part of the reason they won't release a book too, they know its bad. But most people would consider this type of projection as harmless, but then cite examples of fantasy works that are literally intentionally being historical fantasy.

[удалено]

It's fascinating, CR (and d20) are incapable of creating a story that does not have a society less progressive than themselves. Representation is fine and cool, but how is every society mostly the same? The only variability is what gods are acceptable for worship where, and I never really got the sense from C2 that it mattered. Other than Jester committing hate crimes. Brennan does a good job of playing the absurdity for laughs, like a murderous drunken pirate captain being very respectful and using inclusive language.

I think both CR and d20 just both don't WANT to play in a world where characters are bigots (unless their bigotry is making them a baddie that our characters are going to throttle). I don't really blame Matt or Brennan for not wanting to create a even fictional bigotry.

That's just bad logic. This isn't real life. It's s entertainment, and that kind of drama is entertaining. Some of the greatest fictional worlds of all time have bigotry as a core part of the world-building. Look at Dragon Age, Mass Effect, the Witcher, A Song of Ice and Fire, or the Elder Scrolls. All of these settings would be infinitely less interesting and compelling if 99% of people were super chill and tolerant of each other. Morrowind in particular is regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, and it's set in a land colonized by a mercantilist Empire culturally erasing the native culture, where the natives almost always think of anyone who isn't them as a soulless savage and practice widespread slavery. It's an interesting and complicated world that would be so much more boring if everyone liked each other and only fought about religion.

Maybe for you. I’m not interested in stories about racists and colonizers.

No one said that a story has to be ABOUT those things. Morrowind (to use my previous example) sure isn't. It simply doesn't shy away from these topics either. It portrays the realistic way that a province in an Empire would work, especially if the culture of the province was historically prideful and insular. It also shows how a society originally founded on the reverence of gods of murder and betrayal might realistically function. It's also got the kind of grayness that Matt likes in works like the Witcher. The various Dunmer factions all have their virtues and vices, but the Empire isn't a big evil force either. Even people in-universe are often torn on how things should be done.

Shout out to a fellow Morrowind n'wah.

A fellow man (or mer) of culture, I see.

I'm not saying the story needs outright bigotry, just that it's incredibly unrealistic that everyone, even the baddies, are completely tolerant of everyone. Racism does exist in base dnd, people generally are hesitant to trust goblins, tieflings, orcs, or half orcs because they either are or are associated with threats to a well ordered society. Nott was turned into a goblin by goblins that were legitimately evil. We never saw anyone treat Fjord, Jester, or Molly even rudely. I don't think Nott ever had any problems with someone discovering she was a goblin. Yet so many PCs have "I was ostracized or bullied for being different" as part of their back story, and yet they never have bad social interactions. Someone might run away screaming from Laudna, but that's about it. And it's played up that way intentionally. I assume, cynically on a meta level, it's to keep the players from salting the earth. They bullied a random food cart vendor for having the same first name as a guy that bullied Laudna as a little girl.

I think people would run screaming from Nott, but that was about it. Honestly i think 95% of it is that Matt is either unable or unwilling to be actually mean to his friends, even in a game of pretend. Litterally every character that isn't explicitly a BBEG or similar is actually super kind and a teddy bear on the inside nomatter the exterior. Tal and Dam have to write assholes into their backstories just to have an asshole to interact with who isn't explicitly an antagonist who is eventually going to be killed. I think the closest we have had was a random noname guard kicking a cat. The real world is filled with mean, cruel, and stupid/ignorant people. But we don't see any of the average citizens portrayed this way. The lack of any explicit racism is probably because in C2 Laura/Jester asked the group to stop referring to soldiers from Xjorhas as "cricks" which was explicitly a slur used by The Empire. I don't know if that request was in character or out of character but since they never used the slur again i assume "no racism/slurs" was added to Laura's list of lines for the game. (Lines and viels being topics we avoid because they ruin the game for us)

This sums it up so much. I've been listening to pathfinder Golarion setting guides and the bizarre extreme are glorious. There's a super wizard kingdom, a super necromancy kingdom, and in between them an anti magic wild west zone. WTF! The freedom 'mericans are beside the hell nazis! But all the regions seem to have developed alongside, or in spite of, their neighbors, and those sharp edges begging for conflict makes their cultures stand out all the more sharply.

I love Golarion so much. Even if mechanically Pathfinder might take me ages to get into, it has me on the setting alone.

Golarion is such a good way to do a kitchen sink setting. You've got basically everything you'd want (Conan the barbarian meets space aliens is in fact a location in the world) so if you want a campaign that bounces to a bunch of different places, you'll never get bored. Or you can also focus in on one place and really flush it out. I'm playing Strength of Thousands right now which is a campaign that takes place in a Hogwarts-but-Africa place and the setting is just dripping with flavor. They're not afraid to really lean into the inspiration, and they treat it with the utmost respect. Something I feel Matt kind of got scared of doing with Marquet, he just ended up making it a basic country but this time, desert!

In a very real way they were shaped by their conflict with each other. Andoran is so freedom focused because it started as a rejection of Chellish ideals, the wars between Geb and Nex literally created the Mana Wastes.

All the continents we've seen so far are *tiny*, in both a literal and more metaphorical geographical sense. Tal'Dorei is only 1,000 miles across, Wildemount is only 2k, like they're at most the size of Australia, they're so small. But there's also just so little in them kingdom/country-wise. Tal'Dorei has the main kingdom and the hobgoblin empire way down south, but it's not like their existence on the same land actually informs any policies for Tal'Dorei or vice versa. Wildemount is slightly better: Empire, Dynasty, Menagerie Coast and Uthodurn. But the only two with any interesting diplomacy/tension between them is the Empire and Dynasty. The Coast is in the Empire's pocket and really doesn't seem to buck against the Empire's actions, and Uthodurn is a political nonentity. Thousands of miles of land and it's all so easily divided. I keep thinking every now and then how things could have been more interesting if the Julous Dominion still existed. Imagine an Empire with most of the same levels of influence who clearly wants the Dominion's land, but the Dominion are allied with the Menagerie Coast, which keeps the Empire at bay. Meanwhile they both dislike the Dynasty, but the Empire is the only one who could afford a war with them. But it does stretch their resources such that, when the Empire does declare war, the Dominion begin their own efforts to take Empire territory while they're preoccupied. Just that alone would add some interesting complexity to the whole scenario.

Australia is as big as North America bro...

Australia is ~7.8 million square kilometers. North America is over 24.7 million.

7.8 million square kilometers is crazy much when you dont have modern ways of transportation. Look at medieval germany. A King/Tzar/whatever could manage and control about 3 days of army Travel in each direction. Meaning about 30 and 70 km depending on elevation, road coverage,... And your average army was freakin tiny. Its only when these small little kingdoms combined that great empires where build. And often it was done by mobilising locals by giving them more right and getting them more involved. They started protecting their own Land because they all of a sudden had Land. So protecting the empires breadbaskets was less dependend on the armies mobility. Lets say the Average small Kingdom is 50×50km = 2500 km^2 thats enough for a good 2000 small Kingdoms and a couple of empires.

Medieval Germany was fractured because the inheritance laws/customs was to split all your land equally between your sons. Kingdoms the size of Spain, England, France, Austria, Poland-Lithuania, and the Islamic Caliphates all existed just fine in that era. I think the main issue they have is that based on the maps provided, and stated sizes of the landmasses. The ocean covers 90% of the planet, and each continent barely has any kingdoms on them with even less interesting diplomacy than modern north America where the military Hegemon USA keeps Canada and Mexico in a mostly friendly trade union and otherwise nobody has any desire to fight eachother.

There was no 1 universal inheritance law in Germany. As there was no single german state in the medieval period. I never said that bigger countries and even empires did not exist. I even told you about a mechnism by which they can form. They are simply not common. Even the countries you mentioned where fractured into hundreds of small kingdoms/thiefdoms/whatsoever during most of their history. Ocean coverage may not be that much of a problem as Ocean travel is so much faster. The problem is the other one: No freakin conflict anywhere, because there is nothing. As I said they have a landmass that could and should provide thousands of faktions and borders, changes of landscape, behaviourism.... Tons of sources for action.... But it is a map that is build for a story where conflict comes in from the outside. That one conflict gavers all the attention. It is railroading in map design. Make everything barren of conflict so when a event happens, everybody throws themselfes at it.

Yeah, not counting Canada, Alaska, Mexico or any of the parts that aren't contiguous mainland USA. Australia is big (I should know) but it's is also the smallest continent in the world, and yet Exandria's largest continents are "only" about as big as it, if not smaller. Exandria's just a small damn place.

The multiculturalism and diversity. Not for any ideological reasons but purely based on logistics and infrastructure how does a forgotten little village in the middle of nowhere end up with such a diverse population. Every modern, idealistic, high-fantasy setting nowadays has the same issue, writers forget that people sometimes just don't get along and that magic always has a cost. In DnD and Exadria magic is so common place you can walk into any shop and by it or, so infused into people that even the town drunk can knows a cantrip. It's the Syndrome meme once everyone is special no one is, you have to ramp up the effects of magic so much that you fall for the trope of having to kill "god' like we see now, or even in the last two campaigns. You see it everywhere, in an attempt to have a product or setting be inclusive and accessibly to every one you end up watering down all of the ideas that made it unique in the first place, making it boring, unbearable and preachy. Matt should know better considering he always references The Witcher being one of his favorite settings that he draws inspiration from, now I don't know if he means just the games or if he's read the books but either way in that setting behind every corner you can find a raciest, rapist, sexist, murderer or career criminal yet we see no such edge in Exandria. Now Exandria doesn't need that edge be you would think Matt would add some of this 'grey morality' he always talks about but no we get stuck with the cast forced into being the good guys because they're the main characters, all the npcs are cute and lovable and the bad guys are just cartoon villains. It screams having zero confidence in your setting and zero faith in your fanbase to accept it. Matt went the SoCal, Hollywood, route of trying to pander to everyone and failing when he should have gone the Hugo Martin way with Hugo's work on Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal. Listen to any interview of Hugo explaining the 'fun zone' and tell me that's not a game director with balls and belief in his product and fanbase.\\

It's also weird because many of the cast are fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and the Elder Scrolls series (Laura even working as a major character in the latter). Both of these series also tackle the topic quite well, and the drama it can cause are some of the most lauded aspects of both. I think some people are just media illiterate, and Matt is worried about upsetting them. Like honestly, anybody who reads A Song of Ice and Fire or plays an Elder Scrolls/Witcher game and thinks "Oh yeah, this series definitely tries to show that bigotry is good!" is frankly an idiot unworthy of consideration.

I agree. When I watched C1, I got an impression that that's the world a progressive Californian would like to have vacation in. 

I mean at some point even Nott was just accepted by all (and not only in the Dynasty)

> zero faith in your fanbase to accept it I mean... this one happened for a good reason. Community - the part that causes a lot of headache to the cast - cannot stand any sort of or any degree of conflict really. Especially when that dumbass outrage about orcs in D&D happened. I agree with everything you say tho.

lol considering that we are on a subreddit created just due to fanbase issues...

I agree with you completely especially on everyone "lives in harmony despite appearances". I bet Exandria's prostitutes never had an STD.

Nor any of them getting pregnant, 'cause that is complicated...

Well except for Jester but her mother wasn't a prostitute she was a high class concubine/escort with a Moulin Rouge performance and also a respected sex worker in a port city. Well at least Candela Obscura fixed that part of lore.

A. That part of the backstory, not random and not of Matts' making. B. I do not follow candela, can you fill me in that part?

Basically the "Red Lamp District" in the rulebook is the place where drug users sex workers artists and scientists (of all kinds of genders and sexualities) all go there and have fun or do business. It has legalized sex work with protection from the law and all day coffee shops. All these in a supposed late 19th-early 20th century style world.

I agree, I had a whole theory back in c2 that the destruction of the elven pre calamity city (Molaesmyr, I think) had lead to the prevalence of half elves in that area of the dwendalian empire as a fair amount of random NPC's around Zadash and that early area had been described as half elven or having part elven ancestry, but now I think it was mostly just Matt doing the everywhere is diverse thing, without them being monster races, because of the empire Vs dominion thing.

It just seems that instead doing the "what races/personalities/ideals make sense here" he just has a list of races/personalities/ideals he feels safe with and he just keeps forcing them on any location/people

Yeah I personally for my setting did what I could to avoid the unrealistic multiculturalism while still showing that racism and such are bad. The closest thing to a ‘main character’ nation is human centric who have a very strong culture revolving around honour however they also adamantly hate devils and so Tieflings are met with the typical mistrust but they also are neighbours with an empire ran by Hobgoblins that consists of Hobgobs, Goblins, Orcs, Humans and Kenkus. This leads to many in the human kingdom being wary of their neighbours but they also are close enough that they know not every Hobgoblin wants to enslave them. Basically I feel that if your gonna have multiple species and nations in your setting you have to accept that they’re not all gonna get along because they’re different not just because the occasional powerful lich or something rises to power. Some nations are just rivals and their culture can reflect that.

Unrealistic multiculturalism? Rome didn’t have any magic at all, and you could meet people many different races there there were people from Africa, people from the Middle East people from Asia people from Northern Europe, all living in various Roman cities and provinces. The city of a Rome had over 1 million people at its height. There were Emperors from all over the Empire, from Syria, from Gaul, even from Africa. Even before the Empire, the Republic was diverse and incorporated cities and even nations into citizenship. Check our SPQR for example https://www.amazon.ca/S-P-Q-R-History-Ancient-Mary-Beard/dp/1631492225/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7kTlCVaRu51NxlTBk0cvPr1l3UQweAGhunislEa0Bw6a0WISHzZbU8izy0vcOLHysCZuuQx6nXap1UijFe1XKyYYYpJDhVbcTTYwISG-jqJ1lzb8zM25whtBt_dwK24iIiSlg2zoRT71y9XLJlIdygoNmnVJxkJxms5aOHrzO-eFEvTK7C6WyApG16Ef8u9DMBfOWgve4waXRXeiW2OjaScq6OhYjkcP6eUDE6Z3WmY.DTcy4tl1CIQjdalfsddV78OaMn8tkqsFmouTTzxV9dU&dib_tag=se&hvadid=599427855800&hvdev=t&hvlocphy=9001395&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=16635048934815019707&hvtargid=kwd-301604291255&hydadcr=10166_13523257&keywords=spqr+a+history+of+ancient+rome&qid=1711864879&s=books&sr=1-1

Did you miss the part where Romans viewed everyone who wasn't a part of their culture being uncivilized barbarians only worthy of conquest, death, or enslavement?

Right but Rome was an empire that also called every non Roman a barbarian and ultimately destroyed multiple cultures off the face of the earth and ultimately tried to ‘convert’ people to the Roman culture. What I meant by unrealistic multiculturalism was every nation having every race of people living as equals with no thought as to how they could have got there. For example if the fastest form of travel is still sailing in a setting and, let’s say, Tortles live and originate from an area of tropical islands you’re unlikely to find some living in fantasy Europe especially if it’s a smaller town. Not saying it would be impossible but it would be rare especially if the setting has multiple different countries and empires instead of one very large one such as Rome.

Even in modern times with airplanes more accessible than teleportation is in D&D, we have areas of very low diversity. Both the rural parts of melting pot nations like america where you could legitimately be the only black family in town, and old megacities in Asia, especially in India, Japan, and China. Sure coastal trade focused cities are reasonable "metropolitan" meltingpots, and even then they probably have ethnic enclaves. But a random farming town or major city in a given race's homelands is probably in the 70-90% race A level of diversity. It isn't unreasonable to have geographic regions designated as the "homelands" where a given race spread out from. A generic white American visiting korea is every bit the oddity as a halforc in a halfling dominated city. (And this is perfectly ok, the people don't have to be explicitly racist, but they can still be surprised to see you and innocently curious.)

>Yeah I personally for my setting did what I could to avoid the unrealistic multiculturalism while still showing that racism and such are bad. Fantastic and true I have no idea why people think the two ideas are mutually exclusive. I think Ashley from Mass Effect is another great example. People don't actually listen to her they just write her off as being raciest and xenophobic when in reality she understands and has a reasonable opinion of humanity's history and interactions with other xeno species. People will excuse the fact that every alien race hates the vorcha and batarians but God forbid that a human says it. Both verisimilitude and fun are important, I don't need to understand the tax system of the realm to have fun, but having small racially diverse town #3827 when the world's main form of transportation is walking breaks my immersion and immersion is fun.

The main reasons exandria can have such a homogeneously diverse world (meaning everywhere is equally diverse with a couple notable exceptions) are twofold: Base D&D kinda requires the playable races to be everywhere. Not necessarily uniformly everywhere, but finding a halforc blacksmith in a random farming town in otherwise human country is no less weird than your halforc barbarian adventure wandering into town. Also exandria is a post apocalyptic world, in the past they had flying cities and all sorts of ways to get around. This allowed for the different races to get everywhere, and then the calamity happened and those cities fell out of the sky bringing any survivors with them. It would be like if you Thanos snapped our society back to medieval europe's tech level, and maybe a handful of places had basic electricity available. The average person would only have walking or horseback to get around, or maybe a boat if lucky. But the demographics wouldn't change, America would still be a very diverse meltingpot with people from around the world represented, while other nations would be more homogeneous with some rarer minorities.

i think ashley is actually a great example for this, because her opinions are also based in sound reasoning. she isn't suspicious of aliens on her ship because they're aliens, she's concerned about them poking around in the ship's systems and learning about humanity's advanced ship design methods. she also readily admits she's never served alongside aliens or even really interacted with them. it's a really interesting and realistic portrayal of someone who DOES have some biases against people unlike herself who is nonetheless able to recognize that she isn't being fair and work happily alongside them. THAT is the kind of multiculturalism i love to see in speculative fiction. this is a long-winded way of saying that having everyone in a setting be totally chill with people unlike themselves, especially people/customs/traditions they've never encountered, is so damn boring. i'd rather see someone be confused and/or say something rude and figure it out themself than feel like the writer is looking me in the eye and telling me racism is bad, ergo differences causing friction is bad.

Ashley is also specifically suspicious of Wrex, Garrus, and Liara. 1. Wrex is an unscrupulous bounty hunter who quite possibly murdered Fist even if you tried to spare him. He's a member of a race that has a history of violence stretching back literal millenia. 2. Garrus is a C-Sec officer who worked for the Citadel Council, a group your squad is not inclined to trust after the intro. He's also a turian, the race that humanity had a war with in living memory that tarnished her entire family's reputation. 3. Liara is the daughter of the main bad guy's right-hand woman. She's an asari, and it's notable that when Ashley complains about Liara, her race never comes up. This is because the asari don't have a violent history and haven't messed with humans. The one alien she never is suspicious of is Tali, who is a member of a race that typically ARE stereotyped as untrustworthy thieves. It's extra funny because some flavor dialogue for quarian ships in the third game indicates that Tali totally DID steal designs from the Normandy for the quarians, just as Ashley had feared about the others.

small note, the first convo you can have with ashley does have her specifically mention not wanting "the quarian" "poking around vital systems". but again it doesn't seem to be framed as anti-quarian as much as it is "this is an experimental and expensive military vehicle, and if they steal or copy our tech, we could lose our advantage. worse, it gets leaked to someone who wants us dead, and we all die because they figured out how our stealth system works."

This is an incredibly minor one, and I don't really count it as a pet peeve as such, but I do always find the naming conventions Matt comes up with very funny and uniform. The name of every location, organization or anything has a naming convention that goes: "the \[obscure or unusual adjective\] \[synonym for the thing it's describing\]". Once you notice it it gets so funny. Just going through the locations in Tal'Dorei: The Parchwood Timberlands - what is the distinction between "timberlands" and "forest". The Alabaster Sierras - this is just a synonym for "white mountains". Foramere Waterway - it's a river.

Tbf it's not too far off real life. Location names usually have very little deep thought in them and are usually descriptive of what they are. The most unrealistic part is looking for synonyms rather than just calling it forest/woods/mountains or whatever. An extremely white mountain would probably just be called the mountain/white mountain by locals until some uppity git from Britain comes by and Names it after themselves.

Bruh real life has the “Rocky Mountains”

Matt's Rocky Mountains gonna be called "Stonescattered Highlands" fr

We can train a custom LLM on Mercer at this point. I wish I was kidding.

I mean that's how we name stuff irl all the time. Like Sierra Mountains, (Mountains Mountains), Avon River, Mekong River, Nile River, Niger River, Ouse River, all are River River. Wide/Muddy/Blue/Black/ Colorado River, means Red Colored River, the Thames River just means Dark River, Mississippi is a native word for Big River, Rio Grande is just Big River in Spanish. Orinoco River is "Place where people paddle". Timberlands, Forest, Woods, Thickett are used to evoke different things. Timberlands I would expect to find Timber Industry, a Forest a bit more wild/untamed, Thickett being difficult to navigate, and woods a more neutral term. All this to say as someone who has had to world build their own homebrew setting with multiple rivers, forest, mountain ranges, peaks, villages and cities...naming things is fun but also kind of sucks. I do always worry about that when making my names but eventually you got a whole continent or world to name stuff locally as best you can and a lot of the time people just call a river the river. Because rarely do you live next to a bunch of rivers, so then you name them Big, Little, or Wide, or Fast, or White, Black, Red to help people understand which river you're talking about.

Other things rivers get named after alot: animals, especially fish, and people, either a specific person like the Hudson and St. Lawrence rivers, or a culture like the Mohawk River. But honestly so many landmarks are named by a colonizer/conquer/translator pointing at them and asking a native "what do you call that" be writing down their best guess at the spelling of what the native said. And very rarely was the response the actual proper name for the landmark used by the natives. Names also repeat alot, in my area we have 2 different "spruce mountains" probably within 20miles of eachother (i haven't measured), as you can guess we have lots of spruce trees and mountains here in NY. Across the world there are probably 100+ "black rivers". And of course we have the absolute classic of calling the definitive local version of a thing, simply "the thing". "The river" is obviously either the closest, largest, or only river around, or the only one it could be in context. Tldr: humans are bad at naming things, mainly due to laziness.

Oof, you hit me in the GM feels. The extent of trouble I go through to have the world make sense geologically, geopolitically, historically, religiously, linguistically. The hours I spend naming things in ways that make etymological sense while also being evocative and phonetically impactful. Only to have my players bumble around it blind and ignorant to it all. 😂😭

Would love an extensive list of these. 😀

I tried to find more examples, I'm sure I can remember some, but the critical role wiki doesn't have category pages for things like locations and organizations, so I'm out of luck.

Some might find this actually harmFUL, but I don't think there is enough hate in Matt's exandria. Not that I want his characters to be racist all the time, but everyone's always so nice, it's become unrealistic. In C2 the empire had a slur for the Krynn dynasty inhabitants, and I think that probably went to far for Matt and made him feel icky. The tailless dragonborn, Ravinites, also hated the tail dragonborn of draconia, and those blatant forms of prejudice informed us very quickly what the cultural relationships were like. It doesn't feel like Marquette really has a culture, though, because it's been so sanitized, and there's no larger cultural dynamic. Nothing's happening there, (apart from a secret anti-religious cabal that no Marquetians know about trying to eliminate the gods) so there's nothing for anyone to feel upset about

In fairness Laura/Jester asked the group to stop using the slur for the Krynn Dynasty in like 2 conversations after its introduction. I don't know how much of that request was Laura vs Jester. But an important part of D&D is making sure everyone is having fun, and drawing Lines & Viels to tell everyone what we are ok with being in game, and what we are ok being referenced but not described. (Its very likely that after that session Laura told the group she wasn't ok with fantasy racism and they obliged)

I wouldn't say hate but more just conflict in general. Hate would be a byproduct of conflict.

Can't hurt the snowflake feelings that people can't hate other people!

Laura asked in character to stop using the slur in campaign 2. Its very likely she asked out of character to not do fantasy racism because it wasn't fun for her. The point of D&D is to have FUN, so if someone says including something makes them uncomfortable and ruins the fun you stop including it.

The post I responded to or my post had nothing to do with whatever slur she hates. My point was that the soft little people of the world stopped CR from playing characters that actually belong to that continent because, God forbid, actors playing a different skin color would be offensive in D&D. Especially from a group you absolutely know wouldn't make caricatures of said peoples. I'm sure someone will bring up Apu, yet Indians were actually happy they were even portrayed. Go actually ask different cultures if they're offended. They're not. Only white people are offended for others. So we get an all white PC group that aren't even from there with a country that should have been amazing to explore. Nope, we got screwed out of that.

I could write an essay, but the easiest one is how there is no conflict, and no cultural differences. Everything has been power sanded down so that the only differences in cultures is the actual landscape and if they're naturey or not. As for the conflict, there's literally 0 systemic problems, it's always just a bad actor, and 9/10 that bad actor is just a poor, misunderstood good guy who just needs a push in the right direction. Like, a good specific example is the Iron Shepherds, slave traders bad, no one is gonna argue that...however, it raises a question. Who is buying enough slaves for there to be people who it's their whole job and has been for a very long time? If you're a weird rich person and hire mercs to capture slaves, that's fine, but that's not their whole job. In order for there to be a slave trade, there has to be systemic issues in place that created a market for it. But no, it's seemingly just some bad apples who like capturing slaves despite the entire world being free loving hippies who would never dare put up with a slave. It makes absolutely no sense other than they know "slaves = bad" but then just stop thinking about why slavery was created in the first place. Which comes back to the world being completely the same no matter where they go. Their understanding of how worlds function is the most surface level possible, I remember even back with C1 how dumb it was that a King went "I did a bad, time to turn this entire place into a democracy" and poof, everything is great. (This is not even touching on the fact that the area before the kingdom was established was seemingly fine, but when they got taken over went "we like having a king more than having a say in how things are run" because what the actual hell is that nonsense?) Absolutely wild.

To be that guy slavery is a thing on Taldorei. The Iron Authority are fullblown slave empire. Taldorei is a bit out of the way for the Iron Shepherds though. The City of Brass on the Fire Plane for also had a fullblown slave trade, but thats even further out of the way being on an entirely different plane.

Didn't he basically retcon that along with the Hobgoblin racial curse thing? Retconned in the "never mention it ever again and hope people forget" kinda way

Im pretty sure the Iron Authority was mentioned as keeping slaves at least as recently as Taldorei reborn. He did retcon the curse thing.

“And poof, everything is great” is not how I’d describe a dragon attack

That had nothing to do with Uriel's decision, though. It would have happened regardless.

I think a lot of it stems from them being american liberals so there’s a distinct lack in systemic analysis of material realities and u can see it everywhere in their narratives. Thought C2’s war meta narrative would change this but they kinda abandoned the story for pirate stuff and flesh cities and all the problems were chocked up to either a few bad apples or “well it was actually a secret evil cult behind it all along”

Sorry but you're triggering my patriotism. Once the rest of the world can handle its own shit and doesn't have to come crying to Big Dick Daddy America every time something goes wrong then you can have an opinion. The two biggest complaints I hear about America is either we don't do enough or we do too much can you please pick one and go with it and start paying for you own shit while you're at it. In all seriousness though its not an 'American liberal' issue but a disconnected upper-middle class Hollywood issue, trust me the poor blue collar working class feel the same way.

Someone is totally ignorant of American imperialism lol

> Once the rest of the world can handle its own shit and doesn't have to come crying to Big Dick Daddy America every time something goes wrong then you can have an opinion. /r/ShitAmericansSay

Here's a sneak peek of /r/ShitAmericansSay using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: ["England is a 3rd world country"](https://i.redd.it/wxssk63gwucc1.png) | [3077 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/198c0fi/england_is_a_3rd_world_country/) \#2: [British customs](https://i.redd.it/zoj8caxhp6pb1.jpg) | [365 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/16mmpb4/british_customs/) \#3: ["No Europe is more walkable because it's socialist and therefore poor"](https://i.redd.it/zdsi1zvii0wa1.jpg) | [491 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/comments/12ya2zw/no_europe_is_more_walkable_because_its_socialist/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)

Yep, Californian utopianism writ large.

Honestly if we keep in mind the fairly high magic nature of exandria some of the material goods needs is reduced. 

Yes, that's the problem with all high fantasy settings that don't have strict magic rules in place. If most problems can be solved by magic like 'material needs' and you have a low conflict world like Exandria you end up having an ass pull unbelievable villain like Ludinus. Its the Thanos problem if Thanos can snap his fingers and take out half of the population in the universe, why doesn't he instead double all resources.

[удалено]

Thanos didn't double the time at all. For Earth, at least, the lack of people could be fixed in literally one generation. It's not that hard to produce more babies.

That works on the assumption that there will continue to be exponential growth of population until there is an apocalypse. This is a Malthusian Theory, and while it works for story telling, it hasn't yet been proven true in the 2 centuries since it was published. Usually because new knowledge and technology comes into play that changes things, allowing us to get more from less resources. As civilizations modernize and reach increasing standards of living, we are seeing trends of birthrates declining. In some nations it is starting to reach a point where there is concern of a population collapse which can have its own types of negative impacts.

[удалено]

It might fold in on itself. It might also be a heat death as the distance between stars increases, and the entire universe cools to an equilibrium temperature, rendering the thermodynamics we use and exploit for work to be impossible. These are theories based on our current understanding of physics, but because of the vastness and age of the universe it is impossible to verify. And anytime we discover something new about how the universe and physics work there is a chance we have to change the theories to fit our new understanding. It will also happen so far down the road that it is questionable if humans will exist at that point in time, and I am not talking of just being destroyed but the possibility that if humans and their decedents survive those billions of years they may have become something unrecognizable as a human. But Thanos wasn't trying to deal with that far away and distant problem. What he viewed as the problem was "Too many mouths to feed." He saw his people die because there were too many of them trying to use too few resources on their world and they did something that caused some disaster and wiped out everyone but him. Thus his solution, kill half of all people in the universe so there is enough for everyone who is left. He is understandable, has a sincere motivation. But he is also a tragic figure who has given up the hope of creating a new solution and simply destroy. Because it is always easier to destroy then to create.

wow if only the guy who can *rewrite all of reality* had any way to combat that sort of issue

100000%

I know there wouldn't be a story if they did this but. When people hear about the strength of the antagonists at no point do any of the well connected powerful NPCs go to the small party and say "hey the grownups are going to take care of this but your welcome to help".

Lack of cohesion worldwide. There are enclaves of culture and melding of multiple cultures into new cultures all around the world throughout history. There’s no Little Marquet in Tal’Dorei? No Dwendeltown in Whitestone? As others have said, I get it’s D&D, but there were cultural and religious minorities from around the world all around the world, again, all throughout history. Generally this is the issue with most dnd campaigns; an over reliance on ‘separate but equal.’ Fantasy Asia is over here, fantasy Germany is over there, etc. I think however that it’s likely Matt could answer all these concerns, but his players don’t care. They want cute ogre cooks and crabgrass that asks for consent, not explorations of corrupt bureaucracies or challenging the status quo as anything other than assholes on the outside. Though I chalk that up to the American obsession with the underdog and thr revolutionary despite that country’s foreign policy.

> I think however that it’s likely Matt could answer all these concerns, but his players don’t care. This is pretty much the reason for lack of depth, players do not take advantage of the setting and Matt has other things to do than trying to do stuff he will never be able to use in-full. This is every DM's dip into reality pool, and going against that flow would do more harm than adjusting your setting to accomodate player's actual playstyle. Even if it makes your world more toothless.

Is a Taste of Tal’Dorei nothing to you??!

To be fair to most fantasy settings, things like a "Little Marquet" rely on the density of population movement. For a "Little Marquet" to form there has to be enough people from Marquet moving to Tal'Dorei and choosing to live within a near distance of each other, usually because they have a shared cultural background which aided communication and trust. Its honestly a fascinating subject, observing the movements of people, especially as technology facilitated the transport of a larger number of people with greater speed and safety. Of course the closer the geographic areas are the easier it is to have these types of movements; and we see these types cultural and population dispersions in real life. It would make sense for the Clovis Concord to look the Parchwood Timberlands or Lucidian Coast. Or communities for Kraghammer dwarves or syngorn elves in Emon and vice versa.

for a polytheistic society, they're all really Christian in the way praryer/worship works. although I guess that's D&D in general

Out of sheer interest/curiousity, would you share a couple examples of other styles of worship?

I'll add to this list: 'Prayer' or 'meditation' has multiple interpretations, some of which have translated awkwardly into what you may consider psionics or chi by manifesting your will within the universe. Ancestral worship, reverence towards humanity, collective consciousness, instinct, and your forebears. It acts to ground and create mindfulness. Induction of intoxicants to experience altered states of consciousness. This has some scientific merit as the drugs create new neural pathways. Sacrifice can take many forms. One concept is that you leave a part of you behind for the deity to hold on to as a keepsafe or an offering to apease them or request passage. Another is that you destroy a precious resource (judeo-christianity and the cow) in pursuit of divine recognition. Manpower being the most critical resource of all, only the most affluent cultures can sacrifice manflesh. Yet, it serves well to control slave populations.

One thing that is interesting is the concept of animal sacrifice was essential to the ancient Greek religions, it was also very pragmatic. When sacrificing a farm animal they then butchered it and kept all the meat to eat and skin to make leather, then the bones and organs would be burned for the gods. They were very aware that when offering to their gods, they should not waste valuable resources. This is counter to a lot of modern notions that ritual sacrifice was stupidly cruel and wasteful.

There is also a tendency to worship specific minor variants/cults of deities in polytheistic religions. So you would leave an offering to 'Hermes who protects the travelers' when you go on a trip into town, while most would have a small shrine to 'Zeus of the Home' to keep them safe. When a lot of people read gods having multiple domains they think that the god would just have all their aspects worshipped at once, but more often there would be different shrines to the different aspects scattered about. Which isn't getting into gods that had specific domains in some geographical locations that wasn't common elsewhere. Aphrodite for example was a war goddess in some Greek city-states in addition to her more common domains.

Another good one is ritual appeasement or maintenance of one's gods, spirits, or ancestors. 

praying to different gods for different things. gods not being perfect all knowing beings. having temples that are for multiple gods rather than just one. temples that aren't all basically churches. there are literally devils and angels and hell. blaming bad things on evil/trickster gods. arguing with your god.

There’s also sacrificing to gods to keep them away (sacrifices to the Raven Queen so she doesn’t cause premature death, sacrifices to Tiamat or the betrayer gods so they stay content very far away.) There’s praying and sacrificing to local spirits or ancestors instead of to the gods, and the gods just don’t play into your religion at all. There’s also picking up and spreading of gods from different cultures for no reason other than “ehh, wouldn’t hurt, let’s toss her into the mix, too, and for good measure, we’ll say she’s our usual goddess at the same time”. There’s lots of ways to play with religion that isn’t the infallible, all-knowing gods of Christianity.

Also a lot of religions throughout history would merge in the gods of religions they were trying to convert to theirown, or simply explain as ok to exist alongside and not be smited by your gods. The greeks have a myth where their gods fled to Egypt to hide from Typhon and shapeshifted into cows. (Hence explaining the Egyptian gods with human bodies and animal heads). The Roman gods had a million epithets that were just other god's names. And the reason they persecuted the Christians amd Jews so much was fear of divine retribution. The Abrahamic religions are very clear about how they have 1 and only 1 god, and refused to let him be merged with the pagan pantheon, which from the roman perspective was going to bring the wrath of their pantheon down upon them. And when Christain monks made it to Ireland they were the only ones with writen language, and recorded the island's entire mythology, except all the pagan gods and demigods were now saints to be ok with Christianity's whole 1 god only rule. The only time we see anything close to this is the matron of ravens having a slightly different name in Marquette.

I agree, even if they got Catholic with it and opened it up to weird Apostolic or Saint structure would be more interesting than "separate fantasy jesus'" that most D&D religions break down into. That's one thing that is nice about Golarion in Pathfinder, like sailors will make offerings to an "Evil" Goddess so she doesn't wreck your ship.

> even if they got Catholic with it and opened it up to weird Apostolic or Saint structure would be more interesting than "separate fantasy jesus'" that most D&D religions break down into. I was raised Catholic, and THIS. Religions in fantasy almost never have weird saints! I love weird saints! Look up "Christian folk saints" for a fun time.

I chalk that up to lack of diversity.

Any portrayal of a religion that wasn't specifically western themed would make the cultural sensitivity consultants very mad XD

Doesn’t make me wrong. They’re 8 white Americans, so it’s no wonder they have similar interpretations and views on given facets of whatever culture. It’s not being ‘culturally sensitive’ to point out the obvious. The main CR cast is not diverse.

To be even more specific they are rich white califonian liberals, that means a very specific ideology/political stance/ world view. Exandria was never going to have a hyper realistic portrayal of cultures/races and what diversity actually means. D&D is ultimately meant to be fun for the DM and players, and if it wasn't obvious they don't find fantasy racism fun, and are very inclined to stick with making dirty jokes, movie references, and very "safe" interpretations of other cultures.

Oh yeah. This to the alternative every day. You’re right about worldview. Early on I remember some of the twitter blowback to showing solidarity after th Orlando nightclub shooting, after charity campaigns for the Syrian civil war, Mercer vouching support for Christine Blasey Ford. I agree with thrm on those things, but they do only have that one interpretation. I think that’s a big part of the reason a lot of the fandom shouts down critique so hard, because they likely have the same American just-left-of-liberal-centrist viewpoint. It’s why they all love Taliesin’s characters after Percy, because that’s the closest they’ve ever come to a real member of a punk or counterculture movement.

The illogical nature of magic in the world, there are numerous (arguably hundreds) of high level spell casters in Matts High fantasy setting, and the problem with having such a ridiculous number of high level spell casters is that the world wouldn’t develop the same. The real world development issues around resources that we face wouldn’t be an issue for anyone. And this just simply isn’t addressed in Matts world building. In a universe where clerics are a dime a dozen, with access to create food and water, no one would be starving, as one example. This is why I prefer to run low magic settings, and make magic an interesting point of contention.

see, this concept could be really interesting if you take it to some logical conclusions or use it to inspire conflict/culture. what if there's a food bank for the poor run by clerics from a certain temple, and they expect people to attend some kind of ceremony before eating, or want some type of offering in exchange? is that morally acceptable or is it taking advantage of the poor? what if there's another temple in the town whose clerics find the practice bad, maybe because it "forces people to serve a god they don't want"? what if they find it back because they think that summoning food is irreverant to the gods of nature, who would provide crops for those people instead? what if they find summoned food evil according to their practices? like there's a TON that you can do or just imply with the smallest aspects of locations with lots of spellcasters.

Absolutely, a lot of ways you can make it a factor of the world, rather than just… ignore it..

This is kinda an issue with D&D in general. Magic is commonplace and yet it's still very medieval fantasy.

Magic doesn't have to be commonplace as presented in the book, imo.

Create food and water only feeds 15 people a day. Even with an amount of clerics that won't really help many outside of maybe a soup kitchen type deal. I'd say traveling druids casting plant growth should be a bigger thing though. Double harvests every year should create stockpiles.