To what extent does D&D 5e imply a setting?

Question

This D&D 5e question appears to be a question about in-universe lore (and was tagged lore), but doesn't specify any specific setting. Does D&D 5e imply a specific setting? Should we assume Forgotten Realms?

More generally, to what extent should we consider 5e questions as existing with particular setting assumptions? For example, this one of the answers to this question uses the "gods get their power from the belief of their worshipers" idea. I suspect that that model for divine power, though commonly used, is not spelled out in the rule books, and so it is not necessarily the case that all campaign settings need to follow that model.

This is a little bit different from this question in that what I'd like to discuss is what, if any, assumptions we can make about the setting for generic 5e question, rather than asking if a setting is required to specified for questions with the lore tag.

Answer 1

D&D 5e does not imply a particular setting. If the setting is unclear, and you think it matters, ask them to clarify.

D&D has numerous official campaign settings. If I tell you "I'm playing D&D 5e", I've told you the game I'm playing, not the setting I am playing that game in. D&D 5e also has core rules and player options that work independent of your choice of campaign setting. So a question tagged dnd-5e does not a priori imply a particular setting, even though it does imply some things about the setting, by virtue of the rules working across settings (e.g. spellcasting, certain monsters, connection to certain planes). Lore questions may imply at least some sense of being part of the "D&D Multiverse", which KRyan's answer explains nicely, again by making certain assumptions based on the rules.

However, some questions are setting dependent, not because of the game system the querent is playing, but because of the particular content they are enquiring about. If you think the setting matters for a question but it hasn't been specified, just ask them. If they have no specific setting in mind, and your really think their question has numerous, vastly different answers in different settings, to the point that the question should be split into multiple distinct questions, you can vote to close for "needs more focus", though we have seen questions do just fine without being split up, even when the answer was setting dependent.

For this specific question, there are no exceptional settings respecting paladins.

Sometimes it does take a bit of system knowledge and expertise to know when a question is appropriately scoped, and in this case, I think the question is just fine. Sure, there may be some minor differences setting to setting in the particular details of how paladin oaths manifest, but since there are no official 5e settings with major exceptions for paladins, any minor details are better documented by an ambitious answer, rather than by multiple questions.

Answer 2

The Multiverse covers everything

D&D has a conceit that all campaign settings are embedded within an “oversetting,” known (currently) simply as “the Multiverse.” There are a large number of things that more-or-less “multiversal,” that is, they behave the same way everywhere in the multiverse—within each campaign setting as well as outside any of them, on the other planes.

Thus, it makes perfect sense to ask a question about lore within D&D that isn’t specific to any one setting, because there are things generally shared by all settings. This is, in fact, Wizards of the Coast’s preference for nearly everything—they like to keep D&D pretty consistent across campaign settings when they can, because it makes it easier for players to get into new settings (read: become convinced to buy new products). Thus, most stuff—magic, spells, classes, feats, etc. etc.—all have the same lore behind them no matter where you go.

As for the “default” of the Forgotten Realms, Wizards of the Coast has been adamant that this is not the case for 5e. They have exported a number of things (e.g. the Weave) that were previously specific to FR, making them general concepts throughout the Multiverse, but officially, that isn’t because FR is the default, it’s because they’re ret-conning every place else to be a little more like FR. (And FR has had some of this coming back at it, particularly the necessity of patron deities.)

The Multiverse is also its own setting

The Multiverse is also setting in its own right, with its own canon, history, characters, and so on. It is entirely reasonable to ask questions about it. Though it contains the Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk and Eberron and Krynn and so on, plenty of things go on outside of those, and often go unnoticed within those—vagaries of the Blood War across the Lower Planes rarely influence life on the ground in Toril, for example.

It might be reasonable for there to be a dnd-multiverse for questions about these things, but I don’t see a lot of need for it, personally. I wouldn’t apply that to questions about, say, how spellcasting works within D&D’s lore—even though that is “multiversal,” it isn’t specific to the Multiverse as a setting, it applies to pretty much all D&D.