Looking to buy my 1st campaign setting - advice?

After a 20 year layoff, I've gotten back to playing D&D (4e) with a vengeance this past year. I DM several games a week for mostly middle school advanced Korean ESL students. I use all home-brew settings, most of which are not too complex. When I played decades ago, we used only home-brews as well.

Thinking I needed a way to save time and keep my multiple games/week straight, I bought a digital pre-made adventure to try with one of my groups. It went completely off story quickly. Maybe more practice would make it easier for me.

So I began thinking that maybe buying a campaign setting would be good to try. I would have to keep only one world in mind, although with various stories happening in different locations. Having set locations, cities, rulers, etc might be very helpful indeed.

I started researching 4e settings and their are several to choose from. I live overseas and can't look through any hard copies but can find tons of reviews online. Here too, there are many popular threads about which setting has been your favorite. They aren't helping me too much.

I'd love your advice:

What setting would you recommend?

Before you tell me War of the Burning Sky Sage - which sounds awesome! - I think the storyline would be too hard for some of my ESL students.

Dark Sun sounds awesome, but I think it might be too out there for a base setting, no? I'm thinking traditional Lord of the Rings fantasy, although I generally prefer a little less magic, and little more grit. I can't quite grasp the almost industrial age setting of Eberron, though it sounds interesting - is it very different? Would Forgotten Realms be too magic-focused? Greyhawk....

Sorry for my ignorance. If you care to give your two cents, hopefully it will help inspire these excited and open-minded Korean students in the world of D&D.

Most of the core D&D settings are substantially higher magic than traditional LotR style fantasy, let alone grittier and less magic traditional fantasy. In my experience, both Forgotten Realms and Eberron are pretty gonzo high magic. Dark Sun has less of the obvious high magic societal transformation stuff; although powerful magic is a part of the setting, it's a grimmer setting where the powerful magic is mostly in the hands of not entirely human sorcerer kings (although obviously the PCs have magic and can become very powerful). But it is very much a contrasting setting--a world that is more nifty for how it can change perspectives than for people who haven't played much D&D before.

Out of the traditional TSR/WotC published settings, Greyhawk and Mystara are probably your best bets based on what you've said you're looking for. Unfortunately, they're both out of print to the best of my knowledge, with Mystara (the old D&D Known World) long out of print. I've never been a huge fan of Greyhawk personally, but many people like it, and it has less of an uber high fantasy feel than Forgotten Realms or Eberron.

The implied setting of 4e (Nentir Vale, etc.) also seems pretty close to what you're looking for. The points of light nature serves a gritty game well. There are a couple of supplements out describing it, and more on the way, but no comprehensive "start with this book" yet.

Good luck!

Most of the core D&D settings are substantially higher magic than traditional LotR style fantasy, let alone grittier and less magic traditional fantasy. In my experience, both Forgotten Realms and Eberron are pretty gonzo high magic. Dark Sun has less of the obvious high magic societal transformation stuff; although powerful magic is a part of the setting, it's a grimmer setting where the powerful magic is mostly in the hands of not entirely human sorcerer kings (although obviously the PCs have magic and can become very powerful). But it is very much a contrasting setting--a world that is more nifty for how it can change perspectives than for people who haven't played much D&D before.

Out of the traditional TSR/WotC published settings, Greyhawk and Mystara are probably your best bets based on what you've said you're looking for. Unfortunately, they're both out of print to the best of my knowledge, with Mystara (the old D&D Known World) long out of print. I've never been a huge fan of Greyhawk personally, but many people like it, and it has less of an uber high fantasy feel than Forgotten Realms or Eberron.

The implied setting of 4e (Nentir Vale, etc.) also seems pretty close to what you're looking for. The points of light nature serves a gritty game well. There are a couple of supplements out describing it, and more on the way, but no comprehensive "start with this book" yet.

Good luck!

I'd go with the default setting. No extra books to buy and with the dearth of details in FR and Eberron for my taste, probably as much work.

I would actually go with Forgotten Realms or Eberron simply because, as ESL students, it might be good for them to read the novels as part of their English practice.

Out of interest buddhafrog, how did you come to teach English through D&D? Did you start up your own D&D based business or some such or is it just a part of what you do?

JoeGKushner said:

I'd go with the default setting. No extra books to buy and with the dearth of details in FR and Eberron for my taste, probably as much work.

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I guess I didn't even know there a default setting. I've read about the "points of light" but that is more a concept and not a location. Are there maps, city details, etc? Those are the things that I think might be more helpful.

buddhafrog said:

I guess I didn't even know there a default setting. I've read about the "points of light" but that is more a concept and not a location. Are there maps, city details, etc? Those are the things that I think might be more helpful.

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The Dungeon Master's Guide details a bit of it including a town. The free adventure on the WoTC site also has a town in it. There are also two supplements, small ones, the provide further small areas to adventure in. In addition, if you have a DDI account, many of the adventurers in Dungeon take place there.

Jools said:

Out of interest buddhafrog, how did you come to teach English through D&D? Did you start up your own D&D based business or some such or is it just a part of what you do?

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I've been in and out of the country for many years, with family now in both Korea and the states. I brought my family back here two years ago and rather than teaching at a traditional school, my wife and I are tutoring kids in our house - this usually gives me small classes with 2~4 students advanced students. I bought my son lots of miniatures for Christmas and realized I should try to play D&D with him. I put him in one of my advanced classes which had two of his friends. The class meets five days/week, and we played D&D twice as primarily a communication class (with a little more, and also with the requirement that they did very well on their weekly 100 word vocab test). It went amazingly well.

Soon, all the classes heard about this strange concept of playing - in the land of computer gaming, paper and pencil gaming is completely foreign. And yet, story-telling games and MMO's are comfortable concepts. We have tons of minis which also attract the kids interest.

I started playing with other advanced classes once/week, assuming test scores remain high. It's been great. The kids love coming to class. Sometime "study" classes revolve around D&D topics even on non-playing days. The kids study hard, they have a good attitude towards class, and on D&D days, they really "use" English with little thinking/worries, instead focusing on simple communication.

This set-up is awesome. I get to spend many hours/day on D&D prep and/or play - and get paid for it. But also as a teacher in a society where students commonly over-study until 11 or 12 at night (we finish teaching at 12:30am), it feels good to bring a different concept of learning to these kids' lives. Nearly 1/4 of my teaching hours are now D&D gaming days, and because tutors in Korea make comparatively very high hourly wages, I earn a significant amount through DM'ing. It makes me chuckle. And smile.

It is also pretty difficult to recreate, I would think. If you tutor in your house or possibly tutor at students houses, it might work. I used to teach at private schools, and if I were to ever do that again (which I wouldn't), I would convince the boss to let me teach some D&D classes on Friday for students who passed a certain level. I would make the game classes open to any student who wanted to quietly watch. The campaign would have to be flexible so that students could enter/leave every month, but it would be doable. I think this set-up would be very motivating for the students and would be unique - the kids would love it.

To me, this set-up just sort of happened. But it makes so much sense and has gone so well. I've looked and haven't read about anyone else doing this sort of thing. Others should do this for sure. It works and isn't too hard to incorporate into your other classes.

Are you teaching in Japan - or are you Japanese?

Now I know what to do with my TEFL certificate!

*packs bags and moves to South Korea*