• The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!

Difference between FR, Eberron, Middle Earth, Greyhawk etc.

Chrome

First Post
Hi,

I have played D&D many years, but to me, all the fantasy settings seem the same. They all got some different races, some dungeons, some dragons etc. Maybe it is just me that doesn't dwelwe deep enough into the settings, but are they really that different?

Sure, the cities, NPCs, races (warforged etc.) might be a little different or have another name or there might be a few more magic items in one setting. Otherwise they just seem like fantasy to me. Just see how easy it is to converter eg. Paizos adventure path to another setting - it basically comes down to changing some names!

Help me out here. Surely I must be either dumb or missing something.

Could some of you clever guys please explain some difference between the setting, what makes the fantasy settings different.

Thanks in advance

/Chrome
 

log in or register to remove this ad

ZSutherland

First Post
I'll take a stab at it.

Forgotten Realms:

Several things separate Toril from other campaign worlds or fantasy settings and make it rather unique. One is its sheer size. Even the main continent presented in the FRCS is just mind-bogglingly huge and near to every inch of it crawling with adventur-some goodness. That size lends it two other distinctions. One is an large and very diverse group of threat organizations. The Zhentarim, Thayan wizards, the cult that creates dracoliches (the name escapes me at the moment), the drow, and Mulhorandi are all very different groups with different goals and methods that may plague the PCs at any given time while still leaving plenty of room for all your usual fantasy threat organizations. The second is a list of dieties large enough to fit in such a world, nearly all of whom take a much more active role in the game world than in any of the other settings you mentioned. Finally, FR is such a very developed world. If anything, it's so developed at this point that getting a really firm grip on it as a DM requires a lot of reading (woe be to you if you have an FR novel fan amongst your players). The FRCS has stat-blocks and background information for a ton of very powerful characters that have appeared in one FR novel series or another. This is not a game where the PCs are the world's saviors by default. They have a lot of competition to claw past to claim that title.

Eberron:

In many ways Eberron is the opposite of Toril. There are really only about a dozen countries/regions to host the game. The gods take no active hand in the world if they exist at all. The threat groups, while no less dangerous, are much more subtle in their methods. Magic plays as large (or larger) a role as in FR, but its rarely the PCs' brand of magic. It's simple magic that's almost technology that makes life easier for normal people. The sort of magic the PCs need is actually much harder to come by. Eberron is also notable for being a more morally ambivalent game than FR. The Church of the Silver Flame, nominally a LG organization, went on a crusade that pretty much exterminated all lycanthropes, including the good-aligned were-bears. The country that sued for peace and was most instrumental in ending a century-long war is ruled by a vampire. This sort of fuzzier morality can lead to ethical quandry scenarios that are much harder to achieve in the more black and white worlds of Toril or Middle Earth. Finally, the PCs are heroes (or villans) in Eberron simply by virtue of the fact that PC classed individuals are so rare.

Middle Earth:

Tolkein's world is a much more pastoral setting than any of the others you mentioned. You have a land (Mordor) that is effectively dedicated to evil and the rest of the world is generally a pretty good place. Dangerous perhaps, but not really evil. One could argue that there's nothing in Middle Earth that really constitues arcane magic as we know it in D&D. Gandalf calls himself a wizard, but much of the magic we see him along with his personality is more akin to divine magic. Indeed, all the mithrandir would probably be described (in D&D terms) as good-aligned outsiders from the upper planes. Other than the wizards, magic is simultaneously much more pervasive and much more subtle and usually weaker than in most fantasy settings. Of all the worlds you brought up so far, none is as morally black and white as Middle Earth. Sauron and those in league with him are evil. Everyone else is good, or neutral at worst. Even Denethor can claim madness as an excuse for his behavior.

Greyhawk:

Despite it being -the- default campaign setting, I really know very little about Greyhawk, and will kindly let someone more experienced with the setting address it.

On the whole, the differences you mentioned are mechanical, and you're right. They're fairly cosmetic differences. However, differences in tone, mood, and thematics vary widely from one world to another as does the level of detail (and thus preparation necessary by the DM). Could you move Warforged into FR? Sure, it's just a race. You'd have to come up with some explanation about where they came from, but you're a DM. Being creative is what you get paid to do. Could you move the moral ambiguity of Eberron into Middle Earth? I suppose, but it would probably strain the seams a bit. Could you move FR's very active (I'd say meddling) dieties into Eberron? Not without a lot of work and re-envisioning of the campaign world as a whole.
 

arscott

First Post
I was going to write a post explaining some of the differences between the various settings. Fortunately, I refreshed first, because ZSutherland said what I was going to say, and in a better way than I would have said it.

There are only a couple things I can add:

First, the organization that creates Dracholiches is the Cult of the Dragon.

Second, I know a little bit about Greyhawk:
Castle Greyhawk is basically where D&D began. It was the dungeon where Gary Gygax, the co-creator of D&D, DMed in. The world around it, Oerth, is where the first published D&D adventures were set.

Unlike the other fantasy worlds that you mentioned, which were laid out all at once and then elaborated upon, Greyhawk grew by bits and peices. It's got a bit of a random feel, where the various elements don't quite fit together into a cohesive whole (which, given the needs of the GM isn't necessarily a bad thing). It's very much an old-school place, with a sense of history that transcends the world itself. The powerful and famous of the Forgotten Realms are the characters from the novels, while the famous people from Greyhawk are the very first D&D PCs and the villians they fought. Also, the countries and cultures of greyhawk probably have the most direct analogues with countries and cultures from real-world history.

Third, places like FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and (to a slightly lesser extent) Eberron are pretty much the same. They each have their own distinct theme and flavor, but they're all designed to be classic high-fantasy worlds with broad appeal.

Other D&D settings exist that are a lot more unusual. There are settings are based on specific, non-european cultures--For example, Al-Qadim is modeled after the tales in the Arabian Nights, while Kara Tur is based on the history and legend of the far east. There are settings based on different subgenres than high fantasy--Ravenloft is modeled after gothic horror like Dracula or Frankenstein, while Dark Sun is similar to planetary romance books such as John Carter of Mars. And some settings explore the strange outer reaches of the classic high fantasy worlds--Though they're connected to the various other D&D settings, you'd be hard pressed to call Spelljammer or Planescape ordinary fantasy.
 

Twin Rose

First Post
Despite the fact that the game sucked horribly.... As a fantasy setting, I enjoy the Wheel of Time. The RPG sucked almost as much as the CRPG. And that's a lot of sucking. But the world is so in depth, the characters and cultures are so rich.

But anyone who has played on my MUD already knows all this.
 

Doug McCrae

Legend
The OP is right, they are pretty similar. Tolkien was the major influence on D&D when it was created so the two 'default' worlds, Greyhawk and FR are pretty similar to Middle Earth. You've got evil humanoids in the mountains, elves in the woods. Iuz (the land) = Mordor and Iuz (the god) = Sauron. A major theme in Gygax's Greyhawk was the resurgence of evil and whether the good races - humans, dwarves, elves - can band together to stop it which he got from LotR.

The major difference between Middle Earth and the D&D worlds is the latter are kitchen sink settings, bursting to the seams with monsters, evil cults, dungeons, etc. In other words they are completely insane, whereas Middle Earth is more reasonable. Eberron even goes a step further and adds pulp elements on top of D&D. This works as pulp is itself a kitchen sink genre, as well as being a secondary influence on D&D originally.
 

awayfarer

First Post
Tolkein's world is a much more pastoral setting than any of the others you mentioned. You have a land (Mordor) that is effectively dedicated to evil and the rest of the world is generally a pretty good place.

Actually, I'd argue that most of Middle Earth is pretty hostile. You not only have Mordor to the east but also the Easterlings, which if I remember coirrectly actually come from their own realm beyond Mordor. Theres the Corsairs and the Haradrim to the south too.

I actually play in a group that uses ME as a setting. My old roommate has a huge map of middle earth and apparently, what we normally think of as the ME world is actually just the NW corner of it. It's given us an opportunity to add in things not found in the books without disrupting anything else too much. The impression that I get is that the rest of the map is something that Tolkien intended to expand upon later but never got the chance to.
 

Twin Rose

First Post
awayfarer said:
Actually, I'd argue that most of Middle Earth is pretty hostile. You not only have Mordor to the east but also the Easterlings, which if I remember coirrectly actually come from their own realm beyond Mordor. Theres the Corsairs and the Haradrim to the south too.

I actually play in a group that uses ME as a setting. My old roommate has a huge map of middle earth and apparently, what we normally think of as the ME world is actually just the NW corner of it. It's given us an opportunity to add in things not found in the books without disrupting anything else too much. The impression that I get is that the rest of the map is something that Tolkien intended to expand upon later but never got the chance to.

If you've got the stomach for it (not many do) read the Silmarillon. I think it will explain a lot of things about Middle Earth to you. You'll be glad you read it, but you might not like reading it.
 

awayfarer

First Post
I briefly owned the Silmarillion. :)

I read about 1/3 of the way through it but it just couldn't hold my interest. A lot of names and just general "stuff" gets thrown at you and I found it difficult to follow. Personally I think it reads kind of like the bible, only with elves.

I'd also like to find that map I mentioned but I'm having no luck with it on google. Kinda leaves me scratching my head where the old rommate got it from.
 

Twin Rose

First Post
awayfarer said:
I briefly owned the Silmarillion. :)

I read about 1/3 of the way through it but it just couldn't hold my interest. A lot of names and just general "stuff" gets thrown at you and I found it difficult to follow. Personally I think it reads kind of like the bible, only with elves.

I'd also like to find that map I mentioned but I'm having no luck with it on google. Kinda leaves me scratching my head where the old rommate got it from.

Yeah, I know how it reads. You'll notice I didn't imply that it was "good" reading. Just that when you're done, you'll feel good. "Yay, I friggin' read it!"
 


Voidrunner's Codex

Remove ads

Top