How gonzo will you roll with?

[GreyLord]

Depends what mood I'm in. I'll happily roll with the silliness of Spelljammer, the magi-punk of Eberron, or the grit of Game of Thrones... sometimes (just don't try to combine them!).

Your first part describes me...it totally depends on my mood. I'd say I'm normally like lower powered settings (so the medieval choice) but there are times when I prefer something so far out there it seems trippy to even the most crazy RPGers.

 

[Greg K]

For me, it is most definitely the third and fourth options.

 

[RangerWickett]

A friend of mine made a PC named Zardoz Darkhuman, figuring that if there are dark elves, there must be dark humans too.

His motivation to adventure was that his mom was really overbearing. His preferred tactic in dungeons was to charge and aggro all the encounters at once.

 

[Tallifer]

My latest gonzo monsters: a construct flying monkey janitor who arrives to fix the steam bath Rejuvenator (capable of Greater Restoration but drains hit dice and spell slots form the surrounding PCs each round) and his workman the Wrench Dog.

 

[S'mon]

I like it to vary within the setting.

The Realm of Law is very Low Gonzo - but the Realm of Law is Narrow & Constrained...

The Realm of Chaos is where the Wyrd happens. Enough Chaos, as found at the bottom of your friendly neighbourhood dungeon, and it gets very Wyrd indeed.

 

[S'mon]

A friend of mine made a PC named Zardoz Darkhuman, figuring that if there are dark elves, there must be dark humans too.

Maybe Humans are just Dark Halflings?

 

[Mercule]

I said 2 & 3.

Some attempt at ecology is good, but I don't actually want to think about it hard enough to make it really work. Just get me to suspension of disbelief level. If you have a rat bastard at the table picking things apart, then call him a rat bastard, tell him to go play GURPS or Phoenix Command and move on.

I'd default to how I interpret #3: baseline of medieval Europe tech and such, with cultures thrown in a blender. Layer on magic and supernatural bits with just enough attention to #4 (see above).

#2 is where I start to split hairs. I love Eberron, dislike steam-punk (really, any punk in my fantasy), and hate Wuxia. Heck, Forgotten Realms is pretty much too gonzo for me. I'm starting to warm to some weirdness I wouldn't used to have accepted, but mostly in the sense that I'd play/run in a setting that explored specific additions (guns, say), not that I want to expand my baseline definition of what D&D is.

#1 is right out. I want to have fun, but I've never cared for silly.

Now, my big caveat to all the above is that my latest home brew campaign is a setting where large "islands" float in the air. Not sky, because there is no planet. People live on the islands and they can be quite large -- the focus, right now, is one with a lot of Chinese flavor and is big enough to stretch from steppes to an actually sea with mountains and forest in between. Water flows off the edge but is renewed by springs that are, effectively, tiny portals to the plane of water. Heaven is seriously above (as far as folks believe) and hell is literally below -- the worst criminals are sentenced to be cast into the abyss and dwarves are super careful with their mines. Airships are a thing.

 

[epithet]

I suspect that GGR will have a few things in it I can take for my own campaign, but the chances of me ever running a campaign in Ravnica approach zero. I don't see the appeal of Waterdeep Coruscant.

 

[oreofox]

It depends on the campaign pitch. If we are playing a serious game, I don't want a meme character in the party, or us fighting ice cream dinos. Same with the opposite (though regular monsters in a joke campaign isn't as jarring).

My world is a bit of a mix. Right now, I am in the middle of a Halloween adventure that I have been wanting to run for the last 3 years, so I started out with it. Needed to adjust a few things, and it seems like I still need to. My player's characters are nearly all dead with 2 monsters still standing, so I may need to adjust things. It will culminate in something rather silly, but I won't reveal that until it happens, in case my players might read this. I also intend to maybe have a small Thanksgiving sidequest with a monstrous dire turkey and maybe some food monsters, as well as maybe add in a Christmas adventure with Santa, Frosty, and a gingerbread golem. That type of thing. Why? Because magic exists and magic can make some gonzo things happen. One of my favorite published adventures was "Something's Cooking" back in 3rd edition, with the calzone golem.

I do, however, include monster ecologies and such. Too realistic can get to be too heavy at times, and adding in a bit of hilarity can help lighten things up.

 

[Lanefan]

... as well as maybe add in a Christmas adventure with Santa ....

Because it was around Yule in the real world, just for fun I once had Santa put in an appearance in a game by flying over the party in his sleigh, pulled by the usual assortment of reindeer.

The party, of course, tried to shoot him down.

This got his attention - along with their hitting Blitzen hard enough to seriously hurt him - and he came in to land. Lumps of coal for many PCs (a few thrown hard enough to do damage on impact!), joke gifts for a few who hadn't been involved with the artillery, and a nice gift for the nature cleric who both patched up Blitzen and apologized for the actions of his companions.

Sigh.