One world for all your campaigns, or do you set campaigns in different settings each time?

[Stormonu]

Yeah.
Sometimes we do generational - kids or grandkids of earlier PCs. Sometimes we want something different.

The fact that the wife and I game (we met when she was the GM of a game I joined) means we have some special continuity in the worlds.

Funny, just last year I ran a game where the characters were the descendants of the prior group - and half the party were actually the (nearly grown) descendants of the old players ( of course, the other half was my old play group).

However, OT, I tend to use various game worlds - some published, some of my own design - some taking material published for one world and transplanting it to another.

 

[Obryn]

Yeah, I suppose my basic philosophy is that I like to keep continuity if a new campaign is set in the same world.

But in practice, I have different settings for different games, and different genres to boot. I'm not a "single system forever" kind of guy.

That cthulhu game I mentioned above is the only one I can think of where this distinction mattered.

 

[TerraDave]

As you may be able to guess from my name and picture, I like world building.

Myself and a friend ran multiple campaigns in the same alternate earch across 2E and 3E (you can find a link to its website if you dig around in my sig).

For 4E and probably 5E, I am using a more conventional fantasy world. Though as world builder, I am always tinkering, so their will be some changes.

 

[Jester David]

I enjoy too many campaign settings and like creating worlds to do this easily.
I'd like to, but I keep moving to different worlds.

I did run two campaigns in the same world, but I revised the world for 4e (as it seemed to need a complete revision between 3e and 4e).
Maybe for 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

Each major new campaign (see .sig) gets its own new world, in large part because limitations of the previous one prevent me from shoehorning in the ideas I've got for the new one...if that makes sense.

I use the same universal pantheon system for each, though the PCs have to deal with the local variant for the area they are in. I also have my worlds all set in the same universe, along with those of another DM who uses the same kitbashed game system - this allows relatively easy porting of characters and plots from one to the other if the mood strikes.

Lan-"we've had 5 major worlds, I-as-character have been to 4 of them"-efan

 

[Dice4Hire]

I run about half the time in a set(ie published) campaign setting, most recently Dark Sun. The other half are campaign settings i make up (though I often use published world maps) Many of my concepts just do not fit published worlds.

My name tabletop game I will be running is a pirate themed 4E game. I am planning on removing the arcane power source entirely, and all controllers. Using inherent bonuses will also keep the number of magic items low, hopefully very low.

I will use the board game map for WOTC's risk-like game, the Conquest of Nerath one. I will have to make up a lot of details, but it should work out. The central sea is the main feature I wanted to have.

 

[MerricB]

As you may be able to guess from my name and picture, I like world building.

Oh... is that what that is? I thought you used worlds for dice!



Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

My name tabletop game I will be running is a pirate themed 4E game. I am planning on removing the arcane power source entirely, and all controllers. Using inherent bonuses will also keep the number of magic items low, hopefully very low.

I will use the board game map for WOTC's risk-like game, the Conquest of Nerath one. I will have to make up a lot of details, but it should work out. The central sea is the main feature I wanted to have.

That seems very interesting. Good luck with it!

Cheers!

 

[D'karr]

Under most circumstances I'm the DM for most of my game groups (3). I avoid using a published setting as my main game world as I don't like "someone else" dictating changes to the world that I don't want to spend time explaining to new players. That does not mean that I don't liberally use (steal) things from published game settings.

My first foray into the DM chair was with the Moldvay Basic set. When I started running games we used the Keep on the Borderlands as our introduction into the game. The Keep became the base of operations as the players began play, and the area has expanded from there. Different groups have explored the Isle of Dread, which also got added to the game world. Saltmarsh is in there somewhere also. The Drachensgrab Mountains holds the Aerie of the Slavelords and is on the map. Deep in the swamps is the Temple of the Frog, and from there the Barony of Blackmoor. All these locales have been added to the game world because I wanted to use some or all of the published material for them. Everything always gets heavily modified anyway.

The last campaign lasted almost 8 years and spanned 2 editions (3e & 3.5). It was themed after a world spanning war. When that campaign ended the heroes had defeated a major army of monsters and their quasi-god. During that campaign most of the players had been playing human characters (1 elf, 2 dwarfs, 6 humans). When we decided to play 4e most players wanted to play some sort of monstrous/strange humanoid (1 dragonborn, 1 minotaur, 1 warforged, 1 tiefling, 1 elf, 1 dwarf, 2 humans). So I needed a way to "justify" all these monsters. It actually became easy. The war had ended, several decades had passed and now all these monsters that had stayed around after the war had been mostly assimilated into most societies. Seeing a minotaur walking around still creates a bit of tension, but it is "acceptable" in most places. The characters have fought the slavelords, defeated the Beast of Averoigne, and are now in Fallcrest getting ready to head into the Dreamlands (Feywild).

For the purposes of world building I've been using the same game world for 30+ years. I've just kept adding things as I saw necessary. If we decide to start using 5e it will be quite a bit into the future so I'll have time to adapt again to what we want.

 

[howandwhy99]

I run a generative ruleset / code behind the screen D&D game, but I run a different one every campaign, at least so far. I look at it like how other DMs spend years improving their campaign worlds except mine is improving the game design specifically to smooth game play, cover more ground with fewer rules, increase the top challenge levels, implement ingenious strategies I've learned (usually from my players), and so on.

The campaign setting and all the elements of the setting can largely be taken from other designs like previous run campaigns though. Even the adventures can be reused, but I would need to convert them to the new campaign and system. Sometimes a lot of this comes from the players though, sometimes not. It depends on the players, but it is a good idea to have a lot of prepared material on hand so not everything needs to be remade from scratch.