Open Worlds vs. Closed Worlds

[blargney the second]

Interesting subject!

I'm in the "closed with caveats" bracket at this point in my pre-DMing career campaign setup. To start with I'll be using only a very small geographical region. If I need outside sources to make things interesting, then I'll consider them on a case-by-case basis. I'll be open to player suggestions as well, and likely fairly lenient in that regard.

-blarg

 

[Alzrius]

I was (and still am) a big fan of Planescape and Spelljammer, and I had no problem mixing and matching elements from those (and through them, other) campaigns.

My take on it was just that those worlds/planes were out there, but getting there wasn't the easiest thing...in fact, it could be quite difficult if your characters didn't know how (and at 1st level, they never know how). Hence, it was easy to control in case the PCs started getting out of hand with things.

 

[Evilhalfling]

hmm,
The world is pretty selfcontained
I did have one player with a charater from another world, but pretty much allowed him to make up flavor for it, no rules really but he wanted a different background, the rest of the party was already mucking about on the plane of shadow so a extra planer charater seemed appropriate.
I also had a new player bring in a PC from another game who was a chosen of mystra FR@5th lvl??, with powers stripped. he lasted two sessions, the less said the better about that one.

 

[ichabod]

I picked the third option, but I'm sort of between the second and the third. My campaign world is closed. However, it is also huge. About 33,088,400,000,000 square miles. Obviously, I have not gotten around to detailing all of it. So if a player wants something that would reasonably fit with the backstory, I'll put it in somewhere for them. But it's not like Greyhawk exists somewhere on my world. The only published world that exists anywhere in my cosmology would be Cidri, for which there is minimal information anyway, and nobody is going there for a long, long time.

 

[D+1]

Closed with the occasional caveat. If I wanted to run Planescape or Spelljammer then I'd RUN Planescape or Spelljammer. It isn't as if my players are starved for character possibilities though.

I'm just starting a world based primarily upon Judges Guild's Wilderlands - a half dozen variations on humans as a race depending on the region the player cares to choose. Savage Species is available for running a humanoid if humans and demi-humans are just boring the hell out of you. I'm allowing stuff from Arcana Unearthed, and one player has voiced that she might want to play a pixie - which would be easier to do without needing ECL/LA adjustments via the AU fey races than running a straight-up pixie out of the MM. I'm going to be introducing an awakened dog, formerly a companion of a druid, as an NPC if for no other reason than to push them INTO running something out of the "ordinary". Later I'll probably be using races and other elements out of Eberron and possibly d20 Conan as well for NPCs and if players want one as a PC - I'd actually be a little pleased to see them broaden their RP horizons.

So with all that what the heck do I need to POLLUTE a game world with crossovers from another UNIVERSE like Dragonlance, or Faerun? If one of them ever tells me they have their heart just dead-set on playing a Tinker Gnome... well, after I pick up my jaw off the floor I'd probably work a small colony of Tinkers into an otherwise UTTERLY gnome-free setting. But aside from that I'm not particularly inclined to try to run a campaign that spans a multi-verse into other, well-established game settings. I'm only interested in select elements that I can see fitting into the miasma I'm putting together.

 

[jgbrowning]

Closed with caveats here. It's my default in just about everything. If a player wants something, I'll look at each case individually and decide yea or nay. Thankfully I've got cool players that understand.

joe b.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Uhm..........

What if your world is something like Oathbound?

It's not like the PC's can travel to those other worlds, but those other worlds can travel to the PC's....

 

[MerricB]

Psion, how much of this poll is based on "different worlds with the same DM", or "different worlds with different DMs".

I have the feeling the much of the "Dark Sun character in a FR game" used to come from a player changing DMs.

Cheers!

 

[Arnwyn]

The "closed with caveats" seems to best describe my attitude towards crossworld PCs.

However, my campaign is the "great big multiverse" thing, as I'm a fan of Planescape and Spelljammer, and use it in my big campaign world/universe/multiverse. However, I prefer the PCs stick with FR characters for the most part.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I had to go with other, since there seemed to be two questions almost - one is if races classes etc from other products would be allowed in my game. The answer to that is yes, definitly, I will consider any character for fit. The implied question is if characters like that are actually from other worlds than my own - thats a big no usually. If a player wants to play a kender, and its ok, then there are kender in my world. If a player likes a wheel of time class and I don't feel its unbalancing, that class is out there. They may be the only one encountered in the first few adventures, but they are part of the world at large, and definitly didn't fall through a portal.

Kahuna Burger