Suggestions for vanilla campaign setting?

[Shadowslayer]

I'll go with either Greyhawk or the Wilderlands.

Although remember that a setting is whatever the DM wants to make it. My old gaming group played FR starting when it first came out, and for years always remained fairly vanilla.

If you choose to just use the setting as a backdrop, it doesn't matter how convoluted the history is....because it doesn't always come up. If you subscribe to the "setting IS the story" idea, then it'll matter.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Another vote for Greyhawk.

 

[Ceresco]

Thanks for the respnse,

Hi Droopy,

You might want to consider taking a look at The Kyngdoms campaign setting. It seems to fit very nicely into your requirements and, what's more, you can check out the whole thing on our website for free (you can also purchase the book or pdf, should you wish to).

Of course, I'm biased, so go check out what people have been saying about it at our forums. Crothian also gave a good account of it in his 5 star review.

If you want any more information on the setting, just ask! I'd be happy to help where I can

Good luck!

Droop and I have already looked at the Kyngdoms and I like what I've seen. Let's say I'm on the fence about it. Give me your hard sell. Why should I invest my time and money into a new setting by a new company without a proven record of customer and product support?

 

[Ceresco]

BG,

Ceresco, I love you.

I'm pretty fond of you too.

Droopy,

Vanillia - Yeah, we got that. If you ignore the metaplot you can chuck pretty much anything into ML.
Maps - Check the site out, our maps are free as a gift to the children of the world. The cartography was done by Dr. Kulander who has a PhD in geophysics. Basically, our main map pwns.
Background - we got that too. There's about 10 cultures we go into. However we deliberately designed it so that two of them can be played by people who know nothing about the setting. Remeria is a huge empire, so the player can pretty much make up whatever he wants about it and it won't affect the game. Desolati is a barbaric place and that's where you start the guy who wants to play a half-orc with a dire flail that rides a giant lizard. So if you have players who really dig the setting, you start them in one of the other eight nations, if you have players that just want to roll dice and kill things, you say they are from one of those two places.

About the game:

PROS:
* Player driven metaplot. To my knowledge this is the only setting that does this (I welcome correction if I'm wrong). If you use the metaplot it advances as the players level and as game time passes. There's a couple of dozen things the players can do to push it back and they get to choose. Build castles, make alliances, kill orcs, recover magic items, it's their call.
* Integrated cultures. If nations are right next to each other, they have an effect on each other.
* Mechanics integrated into roleplay. There are starting cultural feats that are optional but a little overpowered to make them yummy. They all have associated penalties with them that showcase the rivalries between nations. So if you have a powergamer in your group who takes the Launhym feat because it's the most powerful, he'll still have that penalty when dealing with the rival nation of Calisia and that will remind the player to roleplay accordingly.

CONS
* Crappy layout. I'll be honest, this was my first time doing it and it shows.
* No support. You can email me at any time, but there are no support products. You see, while other game companies have writers who produce at the rate of 2,000 or even 4,000 words a day, at Parent's Basement Games, we handcraft every single letter! That's the quality we demand. As a result, our next product won't be out until next year.

Hope that helps!

Please explain how your metaplot is player driven with out any other support products.

Give me your best hard sell also please. What cool thing does your setting offer that, say, The Kyngdoms or Greyhawk don't? Tell me a story that has shaped the setting.

EDIT: Oh yeah... Arcanis: The World of Shattered Empires has an entirely player driven metaplot too. And it's a member run RPGA Living campaign. Word of advice, be ready to change everything you think was going to happen.

 

[DragonLancer]

In any case I don't mind people suggesting SL. I just mind when they say "hey this is vanilla!" It's not. It's rocky road.

Its rocky road if you use everything for it. Otherwise, just using the original gaz you have a standard D&D world which is open to fiddling. Anyhoo.

 

[jdrakeh]

Please explain how your metaplot is player driven with out any other support products.

Give me your best hard sell also please. What cool thing does your setting offer that, say, The Kyngdoms or Greyhawk don't? Tell me a story that has shaped the setting.

I was wondering about this, too. I almost pestered him for a review copy until I realized that he was an RPGNow publisher. To avoid conflict of interest issues, I don't petition review copies from RPGnow publishers anymore.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Please explain how your metaplot is player driven with out any other support products.

Sure.

There's a list of events with a numerical tracker going from 10 (hooray!) to -20 (whoops!) If the group advances a level or two game months pass. The tracker loses a point. You can hold it steady by killing orcs (or converting them in a peaceful/roleplay/talkie game)


Give me your best hard sell also please. What cool thing does your setting offer that, say, The Kyngdoms or Greyhawk don't? Tell me a story that has shaped the setting.[/quote]

I really need to sit down and read the Kyngdoms over. But I won't compare ML to another setting just to avoid any kerfuffle. I hate kerfuffle.

But, OK, why ML over another generic setting?

Moving away from setting and story, I would personally argue that ML was built with the meta game in mind. I have yet to be in a group where everyone had a solid handle on the rules, everyone roleplayed to the hilt, and everyone could keep events in their head. ML assumes a disfunctional group. I touched on this earlier when I mentioned the two contries reserved for players who don't give a fig about the setting and just want to play. That's carried over into the various dieties as well. Things are set up so the powergamers and the roleplayers can work side by side.

From a story standpoint what I like most about it is that the game is about the results of the actions of one wizard. The game focuses more on current events than the action of thousands of years ago. By rights the people of Launhym should hate the elves of Aeylamdyar, but they don't. It's ancient history as far as they're concerned and they care a lot more about what's going on right now. There's an immediacy, an urgency that's present in ML.

But if you want a real story how about the halflings of the conquered nation of Home? Home was a traditional fantasy Shire-like nation until the Empire invaded. The halflings put up one of the best fights the Empire had seen, because the people of Home fought by night and with stealth. Commanders would suddenly die, seemingly for no reason as a slow acting poision finally took it's toll. The Empire responded with the help of the Imperial Academy for the Arcane Sciences and that's when things went bad for the halflings, they couldn't beat magic. Things settled down for a bit and the halflings slowly integrated into the Empire as a military protectorate. Fifty years ago from the present day, the Empire sent one of their Viceroys to discuss true integration as a province with one of the halfling sherrifs. A hafling assasin, acting independently, slipped the Viceroy a relaxant in his drink to aid negotiations to get Home a better deal than they might otherwise had been offered. The Viceroy had an unfortunate reaction to the drug and died from what should have been a mild sedative. The Remarian military commander for Home had recently been assigned there after fighting barbarians in Desolati. He still had the thoughts of a man used to seeing daily battle and treated the Viceroy's death as a military assult. Thousands of halflings were rounded up and executed.

Home now stands as disputed nation. Officially it is still conquered by the Remarians. About 1 in 5 halflings have accepted the Remarian Empire as their rulers. Another 1 in 5 still consider themselve at war with Remaria. The rest just try to keep their heads down.

So there you go. The mechanics of the game reflect all of this. A rebel halfling would take the culture feat of Home and get some bonuses and the resultant social penalties to Remarians. Remaria doesn't get any penaties against Home because Remaria is so freaking big that they can forget that halflings even exist. And it underscores why the orcs up north will probably win when they invade: because nobody in the world of Murchad's Legacy really gets along with anyone else.

EDIT: Oh yeah... Arcanis: The World of Shattered Empires has an entirely player driven metaplot too. And it's a member run RPGA Living campaign. Word of advice, be ready to change everything you think was going to happen.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one doing this. I think it's vital unless the DM has a specific plan or the group is doing a mega-module. RPGs are all about choices (for me at any rate) and players should make as many as possible.

Both of us also forgot Torg. But that was more of a community thing.

Anyway, apologies to the board for the spammish post. If nothing else, I hope I at least inspired you for your own campaign.

Happy gaming!

 

[Maldin]

I also vote Greyhawk for all the reasons already stated (especially the neat and tidy Living Greyhawk Gazetteer combined with the Big Maps from Dungeon Magazine this year). But also, when you're ready to add to the basics, most of the old Greyhawk out-of-print materials are available (or becoming available) as cheap pdfs (far cheaper then anything newly printed out of WotC), plus there is a HUGE Greyhawk online community producing alot of really good fan material... for that start at http://www.canonfire.com and the Greyhawk Adventures Webring at http://c.webring.com/hub?ring=greyhawk

Oh... and what people seem to always forget is that vanilla is quite a strong flavor unto itself!!

Denis, aka "Maldin"
==============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Check out the ton of edition-independent material on my website!

 

[Nightfall]

Its rocky road if you use everything for it. Otherwise, just using the original gaz you have a standard D&D world which is open to fiddling. Anyhoo.

Which is why it works better IF you have more than that.

Biggie,

Thanks for the support and good luck with ML. Me I'm still in SL mode and plan to be for quite some time. Well other than running Shackled City at the moment. But we'll see.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I really like the tone of Praemal (Ptolus). It's explicitly designed to allow all the core D&D elements into the setting (although the Planar Handbook, etc., might not be immediately usable), but it's also got a lot of fan-favorite stuff, like some flavorful new races (including ones repurposed for Unearthed Arcana) and dwarves with guns.

There's enough online and in Chaositech and the Banewarrens to play there now, IMO, but in May a low cost Player's Guide comes out and next August, the Mother of All City Settings hits the shelves with a thud.