Which D&D Settings Do You Play In?

Over on the right of the news page is a new poll which asks which D&D setting you currently play in. Obviously WotC has its own survey data, and we know from that that 55% of people use home-brew settings, 35% play in the Realms, 5% in Greyhawk, and the remaining 5% is divided between the rest. I figured it would be fun to see how closely EN World's members track to that overall survey; how closely to we represent the official data? To that end, I've listed a number of settings. The question is what you PLAY in? It's not "what would you LIKE to play in", or "what would you like to see more support for?" -- it's what are you PLAYING in right now? I know some folks have more than one game going and they may be different settings. That's why I've allowed a choice of three in the poll. If you have four or more games in multiple settings -- well, I'm envious. I took the list from the Wikipedia page of 25 settings, so if you're mad and incensed about the list or its ordering or whatever (because Internet) blame Wikipedia! Some settings incorporate others (Kara-Tur is in the Realms, for example), but I"m keeping it simple with the top level list.

Here's what WotC's survey says we play (that data comes from Chris Perkin's panel at Gamehole Con). Let's see how closely we match it. The survey is on the right hand side of the news page, or it's at the top of the discussion thread, depending where/how you're viewing this.

 

[Snoring Rock]

I have enjoyed Wilderlands of High Fantasy for many years. I have the Necromancer Games version, and use it now. It is no longer in print and there is no chance of a reprint. Judges Guild is dead for good as I see it now. This last Kickstarter ended that.

I see a long list of settings on this survey but few if any that are "alive". What I mean, is that you can buy them new and there is on-going new material coming out. Lets take Forgotten Realms as an example. I would likje to take a closer look and try it. Can I order the campaign boxed set on the WotC site? Maybe Amazon, and that would be some little piece of it. WotC no longer prints the setting. I have to get a 3.5e or 4e version (or piece thereof). I would try it if it was "live". If I could buy the setting gazeteers and maps off the shelf without having to search old book stores, Ebay and/or Amazon used books to get my hands on them. Yes, WotC has decided to build some modules/adventures in the setting, but how can I get the setting if I do not already have it? Can they sustain sales in a setting no one can just order or pick up at their FLGS?

 

[Remathilis]

For all the people who want other settings redone for 5E... I'm pretty sure WotC also has the numbers for what gets sold on dndclassics. If you really want them to know you support a different setting... go buy the books available to you already over there. If they saw there was a mad rush for Eberron material, they might be more inclined to publish new Eberron material.

But then again... if you're willing to buy previous edition campaign material, you probably also would then realize you don't need a complete re-write of that material with a 5E logo on the front. All that campaign material works just fine, because it's all story and fluff... two things that the mechanics of 5E don't actually affect.

Would it be nice at some point to get a Khorvaire Adventurer's Guide that gives the mechanics for the shifter, changeling, warforged, and kalashtar, plus the Artificer and Dragonmarks (basically the completed and fully playtest Eberron UA article?) Sure. But NOTHING else needs to be re-written since ALL the 3E books (Five Nations, Faiths of Eberron, Forge of War, City of Stormreach etc. etc. etc.) are all correct, valid, and usable.

And let's be honest here... all of them are a lot freaking cheaper individually than any 5E campaign setting re-write would be, so it's really a waste of their time and money to produce one, and a waste of our time and money to wait for and finally buy one.

Couple problems with that scenario:

Lets say right now I want to get into Ravenloft (since I know something of that setting). Where do I start? The module? The Black Box? Red Box? Domains of Dread? Try and find the 3e era stuff (oop and not on pdf)? Mind you, RL had its own personal "realms shaking event" (The Grand Conjunction) and each update moved the world and plot along (the GC reordered the Core, DoD removed Azalin and made a domain lord of Vecna!) meaning some stuff sold on DnDClassics reference Ravenloft at different points of history. So while the general fluff is the same, the devil is in the details and the RL wiki's are a mess of TSR-era stuff and 3e-era updates, sometimes contradicting one-another.

Now, that doesn't even begin to touch the crunch. Where are the racial stats for Half-Vistani? What are the domains for priest of Ezra? How should I handle Power Checks or Curses? What are Strahd's stats? What are the stats for a wereraven, a vampyre, or a wax golem? What about the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind? How should I convert the Cold One 2e kit? That is a LOT of crunch to consider. A DM who spends all his time converting this is only one step away from making his own setting at that point.

D&D needs some grand "conversion" book if they intend to make this "multiverse" approach work. Not some 5 page general suggestions pamphlet, a REAL conversion guide. Any setting other than Realms or Greyhawk (or Mystara) is fairly unusable right now due to lack of conversion for races, classes, mechanics, or even just the barest amount of "where the world is now" material. Eberron needs warforged and artificers, Dragonlance needs Kender and Wizard Orders, Ravenloft needs Powers checks, and monsters, Planescape needs the factions and planar races, Dark Sun needs psionics, muls, and half-giants, etc. This needs to be done either via a free download (unlikely, considering the time/effort for no money), a series of books (Khorvaire Adventurer's Guide, Domains of Dread, Planeswalker's Handbook, etc) or even one massive "jumping off" tome that gives general overviews and some crunch for the top settings (GH, PS, DS, RL, Eb, DL, etc). Otherwise, we ARE sitting on our hands for 2+ years waiting for usable settings.

Trust me, the day a real Eberron book comes out, I'm running my Eberron game again. Until then, Homebrew/Realms it is.

 

[S'mon]

I'm currently running Wilderlands (5e, 1-2/week), Mystara (Classic, 1/week), Forgotten Realms (4e, 1-2/month) so I voted those three, I'm also GMing Golarion (5e, 1 per 2 weeks) but you weirdly omitted Paizo's world while including Pellinore(!) and places I've never heard of...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now, that doesn't even begin to touch the crunch. Where are the racial stats for Half-Vistani? What are the domains for priest of Ezra? How should I handle Power Checks or Curses? What are Strahd's stats? What are the stats for a wereraven, a vampyre, or a wax golem? What about the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind? How should I convert the Cold One 2e kit? That is a LOT of crunch to consider. A DM who spends all his time converting this is only one step away from making his own setting at that point.

If you set out to convert everything, sure. If you only convert what your players interact with, you'd have a lot less. If you do so more or less as they go, it's not much effort, just a bit of a roller-coaster ride... and, really, what D&D has often tended towards anyway, and 5e fully embraces as 'rulings not rules.' Don't sit down and convert everything to rules, make rulings on how the old stuff works as it comes up. Doesn't work so well for player options, of course... ;(

D&D needs some grand "conversion" book if they intend to make this "multiverse" approach work. Not some 5 page general suggestions pamphlet, a REAL conversion guide.

Sounds like a design nightmare harder than just updating any one (or six) setting(s).

Any setting other than Realms or Greyhawk (or Mystara) is fairly unusable right now due to lack of conversion for races, classes, mechanics, or even just the barest amount of "where the world is now" material.

In spite of what I said above, I can't really disagree. The point of setting material is /not/ to have to do the work, not to re-do the work for a new edition.

While I'll maintain that you absolutely can use old material without putting a lot of effort into it, doing so isn't getting the full benefits of official new versions.

Eberron needs warforged and artificers, Dragonlance needs Kender and Wizard Orders, Ravenloft needs Powers checks, and monsters, Planescape needs the factions and planar races, Dark Sun needs psionics, muls, and half-giants, etc.

True. Well, no one /needs/ Kender...

This needs to be done either via a free download (unlikely, considering the time/effort for no money), a series of books (Khorvaire Adventurer's Guide, Domains of Dread, Planeswalker's Handbook, etc) or even one massive "jumping off" tome that gives general overviews and some crunch for the top settings (GH, PS, DS, RL, Eb, DL, etc).

All of those sound pretty unlikely. But the middle one would seem the most reasonable. A book or two a year along the lines of SCAG. Maybe one such book for an FR region, one for something else? Such a book could have a capsule intro to the setting for those new to it, plus a setting update/retcon for those familiar with or obtaining the older stuff (the two could be combined, I guess, it'd just look concerned with yet very sketchy on history), official 5e crunch options and an appendix with a conversion guide and other more-optional conversions as examples.

Otherwise, we ARE sitting on our hands for 2+ years waiting for usable settings.

Or playing the published adventures in FR or doing homebrews, as most people are supposedly doing. It's not like we can't play until a given setting comes out, just can't play that setting as easily...

Trust me, the day a real Eberron book comes out, I'm running my Eberron game again.

Why wait? If it was good in whatever ed you ran it under before, just keep running it. Change over when that 'real' Eberron book comes out. In the mean time enjoy 5e at AL and in the Realms or in whatever other homebrew you come up with or find someone willing to run.

Until then, Homebrew/Realms it is.

So not sitting on our hands waiting.

 

[Benji]

This statement warms my heart. Good for her!

Yeah, I thank my lucky stars I married a gamer, it means pretty much all discussion eventually revolve around RP at some point. We met when she was working in the FLGS. Also, given that she's a second generation RP gamer (her dad played in university when D&D came out and still does) our kid is gonna be third generation (an international law, I think that means she can legally appply for faerun nationality).

 

[halfling rogue]

Couple problems with that scenario:

Lets say right now I want to get into Ravenloft (since I know something of that setting). Where do I start? The module? The Black Box? Red Box? Domains of Dread? Try and find the 3e era stuff (oop and not on pdf)? Mind you, RL had its own personal "realms shaking event" (The Grand Conjunction) and each update moved the world and plot along (the GC reordered the Core, DoD removed Azalin and made a domain lord of Vecna!) meaning some stuff sold on DnDClassics reference Ravenloft at different points of history. So while the general fluff is the same, the devil is in the details and the RL wiki's are a mess of TSR-era stuff and 3e-era updates, sometimes contradicting one-another.

Now, that doesn't even begin to touch the crunch. Where are the racial stats for Half-Vistani? What are the domains for priest of Ezra? How should I handle Power Checks or Curses? What are Strahd's stats? What are the stats for a wereraven, a vampyre, or a wax golem? What about the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind? How should I convert the Cold One 2e kit? That is a LOT of crunch to consider. A DM who spends all his time converting this is only one step away from making his own setting at that point.

D&D needs some grand "conversion" book if they intend to make this "multiverse" approach work. Not some 5 page general suggestions pamphlet, a REAL conversion guide. Any setting other than Realms or Greyhawk (or Mystara) is fairly unusable right now due to lack of conversion for races, classes, mechanics, or even just the barest amount of "where the world is now" material. Eberron needs warforged and artificers, Dragonlance needs Kender and Wizard Orders, Ravenloft needs Powers checks, and monsters, Planescape needs the factions and planar races, Dark Sun needs psionics, muls, and half-giants, etc. This needs to be done either via a free download (unlikely, considering the time/effort for no money), a series of books (Khorvaire Adventurer's Guide, Domains of Dread, Planeswalker's Handbook, etc) or even one massive "jumping off" tome that gives general overviews and some crunch for the top settings (GH, PS, DS, RL, Eb, DL, etc). Otherwise, we ARE sitting on our hands for 2+ years waiting for usable settings.

Trust me, the day a real Eberron book comes out, I'm running my Eberron game again. Until then, Homebrew/Realms it is.

I think you hit close to me here.

I play in Realms because that's all I have. I homebrew because all I have is Realms. That's not a complaint but just the facts. I like the Realms mainly because I like to play D&D and if I want to change something on my own I can and it works okay for me.

But your point about older settings is spot on. I would dive into some of them right now, and like someone pointed out, I could go back and grab something older, but 1) there is nothing for me to jump into NOW, no starting point, no easy access. 2) I don't want to convert EVERYTHING even if it is relatively 'simple'. It's easier to homebrew sometimes.

I don't mind the Realms and I won't stop homebrewing, but if they don't give me anything other than the Realms I'll likely not play anything other than the Realms. Again, not a knock at all, just the facts.

 

[Benji]

I think these polls will just end up telling WotC "See, most people are playing homebrews or the Realms, this poll is proof," which is what makes these specific polls bad polls because they will then most likely say "Let's just focus most of our attention on the Realms because most people are playing it now," and part of the very reason it is their most played campaign setting is because its the one they are choosing to focus on in the first place...WotC has focused on the Realms as their main setting for a while now. Its the only setting to get real support. Of course its going to be the most played setting. Its the one we see on the shelves now. Heck, they took greyhawk adventures and mashed them into the Realms.

It could instead of course be that more people are actually playing homebrew or realms.

I wonder about the realms. I make homebrew game ideas all the time and they're always different from standard fantasy. The last one was 'caveman tribe against Alien invaders in icy ruins of once great world' and required massive homebrew rules tinkering. But if want to runa standard high fantasy adventure, I'll run realms because it does those tropes without me having to change. I think that sometimes accounts for it. Why build additional stuff if the setting works?

On your previous Eberron setting question. I've run eberron games since 5th. It's possible.

 

[Remathilis]

If you set out to convert everything, sure. If you only convert what your players interact with, you'd have a lot less. If you do so more or less as they go, it's not much effort, just a bit of a roller-coaster ride... and, really, what D&D has often tended towards anyway, and 5e fully embraces as 'rulings not rules.' Don't sit down and convert everything to rules, make rulings on how the old stuff works as it comes up. Doesn't work so well for player options, of course... ;(

Even converting what is necessary is a lot. Sure, I might not need Powers checks rules for most of my games, but when a PC decides to go DagNasty Evil is not the time to be creating them.

Sounds like a design nightmare harder than just updating any one (or six) setting(s).

Speaking in the general sense; something that converts a number of things to make those setting usable. You don't need every PrC, kit or monster, but the Iconic stuff needs doing.

In spite of what I said above, I can't really disagree. The point of setting material is /not/ to have to do the work, not to re-do the work for a new edition.

While I'll maintain that you absolutely can use old material without putting a lot of effort into it, doing so isn't getting the full benefits of official new versions.

Exactly. I don't mind having to convert a warforged NPC from 3e to 5e, but I do want a warforged race to convert him too.

True. Well, no one /needs/ Kender...

Well, I don't run DL for a few reasons (kender being on) but I think we were promised kender and warforged at some point this year...

All of those sound pretty unlikely. But the middle one would seem the most reasonable. A book or two a year along the lines of SCAG. Maybe one such book for an FR region, one for something else? Such a book could have a capsule intro to the setting for those new to it, plus a setting update/retcon for those familiar with or obtaining the older stuff (the two could be combined, I guess, it'd just look concerned with yet very sketchy on history), official 5e crunch options and an appendix with a conversion guide and other more-optional conversions as examples.

Of course they do. Which is why the "multiverse" stuff they put out has been bs. WotC isn't supporting the multiverse, its supporting Forgotten Realms and whatever FR can leach from other settings without being obvious. It'd be nice if one of those options (or some equally awesome fourth that I didn't think of) was laid out; but we don't. We don't know when or even if, we'll see any setting other than Faerun covered. (Until August, we couldn't even take for granted Faerun would be covered).

That said, I do hope we get more SCAGs for other settings. Until then, those settings pretty much useless.

Or playing the published adventures in FR or doing homebrews, as most people are supposedly doing. It's not like we can't play until a given setting comes out, just can't play that setting as easily...
Why wait? If it was good in whatever ed you ran it under before, just keep running it. Change over when that 'real' Eberron book comes out. In the mean time enjoy 5e at AL and in the Realms or in whatever other homebrew you come up with or find someone willing to run.
So not sitting on our hands waiting.

No, I'm still playing, but my options are limited. I'd love to do Eberron again, or Ravenloft, or Planescape. But the lack of official support + having no desire to convert pages of rules and such over has left me two options: Realms or Homebrew. (I guess option 3: ignore custom stuff, but how much fun is Eberron without PC warforged?) until I see support.

So, unless things change (and they might), next year when this poll is asked I'll have the same three answers: Realms, Homebrew, and Wish I Could Do Eberron.

 

[Grimstaff]

Perversely, I feel like Golarion should be an option on this poll.

Me too. I'm running Rise of the Runelords with 5E in Golarion. About 1/3 through the final episode as of Sunday!

 

[Christopher J Dudley]

I usually run homebrew, but the last 3 I played D&D in were FR, GH, and Ravenloft. I haven't run a homebrew in 5e yet. I've played two short games and run an old module which I assume is Greyhawk.