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.

 

[Von Ether]

Well, if a sort document covers 60% - 95% of most gamers, I don't see WotC being motivated to do more. I guess we could chalk up the recent Ebby stuff to the fact that it's the only video game IP they own.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

No offense, but the material they released for Warforged and Artificers single handedly made me not want to play 5e Eberron.

Although there is still the vague hope that could have been because the really good designer was doing Jury duty at the time.

No offense taken at all. It's a valid point. And I love Eberron too, so am certainly not opposed to seeing more support for the setting. I'm just trying to point out that WotC is not going out of its way to discourage playing Eberron even with 5th edition. It's there for those of us willing to put in a little elbow grease. But it's certainly doable.

My only offense is with the girl who decided to jusst ignore the instructions of the poll and vote for what she felt like and felt it was beneath her to offer any explanation as to why she can't play Eberron when the rest of us clearly can.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

For those who are asking the philosophiycal question of "Is my campaign Homebrew or not?" I would pose this as a litmus test. The map used.

My homebrew campaign for instance uses elements of the 4th edition setting, mainly because I liked their pantheon of deities. I used them as the baseline for my own world with a few alterations and additions. But my game takes place in a world completely of my own creation. The lands, the cities, the events are not derived from any other campaign world. It is definitely not set in the Nentir Vale. So I consider it to be homebrew and not Nentir Vale.

So when asking "Is this homebrew?" think about the world map you're using.

 

[Lanefan]

For those who are asking the philosophiycal question of "Is my campaign Homebrew or not?" I would pose this as a litmus test. The map used.

My homebrew campaign for instance uses elements of the 4th edition setting, mainly because I liked their pantheon of deities. I used them as the baseline for my own world with a few alterations and additions. But my game takes place in a world completely of my own creation. The lands, the cities, the events are not derived from any other campaign world. It is definitely not set in the Nentir Vale. So I consider it to be homebrew and not Nentir Vale.

So when asking "Is this homebrew?" think about the world map you're using.

So what would this be:

I take the world map for Forgotten Realms, move the Moonshaes a thousand miles or so north, then take everything west of the Anauroch Desert and north of Waterdeep and replace it with my own map. On that map I keep many of the place names but move those places around*, and add in a bunch of my own stuff. Most but not all of the very long campaign takes place on the changed part of the map; occasionally they venture to true-FR places like Amn and Baldur's Gate.

* - Neverwinter ended up being a sarcastic name for that town as it was usually winter there half the year, where I ended up putting it.

FR game or homebrew game?

Lanefan

 

[3SpdDragster]

I am a little surprised about the number of homebrewers. In our gaming circles my group tends to be the exception and homebrew, most of the other groups are FR or Greyhawk.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

So what would this be:

I take the world map for Forgotten Realms, move the Moonshaes a thousand miles or so north, then take everything west of the Anauroch Desert and north of Waterdeep and replace it with my own map. On that map I keep many of the place names but move those places around*, and add in a bunch of my own stuff. Most but not all of the very long campaign takes place on the changed part of the map; occasionally they venture to true-FR places like Amn and Baldur's Gate.

* - Neverwinter ended up being a sarcastic name for that town as it was usually winter there half the year, where I ended up putting it.

FR game or homebrew game?

Lanefan

Wow. That's amazing. Obviously this is a heavily modified Forgotten Realms. about a 50/50 mix of Realms and Homebrew it seems. But what do the inhabitants who live there call it? If the local NPCs think of the land as Faerun and call it Faerun, then I would say it's a Forgotten Realms game. If they call it something else, then I would say it's a homebrew game that uses large portions of Forgotten Realms to fill the space.

Since every DM takes his or her own spin on things, every Forgotten Realms game is a modified Forgotten Realms game to some extent. Unless Ed Greenwood is the DM.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Quite frankly, I'm a little shocked that Ravenloft is a favorite in such high numbers. It makes me really wonder what people are thinking when they select it as a "campaign setting." Do they really mean that they like Ravenloft "the adventure?" Because that's not a campaign setting.

I like the adventure too, but the setting is really awful, in my opinion. It always struck me as a campaign where it doesn't really matter if your heroes win or lose. In the end, no matter what you accomplish, the "citizens" are still stuck in some weird, grim, patchwork realm. Big deal if they defeated the Dark Power ruling whatever realm they're in. It's still surrounded by six more Dark Powers, each ruling their own equally horrible realm. Yay.

If this many people really like playing in a depressing Cthulhu-esque campaign setting, I guess I stand corrected. But I really wonder if people aren't just voting on their favorite classic adventure when they click that button.

Given how popular Call of Cthulhu has been for close to 35 years now I'd suggest maybe the problem is not with people who like the gothic horror of Ravenloft, but that maybe you aren't that in to the concept of dark fantasy/horror settings. I've been running Ravenloft campaigns on and off since 1st edition when it really was just a module and not a setting.....which by the way it did develop into a very robust setting in 2E and 3E eras.

Ravenloft, along with Planescape and Spelljammer have always been settings I utilize in my gaming because they are easy to drop in and drop out of homebrews. I can take a FR or Greyhawk module and with a bit of work fit it into my world, but all I have to do to get the players to Ravenloft is to have the mists engulf them; or they can walk through a portal to Sigil for Planescape...or find some way to get on a spelljamming ship. I've used both Planescape and Ravenloft as recently as last week, so I voted for them both along with homebrew, but not Spelljammer because (despite plans to use it again soon) I haven't actually used the setting as-is for a while now (unlike the other two, Spelljammer didn't get nearly as much conversion effort for later editions).

 

[Doctor Futurity]

So what would this be:

I take the world map for Forgotten Realms, move the Moonshaes a thousand miles or so north, then take everything west of the Anauroch Desert and north of Waterdeep and replace it with my own map. On that map I keep many of the place names but move those places around*, and add in a bunch of my own stuff. Most but not all of the very long campaign takes place on the changed part of the map; occasionally they venture to true-FR places like Amn and Baldur's Gate.

* - Neverwinter ended up being a sarcastic name for that town as it was usually winter there half the year, where I ended up putting it.

FR game or homebrew game?

Lanefan

Definitely Forgotten Realms. Homebrew (okay, my definition, anyway) would work like this: take all of the above, stick it in the trash, get a fresh screen up on MS Word and a big sheet of graph paper...now start homebrewing!

 

[Gorath99]

Since every DM takes his or her own spin on things, every Forgotten Realms game is a modified Forgotten Realms game to some extent. Unless Ed Greenwood is the DM.

I don't have a quote ready, but I believe that Mr Greenwood has stated that in his games the Realms are in some ways quite a bit different from WotC's official version.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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.

The solution is quite simple... a DM gets off their ass and makes it up.

If a DM wants to use other campaign settings... they do exactly what they do if they were making their own homebrew world-- they make crap up. If they NEED the stats of a wereraven... then they make up the stats of a wereraven. If they don't WANT to make up the stats of a wereraven, then apparently they DON'T NEED the stats of a wereraven. It's not WotC's responsibility or job to make a person's life as a DM easier just because they either are really busy or really lazy. Now, there's absolutely NOTHING WRONG with being either of those things (I myself am an extremely lazy DM), so thus WotC has given us several products to help us out. But if that's not GOOD ENOUGH... then the DM has suck it up and put the work in.

I personally find Eberron to be a more interesting setting than the Realms myself. But when it came time to run Tyranny of Dragons, I tried to figure out what I would need to do to run it in Eberron rather than the Realms. And I determined that it was going to be more work than I wanted to put in. But I'm not pissed at WotC because I had to make that decision nor continually try to insinuate that they're stupid and not "looking at the big picture" nor whining that their surveys are "self-fulfilling prophecies".

WotC has made a decision that works for them, and who they've determined would be most helped by that choice. If it doesn't help someone else... then there are more than enough other sources for that person to create what they want. But they have to work to do so. Sorry. Their choice.