Your ideal setting

[Desdichado]

Regardless of ruleset used (3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, GURPS, Unisystem, WoD... anything) what does your ideal fantasy setting look like?

I'm just curious; I'll chime in with a few of my ideas as well.

In addition, are you playing your ideal fantasy setting, or are you making concessions to your ideal to accomodate your group? If so, what concessions are you making?

I find that edition changes create discussion that it quickly tiring, but they also prompt me to rethink a lot of things.

 

[Jack99]

Planescape is by far my favorite, but my players never really took a liking to it. They prefer my homebrew ones, so that is what I run.

If PS gets re-released under 4e, I might give it another try. See if 10 years has changed the minds of my players.

 

[Desdichado]

Sorry; I didn't mean merely list published settings (although if it really is ideal in every way, then feel free); rather list what elements your ideal setting would have.

I wasn't very clear, I realize; I'm such a confirmed homebrewer that I always assume setting discussions are about homebrew.

 

[Byronic]

My ideal setting is custom made with a lot of input from the players.
A custom made race, new villages and cities, different cosmology, different deities, different role of said deities, eccentricities not found in the usual dnd setting (like specific fighting styles that aren't found in the rules)

I suppose it's simply going nuts with friends.

 

[Cadfan]

Mostly, I just don't want a lot to memorize. The DM can do whatever he likes, as long as he doesn't try to make us sit down and read an amateur atlas of an imaginary world. Its like looking at slides of someone else's vacation, except worse.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm using Praemal, the world of Ptolus. It's pretty much everything I want: steampunk (but in decline, so I can restrict goodies as needed), semi-monotheistic, an empire on the verge of the dark ages and a big setting that's lightly sketched for most of the world and hyper-detailed in Ptolus itself, which suits me for when I want to just jump right into playing.

It's also heavy enough to stun a charging rhino, should the need arise.

 

[Desdichado]

A few things that my ideal setting has to have.

1. No elves.
2. No alignment. Anyone could potentially be good, evil, or indifferent. And certainly "good" and "evil" aren't anything like team jerseys; "good" guys could be bitter enemies with each other, for instance.
3. New races. I'm particularly fond of goblinoids coming to the fore as a civilized race that must be dealt with as if they were a "PC" race, not a "monster" race where you assume that you can kill one on sight. I like other races too. Like tieflings, for example.
4. Downplay traditional, Vancian magic. I prefer to have that be rare—PCs if they choose to go that route, while spellcaster NPCs might well be binders, wu jen, psions, or who knows what else. In theory, I would even use a system other than D&D where traditional Vancian type magic isn't available.
5. Much more Arabian Nights and classic Sword & Sorcery rather than High Fantasy. I'm not going to out-Tolkien Tolkien anytime soon, and if I tried, my own relative lameness would be readily apparent.
6. Machiavellian plots, often centered around the manipulation of powerful outsiders, drive storylines.
7. Gods are distant, or even absent. The pantheon of worshipped gods might even be made up of transparently veiled archfiends.
8. Horror. I'm infamous for having every game I ever run starts to develop disturbing similarities to Call of Cthulhu.
9. I like pirates, black powder weapons, cannons, sailing ships, dinosaurs, zepellins and other stuff that's more properly swashbuckling and/or pulpish in nature rather than strictly "medieval fantasy." My homebrews don't ever resemble very traditional fantasy settings very closely anymore.

 

[Dan Bell]

I like the rules free HarnWorld stuff found on www.lythia.com
(It is a published setting but I write for it, so that sort counts, right?)

 

[Darrin Drader]

My ideal setting is usually very generic, self contained, with plenty of room for me to inject my own flavor into the material. For that reason, I've been a big fan of the DCC world since it was released. It has all the charm of the old TSR 1st edition pseudo settings that were really just a framework that allowed DMs to paint the walls, change the carpeting, reshingle, and build additions without breaking the place.

I do enjoy some settings that have more specific flavor and development, much like the Forgotten Realms. However, due to the recent unexpected rearrangement of the Forgotten Realms, it reminds me of that house that I used to live in when I was a child where I have a lot of fond memories, but looking at it now, I hardly recognize it. I am really liking what I'm seeing with Golarion, so I've ordered the Gazateer and pre-ordered the campaign setting. This world is clearly the opposite of my ideal setting, but I'm finding that it has a charm, appeal, and rawness that I haven't seen with a setting in a long time. I'm leaning towards giving it a spin when I start up a Pathfinder game this fall.

 

[jdrakeh]

Like this:

Or, alternately, like the Known World (no hot linking allowed)