A New Lost DM.

[Lateralus]

Hello Enworld people!

I've been reading these forums for about a week or so, and I've learned a lot so far. I'm currently trying to DM over e-mail a game with 2 other people. As I'm trying to set up the world and the campaign, I've been reading D&DI and forums over the net. I have a question that has been bugging me a lot.

Using only the three core books, what world exactly am I playing? I know there are different worlds, or whatever they are called. I know that the Dark Sun campaign does not exist technically on the same planet or even universe as vanilla D&D, if I remember correctly. But what about these other campaigns I've read about, such a FR, Eberron, The Scales of War, the Choas Scar, etc? Are all these a part of the normal world, or are they like DS world? And if they are different, what "world" is vanilla D&D in?

I guess I'm just confused as to what is what. I know in my campaign that eventually the PC's will find their way into Sigil and from there go into the DS campaign for their Paragon tier. Is that something I can consider with these other places?

Any help would be awesome Sorry if it's confusing, what I'm trying to ask. I'm just confused about the whole situation.

 

[Henry]

First of all, welcome to ENWorld, and welcome to D&D!

Second, the first Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual (PHB, DMG, and MM) describe a generic setting that really isn't a setting, so to speak. Some people call it the Nentir Vale, or the Fallen Empire of Nerath, after the examples in the DMG, but "Nerath" isn't a campaign world in the same way that Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and others are. It's just a guideline to follow if you don't want to make your own.

The Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Eberron, etc. are all Campaign Settings that have their origins over the past 30+ years D&D has been around -- it's just like how Tolkien's Middle Earth is a setting where stories take place, and it doesn't have anything in common with Robert E. Howard's Hyboria setting for his stories, etc. They're not connected, necessarily. Planescape was the D&D creators' attempt to link all the worlds, but in the end, it's up to you, the DM, to decide if they really are connected. If you want a Sigil Portal to connect to the Nentir Vale, and another portal to connect to Athas, by all means go for it.

By default, the assumption is that Dark Sun's world Athas is not connected normally, and very hard to enter and leave, but there's nothing saying it can't happen - If you want to keep the "hard to get there" vibe, then have the portal between Sigil and Athas be only one way, or only open at random times.

The Chaos Scar and Scales of War, etc. have had places described in the Nentir Vale that they could take place, but they're generically written to fit into almost any "vanilla" D&D world you want. With minor rewriting, the Chaos Scar would probably fit into Athas/Dark Sun.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What the core books describe for setting elements (some gods, the Nentir Vale, a few other minor bits here and there) is just material that you are expected to be able to fit in a "Points of Light" style campaign. As more material has been added by other books it has come to be called the "PoL" setting or PoLand by a lot of players. Officially it isn't a setting and it lacks things like a world map, a canonical history, etc. Many of the WotC written modules are built with assumptions from the PoL material, have a defined location related to Nentir Vale, and will easily drop into a campaign that uses all that material. That material is intended to be generic enough that only minor DM fiddling should integrate most modules with most campaigns.

You can certainly do all of the things you're talking about. You can do anything. The rules of the game don't care about setting details and none of that material is sacrosanct. The DM should definitely be able to cook up almost anything they want using those ingredients.