Campaign setting recommendations

[Desdichado]

Slowing down level gain is a goal of mine as well. I'm up for suggestions.

Give less XP? It's easy to do, the hard part may be convincing the players of it.

 

[Fenes 2]

Give less XP? It's easy to do, the hard part may be convincing the players of it.

In our group we don't use xp anymore, we just level up when we see fit (i.e. if a player wants to and the rest agrees). In one weekly campaign we have been level 14 for more than 6 months now.

I'd drop the Encounter xp, and go with pure story/achievement based xp, that way you can advance the party in a pace you are comfortable with.

 

[kenjib]

Many nations in Kalamar mirror our own. It's actually debated over on the KoK boards which nation fits closest to a nation here on our earth.

But the ties are not as explicit as they are in Forgotten Realms. You can't really argue anything other than that the Horde = the Mongols, Mullorhand = Egypt, and Maztica = meso-america. However, you can decide that Svimhozia could be either Africa, India, or Meso-America or a mix between the three. You could decide that Reanaarians are Italian, Greek, Spanish, Roma, or some mix between them. You could argue that Brandobians are French, English, or even Germanic if you wanted. The Kalamarans could have a Holy Roman Empire feel, but then that's hard to do without a monotheistic church, so maybe kind of like the old Roman Empire but not really. The dejy range all over the place, in a way they are an usurped indigenous population like Native Americans, yet they have a decided arab feel at times. The wild lands are kind of like the vikings except that there is none of the mythology, seafaring, or raiding of viking history. Wait a minute - can you really be like vikings without all of that?

It's one thing to lift something directly out of history, gods and all. It's another to take various influences from history and weave them together into something new, yet just familiar enough to help you to bring it to life.

I don't think that Forgotten Realms does not have it's own advantages over Kalamar though. Primarily what strikes me with FR is a sense of wonder and a place filled with exotic and magical locales. Kalamar is not as prolific with ancient ruins, enchanted forests, long forgotten artifacts, occult cabals, and the like. It is more geared toward political machinations and the cold, cruel, reality of ambition, scarcity, conquest, and competition. For some people, this is a key factor in why FR is preferrable.

 

[Orias]

The fact is that people's problems with the Realms have been heard over & over again. I still stand by my statement that Forgotten Realms is the best designed, well-thought out setting since Arda.

The comment about Forgotten Realms not having intelligent trade routes is about moot. First of all, you are in a magical setting. Achieving specific items & resources is either much more difficult, or much more simple than in real life, because instead of just being able to cut down specific tress, or mine specific metals, you have to deal with mythological creatures & hazards, who equally make less sense than the trade routes you are attacking. Then, you have ways by which to deliver goods in a non-realistic setting, & then you also have routes that you cannot trade on, because of populations of mythological creatures, & because of existing empires who you haven't gotten along with, longer than reality man has existed on reality earth. The whole trade route argument just doesn't add up, because frankly you can't understand the conditions of each country until you have read down to the very last fiber about what the country produces, it's history, it's employment rate, this that, whatever. It's too big of an issue to understand in a FICTIONAL setting that you aren't able to look at in a realistic manner.

The next comment about the cultures being "sloppy" is laughable. The cultures in Forgotten Realms actually have been developed. You can trace their ancestors, & you can trace their immigration, & why they are the way they are. You can see their wars, their advancements, & their falls. You can see the people who came from those cultures, & what they did. You can see how they developed their language, & who they borrowed their alphabet from. Just because the Egyptians got gated in from Prime Earth doesn't make it sloppy. Almost all of the races in Fearun came from one portal or another. There were only five races in the beginning of Toril in the first place, but now there are thousands. So just because humans do it, it is sloppy, where almost every setting uses the Lower Planes?

THen you have Kenjib arguing that Kalamr's cultures are soooo much more diverse than Forgotten Realms, & siting "well, out of the handful of cultures, they reflect a mix of earth's settings, but out of the dozens of FR's, I am going to pick three & use them as examples, instead of talking about the racial diversity of Tethyr, or the cultural mix of Halruaa & Dambrath, or any of the other countries". It's replies like this that makes me question if anyone has read anything more than other people's commentaries on what their problems with FR is, rather than actually reading the main books.

Then, the next problem is usually that the books are used as "canon", which they usually are not. Some of the books have been inducted into canon, some of the books actually were written to further the story of the Realms, but a majority of the Realms books are stated as non-canon. If your players have a problem with that, then it is the DM's stance to put his/her foot down & say "NO". Just because you have some players who have read a few books doesn't mean that you have to let them or do this. Did you read the first page of the FR setting? Either the second or third edition?

Next, you have people complaining about high-level PCs. That is a problem to many people, but how do you expect a setting ran in the D&D rules to exist, with all of these different cultures & wars, yet to NOT have people achieve the levels that Elminster does, particually in a setting where gods walk the earth? I understand if that's a problem people have with play, but it should never be anything that takes center stage.

The fact is that we are playing in a FANTASY setting. Things are FANTASTICAL. Things don't always make sense, nor should they. If I want everything to exist in a geographically realistic manner, I would play in Earth, remove magic, remove fantastic monsters, & just play fuedal battles, but that isn't what I want. I want magic, swords, dragons, knights, liches, & all that sort. I want adventures & dungeons that have existed for thousands of years undiscovered. I want the chance to see a being from another world.

Kalamar is just too close to earth to me. It has it's advantages, but all of the cultures do seem like a bland rip-off of earths. Granted FR also has their own that seem this way, but years of products & meta-plot has kind of changed that for many places, Mulhorand included. So you have vikings in your setting, so why are you complaining when I have egyptians in mine. It's all a matter of personal preference.

 

[kenjib]

THen you have Kenjib arguing that Kalamr's cultures are soooo much more diverse than Forgotten Realms, & siting "well, out of the handful of cultures, they reflect a mix of earth's settings, but out of the dozens of FR's, I am going to pick three & use them as examples, instead of talking about the racial diversity of Tethyr, or the cultural mix of Halruaa & Dambrath, or any of the other countries". It's replies like this that makes me question if anyone has read anything more than other people's commentaries on what their problems with FR is, rather than actually reading the main books.

Before you question what I have and haven't read, please consider that I never generalized my comments to other parts of FR as you seem to think I have. I fully acknowledge that it is only a few places in FR and not others and never did I say that this applied to all of FR across the board. However, that only serves to make those specific cases stick out as more of a sore thumb in my (entirely subjective and not yours etc. etc. BS disclaimer) opinion.

In fact, I never even stated or implied anywhere that "Kalamr's [sic] cultures are soooo much more diverse than Forgotten Realms." This statement is entirely of your own devising. Your claim is that I am over-generalizing, when in truth it is your post that is making that leap, not mine.

 

[Desdichado]

The fact is that people's problems with the Realms have been heard over & over again. I still stand by my statement that Forgotten Realms is the best designed, well-thought out setting since Arda.

They're oft repeated because they are perennial problems that remain unaddressed, not because non-FR fanboys are broken records that don't know what they're talking about. And, seriously, how can you say that FR is well thought out? Any cursorial glance of the history of the setting proves that to be completely fallacious -- FR was cobbled together over the better part of a decade and a half by folks that didn't care or didn't even always know what the vision of the setting was. The fact that 3e FR tries to explain away some of the resultant silliness doesn't make the setting well-thought out, it just means the current authors had a modicum of sense, and did some feverish retconning to make it try to fit.

The comment about Forgotten Realms not having intelligent trade routes is about moot. First of all, you are in a magical setting. Achieving specific items & resources is either much more difficult, or much more simple than in real life, because instead of just being able to cut down specific tress, or mine specific metals, you have to deal with mythological creatures & hazards, who equally make less sense than the trade routes you are attacking. Then, you have ways by which to deliver goods in a non-realistic setting, & then you also have routes that you cannot trade on, because of populations of mythological creatures, & because of existing empires who you haven't gotten along with, longer than reality man has existed on reality earth. The whole trade route argument just doesn't add up, because frankly you can't understand the conditions of each country until you have read down to the very last fiber about what the country produces, it's history, it's employment rate, this that, whatever. It's too big of an issue to understand in a FICTIONAL setting that you aren't able to look at in a realistic manner.

So your answer to that issue is handwaving "it's fantasy, it's fiction, not enough data?" Hopefully you can see why critics find this response unsatisfactory. Of course you'll continue to hear this criticism if this is the best answer FR's got.

The next comment about the cultures being "sloppy" is laughable. The cultures in Forgotten Realms actually have been developed. You can trace their ancestors, & you can trace their immigration, & why they are the way they are. You can see their wars, their advancements, & their falls. You can see the people who came from those cultures, & what they did. You can see how they developed their language, & who they borrowed their alphabet from. Just because the Egyptians got gated in from Prime Earth doesn't make it sloppy. Almost all of the races in Fearun came from one portal or another. There were only five races in the beginning of Toril in the first place, but now there are thousands. So just because humans do it, it is sloppy, where almost every setting uses the Lower Planes?

I hardly know what to say to that. You have egyptians, you have meso-americans, you have pseudo-Chinese when Kara-Tur was tacked on, you have the Mongols -- you either are being wilfully blind or you simply don't know what you're talking about.

THen you have Kenjib arguing that Kalamr's cultures are soooo much more diverse than Forgotten Realms, & siting "well, out of the handful of cultures, they reflect a mix of earth's settings, but out of the dozens of FR's, I am going to pick three & use them as examples, instead of talking about the racial diversity of Tethyr, or the cultural mix of Halruaa & Dambrath, or any of the other countries". It's replies like this that makes me question if anyone has read anything more than other people's commentaries on what their problems with FR is, rather than actually reading the main books.

Don't assume FR critics haven't read the main books. I'm mostly a critic, and as I've said many times on this thread, I have the main book and consider it a valuable resource. Some cultures are indeed interesting -- the Red Wizards of Thay I find fascinating, Calimport I find interesting. But nobody said Kalamar was more diverse. Maybe if you read any of the actual complaints, you'd realize that the senseless diversity of FR culture in general is the complaint. It's not a lack of diversity, it's a lack of anything tying them together. This post makes me wonder if you're just cutting and pasting your arguments from some other thread where someone maybe made different complaints about the setting?

Then, the next problem is usually that the books are used as "canon", which they usually are not. Some of the books have been inducted into canon, some of the books actually were written to further the story of the Realms, but a majority of the Realms books are stated as non-canon. If your players have a problem with that, then it is the DM's stance to put his/her foot down & say "NO". Just because you have some players who have read a few books doesn't mean that you have to let them or do this. Did you read the first page of the FR setting? Either the second or third edition?

Absolutely. Wonder why they had to put that in so prominantly at the very front of the book? You can handwave it aside all you want, but some groups really struggle with players who can't accept any Realms other than their own personal vision filtered down through scores of novels, many of which were not written with the game in mind in the least. It may not be a problem for you and your group, but you can hardly say it's not a problem just because of a sentence or two in the Introduction. That doesn't really solve anything.

Next, you have people complaining about high-level PCs. That is a problem to many people, but how do you expect a setting ran in the D&D rules to exist, with all of these different cultures & wars, yet to NOT have people achieve the levels that Elminster does, particually in a setting where gods walk the earth? I understand if that's a problem people have with play, but it should never be anything that takes center stage.

Again, nobody in this thread, at least, has complained about NPCs taking center stage, they've complained about the logic of why these ubermensch wouldn't take center stage. It's a gap in critical thinking that turns people off, it's not a question of "I have to use Elminster to actually save the day" here. Again, have you read any of the responses in this thread, or are you retreading some prior argument? You're actually not addressing the problem pointed out in this thread.

The fact is that we are playing in a FANTASY setting. Things are FANTASTICAL. Things don't always make sense, nor should they. If I want everything to exist in a geographically realistic manner, I would play in Earth, remove magic, remove fantastic monsters, & just play fuedal battles, but that isn't what I want. I want magic, swords, dragons, knights, liches, & all that sort. I want adventures & dungeons that have existed for thousands of years undiscovered. I want the chance to see a being from another world.

So do I. That doesn't mean I say "It's FANTASY so anything goes." That is, and I use the word again, sloppy. It may not bother you, or even most gamers, for that matter, but it clearly bothers those of us who complain about it.

Kalamar is just too close to earth to me. It has it's advantages, but all of the cultures do seem like a bland rip-off of earths. Granted FR also has their own that seem this way, but years of products & meta-plot has kind of changed that for many places, Mulhorand included. So you have vikings in your setting, so why are you complaining when I have egyptians in mine. It's all a matter of personal preference.

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that. More power to you if the FR is right up your alley. But don't present your tastes as truisms or facts, and not expect someone with a different opinion to accept it.

 

[Enceladus]

So do I. That doesn't mean I say "It's FANTASY so anything goes." That is, and I use the word again, sloppy. It may not bother you, or even most gamers, for that matter, but it clearly bothers those of us who complain about it.

Somebody needs a cookie.

Have a cookie?

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that. More power to you if the FR is right up your alley. But don't present your tastes as truisms or facts, and not expect someone with a different opinion to accept it.

He's not, he's sticking by his statement. Who's trying shove who's opinion down who's throat?

 

[Desdichado]

Enceladus, what's your deal? I'm not trying to shove anyone's opinion down anyone's throat, nor am I being snarky in the least. Orias has made some patently false claims, and I've pointed that out. He's also presented anyone who doesn't like the FR as some kind of ignorant troll who doesn't know what they're talking about, which I take a little bit of umbrage to. I've consistently said if FR suits you, great. That doesn't, however, mean that it suits everyone and anyone's compaints about it are automatically ignorant or invalid.

 

[Orias]

They're oft repeated because they are perennial problems that remain unaddressed, not because non-FR fanboys are broken records that don't know what they're talking about. And, seriously, how can you say that FR is well thought out? Any cursorial glance of the history of the setting proves that to be completely fallacious -- FR was cobbled together over the better part of a decade and a half by folks that didn't care or didn't even always know what the vision of the setting was. The fact that 3e FR tries to explain away some of the resultant silliness doesn't make the setting well-thought out, it just means the current authors had a modicum of sense, and did some feverish retconning to make it try to fit.

Give me examples of this. If the history of it is so cluttered, as you say it is, what examples do you have in the Realms of blatant historical contradiction within itself?

So your answer to that issue is handwaving "it's fantasy, it's fiction, not enough data?" Hopefully you can see why critics find this response unsatisfactory. Of course you'll continue to hear this criticism if this is the best answer FR's got.

Then explain dragons & magic. It's fantasy, if I wanted to play real life, that's what I would do.

I hardly know what to say to that. You have egyptians, you have meso-americans, you have pseudo-Chinese when Kara-Tur was tacked on, you have the Mongols -- you either are being wilfully blind or you simply don't know what you're talking about.

Not know what I am talking about? I stated that Mulhorand is Egypt. In fact, they basically came out & said "The Mulhorandi people were gated over from actual Egypt". What I am saying is that you are saying that this manner of stating a culture's existance is "sloppy", yet every setting uses that for one set of beings or another.

But nobody said Kalamar was more diverse. Maybe if you read any of the actual complaints, you'd realize that the senseless diversity of FR culture in general is the complaint. It's not a lack of diversity, it's a lack of anything tying them together. This post makes me wonder if you're just cutting and pasting your arguments from some other thread where someone maybe made different complaints about the setting?

And I wasn't arguing one being "more diverse" than the other. The fact is that someone stated "Well, you have cultures that are ripped from real life on Toril, but you can't possibly say that about Kalamar", when in fact you most certainly can.

It may not be a problem for you and your group, but you can hardly say it's not a problem just because of a sentence or two in the Introduction. That doesn't really solve anything.

It's not a problem. If your players whine, point to that sentence in the book.

So do I. That doesn't mean I say "It's FANTASY so anything goes." That is, and I use the word again, sloppy. It may not bother you, or even most gamers, for that matter, but it clearly bothers those of us who complain about it.

As I said before, you are not able to actually determine just exactly why a trade route exists in a game unless you have developed why those trade routes exist, & why or how that culture collects its resources. Once you know that, you can start getting bitter towards things like trade routes, & inconsistant coast-lines. But until then, it doesn't matter. Play a game & have fun with it. You're arguing a point that is entirely moot because it is a fantasy setting. It isn't inconsistant, because the very idea of such a world existing is inconsistant.

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that. More power to you if the FR is right up your alley. But don't present your tastes as truisms or facts, and not expect someone with a different opinion to accept it.

Same to you. I am arguing my position on a fantasy setting. I stated my opinion, & then you stated why I was so incredibly "wrong", & now you are backing into a "don't state your opinion as facts" - again, same to you.

 

[Enceladus]

What my deal...

Issues run long and deep my friend.

This reminds me of a few threads ago when Fenes2 got ganged up on about how he uses the system. No one can have their own mind it seems without someone attacking them from every angle. Get off the guy.

If you look back on this thread you'll see a lot of needless wrangling. It seems you're trying to convince this guy he's wrong when you don't need to. When someone comes under attack like that their going to try and defend themselves, and of course there's the obligatory counter, counter attack. It's a big fat waste of time. And it not just you, heck I've been guilty of it from time to time but I'm done. People like what they like and thats the end of it, you could argue about who's right and who's wrong for a decade and it will get you nowhere.

Agree?