"Cool setting, bro. But what's the hook for the PCs?"

[Bedrockgames]

It may work for you, but looking over the FR, all I see is the same drivel WOTC has always put out: kill a dragon, wizard, liche, explore ruins, rinse, repeat.

That's not badwrong fun, but it is a very simplistic approach. FR doesn't lay out boundaries, or bother to explain how trade reaches entire cities built in extreme climates.

It accommodates a single play style, unchanged since 1987.

I love details like trade and how that works in a setting. But I think for FR, and for most D&D, players and GMs are not really looking for that. I will say though there are lots of options out there for different styles of play and the best thing one can do to make those tastes more mainstream is boost such settings.

One setting I really like is HARN. There is an adventure called 100 Bushels of Rye which I would recommend to folks who want things like local resources to be a part of the adventure.

 

[Haffrung]

--An easily graspable possible premise for stories that provides a ready-made reason why disparate people might choose to hang out together and get into adventures.

The Pathfinder Society does a god job of this. The premise of an organization of explorers with lodges in every land is a great hook to hang a party or a campaign on. WFRP 3E did the same with its party cards (mercenaries, diplomats, etc.). There has to be something better in terms of integration with the setting than Superfreak Dungeon Kill Squad meets in an inn and is instantly loyal to the death.

 

[Haffrung]

I don't agree with that. When I read a section lore on the Realms, ten plots with hooks just leap out at me. Rich lore is like that. I remember the days of 1983 Greyhawk and I struggled to fill in the wide gaps. I like smaller gaps that allow me to guide the rich lore settings, rather than something that's barely a rough outline and doesn't move without 80 hours of work.

As much as the original Greyhawk folio and its poster map were totemic to my early days of D&D, it was pretty much useless as a campaign setting. If a campaign is supposed to aid the DM in defining and running his world, Greyhawk is at far too large of a scale for be useful in that respect.

Let's say I want to start a campaign in, say, Keoland. The folio entry tells me how many soldiers of various sorts the king of Keoland can raise, some of the goods it trades, and a bit about the demographic makeup of the place. How does that help me actually write an adventure? I still need to create a town or two, the nearby ruins, the dungeons, and come up with all of the factions and threats. The geography is barely sketched out, and the scale of 30 miles per hex means I'll likely play the first 10-15 or so sessions of the campaign in a single hex. As a setting, Greyhawk is far better suited to a nation vs nation wargame than boots-on-the-ground RPG adventures.

I just don't get the practical benefit of campaigns created at such a scale. If the DM still has to do 98 per cent of the work when creating adventures, why not just go the whole distance and make up the campaign from scratch? The only real value of Greyhawk for me was the classic map.

 

[nevin]

The benefit is you have all the big stuff worked out. You know where the kingdoms are, you have a rough idea of the politics. Then DM can pick an area and just go. Most games aren't big epic campaigns. If you just run normal games the campaign set gives everyone a baseline for where they are and what the world is like. If you want more than that, you are right, you should just make your own. But not everyone can pull that stuff out of thin air, and some who can just don't have time. it's a lot easer to create a local or regional story line in a box setting than to do it from scratch with no point of reference, especially for new DM's

 

[Haffrung]

The benefit is you have all the big stuff worked out. You know where the kingdoms are, you have a rough idea of the politics. Then DM can pick an area and just go. Most games aren't big epic campaigns. If you just run normal games the campaign set gives everyone a baseline for where they are and what the world is like. If you want more than that, you are right, you should just make your own. But not everyone can pull that stuff out of thin air, and some who can just don't have time. it's a lot easer to create a local or regional story line in a box setting than to do it from scratch with no point of reference, especially for new DM's

But that stuff is irrelevant in most campaigns, especially early. What does it matter who the king of the Great Kingdom or Nyrond is if the bulk of the campaign is going to take place in a half-dozen hexes in Ulek and the Lortmils?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In my Islands World setting, I have not included any specific "role" for PCs in a general sense, and I never will. It's a world wherein bad things happen, where gods bless those who go out and do great things and who have the potential to do so, and where there are a number of mysteries around.

It's up to the players to decide what their characters want to do in that world.

 

[nevin]

But that stuff is irrelevant in most campaigns, especially early. What does it matter who the king of the Great Kingdom or Nyrond is if the bulk of the campaign is going to take place in a half-dozen hexes in Ulek and the Lortmils?

that depends on if the politics, or groups from that area have anything to do with your game. If the bulk of your game only plays in one small area and no one ever considers the rest of the world you still have the backdrop for that area, the gods, the general things the kingdom makes money on etc. If you ever go past that then it's there.

But saying it's all useless because you like to play games in a small area and never take your part out of it isn't a good reason to not create an entire campaign world for those who might use more.
Honestly if you don't care about that stuff, you can just run a campaign on modules, just change up the intros and place em on your own personal map and not buy the campaign setting. But having played since 1979, I can tell you all that as a new DM , Greyhawk and then 1e forgotten realms stuff made our games much better and made it easier. Reading all that gave me more confidence to DM. I felt like I new enough to be competent. Sounds like you don't run sandbox style games. If you don't, having all that extra stuff may be pointless.

It also helps the players get into the game. They can read that stuff and they aren't constantly asking the DM, a ton of questions about what the culture or kingdom is like. they feel more comfortable because they have a basic understanding for locations, culture, gods etc.

 

[Haffrung]

Honestly if you don't care about that stuff, you can just run a campaign on modules, just change up the intros and place em on your own personal map and not buy the campaign setting. But having played since 1979, I can tell you all that as a new DM , Greyhawk and then 1e forgotten realms stuff made our games much better and made it easier. Reading all that gave me more confidence to DM. I felt like I new enough to be competent. Sounds like you don't run sandbox style games. If you don't, having all that extra stuff may be pointless.

I've run sandbox games. But they typically take place in areas of no more than 300 miles by 300 miles - or less than 5 per cent of the Greyhawk map. I'd have oved it if TSR or WotC produced a sourcebook for an area of Greyhawk that size, with writeups of towns, castles, lairs, factions, adventure hooks, etc. Something the next step up from Hommlet when the PCs are levels 3-8. But for reasons that aren't clear to me, D&D publishers didn't like to create setting content at that scale.

 

[darkbard]

I've run sandbox games. But they typically take place in areas of no more than 300 miles by 300 miles - or less than 5 per cent of the Greyhawk map. I'd have oved it if TSR or WotC produced a sourcebook for an area of Greyhawk that size, with writeups of towns, castles, lairs, factions, adventure hooks, etc. Something the next step up from Hommlet when the PCs are levels 3-8. But for reasons that aren't clear to me, D&D publishers didn't like to create setting content at that scale.

Are you familiar with Fourth Edition's Nentir Vale? It matches rather neatly what you say you like best.

 

[Don Durito]

I feel the opposite is more the issue.

Lots of hooks, but I'm left asking why I need a new setting for these hooks. What is it that I can only do in this setting?