Difference between FR, Eberron, Middle Earth, Greyhawk etc.

[Chrome]

Thank you all for your posts (except maybe the farout Middle Earth insider jokes )

I have enjoyed reading them and I am glad I am not the only one who thinks the standard adventure can be set anywhere and not the only one whose players care nothing about the setting.

Any hints for how to introduce more elements of the setting into the game and make the players more interested in the setting?

Would it help to change to something completely different like spelljammer, ravenloft etc.?

 

[pawsplay]

Just see how easy it is to converter eg. Paizos adventure path to another setting - it basically comes down to changing some names!

So what? It doesn't take much more effort to convert a Gamma World, Boot Hill, or Star Wars adventure to D&D, either. Just scratch out "Imperial officer" and write in "Thayan wizard."

 

[buzz]

So what? It doesn't take much more effort to convert a Gamma World, Boot Hill, or Star Wars adventure to D&D, either. Just scratch out "Imperial officer" and write in "Thayan wizard."

I think that has more to do with the basic model for GW and SW being the same as D&D, but, respectively, "in apocalyptic wasteland" and "in space." Boot Hill I dunno, though. I thnk you might not be able to say the same about an adventure for a different prardigm, like Call of Cthulhu, Champions, or Unknown Armies.

But then we start sliding down the slippery slope of "there are only so many plots".

 

[buzz]

Any hints for how to introduce more elements of the setting into the game and make the players more interested in the setting?

You need to tie the PCs to the setting, i.e., the setting should impact the mechanics.

E.g., mixing the Affiliation rules from PHB2 with Eberron's Houses would give mechanical impact to a very prominent aspect of the setting. The more the PCs interact with their House, the more the system rewards them.

 

[pawsplay]

But then we start sliding down the slippery slope of "there are only so many plots".

Even if there are not only so many plots, you sure do run into the same ones a lot.

But seriously, you could use a Call of Cthulhu adventure. It would just end with a boss fight instead of the insane asylum.

Any time I get stuck for a D&D adventure idea, I just think about scenes from Star Wars, start replacing characters with analogs, and work my way backwards to how that scene came about. Like, hmm, Darth Maul is a tough guy, a hobgoblin with a two-bladed sword would be cool, we'll keep the cloak, lose the tattoos.... he works for an evil old guy, so this guy should, too.... lich would be to obvious, how about a rakshasa? So then we need a battle in a perilous locale, the inside of a castle is fine... how about that ironworks room from Legend of Drunken Master? So the PCs are rescuing important NPCs from inside the castle... princesses are overdone, so let's go with a halfling merchant.

In general, once you've made a few accomidations, the overt resemblance to the original is gone.

And that definitely applies to the OP. Sure, you can use an adventure by scratching out "Bane" and writing in the name of a different deity. But just doing that changes the adventure. Every name change, every geographic difference alters the context of the adventure.

It's not that the settings are indistinguishable, just that games set in the various worlds all gravitate toward a certain adventuring paradigm. That has partly to do with cultural tradition, partly with game mechanics, and partly with the fact that various worlds do have some similarities.

 

[buzz]

But seriously, you could use a Call of Cthulhu adventure. It would just end with a boss fight instead of the insane asylum.

That's a pretty fundamental difference, though.

 

[WayneLigon]

Could some of you clever guys please explain some difference between the setting, what makes the fantasy settings different.

Certainly some fantasy settings are going to be similar. When the largest influence on most games is Northern European Middle Ages/Dark Ages, then you're going to wind up with a certain degree of similarity among settings because you're starting from the same baseline and the same assumptions.

Some settings make a conscious effort to distance themselves from those roots, while others embrace them. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and for the most part Eberron embrace those assumptions (thought Eberron moves the furthest from them).

Look at Tekumel. The assumptions there are not Western Europe but China, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Instead of knights on horseback, you don't even have metal armor or riding beasts. There is no patchwork of small feudal kingdoms: the ancient empires divided up the world among them long ago and protect their lands jealously. Being a landless adventurer is to be an outcast.

 

[buzz]

Look at Tekumel. The assumptions there are not Western Europe but China, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Instead of knights on horseback, you don't even have metal armor or riding beasts. There is no patchwork of small feudal kingdoms: the ancient empires divided up the world among them long ago and protect their lands jealously. Being a landless adventurer is to be an outcast.

Interstingly, though, in the original setup, PCs were barbarians (i.e., outside the social strucutre, i.e., adventurers) who spent a good deal of their time looting underground ruins for ancient technology.

And the scenario I played at GenCon in '04 was basically, "You're hried by a noble to retrieve and item from a local thieves' guild." Granted, the setting color made for interesting motivations and characters.

 

[WayneLigon]

And the scenario I played at GenCon in '04 was basically, "You're hried by a noble to retrieve and item from a local thieves' guild." Granted, the setting color made for interesting motivations and characters.

Yeah, I'd think a Con game would not be the best showcase for Tekumel, unless it was the servants of several factions squaring off to find something at the behest of their masters.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The feel of Greyhawk is close to standard D&D (since it's where D&D began), but a few "differences" might not be obvious:
- A small amount of sci fi (crashed spacecraft, the Dr. Who-like first adventure Temple of the Frog)

Just to pick a nit... Temple of the Frog was set in Blackmoor.