Disaffected and Affected Setting fans!

[Henry]

Forgotten Realms

The Hook:I've always liked snippets of the Realms ever since old Dragon magazines. However, I was not much of a fan until playing in a game in 2001 under a DM who lived, breathed, and ate Realmslore. He reminded me of something I had been sleeping at the switch on: How to breathe life into a campaign, and make it seem dynamic. The fact that he kept the attention of THIRTEEN PLAYERS for several months told me that he was a pretty darned good DM, and told me that FR was a really great setting once you got past any problem players trying to force a certain "vision" on the rest of the group. (it didn't happen to us, because we've got a pretty easygoing group, but the fear of it happening kept me away from using the FR for years.)

The Line: The excessive detail of the setting was its strength, not a weakness to me. If I want an encyclopedic campaign world, here is where I go.

The Sinker: I'll always have a place for the Realms in my heart and gaming table when I feel the urge, but I do have to say the sweeping changes that have been hinted at is leaving me cold to it. If I run again, unless the new setting blows me away with some unrevealed knowledge, I think all my realms gaming will be at 1372DR and previous.

Eberron

The Hook:The pictures of the lightning rail, the new role for half-elves, the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the Last War and it's Pulp 1920's and 30's undertones sold me on this setting. The new role for Hobgoblins as a fallen empire with a still-proud people, Orcs who were not your typical "crush-kill" orcs, etc. had me looking.

The Line:I still enjoy Eberron. I have run two fairly large campaigns in it (1st to 10th, and 11th to 16th levels). I will probably one day run it again.

The Sinker:Nothing has sunk me yet, and James Wyatt's recent news that they heard the fans are AREN'T advancing the timeline per se have made me happy; I feel like it's sticking to the original 2004 vision for the setting, with lots of options, but not injecting a lot of continuity issues, etc. that DMs will have to deal with.

 

[rossik]

Forgotten Realms:

why i started
Along with the 2ed , FR was the first set published here in Brazil. i loved the fact that npcs had stats, and the huge maps...oh my!

i DMed the adventure about 4 times (the one with elminster healing people as he plays with his dog....in portuguese, the pun doesnt make any sense)

why im not playing
just too many things! the world is so big that i cant understand it as a whole. also, magic is so overpower!!

Dragonlance:

why i started
bought the box from a friend for 20 R$ (About 9 or 10 US). just loved how "human" the characters looked to me. the whole war of the lance was amazing, the new combinations of classes and races was very cool. i still play it, till the summer of chaos. after that, there is no dragonlance



so, i have player a little Dark Sun (loved to punch everyone!), Planescape (liked being a tiefling, but...thats it), Ravenloft (very cool and dark!), birthright (just once, and was a little highlander like ), netherill (we died traying to get the stuff for karsus avatar spell) and menzoberranzan (dont liked much, a little confunsing on the maps)

 

[Desdichado]

Just the settings that I actually consciously either played or ran in. Back when I was doing B/X it wasn't in Mystara, though---we were homebrewing.

Eberron

What I liked about it. It was new. It was shiny. It was pulp. It was noir. It was "D&D does Raiders of the Lost Ark and then comes back to Sharn for a bit of Casablanca.

Why the setting lost me. Well, technically it didn't---there's just more stuff out there than I really need or can afford at the moment. It's still my intention---and with 4e on the horizion, this seems easier than ever---to go back and eventually pick up all the old 3.5 products and have a complete run of the Eberron material. Probably buy it used from eBay or something, for most of them. Although maybe that belongs in why the setting got me back. Honestly, though, the main problem with me and settings is that I enjoy homebrewing too much. I like giving settings a "test drive", and I love them to piratically loot them for stuff I think is cool, but I don't really like setting long term campaigns in published settings anyway.

Forgotten Realms

Never really liked it that much. The 3e book was really nice, and has lots of good ideas to steal, but the setting itself just isn't my cuppa.

Greyhawk

Even less than FR. The silly names were part of the problem. The Duchy of Geoff? Verbobonc? But the total blandness of the setting is really what killed it for me. Never cared for it.

Planescape

I initially liked the idea, but the cant bugged the crap out of me, the wonky rules about how everything changed when you went to this or that plane, and finally, the Great Wheel itself and it's utter absurdity finally drove me off. It'd still like to play some occasional mini-campaign stuff here, but it's no longer even close to a "favorite" for me.

Dark Sun

I really liked how the designers of this were so willing to go far afield from "regular" D&D. Sadly, for every really cool idea they had, they had an equally dumb one (or at least one that I really didn't like.) The "blowing up the setting via novels" was the nail in the coffin. Still; a great setting to raid for ideas.

Dragonlance

Loved the art. Liked the books well enough. Never cared for the idea of running a game set there, though. Plus, they came out when I had already wandered away from AD&D in frustration at the rules anyway.

Iron Kingdoms

Still my favorite (non-homebrew) setting today. It's quintessentially D&D in many ways, yet it other ways it's still light-years away doing it's own thing. I like 1) that there's few books, so it's actually followable, and 2) the steampunk elements---actual steampunk too, using the word correctly instead of as a buzzword, and 3) the gritty, hard-bitten, semi-military feel. Kinda reminds of Black Company in some ways.

Great stuff. And beautiful books. Not quite as beautiful as the Warmachine and Hordes books, but only because those are in full color.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Forgotten Realms

What hooked me into the setting:
The module Under Illefarn. Not only was this a module, it was a little mini-setting that I fell in love with. I quickly got into the 2e version of the setting, picking up such wonderful products as Ruins of Myth Drannor, The Seven Sisters, Drow of the Underdark, and Menzoberranzan (amongst others).

Why the setting lost me
I got heavily involved with Dragonlance. After that, the Realms, Greyhawk, and other similar worlds seemed “generic.”

Why the setting couldn't hold me.
I don’t know. Sorta felt like I’ve been there, done that. I like the Realms, but it just seems like I’ve moved on. I can’t say the 3e version of the Realms has held my attention either. The whole feel is different. And what’s up with Elminster? Did “Queer Eye for the Mage Guy” get ahold of him? He’s just not the same.


Great topic, Merric! I’ll try to come up with more.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Dragonlance

What hooked me into the setting:
Everything. Great role-playing game, great story. It just spoke volumes to me. I love the knights, wizards, and dragons. The races are fantastic.

Why I didn’t keep up with the setting.
The setting never lost me, but I felt that Dragonlance came to its logical end with Dragons of Summer Flame. When the Fifth Age came out, I was aghast. The world was unrecognizable. The rules were SAGA rather than D&D. So I kept gaming in pre-Fifth Age Dragonlance using AD&D rules.

Why I came back.
Several reasons. My involvement with the Dragonlance Nexus. The War of Souls. The return of Dragonlance to D&D rules, even if the edition changed. It was the setting I knew again, and it had grown. I saw many Fifth Age elements through new light, and saw some elements I didn’t like go by the wayside.

To this day, Dragonlance is my favorite setting. I love it.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Shadowrun

What hooked me into the setting:
It was kinda like D&D in a near-future world. Cybernetics, magic…it was all good.

Why I didn’t keep up with the setting.
The GM we had couldn’t look beyond the modules. She was a bit dull, sad to say. Vampires around every corner. I’m not sure I liked the geography either. I also don’t like games where you’re hired to do a job. I’d rather have some greater, personal motivation and see some good vs. evil going on.

What would bring me back.
A better GM (or me GM’ing the setting), making it a bit more like Urban Arcana.


Legend of the Five Rings

What hooked me into the setting:
Great flavor! Love the clans, love the magic.

Why I didn’t keep up with the setting.
My character died, and I couldn’t come up with a good replacement. Also, I played in several Heroes of Rokugan (Living Rokugan) games, and I disliked that they weren’t heroic in nature. Some, you had to let a murderer go.

What would bring me back.
GM’ing it my way (heroic!). Adding a little more D&D flavor to it. I’m one of those rare fans who likes the d20 version, though I also like the d10 version. Both are great.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Various other setting thoughts…

Al-Qadim – Great feel to it. I would have loved to have played it right after Aladdin came out.

Dark Sun – This is a very different type of D&D game! Love the races and the fact that psionics are involved.

Dragonstar – Never played it, but it looks so cool! Fantasy sci-fi rocks.

Eberron – I’m not entirely certain about the pulp fantasy feel, but props for this being different. Love the races, particularly the warforged. It has psionics, and it isn’t even a world like Dark Sun. I haven’t ruled out Eberron by any means. I’d like to play it more to get a better feel for it.

Greyhawk – I liked some of the personalities, but overall the setting was so generic. I tended to use what Greyhawk modules I had in the Realms. Had I played the old modules, then maybe I would have felt differently.

Planescape – I never liked the art nor the slang. I can’t stand the term “berk.” I expected it to be more like Manual of the Planes with a central setting, but they renamed the planes and it became something different. I just never got into it.

Spelljammer – I think this setting is so much fun. Fantasy space travel is cool. I’d probably tweak the cosmology a bit, but I’d definitely play this again.

Star Wars – Fantastic movies, great games. ‘Nuff said!

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Also, the novels, which had begun quite well, had begun to take a definite turn to the worse. Of course, they let Jean Rabe write a novel as well. (You know, a setting seems to take a definite turn for the worse whenever Jean Rabe gets involved with it...)

Not cool at all Merric. Jean Rabe does not deserve all the crap she gets. And I like her novels.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Not cool at all Merric. Jean Rabe does not deserve all the crap she gets. And I lker her novels.

Jean Rabe is one of the sweetest people I know.

With Dragonlance, she was doing work-for-hire, and under HEAVY editorial control. This is why the Dragons of a New Age trilogy wasn't better. Later on, she had a lot more freedom, so her Dhamon Saga trilogy turned out to be good books.

Remember, major changes to a setting are often not the decision of a single author or RPG designer, but that of the corporate big whigs.

Anyway, probably best to get back to topic...

 

[ivocaliban]

Greyhawk


What hooked me...

The Living Greyhawk Gazeteer (LGG) was my first proper introduction to Greyhawk. While I'd been playing D&D for about a decade before 3rd edition hit the stands, most of the setting was a mixture of homebrew and Hollow World (the only setting I purchased during the '90s). In the early days of 3rd edition the LGG was the only setting available on the shelves. Just viewing the heraldry and skimming through the history and nations of the Flanaess made me realize this was just what a wanted in a setting: A detailed framework I could use to bring life to my own ideas, without feeling as if I bound to some always advancing metaplot.


What tried to lose me, but never quite did...

The scattershot manner of new material for Greyhawk over the following years. Whether it was WotCs use of all the trappings of Greyhawk without actually ever using the setting or it was having to collect Greyhawk material through Dragon magazine articles, Living Greyhawk Campaign articles, and pdfs of older Greyhawk releases...the piecemeal way I've had to support Greyhawk is rather shameful. Looking at my folder full of assorted printouts and piles of Dragon magazines, when I could have all of this material in less than a half dozen really good hardcover books without years of personal research...it never fails to bug me.


What brought me back from the brink...

While I have complained about having to go through dozens of magazines to find Greyhawk articles, it was really Dragon magazine that kept Greyhawk alive for me. I understand there are Greyhawk purists out there who dislike everything that's happened to Greyhawk since the early eighties. I can only speak of what my own experience since coming to the setting in 2001. Dragon magazine was really the only source of Greyhawk material for more than half a decade. And I thank them for it.


Coda...
Both Complete Champion (CC) and Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk (ERG) are two of the best Greyhawk specific books put out by WotC since the LGG came out seven years ago. While it seems that Greyhawk is going into torpor for a while, I'm glad I have these books at least to keep things alive in my campaigns.