Help a returning DM pick a setting

[johnsemlak]

No old heroes. At the current time of the setting (Age of Mortals, post War of Souls) all the heroes that everyoen moans about are either dead or old. If you feel that way, now is the time for your players to take centre stage.

To run DL during that age, is the DLCS enough, or do you need Sovereign Press' Age of Mortals sourcebook?

 

[Darklone]

I would appreciate it if you could give me

* a quick overview of the setting
* the updates/additions the setting makes to the core PHB races and classes
* why you like the setting

Okiedo. Pimping Kingdom of Kalamars (once again)

Quick overview: The setting describes a "realistic" fantasy world dominated by human or humanlike races and politics rather than metaplots and superdupermagic. The main books are the Campaign setting (only description, there are some groups using not the d20 system on the Kalamar boards) and the Kalamar Players Guide (mainly rules... but some flavor content as well).

Updates/additions: The Kalamar Players Guide features several subraces and some variant coreclasses. Subraces include: wood, wild, gray and high (standard) elves (as well as drow/shadowelves at ECL 0); forest and rock (standard) gnomes; lightfoot (standard) and golden halflings (psions); Hobgoblins and different half-hobgoblins; Mountain, Hill (standard) and Stone dwarves; Sue me, I guess I forgot some.
Variant Coreclasses:
- Basiran dancer: Bard variant. A sworddancer.
- Brigand: Fighter rogue variant with charisma abilities.
- Gladiator: Arena fighter.
- Shaman: Druid variant with restricted wildshape (only one totem animal) and domain spells.
- Infiltrator: Rogue variant.
- Spellsinger: Variant sorcerer, can sing in armour.

Basiran Dancers and Infiltrators are detailed in Stealth& Style already, class books about the other classes is in the works.

Why I like the setting? Same reason why most people like it. You can do with it whatever you want. High magic? No problem. Low magic? No problem. Intrigue games? No Problem. Need a metaplot? No problem either. The world is consistent and generic, yet the description includes a lot of nice ideas and inspirating plothooks.

Kalamar was written to be useable for anything... like old Greyhawk. That's why many ex-Greyhawk players now play Kalamar... it has much more support and even beats Greyhawk in many regards.

 

[qstor]

I like the Kalamar setting a lot too. I also like Spelljammer, Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms a lot too. I have the Dawnforge book too but I happened to think that there needed to be ECL's for the races with the power ups they offered.

Spelljammer would need a little bit of work since its out of Print. The others are in print so it would be easy to get material for your game. I'd say flip thourgh the main Kalamar book, the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer and the Forgotten Realms campaign book at your FLGS. Each would be a great start for a new game.

Dark Sun with the new material in Dungeon and Dragon might be a good option as well if your players like psionics.

Mike

 

[Setanta]

I have the Midnight Campaign book. I like what I see but I think it's more "advanced" then what I want to start back with.

Yeah, Midnight is really cool, but with the difference magic system and lack of divine magic, it's fairly different than standard D&D. If you want something reasonably close for you first game back, hold off on Midnight. Maybe your second campaign...

I was leaning toward FR, but I wanted to see what other options are out there.

FR is cool. The FRCS is a great campaign book. It's really the stick to measure all other campaign books against. You can run it with just that book, or there's a wealth of other information out there if you want more crunch or source material. I've never used it, as it's too detailed for my tastes, but some people really appreciate that level of detail being done ahead of time for them. One thing to think about though- if your players have read many of the novels that you haven't, you might get into situations where they disagree with your interpretation of the world. If you don't think that will be a problem, either because they haven't read the novels or your players aren't like that, great.

I like a lot of Kenzer's stuff but I have the same problem as you do with Kalamar, it just doesn't grab me.

Me too. If your top priority is a setting that makes sense and has detailed weather patterns and trading routes, this is a good one. It just doesn't inspire me though. It has plenty of loyal fans, though, so there's something there for some people.

Can I get more detail on Bluffside and the Hamlet of Thumble?

BiggusGeekus took care of Bluffside pretty well. Hamlet of Thumble is half adventure, half sourcebook. It's not enough to run a whole campaign. It's a good way to start a campaign, but after the first adventure (or two if you get the second one), you're on your own for now. Ed Cha will be coming out with more stuff, but right now, if you want more of a full setting, go with FRCS or something like that, and then maybe slide the Hamlet of Thumble right in. It's pretty easily transportable to other settings, and it's a good adventure.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I will also mention Midnight and add this advantage: as a lower magic world, it might be easier for a returning DM to keep the game on track.

It isn't a "Low Magic" world but rather a "Rare Magic" world. Magic is very powerful in the setting but it is also illegal to use it or to possess magic items and it is a crime punishable by death.

 

[Darklone]

Me too. If your top priority is a setting that makes sense and has detailed weather patterns and trading routes, this is a good one. It just doesn't inspire me though. It has plenty of loyal fans, though, so there's something there for some people.

*engaging flamethrower*

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Now I like the Forgotten Realms as much as the next guy. The majority of the time that I've played D&D has been using the FR setting. I don't think I'd be amiss in saying that it is the "Real" default setting for D&D in terms of support. Greyhawk just hasn't had much support beyond what is written in Polyhedron magazine. There is more support material out there for Forgotten Realms than you can shake a stick at. There is also computer support out there for it too, the Forgotten Realms Atlas (if you can find it) has detailed maps of just about every location in the realms that you can print out for your use.

However...

My single biggest complaint is that there have been SO many novels written for it. If you have members of your group that have read several of them it can be like a casual Star Trek watcher trying to run a Star Trek game for a Trekkie. "I want to go to Icewind Dale and spar with Drizzt" is something you may hear. If you've never read the Icewind Dale or Dark Elf trilogies you may be asking yourself "Who the dickens is Drizzt?". My other complaint is the overabundance of heros. Realistically speaking no great evil could ever befall the realms when you have the likes of Elminster and Khelben Blackstaff there to save the day. In the event that the players get in over their heads they know that someone will save the day... maybe not them but one of the heros of the realms will pick up where they left off. This is the big reason I switched to Midnight... there is no one else. The players really are the last hope.

Edit: Oh yeah, you might check out Freeport by Green Ronin. It is a very detailed city that can be dropped into any larger setting. However, it is detailed enough that an entire campaign can be run without ever leaving Freeport.

 

[SoulsFury]

I can't believe Bluffside was mentioned before Freeport (not to say I don't like Bluffside). Freeport is the perfect generic city setting to run a campaign in. Its in no specific world so you can choose which setting to use later on. Freeport can easily be the only place your players in the campaign and it has great product support.

Freeport is a "pirate" port. Maruaders, thieves, sea lords, whatever, are found here. It has a swashbuckling type feel to it and its very fun city to play in. The first 3 adventures for it were great and there are 3 more adventure books out for it as well, plus one in Dungeon Magazine. To run the city all you really need are the adventures, but there is a source book Freeport, the City of Adventure.

The setting makes no changes to the basic classes or races. I took to Freeport because it was so easy just to put the island the city is on in my campaign world. You can litterally drop it anywhere and it makes for great campaign ideas. The intrigue and murder in the city is great. The adventures are easy for new DMs and easily changed if thats what you want.

Nik

 

[Nifelhein]

Also, there is Dawnforge, by the same Fantasy Flight Games, I don't own the book from what I have read here and there it is a World in the Golden Age, heroic deeds and great events are yet to happen, if driws are going to become what we think of them or not, for example, is something yet to be deefined, possibly by the very players characters.

It has new classes, cannot comment much on them, but there is the disciple, one that draws power rfom the immortals and has a closer tie to the area where those dwell (in Dawnforge the gods are called immortals and dwell in the world itself, they are more mundane than the standard gods are, closer to Farlenght from greyhawk, in my opinion).

It has complete stats for races in the world and each one of them advances by two methods during character evolutuion, first by racial transformations and second by ome kin of "talents". The Ogre, for example, gains the space one such creature has at some point, a extremely well designed race that can be used since the beggining of the game, this system works better than the savage species one because it takes race development alongside character class development instead of using onlu one of them.

There is some change to the magic mostly because they change the idaa of schools. Someone else might scoop more or correct me here too.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

You probably couldn't go wrong with Warcraft which is published by Sword & Sorcery. It has the advantage of being based on a popular series of video games which I am sure some of your players have played at some point so they should be familiar with the setting. It also has a rich background history to draw from. The best thing is that it is still wide open for adventures... you aren't roped into running the same campaign from the computer game. That is a common failing of several settings and games based on a series of books or movies (Dragonlance, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings come to mind). The whole story revolves around the main characters in the novel so anything your players does seems inconsequential.