Help me out?

[punkorange]

I am going to be starting a new campaign tomorrow, and I have decided that I want to run a custom game world that is not the typical high-fantasy game. I want it to be fantasy enough that the player's recognize it as d&d, but different enough that they don't feel like they've been there and done that.
I am not going to allow half-races. Does anyone have any ideas, or niches, for a campaign world? Think you could give me a couple lines of ideas? Core classes to add or remove, races to add or remove? As of going beyond RAW, I am looking more for fluff than crunch, but if you have open content rules/classes/races/etc that you could post or point to that would work.

 

[punkorange]

What if undead were used as laberors, and necromancers were common taskmasters. What kind of affect would that have on a game world? Just one idea, I would like to hear more please and thanks.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't know how experienced you are, but here's some thoughts on creating something different:

1 Set your campaign in the time when Elves and Dwarves were at the peak of their power and having frequent, if minor, skirmishes, and where Orcs and Humans are upstarts. Only the Elves have powerful mages- any other mages are taught by Elves or have stolen Elvish magic. However, Dwarves are the master craftsmen of magical arms & armor: while they have little magic of their own, under the right conditions, they can create magical items, even if they don't have the spells to do so.

2 Choose 4 or 5 races from Savage Species and use them instead of some or all of the PHB ones. Remember to pick one as the base race from whom you make all level adjustments.

3 Eliminate all Wizards, replacing them with Specialist Mages only.

4 Replace the Druid and Monk with Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed's Greenbond and Oathsworn.

5 Lift some idea from your favorite (or most obscure) SF/F writer.

6 Take a major RW event/institution/organization that you know a lot about, and make it into a major event/institution/organization in your fantasy world. If you know a lot about WW1, use that as your campaign base. If you know a lot about the KGB or FBI, add spy elements to your campaign.

7 If you don't have it, pick up Green Ronin's The Book of the Righteous - it contains a system for creating all kinds of Holy Knights (Paladins) for all alignments that are balanced with the original (it is my favorite 3rd party D20 product, Arcana Unearthed being #2). Variant Holy Knights can make for some interesting play.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hi punkorange,

Just a few ideas. I generally like the idea of magic-users being very special and not common place.

Churches are mainly full of experts rather than clerics. A cleric is like a prophet of their deity while a paladin is like a living saint. I find this a suitable explanation for why such characters gain in power so quickly.

Wizards and sorcerers are perhaps broadly defined as magicians. The concept of a magic university or shop is again proposterous. Magic is too undefined for such things. Magicians may associate over long distances but most - particularly the high level ones - keep to themselves. If you wish to be a wizard, you need to pick this at 1st level.

The use of an injunction like that used in Jack Vance's Lyonesse series and copied most excellently by Sepulchrave in his Story Hour is perhaps useful. Magicians are not to interfere or meddle in "mortal" affairs otherwise the conclave or order will smite the transgressor. Interesting stuff if you choose it.

As for races, keep things fairly mono-racial. There is one dominant race where the campaign is. While you can make this human, having a different race as the dominant will very quickly give your campaign flavour.

Anyway, take or leave these as you find them. If you like and post back, I'll try to develop a few more ideas with you.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[punkorange]

I have been looking through unearthed arcana, and I think for one, I am going to use the battle-sorcerer variant and remove barbarians. I am going to have domain wizards only. I'm thinking off adding healing as one of the domains and do away with clerics.

 

[Thanee]

What if undead were used as laberors, and necromancers were common taskmasters. What kind of affect would that have on a game world? Just one idea, I would like to hear more please and thanks.

Well, you should consider to make Animate Dead as well as skeletons and zombies non-[EVIL] then, otherwise you would probably have a rather vile society as an effect.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Whimsical]

I recommend running an Arcana Unearthed/Evolved game. This has been my "It's D&D, but different!" experience. Otherwise, you can simply use certain elements from AE in your game, as it was intended to be modular. After playing in it for a year, I highly recommend this game book.

My other idea is to select a narrow focus and have character choices limited to that focus. For example, an all theives' game (where everyone starts with at least two levels of rogue) or an all dwarves game (just mention that giants will be the major enemy, that will motivate them to select dwarf), or an urban game where almost all adventuring will be occuring in your game world's largest metropolis, or a hunter-gatherer game that only has stone-age tech.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's more ideas about races

Use some (or all) of the races from Star Wars d20 as the races in your campaign. You'll get some interesting things happening. For instance, Wookies have Rage as a racial trait, and Rodians Track as a racial feature. Now, imagine a Rodian Sorcerer or a Wookie Monk.

And I'm sure you can find other races from other D20 products- Gamma World, Wheel of Fortune, AEG and Green Ronin books, etc.- that would make for a slightly different feel to your campaign.

Arcana Unearthed has some nice niche races.

However, if you DO use races from other sources, DO take the time to change the names- it minimizes preconceptions.

You don't even have to really change that much from published stuff. Ewoks could be good halfling substitutes. Orcs could be replaced by Wookies...but so could Elves!

Including an avian species of some kind also changes the game.

So would including some kind of elemental, like mephits.

PS: I do like the idea of a campaign that starts off with all of the PCs within a particular organization, like a Thieve's guild, or a church, or the Harpers (initiates, not full members).

 

[Crothian]

Each country is ruled by a god that actually sits on the thrown in the counter. There are no outer planes, the gods have taken up residence here.

 

[Voadam]

Couple thoughts

No humans.

All PCs are one race.

No gods. All clerics are the godless option.

No gods. All clerics are the godless option. forces of good (Church of Light) and forces of evil (church of Darkness).

No gods. All clerics are the godless option. Forces of Law and Chaos are prime movers (think Stormbringer).

Dragons rule the land. Politically.

Only one spellcasting class in the world. Changes the dynamics a lot and gives magic a unified flavor. Leaves barbarian, fighter, rogue, and possibly monk as other choices.

Major conflict is seelie vs. unseelie. Elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, fey are seelie. Goblins, kobolds, orcs, trolls, ogres, hags are unseelie. Fairy tale dark forest feel.