How much does setting determine your adventures?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Are your adventures essentially the same, whatever setting they're in, with just the relevant place names and deities dropped in? Or are your adventures highly dependent on the setting, with dragonlords, race supremacist monks or a shady nation of wizards the sort of setting-specific thing that your adventures are based on?

 

[Mark Hope]

Are your adventures essentially the same, whatever setting they're in, with just the relevant place names and deities dropped in? Or are your adventures highly dependent on the setting, with dragonlords, race supremacist monks or a shady nation of wizards the sort of setting-specific thing that your adventures are based on?

My adventures are very much setting influenced. I generally run Dark Sun or homebrew games, both of which diverge considerably from generic fantasy in a number of ways (homebrew less than DS, though). So I need to do a fair amount of work to get pre-written adventures to fit. Doesn't stop them from being useful, though. In fact, I have often found ways to expand and improve my homebrew games due to material that I have adapted and incorporated into it from other sources.

 

[Crothian]

I redo adventures to capture the feel of the setting.

 

[Sejs]

How much does setting determine your adventures?

Very. All part of making players feel connected to the game.

Different societies, customs, all the spectrum of human endeavor as seen through the lens of civilization. And how it looks all depends on where you're looking from.

Hell, a big chunk of my campaign that's yet to come is going to center around the impact digging a canal will have on the world. This is taking place in FR: the territory north of the Lake of Steam is unclaimed, and there's an area that, with some work, will connect the Sea of Fallen Stars to the Shining Sea, and by extension, the Sword Coast. The canal that will make it all happen doesn't exist yet, but when it does nearly every major nation will want to control it. Whomever does so will basically hold the economic reigns of half of the world.

The shape of the war that's on the horizon, what alliances get made and broken, the how and why of what will go down, all hangs on particulars of the campaign setting.

So to me, yes. Very important.

 

[Mallus]

My adventures are almost entirely setting-dependent, mainly because I take a very different approach in each homebrew I create, or in the case of CITY, my most recent, co-create.

For instance, it's perfectly (un)reasonable in CITY to duel brothel-managing ex-pirate accountants (with alchemical firearms, no less), match wits with transvestite were-dog cult leaders (like the Queen Bitch..), and chase escaping submarines, underwater, of course, while mounted on the back of jet-powered gryphon constructs (which are also capable of distilling and serving premium gin in flight).

I wouldn't let any of that s*** near one of my other game settings. But it's par for the course in CITY.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

... it's par for the course in CITY.

And when shall you be publishing this campaign setting, so that I might buy it?

-TRRW

Fake edit: To answer the OP, I tend to only slightly modify pre-existing adventures, mostly out of laziness than anything, though.

 

[Aeric]

I tend to write campaigns that are whirlwind tours of whatever world they are in, culminating in some epic event(s) that change(s) the world forever. So the setting is absolutely essential to my adventures. I don't think I've ever written a generic adventure.

 

[Mallus]

And when shall you be publishing this campaign setting, so that I might buy it?

Heh... CITY did get its start as our WotC Setting Search entry... needless to say we lost. Its safe to say CITY will never be published. But it might be free, as a wiki or a blog, if I ever get my act together.

Until then, there's always the Story Hour, which is linked in my sig. It's written by one of the players. He captures the spirit of the campaign remarkably well, better than I could. It contains a fair bit of setting info, usually rendered in the least efficient manner possible...