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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8313170" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Right. I enjoy some of the different settings of D&D....mostly those that feel like the do something beyond standard fantasy. I dig Dark Sun and Plancescape and Ravenloft generally......the rest are all pretty interchangeable to me. I know others look at it differently, and I can understand that there are distinctions between Dragonlance and Greyhawk....but I just don't think most are all that meaningful. Certainly no more meaningful than what you can just instill into the game as you play it. For the third party games, I can't commit as strongly. I think I've only played a handful, and maybe read a few more. A lot seem to fit my above take on the official settings, but I'm sure not all do. I've read and run a one shot of Whispers in the Dark, which is pretty much Call of Cthulhu but with 5E rules, and with the Mythos replaced with a more general cosmic horror approach. They made some tweaks to the game to allow for weapons and gear circa 1900, and of course they adjusted the classes and such to suit the genre. So that's a bit of flexibility right there. Did the game play as well as Call of Cthulhu or similar game? Hard to say having only run a one shot, but my gut says most likely not. Beyond familiarity, there didn't really seem to be any advantage to using the 5E rules as a base.Right, absolutely. These games actively promote hacking. I forget if DW has a section devoted to it (I think so, but don't recall off the top of my head) but I know Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark both do. Plus, looking at something like Apocalypse World and Dungeon World.....the game promotes the creation of the setting as you go. It's designed with that in mind. With D&D, you can do that.....but it's not really how it's set up. And you don't need to look too far to find people who will insist that you have an entire world "created" before you even begin play. The default expectation is that you use a setting that has been determined ahead of time, whether crafted by the GM or a prepublished setting of some sort. Even with Blades, where there is an expected default setting of Doskvol, so much of the particulars are intentionally blank or vague so that things can be determined in play.Yeah, each game is like a different take on the horror genre. Neither seems particularly less niche than the other.Right, and I think this is where a lot of the problems come up. Many folks would look at that example and say "This game is designed with a very narrow focus" because it has a pretty clear theme. And I wouldn't really disagree with that.....as you say, they're going for the Castlevania adventure-horror type of vibe. But for some reason, Ravenloft is somehow not as niche.....when it's the same vibe. Can Ravenloft be used to produce something different than a Castlevania style setting/game? Of course.....and those who play it know that. Can a game like Rhapsody of Blood be used to produce something different, too? I haven't played it but I have played other Legacy games, and I feel pretty comfortable that it most likely can.</blockquote>

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