"original" campaign worlds?

[Erebus Red]

While I welcome the volume of player-created campaign worlds available on the internet - 99% of these seem to be to be a Tolkien/Realms re-mix.

Campaign Worlds that promise "dragons, elves and dungeons" seem to be a little redundant.

Any other thoughts? Are there truly original home-made worlds out there...?

 

[alsih2o]

Any other thoughts? Are there truly original home-made worlds out there...?

mine differs from this by far

no elves, only i dragon mentioned in the history, mostly humans.

and less of an interaction between races, to the point that most have never seen anything but a human.

 

[diaglo]

most of them are based on the "Original". that's why i am a loud and often obnoxious poster of Original D&D.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

the fact that there are Dragon elves or Dungeons makes it no less original. You can create the world any way you want, but until human nature evolves man is still ruled by the same passions.
ken
early in life one of my literature instructors told me there is only 7 original stories , so how much originality can there be?

 

[Erebus Red]

That sounds a little defeatist on the potential of player imaginations JES - even a different theme would be nice.

Worlds like RL and Dark Sun at least have a certain theme that influences everything. And Planescape is a great invention.

I'd like to see more player created worlds that have 'something' happening besides different percentages of humans/elves and a nice map.

 

[MerakSpielman]

A lot can be done in the "standard D&D" format.

IMC, the last campaign ended with the party inadvertantly triggering a cataclysm that rendered the entire surface of the planet uninhabitable.

The new one starts with loads of mysteries... No more sorcerers are appearing (of great concern to the kobolds), all the races are tending towards evil (even the surviving surface elves), and blood-feud gods are forming alliances, but not telling all their clerics... and nobody knows why....

You don't need to rewrite the basic concepts of the races and monsters to have a creative world, and then your players don't have to read the new 50-page campaign rulebook you had to write to explain all the changes.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

That sounds a little defeatist on the potential of player imaginations JES - even a different theme would be nice.

Worlds like RL and Dark Sun at least have a certain theme that influences everything. And Planescape is a great invention.

I'd like to see more player created worlds that have 'something' happening besides different percentages of humans/elves and a nice map.

it is not a question of defeatist, it is a matter of recognizing that a world can be original and have dragons elves and dungeons,. your dark sun example is an excellent point it has dungeons dragons and elves, but yet it is original. you don't; have to break the mold to be original. some times you just have to tweak it.
Many of my original campaigns in the past have been what i would consider unique but they still had elves dragons and dungeons. that is what I meant about humanity, while it is true we all crave fresh thing we also like similar things too. Whether the dungeon is a lost city of the ancients or an old wizards tower or the city of Manhattan, it is still a dungeon .

Ken
Some day i'll really have to publish my house rules to a game based upon the rune-lord books.

 

[barsoomcore]

Campaign Worlds that promise "dragons, elves and dungeons" seem to be a little redundant.

Any other thoughts? Are there truly original home-made worlds out there...?

You're not looking very hard, are you?

Well, come over and check out Barsoom. No dragons. No elves. A few dungeons, I guess (you gotta have somewhere to put the bad guys). No dwarves, halflings, clerics, goblins, paladins, beholders, gnomes, rangers, druids, orcs, sorcerers, wizards, unicorns, horses, kings, demon lords, Outer Planes, drow or deities or demigods. None o that.

Links in my sig. So's the Barsoom Story Hour. Check em out. Truly original? Well, probably not. Like the name, check. It's all stolen from elsewhere. But it's the combination of what's been stolen that makes it original. Honestly.

 

[Nightfall]

I guess each of us has their own idea about "original" stuff. But I guess what attracts me to my favorite (Scarred Lands) is that it's similiar (gods, elves, humans) but different. (Few true dragons, high elves are in decline, plenty of strange and unnatural weather effect, etc.)

 

[gamecat]

Funny, the first paragraph in my campaign setting thread says it is anti-tolkien. See the link in my sig.