Payn's Ponderings~ Campaign settings and you?

[The Soloist]

As much as I like the idea of published campaign settings, I'm horrible at remembering the details.

My homebrew campaigns are not very detailed. I start small and build around that based on player actions. I tend to run 'human-centric medieval-realistic' where monsters are very rare and mostly underground. The enemies are other human factions, clans and aristocrates.

 

[MNblockhead]

I like specific settings when the mechanics are designed for that setting creating a very specific feel and flavor for the game. Currently I'm running, and have fallen in love again, with the Warhammer Fantasy Old World settings.

For D&D, I think Eberron does the best job at creating a unique and flavorful setting while sticking to bog standard D&D RAW. I also love Barovia (not a huge fan of the larger Ravenloft setting) but I feel so much of the flavor and feel of that setting is lost when you allow all character options and don't use additional horror rules.

My first campaign when I got back into TTRPGs with the release of 5e was a homebrew world. I love world building, but I also had class and species restrictions and some home brew rules to support the flavor I was going for. I don't have the time any more to run a good, fully home brewed campaign in a home brewed world, so I look for settings that provide lore and mechanics that have a strong vision for a specific type of experience.

I've lost interest in kitchen sink settings meant to support all official rules. The only kitchen sink setting I've invested a lot of time and money in is The Lost Lands setting by Frog God Games, but that is more because I like the individual campaign, adventure, and city books. As for the world itself, it feels pretty slapped together. I mostly focus on the specific area the PCs are in and ignore the rest of the world. And I homebrew the heck out of it, adding mechanics for the type of game we want for the campaign.

 

[delericho]

I also love Barovia (not a huge fan of the larger Ravenloft setting) but I feel so much of the flavor and feel of that setting is lost when you allow all character options and don't use additional horror rules.

One of the things I wish WotC would do is to present the new species options for a new setting as replacements for those in the core rulebooks. So in Eberron you'd have Warforged, Shifters and the rest, but not the standard dwarves, elves, and so on. You'd think it would be easy enough for groups to stick them back in if they were wanted.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I usually GM sandboxes where I like wide world framings, so I have stuff like overarching history and pantheons etc to lean on. It's been decades since I found fun in creating worlds as a thing in itself. Nowadays I prefer to let worlds grow organically through play.

 

[Aldarc]

Does the setting ignite my imagination as a GM and/or player?
Does the setting have interesting themes?
Does the setting provide clear campaign hooks as a GM or a player?
Does the setting leave and/or create blank spaces for play?
Does the setting have mutable lore?
Does the setting trigger any personal pet peeves?

 

[Guest User]

I'm unsure how to answer the OP's question such that it fits into the framework of discussion, but I can say that I've tried a number of commercial RPG box settings (beginning with Greyhawk back in the 1980s), and I grew weary of losing creativity time trying to read through even the basic details of each. The other half of the curse is that, when I start out to create a homebrew world, or even a continent, or even a city, I get bogged down in details and give up the project within the week.

These days, I just whip up a 'regional' or territorial map - my latest covers an area 280 x 375 or 105,000 sq miles - as a simple backdrop to be compatible with the adventure I am writing. And I usually find it best (for my purposes anyway) to add detail to the map as writing on the adventure progresses. [As an aside, Inkarnate works wonders when personal time is at a premium and your artistic ability has atrophied]. Sometimes I'll add a detail to the writing part that will result in a new map feature. Other times, I'll decide something like "an oasis would work really well here" on the map, and having added that feature, begin to build a small settlement or other POI around it in the writing.

For my purposes, creating a territorial map is the sweet spot between creating a new continent and creating a mere new town or city. In such a map, there could logically be enough going on to keep the players busy for quite some time; I could easily generate and run an entire campaign using only the territorial map and the features and entities within, and I suspect that you could too.

The only thing you need is a logical anchor as to why people and monsters of many stripes would want to be in this one little corner of the world. With my latest map, I've decided that large copper deposits have been discovered in the last decade or so about the territory (which is why it was surveyed and mapped in the first place), and competing factions trying to grab as much copper for themselves as possible have opened up mines all about the territory. It is quite common for one faction to sabotage the mining operations of another, and this makes for intrigue and politics, particularly when the biggest stakeholders can't even agree to what kind of government they want, and some of them not wanting any government at all. There is also squabbling about who found which deposit first, which can lead to feuds and even small wars.

What about all those critters? Surely they don't care about the copper. No, but they are seeking fresh sources of food, and nothing says "grand opening of a new restaurant" more than when 5000 humans and humanoids suddenly move into the area. In addition, perhaps there are two or three tribes of indigenous folk here, who have been at each other's throats for at least 500 years or so. The sudden presence of unwanted strangers causing the local food sources (read: game) to dwindle may unite the tribes against these newcomers.

I wouldn't begin to know what the proper term is for the approach I've described, or even if there is one.