D&D General Pick a Theme


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As a player, I would go with whatever would be the most fun for the DM.

I would try to find out which option the DM was secretly most excited to run, and I would choose that one.

An excited DM is, IME, a better DM.

It's why I give a selection of themes I like myself. I'm not going to run Ravenloft or Dragonlance for example.

I like the Midgard setting and Eberron. My players are betting on pirates atm but I'll see if they want it on a specific world or build from the ground up.

I've done pirates before but it was back in 3.5 days.
 

Eberron has pirates in the Lhazaar principalities for what it's worth, but I can see the interest in wanting to do something a bit earlier in themes and tone.
 

Eberron has pirates in the Lhazaar principalities for what it's worth, but I can see the interest in wanting to do something a bit earlier in themes and tone.

Yeah. I might even use earth map and make England with industrial age elven artificers and set the game in 1720 or something.
 

One of the pieces of Eberron I like but also feel is underexplored is Zil gnomish shipmaking out of Trolanport. It's only ever gotten a paragraph per sourcebook but it's a thread you could pull on for a game set in Eberron or just as a point of inspiration for a different kind of seafaring culture.
 


Pirates! But only because most people who try to run a pirate game don't have an actual campaign story in mind, and the game always dies really fast.

I would love a pirate game that actually went somewhere and had a real story.
 

It's why I give a selection of themes I like myself. I'm not going to run Ravenloft or Dragonlance for example.

I like the Midgard setting and Eberron. My players are betting on pirates atm but I'll see if they want it on a specific world or build from the ground up.

I've done pirates before but it was back in 3.5 days.
Pirates! But only because most people who try to run a pirate game don't have an actual campaign story in mind, and the game always dies really fast.

I would love a pirate game that actually went somewhere and had a real story.
I know that there are a lot of interesting things that can happen on a voyage even in transit but travel is honestly just never as interesting by sea as it can be by land. This is why i never dm campaigns which spend more than about 1/6th of travel in sea/ocean (and 1/6th is by far the most ive ever done. My average campaigns id say about 1/60th of game time spent on travel is by sea or ocean.). Yes you CAN make it interesting, but you're compensating. Land offers better options (regarding interesting travel time).

Now NON explicitly travel time at sea is a completely differemt story and not what im talking about. That can be just as fun as lamd can be. But thats if we arent talking about travel.
 

I know that there are a lot of interesting things that can happen on a voyage even in transit but travel is honestly just never as interesting by sea as it can be by land. This is why i never dm campaigns which spend more than about 1/6th of travel in sea/ocean (and 1/6th is by far the most ive ever done. My average campaigns id say about 1/60th of game time spent on travel is by sea or ocean.). Yes you CAN make it interesting, but you're compensating. Land offers better options (regarding interesting travel time).
I ran a game in the Plane of Water once. Exploration was immediately three dimensional, currents replaced roads, there were shark dogfights, underwater sailing ships, floating cities, random mile-long peaceful whales, massive kelp and coral forests, super trenches, etc.
 

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