Pimp your setting

[kroh]

I have always had a thing for the space opera's and Supers. Currently Mutants and masterminds is doing a "paragons" setting that looks good... But before that a personal 'fave' was Marvel Supers. Always had good adventures with that and the background of the Marvel Universe meant that you could bring in cameos from time to time.

Haven't had the opportunity to check out SWSE yet but I will when I get a chance...

Don't ya love when real life gets in the way of living out a fantasy?

Regards,
Walt

 

[Wombat]

I want everyone to think about one of the following:
a) your favorite setting, or b) the setting you run. Why do you like it more than other settings? If you are using your own homebrew, why do you prefer it to published settings? If you chose a published setting, why do you prefer it to making your own? If you chose your own homebrew setting, please don't just say that you like it because it's yours; if that's the best you can say for it you are doing a diservice to your players as there are plenty of really good published settings out there that have tons going for them.

Also, try to critique your setting as well. Think of the aspects of the setting could have been done better, and think of ways to fix it.

Let me go with my current (revised) setting -- New Mavarga.

Musketeers in the jungle -- how cool is that?

Yes, this is utterly a homebrew setting. Take a group of semi-Europeans (roughly late 16th century level technology) developing a colony in what would be (approximately) Guatemala, only to find a group of "giants" (7-8' tall) Mayan-like natives with a functioning empire already in place. Yes, there are older cities abandoned to the jungle. Yes, there are tensions between the colonists on this side of the ocean and their overlords 4000 miles away across the ocean. Yes, there are misunderstandings and cultural miscues between the societies. And, yes, there is magic, but it is usually subtle rather than flashy, yet still powerful in its own right. There are sword duels, daring escapes, crossed loves, passion, pirates, and fancy balls. Oh, and all the PCs are members of a Secret Society!

A bit of The Three Musketeers, a touch of Indiana Jones, a dash of Popol Vuh, a smidge of Pirates of the Caribbean, a nod to history, and a helluvalotta fun!

The current system I use for this is a heavily modified version of the 7th Sea system (like the system; loathe Theah). "Social Combat" has been increased, Advantages (and Disadvantages) have been revised, and a lot of reshuffling and modifying of the Skills & Knacks, as well as the weapons charts. The advancement tables have been utterly revised to use a variation on Burning Wheel's BITs system -- now the advancement of characters is entirely in the hands of the players! The more they play in character, the more they play to their own strengths (and weaknesses!), the faster they advance.

Why do I like it? Well, it is colourful and different. There is a sense of the PCs being "fish out of water" and learning about both their own society and that of the Akapans (native giants) at the same time. Combat is there, but social interaction is at least as important as physical wounds.

Are there problems with it? Yep -- I still have to work out a number of kinks in the social combat, the relative worth of money and goods, and it is sometimes difficult to balance between the Cinematic and the Historical, especially as my players straddle both sides of the line. Still & all, we are having a heck of a good time! I wouldn't trade New Mavarga for any published setting!

 

[jdrakeh]

Harn. It's can be as realistic as you need it to be, by design (which isn't a claim that many other campaign settings can make). If you need detailed information on star constellations, weather patterns, trade routes, economic taxation, etc -- Harn has it. Many other settings simply don't. If you don't need any of this stuff, it's easy to ignore. The Harn setting books are also stat-free, for the most pasrt. This being the case, Harn can accommodate many RPG systems and styles play (D&D was always an awkward fit due to Harn's assumptions about Gods, though the introduction of the Cloistered Cleric makes the two entities much more compatible).

 

[Trickstergod]

Right now I'm running a Mutants & Masterminds game set in the DC Universe. Big comic book geek, loves me some DC, and I find pre-established settings in general easier to run - less work.

As far as D&D is concerned: Scarred Lands. Off and on again.

First off because, as mentioned, I like established settings. They cut down on a lot of the work. It's easy to come up with a pantheon, a map and a bit of detail about a few nations, but it all starts to get a bit more problematic from there, from detailing the cities to the NPC's and so on and so forth.

That's just a general setting thing, though. As far as why the Scarred Lands...

It all "worked" together, for one. The pantheon felt like a pantheon rather than a random collection of gods. It took a strong cue from Greek mythology and ran with it. This helped established the religion of the setting as realistic, in some ways. The more books that were published for the setting, the more distant the Greek roots became - and the less I could care about later books. But in the beginning at least, it had a different feel from the medieval/renaissance European tone of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, yet was still grounded in the "real world" in a way that Planescape isn't.

Another thing is that, because it was partially designed for third edition, everything worked with third edition. At the time it was made, I would say the Scarred Lands was the definitive third edition setting (though Eberron has since rolled over that). It was designed with sorcerers, druids, domains, all of that, in mind. With dwarves able to be wizards. All of that. It didn't suffer from the rules changes in a way that other settings did. Everything "fit."

Towards the beginning, it also wasn't high magic (that later changed but, meh, so be it) - another plus in my book. It wasn't the lowdown and gritty of Midnight, but it wasn't the "Can't swing a dead cat without hitting a level 20 fighter" sort of setting the Forgotten Realms is, either. However! Due to the epic, war of the gods backdrop of the setting, that sort of high-level, over the top play was still an aspect to the setting - the characters could make a difference at low to mid level, but the game could ratchet it up once the higher levels were attained. The obnoxious magic item shops were nonexistent, but gods still walked the earth every so often.

There was also a darker tinge to the setting - not quite so hopeless as Midnight, but darker forces seemed to have the upper hand in a way that they don't in the Forgotten Realms. So the heroes actions felt like they mattered. Whole races suffered under divine curses and fell to the worst sorts of excesses because of it, idyllic creatures were forever changed by the ravages of divine war and nobler lands were beset by the more...ambitious of nations. I prefer settings where darkness has the upper hand - not to the point that it's total, but at least to the degree that being a hero doesn't seem like a done deal.

But, yeah. Scarred Lands. At least the earlier stuff. Later books...eh. It also had a lot of other tripe not worth the paper it was printed on. But when the books were on...they were on.

 

[green slime]

Of the published settings, my favourites are:

Al'Qadim (2e)
Eberron

 

[Desdichado]

a) your favorite setting, or b) the setting you run.

Currently I'm a player in an Age of Worms game, but I ran Dark•Heritage (linked in my sig) last time I ran.

Why do you like it more than other settings?

Well, duh. It's my setting. I purposefully put in all the stuff I liked and left out all the stuff I don't, which no other author has been thoughtful enough to do for me yet.

If you are using your own homebrew, why do you prefer it to published settings?

Because I need to be able to adjust details about it on the fly. Plus, it's much less work to homebrew, which means I can focus on having better games instead of spending all my prep time researching setting details. Also, as I already said, it has all the stuff I like and none of ht stuff I don't. Even if I were playing bog-standard D&D that would be true, in my case, I'm actually diverging quite significantly from D&D. I don't even call my game D&D anymore; I call it some kind of d20 fantasy.

If you chose your own homebrew setting, please don't just say that you like it because it's yours; if that's the best you can say for it you are doing a diservice to your players as there are plenty of really good published settings out there that have tons going for them.

Pshaw. Says you. In my opinion running any canned setting is doing a disservice to your players, because it's always harder to tailor it to the group than something you make up. At least it is for my GMing style; but since homebrewing is half the fun of GMing, I wouldn't enjoy GMing in a canned setting nearly as much. And if the GM isnt' happy running it, than that's a further disservice to his players. Still; honestly, the idea of having to know a published setting as well as I know my homebrew is fairly daunting.

Also, try to critique your setting as well. Think of the aspects of the setting could have been done better, and think of ways to fix it.

Way ahead of you there, pal. The rules work fine in play, but referencing them is a bit unwieldy. So I've cut back on a mishmash of SRD and other OGL content and am now just using d20 Modern + d20 Past, with the "Shadow Stalkers" campaign model, just on a different world instead of our own past.