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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Varianor Abroad" data-source="post: 3692773" data-attributes="member: 12425">a) my favorite setting is the Land of the Diamond Throne because it evoked the newness of D&D for me again. I have run numerous games set there since it came out. It had just the right blend of ideas and execution with broad strokes for me to set my Imber campaign in an undeveloped area. That let me build my own ideas into the game. I subsequently wrote a second game set around a group of mojh adventuring looking for the pieces of a vitrified dragon. It's all good.b) it is also the setting I run right now, although I have been setting Ptolus in the Land of the Diamond Throne along with select bits stolen from Ashanderai's perpetually forthcoming Lands of the Jade Oath. Now, I would dearly love to homebrew a setting of my own. For 20 years, that's all I did as a DM. However, due to being asked to join the Council of Magisters (I'm now retired) I started up my AE game. I found that the ease of a lot of published material took enough of the edge off that a) I could keep running it and b) I could attract players easily who were also familiar with it.As a critique, I would say that it suffers from lack of development. Malhavoc went on to other things quickly since the money in d20 was not in staying with a setting. Fans have since built pieces of it, but they often fit the whims of the individual and do not easily mesh with the "vision". Ptolus successfully fits into it, but with some retconning. Really, my dissatisfaction is with myself at the end of the day for not being more enthusiastic with my own work on a corner of the world. I should do more with it, but I'm ready to move onto a new, different homebrew. Finding the time for it...that's the tricky, tricky part.Really, the issue now is that the d20 market is so mobile and so choked with material that players may not want to buy setting books, or they'll pop up at your table with the Next Coming Thing (hah - Brisco County Jr reference people)! Then they ask if you'll run that. Pathfinder and the Open Design project from Wolfgang are probably the two top contenders for this "mental forefront" among folks I know. The same folks also want to continue with AE, Ptolus, even the Swordlands from IH (a system I would love to find the time to do more with). So guilt and time mesh in a weird spiral here.</blockquote>

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