Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Trickstergod" data-source="post: 3693926" data-attributes="member: 10825">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.</blockquote>

Verification