D&D General Recommend me a somewhat contained setting

[zakael19]

Dolmenwood is a great sandbox in a larger place, but you could easily cordon it off. Obviously made for OSR play, but nothing stopping you from taking the awesome creatures therein and adjusting.

 

[zakael19]

I had not considered that. Interesting idea. I should flip through that book and see what i see.

I will take a look. Thanks.

Is there an actual Nentir Vale supplement/sourcebook?

Not a direct one, it's scattered throughout various sources. Pretty easy to grab ahold of the 4e books though. In fact, you could pick one of the bigger factions from the Threats to the Nentir Vale book as your antagonist, since pretty much all of them have an end point of "take over the Vale and dominate the region."

 

[Distracted DM]

Two products that I've used that are really nice and contained-- but also well-described-- are the Nentir Vale from the 4E DMG, and the Silver Marches setting book from 3E. Now granted... a lot of the additional Nentir Vale information has been spread out amongst a bunch of 4E adventures and products (Keep On The Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth, etc.) and the Silver Marches book is actually a part of Faerun of the Forgotten Realms... but that's not to say you can't use them as isolated areas and just not acknowledge their connection to any greater continuity.

Nentir Vale would be my recommendation as well!

 

[Reynard]

I wonder if the Greyhawk material from the DMG would work. I have not read it in depth yet and honestly despite doing this for 40 years I still know next to nothing about Greyhawk.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder if the Greyhawk material from the DMG would work. I have not read it in depth yet and honestly despite doing this for 40 years I still know next to nothing about Greyhawk.

It's generally a map with pretty porous borders. There aren't a lot of isolated places in the setting beyond a few islands or unusual locations like the Vale of the Mage, which won't be a standard adventuring setting.

 

[Shardstone]

I am going to be starting a D&D 2024 campaign soon, and I need a setting for it that is relatively self contained. I am thinking something no bigger than Britain, and probably smaller. I don't think a single city is big enough, but maybe you can convince me otherwise.

The premise of the campaign is that a very terrible and powerful individual has taken over the setting and the PCs are all people who have been wronged by this horrible being. (I am only being vague because I haven't quite decided on the exact nature of the BBEG, but I am leaning hard toward evil wizard-king-usurper.) They are going to start at 1st level and the motivating force behind their adventures is simply: kill that SOB. It is going to be a player driven sandbox, where they get to decide how they want to go about gaining the power and resources necessary to finally take the BBEG down.

I need a setting that can fit enough factions and secrets and locations and treasures that the players can decide what they want and how to get it on their way to kill the BBEG, within a campaign intended to go from 1 to high teens or even 20.

What setting would you recommend? Note, it does not have to be current or even official D&D.

Thanks!

My setting of Scavenger might be perfect for this, though with a unique flavor.

Akara is a mid-apocalyptic Bronze Age setting experiencing a massive extinction event with four major city-states left. Any of those city-states could be taken over by a tyrant, and in fact we have one in-built into the setting already. Bael (a title) Khorax is an alien being that has taken over Kanuma, once the seat of a vast empire long fallen, and with telekinetic abiliteis and very advanced knowledge has conquered and brainwashed Kanuma. There's also Mur, where the ruling Dinashii (noble families) rule a 1984-style city-state built inside of a mountain. Mur has its own counterrevolutionary shadow organization in the form of Shamash. Both cities are designed for two different but similar kinds of intrigue adventure.

We also have a new product coming out next month that goes into detail and creates procedures for running faction-based city games. I'd be glad to send you the (free) PDFs for both if you want to just check them out for ideas etc.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I have the Epic of Aerth by Gary Gygax. It’s, basically, a fantasy Earth which includes a few extras like Atlantis. Each country has its own political system and politicians etc. as well as demographics such as races and populations. the best thing is every continent has its own maps and even some countries as well. The maps are pretty detailed. Pick a country and I can see about getting you the info.

 

[Reynard]

I was just scrolling through DTRPG with some filters on and saw the old Gazateer series. I wonder of something like the Grand Duchy of Karameikos would work...

 

[Charlaquin]

If it’s only as big as Britain, have you considered building it yourself? Sounds like you already have some good ideas about how you want it to be set up, so it should be pretty easy to put together with something like the Gygax 75 method, and/or a procedural tool like Sandbox Generator.

 

[Reynard]

If it’s only as big as Britain, have you considered building it yourself? Sounds like you already have some good ideas about how you want it to be set up, so it should be pretty easy to put together with something like the Gygax 75 method, and/or a procedural tool like Sandbox Generator.

I have but I also kind of want to get playing sooner rather than later.