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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5278436" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, a good campaign setting is obviously going to give you a bunch of background material and story hooks, some specific locales to use (cities, towns, countries), some ongoing plot perhaps (the world is threatened by X). Usually there will be at least a couple adventures specifically set in it, which may be easier to run than more generic ones as they SHOULD tie into the setting better.A good setting should also present a unified tone and style that you can leverage. So for instance FR has a very high fantasy high magic kind of tone, Eberron is 'noire'. Dark Sun will obviously be post apocalyptic survival grit. Different story arcs will probably work better in one than another. For instance a mystery story of intrigue might be harder to pull off credibly in FR where magic is in abundance and someone will solve it without detective work, or at least it might not have the best atmosphere for that kind of story. It would work better in Eberron where there are secret groups warring with each other covertly left and right. A story that involves surviving grueling treks through the wilderness is probably best for Dark Sun vs Eberron or FR. Obviously any setting should be broad enough to let you run any type of adventure, but a lot of groups will enjoy certain styles and tone more than others or want to focus more on a specific type of play and thus one setting may appeal more to them and work better for their group.That all being said you always have the generic option of PoL. It is technically "not a setting" but that's getting harder and harder to justify at this point. DMG has a nice town, there's a smaller one in KotS, at least 3 modules are set in Nentir Vale, you have Hammerfast (dwarven outpost), and Vor Rukoth (ruined city) for more extensive locations. It sounds like a lot more stuff is coming, including a Gazetteer or two, etc. Don't discount the option of creating your own setting either. It really doesn't need to be too tough to do. A generic starting setting is probably indistinguishable from PoL in most cases, but if you have a particular sort of theme or location in mind you'd like to use I'd pitch it to the group and see what they think.</blockquote>

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