Settings you want to like

[GSHamster]

Could be your definition is a bit tight. It seems you want a BBEG running a country that everyone wants deposed. That's really not the flavor of Eberron at the "human" level. All the pure BBEGs tend to be non-human (the Quori, the Daelkyr).

One of the themes of Eberron, I believe, is that most characters have their good and bad points. Even the "evil" leaders are usually interested in the good of their country as a whole (probably to be expected in an area where they've just exited a major world war).

It's more like:

There's a vampire king, but its a 'good' vampire king.
There's a hobgoblin leader, but its a 'good' hobgoblin leader.
There's a coven of hag who rule, but its a 'good' coven of hags who rule.
There's a gnomish secret society, but its a 'good' gnomish secret society.
There's a high priest, but she's a 'good' high priest.

And every leader has a subordinate who would make a worse ruler. It's always in the PCs interests to make sure that the current people in power stay in power, and are not replaced by their subordinates.

I just got annoyed when almost every realm was like this. Pretty much the only exception is the queen of the 'France' country (I forget the Eberron name). I would have liked to see a bit more variation and shades of grey.

I have other issues with Eberron. For example, I think that the existence of Dragonmarked Houses seriously undercuts the nationalism inherant in the setting, and I don't see how the House compete economically. But the issue above is the one that really put me off.

 

[Gomez]

Rokugan Now, I played the CCG, and a lot of the basic tenets of the setting made for a really good CCG, but could fall flat when turned into an RPG. The clans. Nice themes for card decks, but making such huge swaths of the land and culture into thin stereotypes fell flat. All Crane are prissy tempramental artists obsessed with honor? All Crab are uncouth barbaric thugs? Scorpion are all honorless ninjas who know everybody's secrets, and Dragon are all enigmatic monks and two-sword wielding samurai who recite zen koans and get lots of tattoos, Maybe it was just the campaigns I played in the setting, but all the depth, all the lore, all the sweeping metaplot (which was sometimes silly, since it was dictated by card game tournament results) sometimes ran right in the face of things put in because it is a CCG setting first and foremost, and an RPG as an afterthought.

I couldn't agree more! I really wanted to love the Rokugan setting but the sterotyping gave me such a bad taste in my mouth. Another thing that rang untrue to me was that with about 5 million samurai (not kidding) in the setting there was about 2 dozen samurai families? How would you like to go to your family reunion and meet 200,000 of your kin folk. Silly Silly!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It's more like:

There's a vampire king, but its a 'good' vampire king.

There's a vampire king who sold his own soul and a large part of his country's future to a lich - and who still isn't sure he can get out from under her.

There's a hobgoblin leader, but its a 'good' hobgoblin leader.

There's a hobgoblin leader who is trying his damnedest to hold together the loose alliance he rebuilt during the waning days of the last war, and which is unlikely to outlast him unless he can find a way to bind the disparate tribes into an actual nation so he can rebuild the glory that was the goblinoid empire.

There's a coven of hag who rule, but its a 'good' coven of hags who rule.

There's a cover of hags who see the opportunity to sell their minions into service in foriegn lands as a great way to finance their own schemes and gather even more information and trust.

There's a gnomish secret society, but its a 'good' gnomish secret society.

That has a certain "Gnomes uber alles" view of the world - and, since the work in the best interest of gnomekind, some gnomes who work counter to the interest of gnomekind might need to be ... reeducated.

 

[Ron]

I tried to like Planescape and, for a certain amount, I like it. However, it was very hard to read that stupid cant.

Another one was Forgotten Realms. A friend of mine brought most of the first products and asked me to do a game in the world. It wasn't that bad, but I couldn't stand NPCs such as Elminster, which appears to me to be the alter ego of the author showing me how great he is, and I read Spellfire, which is the worst piece of fiction I ever seen.

 

[GSHamster]

There's a vampire king who sold his own soul and a large part of his country's future to a lich - and who still isn't sure he can get out from under her.

The way I read it, was that he had already escaped her control and was now actively hunting down her agents.

I'm not saying that you're not right, and that any single one of those wouldn't make a good campaign to play in. It's just that they're all like that, and the collective pattern is what turns me off.

It's more like 'I read the hobgoblin chapter and think this is pretty cool. I read the hags chapter and think this is pretty cool, but it's kind of similar to the hobgoblins. I read the vampire chapter, and think still reasonable, but I'd like to see something new. Then I hit the gnomes chapter and give up." (Only in reality there were a bunch more chapters in there.)

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The way I read it, was that he had already escaped her control and was now actively hunting down her agents.

That's what he thinks!

Actually, I do understand your point. I think one of the reasons that I like Eberron, however, is that even the no-kidding-Evil badguy rulers are acting rationally. They have plans (beyond "keep the peasants down and me up"), and are actually working in constructive ways to accomplish them, rather than just being "another midlessly oppressive warlord."

All the mindlessly oppressive warlords got killed over the past century or so.

 

[eris404]

I tried to like Planescape and, for a certain amount, I like it. However, it was very hard to read that stupid cant.

Another one was Forgotten Realms. A friend of mine brought most of the first products and asked me to do a game in the world. It wasn't that bad, but I couldn't stand NPCs such as Elminster, which appears to me to be the alter ego of the author showing me how great he is, and I read Spellfire, which is the worst piece of fiction I ever seen.

WOW! Yeah, I had forgotten those. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was annoyed by the cant in Planescape.

For the most part, whenever we played in FR, we more or less forgot NPCs like Elminster existed, simply because our DM never brought them up. But there is this one guy in our group that would always argue some point based on an event that happened in the novels. He was the only one who read them in our group and it completely ruined his fun if the DM said something that contradicted the FR canon. So, it wasn't so much the setting but a fan of the setting that ruined FR for me.

 

[Turjan]

I couldn't agree more! I really wanted to love the Rokugan setting but the sterotyping gave me such a bad taste in my mouth. Another thing that rang untrue to me was that with about 5 million samurai (not kidding) in the setting there was about 2 dozen samurai families? How would you like to go to your family reunion and meet 200,000 of your kin folk. Silly Silly!

It's not so silly as it may sound if you look at Korea . All business and power is more or less based on family clans. Take for instance the Kim clans, who make up roughly 20% of the population (8.8 million people). There are several Kim clans, but most Kims belong to two large clans. Until shortly, marrying within the clan was not allowed . The clans sometimes have meetings at their ancestor's grave, and you can guess the number of potential visitors .

 

[Psion]

Dragonstar - The first book painted a picture of a galaxy filled with intriguing conflicts. But the GMs guide didn't take that ball and run with it. I expected deeper ideas on the politics of the Dragon Empire and the direction of the galaxy, but it provided so much less.

Aldea - Love the system, the setting seems to me too much a characture/political commentary.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

WOW! Yeah, I had forgotten those. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was annoyed by the cant in Planescape.

For the most part, whenever we played in FR, we more or less forgot NPCs like Elminster existed, simply because our DM never brought them up. But there is this one guy in our group that would always argue some point based on an event that happened in the novels. He was the only one who read them in our group and it completely ruined his fun if the DM said something that contradicted the FR canon. So, it wasn't so much the setting but a fan of the setting that ruined FR for me.

Some of us have read the novels too but most of the novels take place in our games' past. The only thing held relevant these days is the "Year of Rogue Dragons" novels which have crept a bit into our game, mostly with my half-dragon paladin feeling some of the effects.... But we don't say, "well it says in book X that so-and-so does such-and-such"... Instead of what's going on in the game....

Mostly we don't deal with the npcs. They stay mostly out of our way. Our epic party met with Elminster one time. Not that I recall much from being too tired...... and the lower level party met with the guy in charge of Sundabar, Lord Helm (not to be confused with the deity of the same name). I'd rather not deal with them personally and will say so if it got too bad...