So what's YOUR world's 'hook'?

[Templetroll]

It's a melange of elements from at least half-a-dozen cultures along with some weird I dreamed up, a mix of sword & sorcery, low fantasy, high fantasy, science fantasy, Hammer horror and kung fu flicks. Cranked up to eleven. On drugs.

So basically your bog standard D&D campaign.

bog standard to win!

I also took bits of everything TSR came out with and put it someplace in my world. I liked draconians but didn't want to run Dragonlance so it went over there, I didn't like psionics so used the Spelljammer thing of crystal spheres to explain why all those things were stuck outside. illithids, however, were magical freakish things because I did like them.

Fun should be had by all, even if it is painful along the way.

 

[Aristotle]

I've never really thought about giving my world a 'hook'. Let's see what I got off the top of my head.

The mortal races have been set free, by the one true god, from the demonic deities that had ruled them since the dawn of the world (roughly 2500 years of captivity and another 500 since the demons were put down). However cultists, aberations, and even lesser demons continue to advance the causes of the demonic lords. Now that the one true god has ascended to become one with creation it is up to mortal men to keep watch over dark things.

Okay... that doesn't really do it justice. *shrug* I'm going to have to learn how to write catchy blurbs one of these days.

As a side note... I don't really feel a setting needs a 'hook'. I think the setting, as well as various places within the setting need to have details that keep them interesting; but I leave major hooks to individual campaigns. A world I build might be home to 10 or more campaigns, and every one might center around a hook that has little to do with the setting as a whole.

 

[Incenjucar]

The trick with hooks is to keep them from becoming gimicks.

Take Dark Sun: Yes, it's a desert world. But, while many adventures are going to revolve around survival, it can also just be surviving the politics. It could also be sailing the silt sea or having peaceful trading conferences or trying to create a garden in a previously defiled area. There's a heck of a lot more to Athas than sand and sun. If you fail to keep that in mind, you lose a great many possibilities.

Myself, I prefer to just have a fantasy world, pure and simple, and just make my fantasy cultures and situations be other than random mobs of attackers.

 

[Pants]

My current campaign drew a lot of ideas from Eberron (before the book was released) and a lot of my 'unique' ideas were ones that I didn't know were already in Eberron. Urgh, damn you Baker!

Ah well, here's the hooks:

- Guns, airships, powerful mages, cloud-piercing towers, more guns, more airships, more magic!
- A large romanesque empire, torn apart by political infighting and a devastating war with a hobgoblin nation.
- Meanwhile, below the notice of the average man, cultists revering demons, devils, and vile elemental lords sow dissent among the populace with all various sorts of nasty things beyond the comprehension of man.
- Elemental node power runs everything. From the large foundries, to the airships and the sewers beneath the cities, elemental power made the kingdom possible today. Unfortunately, elemental node magic is finicky and unreliable. Often, the nodes work as their supposed to, but every once in a while, elementals (or worse) seap through the portals and cause havoc.
- Throw in a centuries old monotheistic church that's just as corrupt as the local politicians. Squeeze in a bit of religious infighting and you've got yourselves a campaign!

Will the empire fall to the hobgoblins? Will the various houses tear the kingdom apart to satisfy their own petty desires? Or will powerful fiends slowly pervert the land until everything becomes a veritable Hell (or Abyss) on Earth?

That really depends on the PC's.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm hooks...

Well let's see:

Druids don't need no stinking gods to cast spells

Paladins, Rangers get better spells that actually DO something.

Sorcery is different from wizardy AND you have lots of bloodlines to play with.

Oh yeah me (Nightfall) as an NPC.

 

[D+1]

Most of the world is under the dominance of an opressive lawful good theocratic empire.

That is an inherent contradiction - a patent impossibility. Lawful good - by definition - is not oppressive.

 

[D+1]

Yes, your world needs a hook. The players need to feel that they're part of something more than just stats and goodies on a piece of paper. Unless you don't care about making the game fun or interesting. The 'generic fantasy world' has run its course for most of us over the age of 15.

That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with. The "generic fantasy world" has NOT run its course for most people over the age of 15. I would strongly assert that most campaigns of ALL demographics are still generic fantasy.

"Generic fantasy" is NOT by definition dull, bland or boring. It only gets that way because the DM and/or players become dull, bland and bored. It's not as if the genre has failed to entertain them - they fail to entertain themselves and simply find it easier to blame the genre for somehow being stagnant, restrictive, etc. Imagination needs to be exercised to continue to work.

No, you do NOT need a hook. Yes, the players need to feel their characters are part of something interesting and that they are not just a conglomeration of game stats. You start to need hooks when you have fallen into the trap of presenting "generic fantasy" without that life, vibrancy, personal involvment, etc. You feel you have to put in some kind of significant tweak to MAKE it interesting and involving for the players or yourself. That basically assumes that it has suddenly become UNinteresting - but nothing about generic fantasy has changed from all those previous years when you DID play generic fantasy.

If you present a campaign as: "Well, this is going to be just another standard Realms or Greyhawk campaign with the usual assortment of prestige classes and same NPC's and recent history as the last game. Go ahead and roll up a character and you'll all meet in a bar..." What could you possibly expect? You present no life to the campaign, no real personal interest in or excitement about what you're doing. But as soon as you have an idea about what kind of adventures or meta-plots you intend to run it doesn't matter if it's generic fantasy or some complex, bizzare, home-brewed, freaky-world with 100 pages of house rules and intricate history... in other words - a world with a "hook" that will supposedly lure in players where a "generic" world would not. You don't need the "hook" to MAKE it interesting. You just need the interest and excitement in whatever world you ARE running, hook or no hook.

 

[pogre]

My campaign is named for the central city Zandyrium. Zandyrium is based on historical Byzantium in the late 14th century. The former head of an expansive continental empire that united the Norsican north and the Thraegian south. Neglect and bureaucracy has slowly led to the demise of the empire as city after city fell. Now Zandyrium stands as a great trading city with illusions of grandeur and power. The bureaucracy has its head buried in the sand while threats converge from all directions.

In the meantime, while humanity wrestles with the barbaric hordes, a new empire is rising - and it isn't good... Humans are the base PC race (as per D&D), but not necessarily the dominant world race.

It's mostly straight D&D with a couple minor twists. Galtikvalt a Dwarven city is the main resource Zauberstahl ore - a key ingredient in creating
powerful magic arms and armor. Only Zauberstahl can
hold +3 enchantments or higher. Another Dwarven outpost, Buldarvalt has ceased communications with Zandyrium following a diplomatic snafu. Galtikvalt is under siege and the main river leading to the ancient Dwarven City is cut-off.

 

[Beholder Bob]

The original gods died in apocalypse, the new gods (PCs from old campaign) are weak and inept - still learning the ropes. Their servants rival them in power - creation is barely understood and poorly handled. Devils/demons/angels - same group - a large bureaucracy that muddles through. No teleport, planar travel (well, just to 2 planes), nor planar scrying - gods have very 2nd hand (and often late) info regarding conditions on the earth. Alignment is not detectable and gods can not verify if you still follow them - so heresy is a real risk. Most clerics w/out spells (churches are granted a clerics spell allotment, individual priests not supposed to get spells -too much power w no way to monitor. Rare priests w spells, but they tend to get burned at the stake - for heresy (and threatening the power of the church). Only 5 planes and the elemental planes - the elemental planes are the edges of the 'prime' - you can walk to the elemental earth plane. Heaven and hell are reachable by climbing/falling. Only 2 planes require planar travel - and the gods have almost no power in these sidereal planes. Oh, to resurrect someone, must go up/down to heaven/hell and find and then rescue your friend - and have a body waiting for his spirit. No easy spell - but no level loss either!

BB

 

[D+1]

To actually get to the point of the original poster I'll present a precis of the world and y'all can decide if anything in it qualifies as a "hook".

Takes place in JG's Wilderlands setting. There is a "World Emperor" who has fought on and off with the "Invincible Overlord" and it is their two respective city-states that are focused on in the campaign. They have fought off and on for years, even centuries. The Emperor is actually going quite nicely insane and this time the Overlord may finally field a campaign that will at the very least manage to remove the City State of the Invincible Overlord from the last vestiges of subjugation under the Emperor.

At some point I intend the players to have access to either the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O or the Machine of Lum the Mad. If they take it they will wind up facing off against the other of these artifacts.

Though there are only a handful of genuinely large city-states (the rest of the known world being largely smallish towns and villages) great advances in "technology" are on the verge of being introduced thanks to magic. Advances like gunpowder, the first inter-city railroad, flying ships/airships, and the rediscovery of a number of connected teleportation "portals" that will have vast positive implications for commerce, communication, even casual travel. Yet it also is a harbinger of wars, political instability, massive changes in demographics and sociological upheaval and more.

But all that is background. For what the PC's are likely to be doing throughout most of the campaign it's STILL really just generic D&D fantasy. Killing lots of "bad people" and taking their stuff.