The Ideal Setting

[Mephos]

Was reading over the forums today and the thought has occured to me..What would be , from your POV, the ultimate setting?

• Would it have high amounts of magic?
• High technology..or steampunk?
• Lots of character options?

etc

If you could design the best setting in the world(assuming that licence issues were no problems) what would be your top 3(or 5 or whatever)

I'm trying to get a feel of what people really like in a game system(yes i admit i'm working on a system based of d20 myself, but it's a looooong way off). It can be from any game system, any version.

Please be aware i'm NOT trying to find out what system is "the best", but what people liked about various systems and game worlds, lets keep this positve shall we

To get things started here's mine

1 - The overall setting of Planescape
2 - The character options from Pathfinder
3 - The lore and background from Call of Cthulhu

 

[aco175]

From a setting perspective, I like FR in the way it has regions that are fleshed out with each having a personality of its own. It can be a bit less having to do with super characters and more on my characters and campaign, which I think they tried to do with 4e revisions. I would like to see a region with some steampunk and firearms. Maybe not much, but some flavor would be cool.

I'm not sure on high vs. low magic. The system is designed for a certain amount of magic to balance it out. I do not have a problem with magic playing a role in play and artifacts coming and going. A lot of the books feature this and they are great to read.

I would like to see supplemental books with towns and regions detailed enough to have it tied together, but provide room for DM input and story. One of my favorite supplements was from the early 80's, FR Daggerford. It had a detailed enough town and provided three semi-'delves' for placed in the surrounding area. I was able to use the dungeons for play and use the town several times for my money.

I'm fine with standard races and classes. Never really been interested in playing in outer space or underwater. Gods do not matter outside of having enough to represent both sides.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, for a setting based on what has come before.

Birthright for campaign management. I loved to use this to be able to run stuff behind the scenes.

Birthright for the magical bloodlines. I think this would be a good way to balance arcane magics.

Birthright for non-human, demi-human and humanoid kingdoms/empires.

4e points of light for the cosmology. I just love the idea of the Dawn war and all the factions in the planes. Actually scratch 'factions' and insert 'power groups' The idea of the gods keeping their infighting down to tolerable levels due to an external threat just sets right with me. I always wondered in Planescape (2E, 3.x cosmology) what kept the gods from cutting each other's throats.

 

[The Shaman]

My favorite setting? This one.

The most exhaustively detailed setting for roleplaying games ever. Seriously, there are libraries full of books about the geography, history, and cultures of this one. I can't imagine running out of ideas of what to do with it.

And it's a setting that most players already know, to one degree or another, so the learning curve isn't as steep.

 

[Keldryn]

My ideal setting would be one that is set up for the players to take center stage in influencing the outcome of events. No legions of high-level good NPCs.

The world itself would have a generally realistic and believable geography. It doesn't have to stand up to geology majors' nitpicking, but would avoid having mountains and rivers placed because they looked good or were convenient. There would of course be fantastic elements to the world's geography, but they would stand out because they are fantastic.

The setting doesn't need to span a whole world, or even a whole continent. A smaller geographical area with enough countries and city-states to generate more political plots and events would be good enough.

A well thought-out religion that isn't just a list of the god of war, the goddess of love, the god of sneezes, and the like. The religions should be integrated into the world, complete with myths and legends. Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous is the model here.

There doesn't have to be a place for everything in the core rules just because it's a D&D world. Eliminating too many aspects from the core game would annoy too many players, but not every world needs to allow for the existence of psionics, dragonborn, tieflings, sorcerers, or wish spells. There are too many sentient monsters in the books anyway, so trim them down a bit. Dragonlance was distinct for what it excluded as much as it what for what it added.

The setting doesn't need to assume the existence of the D&D multiverse and other campaign settings. It can have its own cosmology.

There should be some attempt to define unique cultures in the setting, and characters and nations should have names which reflect their cultural origins.

A plausible economy and is important. Another area where it doesn't have to stand up to expert-level nitpicking, but at least try. The role of magic in society and the effect that it would have on the world should have some thought put into it.

Above all, I don't want to see places and characters with names like K'mar'z'gar or Svhimozia.

This setting would probably be called Blandonia or The Rice Cake Kingdoms. Or maybe just Cold Play.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My favorite setting? This one.

The most exhaustively detailed setting for roleplaying games ever. Seriously, there are libraries full of books about the geography, history, and cultures of this one. I can't imagine running out of ideas of what to do with it.

And it's a setting that most players already know, to one degree or another, so the learning curve isn't as steep.

But whose version of the setting will you run? Too many choices.

 

[Wik]

I'd like a gritty setting, where combats are brutal and fast - sort of sword and sorcery, in a conan-like vibe, although it doesn't have to be fantasy. You can do it just as well in a post-apoc sort of vibe.

One where gear is acquired more often than "loot", and it's given piecemeal, bit by bit. In other words, a game where Players get excited not about getting a +5 sword (which doesn't exist), but in which they get a good pair of boots... or a chainmail sleeve to complete their armour set.

A game with loosely-defined areas, but with some strongly-detailed central points. The original Dark Sun boxed set is kind of what I'm thinking of. Expansions might add a few new places, or expand upon the detailed area, but they don't fill the map up with so much info that GMs feel constrained in creating their own stuff.

no metaplot. At all. The game is frozen in one date, and the GMs can take the adventure from there.

A world in which the environment plays a factor. One in which we can envision our characters moving around through the world, even when we're not fighting monsters or exploring dungeons. I love settings in which I can imagine my character just.... walking. Whether it's a desert setting, an arctic setting, city-based, or space-based... I just want a setting where significant attention has been given to what it'd be like to live there.

A system where we can get through a combat in less than half an hour. While also being one where there's more than, say, six degrees of seperation between an untrained character and a maxed-out character. I want a setting where I can't start off with combat skill maxed out.

I want a world in which players have a pretty wide range of character concepts to choose from, while at the same time, the final group makes sense together. No human fighters rubbing shoulders with half-dragon time mages. I'd like a game where, even if every character is playing a human soldier, there is something mechanical that differentiates them, and how they play at the table.

I want a world that draws inspiration from the real world, and uses historical models to lay a groundwork. But at the same time, I don't just want a world in which you've taken the vikings and put them on an arctic coast and decided they're going to fight the egyptians. History out of context is garbage.

 

[Haltherrion]

In the basic sense, a setting just needs to be well integrated and built around an engaging concept. I like the magic, history and other bones of the setting to fit together well. Put an engaging concept on top of that and I'm very happy. There are particular ways to do this that interest me (below) but I'm open to most things that meet the basic definition and it's more fun to play in something surprisingly engaging than something I've already identified as possibly fun.

• I'm partial to a Dark Age: a setting where civilization has collapsed or is at least under stress. Partly because I like such historical periods and partly because it seems a great setting for heroic characters: a reduced world where heroes can make a difference.
• For similar reasons, I like heroic age settings, similar to the viking period, post Roman Germanic period and the like.
• Also for similar reasons, an underdog setting like Saxons under Norman rule.
• I like high fantasy, not so much tons of magic items, but dragons, flying castles, Excaliber type artifacts. Powerful magic but not necessarily lots of magic.
• I like pantheons that are well designed for a FRPG and not tacked-on or thinly disguied historical pantheons.
• A faerie tale element (elves in a twilight land) can be fun if handled well.

 

[Mephos]

Well, for a setting based on what has come before.

Birthright for campaign management. I loved to use this to be able to run stuff behind the scenes.

Birthright for the magical bloodlines. I think this would be a good way to balance arcane magics.

Birthright for non-human, demi-human and humanoid kingdoms/empires.

4e points of light for the cosmology. I just love the idea of the Dawn war and all the factions in the planes. Actually scratch 'factions' and insert 'power groups' The idea of the gods keeping their infighting down to tolerable levels due to an external threat just sets right with me. I always wondered in Planescape (2E, 3.x cosmology) what kept the gods from cutting each other's throats.

I never played Birthright, although it did look interesting to me. Just could never get a group to run it so i could find out *sigh*

 

[NewJeffCT]

To me, I don't want a setting with a big over-arching theme to it or a whole new magical system.

1) A good solid framework that allows the DM to easily customize the setting to his or her tastes. So, if I buy an adventure/module, I can easily drop it into the setting with a minimum of reworking .

2) NPCs that are interesting, but not overly powerful. While I've had a lot of fun playing in the Forgotten Realms over the years, players will be hard-pressed to outshine iconic figures like Elminster, Drizz't, etc. My goal as a DM is to have the players be among the most powerful in the world by the end of the campaign.

3) I would prefer low to moderate magic in the setting, as that plays off of my #1 above. It is easier to take a low magic setting and add to magic to it than to do the opposite.

4) A good amount of fluff/flavor text for current events in the world, as well as an interesting history that explains why the world is the way it is now.

5) Some realism to the world's geography - rivers don't flow up hill, unless it is some fantastical magic river - that sort of thing.

6) Economic/trade information for each kingdom/empire/city-state, even if it is just a line or two: Kingdom A exports rice, exotic spices and gold, but wine and iron are often in short supply; Kingdom B exports fine steel weapons and armor, but is often short of many foodstuffs beyond wheat products.