RangerWickett
Legend
Basically, it comes down to us wanting to do something different. There are already hundreds of adventures out there for traditional D&D fantasy, but as far as I know only the smallest handful with a higher tech level (and practically none at all for 4e).
I feel that having a setting with its own identity lets us tell more rewarding stories. Yes, it's at the expense of flexibility for those GMs who want to use their own settings, but for those who want to save time on preparation, the more details we give, the less work the GM has to do.
I'll tell you this: if you want to just run one or two adventures from the saga in your own world, it's easy to reskin things as more traditional fantasy. The steamship becomes a grand galleon with a magical device to control wind and sea. The tieflings building technology are just tieflings using infernal, creepy magic. Guns become crossbows, or occasionally wands.
The 'industrial revolution' people are complaining about becomes an effort in one city to use new magic inventions, presided over by a self-styled visionary city governor. Maybe you get sweatshops instead of textile mills, but huge forges crafting arcane metals already fit with traditional fantasy, and it's only a slight twist to have workshops creating tons of weapons, including alchemist fire and other minor magical trinkets. If Tolkien could have orcs doing an industrial revolution for swords and armor, I think players would be okay with a localized uptick in the production of magic items.
If you want to use the whole campaign, though, well, we try to set up connections between adventures so that players can revisit people and places they encountered earlier. The broader in scope things get, the more difficult it becomes to nestle it in another world.
I personally think that if you're devoting months of gaming to a single campaign, it may as well be a new and interesting world. But if you disagree, well, we try to offer suggestions, but only you can figure out if it's worth your time.
From the Player's Guide:
[[Sidebar]]
What if I want traditional fantasy?
Some gamers are hesitant to introduce any technology more recent than the Renaissance to their fantasy campaigns. While the conflict between technology and traditional magic is a key component of the ZEITGEIST adventure path, it is certainly possible for the DM to retool the campaign so arcane and psionic power fill the role normally played by industry, leaving primal and divine power to represent ‘tradition.’
Likewise, if you are playing ZEITGEIST in a different setting, the DM will have to decide how to adapt the geography, history, and cosmology to fit with that world. For questions like this, and any other help you’d like for your game, we encourage you to post on the EN World messageboards, where the community and the E.N. Publishing staff is always willing to help fellow gamers.
[[End Sidebar]]
I feel that having a setting with its own identity lets us tell more rewarding stories. Yes, it's at the expense of flexibility for those GMs who want to use their own settings, but for those who want to save time on preparation, the more details we give, the less work the GM has to do.
I'll tell you this: if you want to just run one or two adventures from the saga in your own world, it's easy to reskin things as more traditional fantasy. The steamship becomes a grand galleon with a magical device to control wind and sea. The tieflings building technology are just tieflings using infernal, creepy magic. Guns become crossbows, or occasionally wands.
The 'industrial revolution' people are complaining about becomes an effort in one city to use new magic inventions, presided over by a self-styled visionary city governor. Maybe you get sweatshops instead of textile mills, but huge forges crafting arcane metals already fit with traditional fantasy, and it's only a slight twist to have workshops creating tons of weapons, including alchemist fire and other minor magical trinkets. If Tolkien could have orcs doing an industrial revolution for swords and armor, I think players would be okay with a localized uptick in the production of magic items.
If you want to use the whole campaign, though, well, we try to set up connections between adventures so that players can revisit people and places they encountered earlier. The broader in scope things get, the more difficult it becomes to nestle it in another world.
I personally think that if you're devoting months of gaming to a single campaign, it may as well be a new and interesting world. But if you disagree, well, we try to offer suggestions, but only you can figure out if it's worth your time.
From the Player's Guide:
[[Sidebar]]
What if I want traditional fantasy?
Some gamers are hesitant to introduce any technology more recent than the Renaissance to their fantasy campaigns. While the conflict between technology and traditional magic is a key component of the ZEITGEIST adventure path, it is certainly possible for the DM to retool the campaign so arcane and psionic power fill the role normally played by industry, leaving primal and divine power to represent ‘tradition.’
Likewise, if you are playing ZEITGEIST in a different setting, the DM will have to decide how to adapt the geography, history, and cosmology to fit with that world. For questions like this, and any other help you’d like for your game, we encourage you to post on the EN World messageboards, where the community and the E.N. Publishing staff is always willing to help fellow gamers.
[[End Sidebar]]
