Unique and Original Campaign Settings

[EB3]

What I would like from those in the community who are willing to post, is a list of settings that you feel are certainly different than what would be considered generic or stereotypical, but also list why you feel that way about it; what elements in the setting make it unique and stand out amongst the crowd.

With all, a lot of options in an interesting and slick world that combines the fantastic with enough elements of the real world that players and GMs can relate to and run with.

Fantasy: I second the Warhammer Fantasy. Neat blend of atmosphere with enough real world elements to strike home for players and DMs.

Sci-fi (near future): Talismania Cyberpunk. Smooth writing, very cool set-up. Like living a William Gibson novel. Often copied, never reproduced.

Sci-Fi (future): Traveller 2300/2300 AD (same game, two names...go figure). A disunified Earth brings national infighting to the stars, and aliens.

Sci-fi (Far future): Alternity's Star Drive. Well developed setting with more campaign options than you could count.

Espionage (and Horror): Call of Cthulhu's Delta Green. A well researched (with dark conserital overtones), add otherworldly horrors and sneaky aliens. Discuss among yourselves.

 

[adembroski3]

First off, I'd like to state that I don't consider psudo medieval to be generic... just a good foundation.

Anyways, the setting I'm into at the moment is Sovereign Stone, though combined with the Grim-n-Gritty hit point rules.

It's not perticularly original, but it's good and has some nice twists too it. I do highly recommend reading the books (at least Well of Darkness) before running it to get a better feel for the world.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Transhuman Space (near-future hard SF): No other setting I know delves so deeply into the question: "What is human?" For when humanity gets not only the power to create other sapient beings, but reshape itself in almost any imaginable ways, what will happen to it? How will the rules of politics, society, and culture alter?

A truly thought-provocative setting - and one that's highly recommended even if you want to build fantasy worlds. For magic can do pretty much all of the things that the technology of this setting does, and sooner or later a wizard will try to create a new race of sapients - or alter his own children to make them "better"...

 

[Mach2.5]

First off, I'd like to state that I don't consider psudo medieval to be generic... just a good foundation

Sorry if I'm sounding as if those are my thoughts; they certainly are not. Actually, anything done once is original. Anything after that which is a near carbon copy though, is generic. You can only change so many kingdom names and holy orders of knights, or names of planets and starships in the case of far future sci-fi, before you find that your only rehashing ideas to death. Unfortunately, this plagues medival fantasy more than any other genre (at least in my eyes it does), so for the purpose of the statements at the begining of the post, it was easiest to nail that as the staple to stray away from.

Talismania Cyberpunk

Hmm, never heard of this one. Any more info about it (publisher, est. release). I'm curious since I'm only moderately aquainted with the whole cyberpunk genre and while the genre itself is original, I'd like to know a little more about why you felt that this particular one stood out from others like CB2020 and Gurps Cyberpunk (or as an afterthought, did you mean Talsorian, the company that publishes Cyberpunk 2020?).

Call of Cthulhu's Delta Green

The only book that could have probably given Lovecraft himself some pretty restless sleep. Definately a nice take on merging two genres, the well established Cthulhu mythos with the budding (at least in RPGs anyhow) conspiracy theory genre.

Transhuman Space

Wow, now there's a term I never expected to see in an RPG. Want to know what's more unreal? That the extropy and transhumanism movement has been around since the early 70's. I've been heavily involved in it since around 87 myself (as a member of the WTA and ExI) and continue to support the movement in a number of ways. The real bummer though is that I wanted to incorporate alot of the fundamentals of the transhumanism ideology into an RPG. Someone has beaten me to it though . Anyhow, thanks for the heads up on this one. You just saved me a lot of work

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Wow, now there's a term I never expected to see in an RPG. Want to know what's more unreal? That the extropy and transhumanism movement has been around since the early 70's. I've been heavily involved in it since around 87 myself (as a member of the WTA and ExI) and continue to support the movement in a number of ways. The real bummer though is that I wanted to incorporate alot of the fundamentals of the transhumanism ideology into an RPG. Someone has beaten me to it though . Anyhow, thanks for the heads up on this one. You just saved me a lot of work

Transhuman Space is a whole line (and it's self-contained, too - it has a Lite version of the GURPS rules in the hardcover version so that you don't even need to buy the GURPS Basic Set to understand it). So far, it has a number of supplements that describe parts of the setting ranging from the depths of the solar system to the oceans of Earth.

The most interesting of the supplements for your purposes might be "Toxic Memes" (to which I have made a few small contributions), which contains all sorts of information on culture, society, and belief systems - including a very useful game system on how to influence public opinion on large scales.

"You appear to be starting a religion. Would you like help with that?"
- MemeAgent assistant,
ParadigmMaker 2.1 software

 

[PJ-Mason]

Providence - A pseudo-fantasy setting written by Lucien Soulban (and others) and the rules by Nic Jequier. The world of Providence was a hollow world that was a prison for exiled criminals (or political enemies). The races were all avian and had magic and/or superhuman abilities. The society had a caste system that was based on your particular avian race and wing status and god help you if you didn't have any wings at all!! It had political intrigue, war, magic, superpowers and a ton of other stuff. It accomadated so many different genres i was quite amazed. It was also the first setting/rules game that made me realize that a supers game could be mixed, and done damn well!, with any kind of genre. I think most people just thought the bird/avian aspect was weird and avoided it. If it hadn't had that one all-encompassing feature, it may have been one of the best settings ever (as considered by the gaming society anyway. I thought it was cool). Too bad.

Now that my friend, was different.

 

[D+1]

No, that would certainly make for a short list

You mean

Greyhawk
Forgotten Realms, and subset campaign settings:
Maztica
The Horde
Netheril
Cormanthyr
Bloodstone Lands (?)
Al-Quadim
Kara-Tur (a.k.a. Oriental Adventures)
Ravenloft
Planescape
Mystara (The Known World), and subset settings:
Hollow World
Red Steel/Savage Baronies
Birthright
Dark Sun
Dragonlance
Time of the Dragon
Second Edition/War of the Lance/Age of Heroes/4th Age
SAGA/5th Age/Age of Mortals
Taladas
Spelljammer
Astromundi Cluster
Blackmoor
Lankhmar
Glory of Rome
Age of Heroes
A Mighty Fortress
Vikings
Charlemagnes Paladins
The Celts
The Crusades
Council of Wyrms
Diablo
Jakandor
Ghostwalk
Eberron
Hyperborea (Conan)
Tales of the Comet

is a short list?

 

[Mach2.5]

Touche'

But then again, how original do you feel those settings are? I know I could shorten that list up quite a bit (cultural interpretations are not entire off the cuff, and several of those settings are within the same master setting such as Netheril, Cormanthyr, Bloodstone Lands all being FR). So then, I'll pose the same question then to you: Which of those settings do you feel broke away from the cookie cutter molds of other settings?

 

[Ottergame]

I think I am the only person who liked Dragonlance 5th Age's SAGA card system.

 

[Turanil]

My suggestions:

1) Getting a look at "Exiles, My Homebrew" thread on d20 modern forum, which is really interesting IMO (blend of sci-fi and technology well done)

2) Getting a look at Amethyst (a free 260 pages campaign setting, see link in my signature).

3) Using Arcana Unearthed (by Monte Cook ) different classes and races, and different magic system would much help in creating something obviously diferent. something that could be mixed with Nyambe for example.

4) Using variant races and additional rules from Unearthed Arcana (by WotC) would also help create some meaningful differences.