What are the pros and cons of the different campaign settings?

[megamania]

Did anyone do one for Dark Sun? Now that we're getting a new campaign setting book for it, my interest is rekindled.

DARKSUN

Personally my favorite. 3e product is limited thus it's main weakness currently. Watch Dragon/Dungeon to alter this soon. By using 2e books and adapting them to 3e you have all the game references you need and play any type of game you want. Entrigue- Trade houses and Templars Warrior types- Arenas and every third or fourth year a city vs city scuffle occurs Magic- still there but now you need to be careful of how you use it and display it. Divine influences- elementary dear Watson. Like psionics- this is for you.

Cons-
World is no longer published. This con is a plus for me since I feel I can ANYTHING I want now to the game world.
Main villians are 45+ levels each. Need to start low before you over throw the city rulers
Psionics- either you like 'em or you don't. 3e makes it more like a third type of magic and remains balanced.
Tweaks on races- again, may be a plus by taste, most of the races have been altered some. Dwarves lack beards, elves generally are not to be trusted or liked humans have role-playing only mutations.
History- once you go through all the books (Ias I have) you have about 14,000 years of unexplored history with colorful events like the Brown Tide, Cleansing Wars and later City State of Tyr stuff.


Something else to be said. It is a world of mutable extremes. Anything goes and often does. More so, it is somewhat okay. A human mutated with a third arm will get stares but not automatically attacked. The more knowledgeable ones will- "oh- you bled at the Pristine Tower."

Think about it. Find 2e stuff on e-bay or dusty bookshelves then wait for the Dragon Magazine that details or visit Athas.Org for another 3e conversion.

Also- (self plug) check out Under A Darksun and my PbP links below to get a feel for Darksun. a world not only looking for heroes ....but needs some.

 

[megamania]

Whoohoo!
I liked your idea of how you plan to bring the characters from one setting to another. Depending on how much culture shock you want to give your players, Ihttp://www.kenzerco.com/forums/ubbthreads.php

more plugs- checkout STRIKEFORCE: MORITURI below. I place characters from different worlds, timelines and genres together using 3e DnD style rules. Working well enough now.

 

[Treebore]

I have DMed using Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Planescape, Paladium, Ravenloft, real medieval Earth, Harn, Lahkmar, Cascandia (my homebrew), and probably others, such as Hollow World, that I just don't remember.

What have i learned? That I made every single one of them a fun world to game in, and they were MY worlds, ran MY way. The homebrew route is good for several things, saving you money, tailored exactly to your tastes, and is a total mystery to your players. Con: it usually becomes a heck of a lot of work!

Pro's of published worlds. Players who have read some or a lot of the material feel like they are really a part of the world, not an outsider looking in. As for the players quoting this or that book so it should be so here. I got around that by telling my players that "Yes, it may be in a novel or sourcebook, but unless i say it is so, it ISN'T so in my version of FR, GReyhawk, Ravenloft, etc...

The big Pro of published worlds: The geography is already decided upon and nicely mapped out with a lot of location names already made up for you. You want more detail? Do it yourself or buy a supplement that sounds like it has what you want.

I own Scarred Lands, everything of Kalamar, Oathbound, Oriental Adventures, and Dungeonworld. I haven't used a single setting for a campaign yet. Why do I own them? Because they are all very different Campaign concepts that I know I will have fun with, eventually. Plus I can afford to buy them.

So, unless you love all the work involved in a good homebrew, and have the time to do it, then do it. If you have the money, go with something published. You can always alter it to your vision/tastes with a lot less work than a homebrew, and therefore a lot less time.

I admire the good homebrew campaign, did it when i was single and had the time and inclination. Now i am married with 3 kids and loving every minute of it. So now i buy and use published stuff, and it is all good once I modify it to my vision/tastes. Which is what you are expected to do by every publisher out there.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm Tree...

Merak already made his choice...and it's KoK. Plus the fact while Homebrew IS fun for some, maybe he just wants someone else do the work while he does the fun. That's his choice. Much like I can't and won't persuade him to change his mind.

The rest of you can do what you want but thought I'd say that...

 

[Treebore]

Nightfall,

I know that. This was just my opinion on the overall topic. My specific answer to Merick is that any campaign world can be fun, if you are willing/able to make it so. i know he picked Kalamar. I believe i made it clear I have no problem with his choice since I own EVERYTHING Kalamar, and I haven't even used it yet.

The rest of my response was to those who are pro homebrew or pro published. Generally, there is a time and place for either, and no one should claim one is better than the other. They both work, depending on what the individual is willing and/or able to do.

 

[Nightfall]

Okay Tree. Just didn't want you to do a Homer Simpson on us because you only read the first page or something...

 

[MonsterMash]

Wilderlands of High Fantasy

Even though the die has already been cast I thought that it did deserve a comment on the Wilderlands of High Fantasy/ City State of the Invincible Overlord setting for the completeness of the thread. I've originally used this with OD&D and 1e back in the 80s so I've obviously got an investment of time and work that other settings would have to displace (though I took a long break from Gaming).

Pros:
Very flexible setting - rule 0 - the Judge (GM) can always alter the setting to fit their requirements, nothing is canonical and no novels in the setting (not something I like, but each to their own)

Good web support - see www.judgesguild.com for free downloads giving the flavour of it and there will be a base of fan material building up there.

Very much '1e feel' - i.e. think Howard/Leiber/Tolkien/Vance as authors rather than more modern fantasy. Also if you want high tech elements these can be fitted in from the distant past as the world was supposedly run by alien races long ago.

Cons:
The majority of the DM material is not available yet unless you have time and patience to buy the old 1e material and convert it.

Not fleshed out to the incredible level of detail that some other settings are.

Factors that could be classed as Pro/Con (actually most of the above could be) :
Not the entire world is mapped or covered. Allows other places to be fitted in around the edges if required.

And some comments on settings already mentioned:
KoK - looks good, Kenzer seem to publish very good stuff and is well detailed.

FR - Got to admit it doesn't really fit my requirements for a gaming world - too high magic, too much published background material.

Al-Qadim, if I had time to convert it I might well have gone for it.

 

[Kichwas]

Bluffside I don't believe Bluffside is out of print. You can still order it from mysticeyegames.com.

That may just be until stock runs out. I heard the line was cancelled.

CONS: ...
little synergy between the disparate writers
...
Sixam and Nevae were added, not because they were crucial to the setting, but because of kitchen-sink syndrome.
...
If I were to redo Bluffside, I would firstly just replace gnomes with steam gnomes, and remove Nevae, Dragori, and Sixam. It's much more consistent with core that way, and less complicate.

I find it interesting that you say Sixam were just added from kitchen-sink syndrome - because they have such a major impact, especially due to their rules imbalance. I agree they would make a good toss out, that or better integration and balance (despite the impact, they're not as 'placed throughout' as thery ought to be).

Your comment on Steam Gnomes baffles me - that would stear it away from core, not towards. It would largely make it incompatable with other settings.

I liked BLufside, but I found Kalamar at just about the same time and it got my attention from there on.

Sadly, the market only has so much space for so many settings. It's too bad we couldn't lose FR instead of Bluffside, but that's how it goes. If Eberon succeeds, it will probably push out some other product - probaly several given the tendancy of people to go with WotC (despite them no longer having much of a TSR legacy left).

 

[Falkayn]

Interesting thread, especially the pros/cons for each campaign setting.

Personally I find myself interested in 4-5 settings at once, like right now I would like to be playing in:

• Iron Kingdoms
• Skull & Bones (i.e. typical historical pirate campaign)
• Forgotten Realms
• Freeport
• Traveller T20 (Gateway)
• Star Wars (Rebellion era)
• Aeden (homebrew)

Perhaps it is not so much that the market is saturated, but that people need campaign 'templates' that they can apply to 'standard' adventure modules to make them fit a particular campaign world (e.g. all references to orcs become lizardmen, and stats are given to help the change).

That might make both the campaign settings and the adventure modules more useful, and hence increase sales - of course a lot of why you buy a particular adventure is because of the feel given it by the relevant campaign setting ... but sometimes that just hides the fact that it is a bad module.

What do you think? Am I completely bonkers?