What do you look for in a campaign setting?

[Jürgen Hubert]

Well, I know what I want to see in a setting - so I set out to write my own.

I didn't want to rewrite the d20 rules to fit into a setting - I just wanted the existing rules to make sense within a setting. I wanted to answer questions like:

- What does it mean for a society if the rich can get ressurected until they die of old age?

- Just where do all of these magic items come from?

- What would warfare look like if armies had access to area affect spells like fireballs?

And finally, I wanted big cities. Really, really big cities. With populations ranging into the millions.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I would like a setting that captures the feel of a fantasy novel. I would like it grim and gritty, yet survivable. I would like wizards to truly be formidable compared to normal warrior types. I would like the priests to have to be pious and dedicated.

Most of all, I would like an experience point system incorporated into the campaign setting that does not embrace the "kill and acquire" mentality of standard D&D. It is almost impossible to run a good storyline while attempting to ensure that the PC's acquire enough experience to level.

I want the world to be rich with a plethora of cultures and peoples to interact with and places to travel. Many fantastic monsters and natural phenomena are also a must.

Nice maps. Good artwork. Some underlying mythology on how the place was created. A solid pantheon of gods or an interesting god. Political interactions. A nicely written history on major events that have helped shape the campaign world. Prestige classes specific to the world. Spells specific to the world. Varied races. Even some unique languages always adds a nice bit of flavor.

 

[senodam]

I like to see worlds that can handle truly epic plots and campaigns, but also the starting out, low level advantures as well. Mix in a love of high magic and dngeoneering and what do you get? The Realms in all their glory. FR suits my style and tastes down to the ground.

 

[bloodymage]

I look for a setting that I can imagine myself adventuring in. It needs to be consistent, coherent and believable or, at least, not too wonky. If I, myself, could step into a world with heroic abilities and skills and imagine myself eventually making a name and a difference, the setting passes the most crucial test. FR fails. KoK passes. Other settings pass or fail using this overarching criteria.

 

[DaveMage]

I look for settings that have a "cool" factor to them.

My favorite for 3E/d20 is Oathbound, and my favorite for 2E was Planescape. The originality that went into the crafting of both settings is what impresses me the most. Oathbound introduced the concept of prestige races and maintains an excellent balance of intrigue and simple adventure. Planescape not only came up with its own vocabulary, but brought the planes to life like they never had been before. Some of the sites that were designed in the Planescape products were very adventure-inspiring.

 

[xrpsuzi]

I look for settings that have a "cool" factor to them.

I also like the cool factor, but the real deciding factor is how the designers carry out the execution. I'm not just talking about cruchy bits (though those are nice) but I'm also talking about viability, how adventurers work in the environment (they role in that setting, etc.).

For example, I've seen lots of cool ideas that I may want to read a story/novel about, but role-playing in it doesn't sound appealing. Whether that it is something explicit in the setting or if I just wasn't with the designer in the way they set up the setting is up in the air.

That being said, I really like picking up new campaign settings because I like taking the "cool" ideas and integrating it in my homebrew.

-suzi

 

[Keldryn]

These days, I'm big on internal consistency. That doesn't mean that it has to be realistic -- this is fantasy role-playing, after all. But the game world has to be believable or else my immersion in the game is ruined. Many game worlds are created with absolutely no thought to issues such as ecology, or the effects that widespread magic use and magical healing would have on the population in general.

A unique flavor to the world is also important.

I used to love the old D&D "Known World" (now Mystara). It was the first campaign world I ever played in (and DMed). It was a lot of fun, with a lot of detail, but when I try to think logically about how all of the different bits fit together, it makes my head hurt. All of those small nations within such a small area, but with such differing cultures -- Romans next to Arab/Egypt next to Vikings next to Mongols -- is a bit too much to swallow. Never mind the deserts bordering on fjords. The world also has a fair bit of just plain sillyness about it.

I've always found Greyhawk to be very bland and boring. It suffers from the unbelievable ecology issue, but not as bad as....

The Realms. What can I say that hasn't been said already? I used to really like the setting, back in the days of the 1987 Grey Box. If I could erase my memory of any FR materials published after 1988, I might be able to enjoy the setting. But it is over-developed, and the over-commercialization of the FR in the early 90s really killed it. There are entirely too many extremely powerful predators roaming the land (what do they eat?), 22-level dungeons built for no real purpose other than to amuse an insane mage, powerful wizards in every village, etc, etc. The world just strains my suspension of disbelief too much.

Dark Sun was one of the better official D&D worlds. It's a bit too unconventional for my tastes, but it was a good campaign setting.

Birthright was probably my favorite TSR-published world. It had a level of internal consistency that I hadn't seen in many published worlds, and the ecology of the setting was much more believable. It would have made a great campaign setting even for a regular style of D&D game, where the players aren't rulers.

Kingdoms of Kalamar seems to possess all of the traits that I like in a world, from what I have seen. But every time I pick up the book to consider buying it, the naming conventions turn me off. I can't, with a straight face, tell my players about a Fhokki warrior who just returned from Svhimozia (sp?). Many of the names are hard to pronounce, impossible to spell, and have far too many apostrophes. It's too bad, because the setting seems very consistent and believable.

Looks like my next game will be homebrew again. But I just picked up the Book of the Righteous, and I'm seriously considering building a world around the mythology in the book; it's that good.

 

[Emiricol]

Check my sig. It's pretty consistent, since the world is based on the interactions of the gods for a few thousand years. The narrative is in chapter two (gods) and the timeline is in appendix. May be a good start point for ya.

 

[Eosin the Red]

1. It does not need to be realistic but it needs to be internally consistant.

2. Should resemble a fanstay setting that comes from a novel (rare wizards, poor peasants, little godly interaction, 1 man can't kill 3,000 orcs with his sword).

3. Needs to be playable on different levels - leadership roles, adventuring roles, organizational rolls.

4. Good maps required - fair or better art required.

Having said that - these are the campaigns that attract me:

Birthright
Wheel of Time
Kingdoms of Kalamar

AEG's Thea deserves mention though I hate its d20 treatment.

 

[Wraith101]

I like worlds that are consistant, with interesting cultures and especially worlds that are not over the top magic wise.

By Consistant, I mean that the world is not cobbled together, with completley different terrain and cultures side by side, I avoid FR and GH for that reason. Kingdoms Of Kalamar and Scarred Lands are good in that respect.

Interesting Cultures are very inportant to a campaign setting because the cultures around the players set the flavor and many campaign settigs are so generic they become boring.

Unfortunately, many inconsistencies and mistakes in campaign worlds are explained away by 'it's magic' and for that reason, I like lower magic worlds than FR etc.