What do you want from a campaign setting?

Psion said:
Let me answer the querry with this:

One or more interesting central, well-integrated, driving conflicts.

That's far from the only thing a campaign setting needs. But it's the one element that seems to be the most frequently missed element that kills my interest in a setting for its absence.

Could you give a few examples of campaign settings with the kind of focal conflict you are describing along with what you consider the focal conflict? I think I know what you are getting at (and I believe the idea I've got fits), but a couple examples will help.

Psion said:
Don't get me wrong here; I am not saying I want a set out story or metaplot. In fact, I generally like those to be minimal and flexible if present at all. What I want is fodder for good stories and adventure ideas, as well as character backgrounds.

Would you prefer a campaign setting with a well-defined starting point and then just adventure hooks and story ideas from thence forth (even in future supplements)? Or one with a few major campaign developements laid out and a few more revealed in each subsequent supplement (along with adventure and story hooks)? Or a well-defined storyline laid out in the campaign setting book and future supplements (with adventure and story hooks linked to those developements?

What about the rest of you? Any comments, questions, or suggestions in regards to campaign setting focal conflicts and storyline?
 

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It has to inspire me to want to adventure in it.

There are a couple of settings which go into extensive detail about the history of the world. I can think of nothing more boring than that. The setting needs to tell me what's happening NOW and how adventurers (PCs) play a role in it. A few pages of history are fine, but that's all I want.

Also, location details should be sufficient to give me a reason to adventure there. If there's no reason to bring adventurers to a location, don't waste my time telling me about it.
 

A beautiful painted map. Nothing inspires me more to adventure than a map of unknown lands with cool names. :) Then again, I'm a geographer...we're easy to please.

Too much history is boring; not enough economics makes a hash of how the world works. Focus on the little things that make life interesting to an adventurer living in the world, not the epic battles that commoners would not have even heard of. For example, I'd like to know the names of the wines and liqueurs that people drink in country X. What kind of meat do Xlanders eat? What colour are their High Day costumes? Do they wear special sashes when they go to war? Are they easily offended or stoic in their forbearance? In other words, culture.

As a reference, I would recommend taking a look at the Talislanta books. Culture, culture and cultural idiosyncracies in everything from dress to magic. That's fun.
 

jaldaen said:
What would the chapter layout of your ultimate campaign setting book look like? What are the neccessary elements of the book (unique rules, geography, history, organizations, npc's, current events, introductory adventure, etc...)?
I avoid "high concept" settings. The more complex they try to make a setting the LESS interested I am. I don't want or need new classes, prestige classes, spells, feats, skills, monsters and so forth. My enjoyment of D&D is not predicated on having a steady supply of shiny new baubles to keep me pacified. I've been playing for about 30 years and I STILL don't need anything more than PH straight classes and races to come up with new, fun, interesting, and creative characters, settings, and adventures. I have yet to play a character that uses a prestige class although admittedly I have a few in mind that might. Players in my campaigns have used them only a couple of times. The more a setting relies on being "shiny", the more it clutters up the landscape with something new with go-faster stripes just for its own sake the less I'll care for it.

Maps.

A setting first and foremost needs maps. Maps with detail and interesting features. The first thing I look at for a setting and the thing that gives me the most information about it at a glance is the campaign map. If the maps show only general information and try to make you overlook their insufficiencies by dazzling you with meaningless color I'm already turning away. The map for a campaign setting is where you get to make that great first impression so you need to get it RIGHT.

Maps can tell me more about the world geography than several chapters of prose, however inspirational. It can also tell me about culture, language, and the political landscape. It can have me looking at interesting terrain features and ALREADY coming up with my own adventures even before I know what the authors think is there. That's how important maps are to a setting. A good map can inspire me to work past a settings weaknesses. A bad map can make me ingnore its strengths.
Which elements do you prefer a setting focus on?
Well you need the basics - you need a default area in which new players can start a game. That's where you provide a little extra effort in details. Otherwise you simply need to lay out the political landscape - the nations, cities, and individuals who are the most influential, who are DRIVING world events. Whether the PC's are ever even intended to get involved in those events is irrelevant, you just need to put up the backdrop. If you want to organize that information by one chapter per nation or region, or to organize it by having an NPC chapter, a "nations" chapter, an "organizations" chapter, etc. Doesn't matter. You just need to provide it in a way that the DM will read it and be able to assimilate the information. Then you need to keep in mind that DM's need to be able to willfully disregard tons of all your carefully laid out setting information. You should never be DICTATING to a DM "how this world should be," only how YOU see it. DM's will make up their own minds if you were right. :)

So you focus on the basics. The rest will fill in just fine that you don't need to hit it all that hard.

One thing that I don't think I've ever seen anyone do is to address more of the monster population spread. Not just "Hyere be draygonnes," but "here be giants, orcs, owlbears, dire wolves, ents, and giant venus flytraps." Usually, if addressed at all this sort of thing is relegated to an encounter chart. I want more than just encounter charts. I want more than just a new monster or two. I want to know what role the DEFAULT monsters are playing in this setting. I want to know if the Purple Plains have herds of horses, elk, cows, kangaroos, all the above or if the wandering rocs and bulettes keep it fairly sparse. I don't need the migration patterns of the red-spotted stirge but tell me SOMETHING about the ecology more than "76-81...Athatch (2-4)" Ecology is NOT just a page of random table entries. It has as much or MORE of an impact on a D&D setting as 15th level wizards and the Black Kingdom of Arrgh and needs to be treated as such.

Do you prefer to have a campaign setting book that deals in generalities of the setting and allows you to fill in the details to your liking or do you prefer a setting that details specifics and has a define storyline?
Story lines are what _I_ put into a setting. The things that the setting authors may choose to emphasize are VERY unlikely to be the same things that I immediately want to emphasize. They can waste chapters trying to get you to buy into their story line of, "Organization X has a master plan to rule the world and for the last 1000 years Nation Y has fought the good fight to keep the village of Mudpuddle safe for Democracy," but what if I happen to think that the 1 paragraph of description of the valley of Microputt ruled by Mayor Boofu sounds like a fun place to start? You let ME decide what I want to do with your setting after you present it to me. Feel free to suggest a few possibilities for those who have no imagination but if you want to write novels then stick to that. Story lines are MY job.
Do you prefer a campaign setting that is stand alone or one that can be integrated into other campaign settings and allows for both campaign length and side-trek adventures?
Either is acceptable really, but a setting must be ABLE to stand on its own merits. Unless you INTEND that it be combined with other settings there's no reason to take that into any design consideration. I mean, if I'm going to integrate it with another setting nothing do is going to stop me.
Do you prefer a campaign setting book that includes clearly deliniated players' (focused on new rules and includes general setting information) and GMs' sections (focused on running a campaign and includes adventure hooks, npc's and their plots, ect)? Or do you prefer having sidebars with campaign hooks, rumors, etc... in player focused chapters?
ALL settings need to have something you can hand over to players and let them get the basics of it without the DM needing to tell them, "Oh, by the way, don't read past page 29 or you'll spoil it." Players need access to certain setting-specfic information and they need to have certain information specifically KEPT from them. So if you are only publishing ONE book that covers everything about your setting keep the player info to the front and keep the most sensitive DM info to the back where they are less likely to "accidentally" read the interesting secret that the DM may just happen to focus an entire adventure or the whole campaign upon.
Would you be interested in a setting "almanac" laying out the important events and short adventure ideas for a year's worth of setting time (ala Mystara's Poor Wizard's Almanac)? If interested, should the first year be part of the campaign setting book (with increased cost), or as a seperate product?
Kinda falls under the heading of "History". There needs to be RECENT and LOCAL history that the average Joe PC will know. The DM needs more obviously but the DM DOESN'T need to know 100 centuries of humanoid migration patterns and extinction rates. Look at real-world human history as an example. If you're going back more than a few thousand years you're already likely going MUCH further than you need to for purposes of being familiar with the setting and being able to run it. The closer to present time the more detailed history should be, the further from the present the briefer it should be because it eventually becomes irrelevant. Again, for those DM's who lack imagination or time you can be nice and provide some projection into the future - but remember that once the campaign begins the events that the individual DM perpetrates can and WILL rapidly render a future years worth of events incompatible.
Also what would you want from such a book? If not interested, why and what might make such a book worth-while? What about shorter quarterly updates to the setting laying out a few months worth of events and adventure possibilities for the setting? Would you be more or less inclined to buy such a product?
Again, let ME handle the direction the campaign will take. Feel free to give me as many starting points and individual adventure ideas as you like but... don't run my campaign FOR me. And that goes double for those with that lack of imagination I mentioned. If they don't use it they'll lose it. No need to give them more crutch than is good or necessary.
Do you buy campaign settings as a player? If so, what makes you pick up a setting? If not, what would make you pick up a setting?
SPECIFICALLY as a player? No. I'll pick up plenty as a DM but see there's this thing called meta-gaming and... Wait, you HAVE played this game before haven't you? :)
 

Inspiration. And potential. The intangible things that make me say, "Oh man! I've got to try this!" as the ideas just jump off the page and into my brain.
 

Wil said:
I'm probably alone in what I like to see, but here goes:

1) Usable maps. They don't need to be photorealistic or 100% accurate (i.e., I don't need to know how many feet it is from the capital to the furthest outpost) but the maps need to give me an idea of where the major points of interest are and where they are in relation to each other. Some detail maps of important campaign locations are a must as well.

Maps... world map, locale maps, and unique area maps... That should be doable ;-) Though this does bring to mind a question... do you prefer stylized maps which accent the setting or straightforward maps which get across the information? And what about a map that changes or has unmappable areas... how would you want something like that handled by a cartographer?

Wil said:
2) Information that gives a good idea how the general populace lives their day to day existence.

Any particular areas in Joe Xlander's life you would want focused on more than others? What are the absolutely necessary elements a setting must explore in Joe Xlander's life in your opinion?

Wil said:
3) Meaningful cosmology/metaphysics. Doing things "just because" doesn't really cut it - even games that use the same base rules (like D&D) can still have ingame explanations for why things work that way. Why are Elves better at magic? Why do priests get different magic? If it's original and well-thought out, it helps me buy into the setting.

Could you give a couple examples of what you see as a meaningful explanation of why things work the way they do? I think I understand, but a couple examples from other settings would be helpful to drive home the point. From what I can tell you would like the campaign setting to give these explanations in a logical, but unique manner which draws out both GM and player interest in the setting.

Wil said:
4) Plenty of adventure hooks. They can be part of the flavor text or explcitly in sidebars or something, but I like to see that each element of a campaign has some potential for being turned into an adventure hook. Exalted is a good example of this - virtually every paragraph has a small seed for an adventure that can be plucked out and exapnded upon.

So it doesn't matter how the adventure hooks are presented, just as long as they are in the setting book aplenty, eh? Would you like to see mini-adventure sidebars (or appendices), which layout a short adventure (with map) based on the information being explored? What are some of your favorite presentations of adventure hooks? Were there any unique presentations which have stuck with you and you'd like to see again?

What about the rest of you? Any comments, questions, or suggestions in regards to campaign setting maps, life of the common man, cosmology/metaphysics
 

A lot of good stuff has already been mentioned. One other thing that I feel is very important for a setting, is art.

Evocative art, all art pieces done in a similar 'atmosphere', can really give life to a setting. One thing I hate is ugly art or art by very different types of artists, giving me a jumble of impressions. Maybe if the different art styles were used for different regions, types of chapters etc.

To me, this is one of the things Eberron did fairly well, using action-art to try to provide a sense of energy to the setting.

Poor art can ruin a setting IMHO.
 

1. Its got to have something to draw me to it. Doesn't have to be a hook of some kind - even plain generic ideas appeal to me.

2. Decent maps.

3. No new rules or fiddles to existing rules.

4. Detailed geography/politics and realistic design to nations.

5. Single pantheon of gods, which isn't either too small or too large.


Examples of settings that like: Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Scarred Lands, Dawnforge (Yes, I know it has new rules but it covers everything else with spades!).
 

jaldaen said:
Could you give a few examples of campaign settings with the kind of focal conflict you are describing along with what you consider the focal conflict? I think I know what you are getting at (and I believe the idea I've got fits), but a couple examples will help.

I don't have time for a detailed response ATM, but what I speak of really isn't that complicated, and most campaign settings manage it at least on a basic level (though it is possible to make better, more compelling conflicts with more possibilities), but a few examples right of the top:

- In FR, the efforts by the Zhentarium to spread their influence.
- In Greyhawk, the racial supremacy of the suel.
- In scarred lands, the efforts of the titanspawn to free the titans.
- In planescape, the blood war and the clash of faction philosophies.

See, nothing that complicated. But there are a few settings out there that basically give you a playground with lots of neat things to look at or fight, but never really tell you why they are fighting or the history of this fighting. Yeah, some creatures may be good and evil, but I think it has to come down to more than that. Evil is an inward philosophy. What is the outward reflection of great evil that is the real threat? Petty criminals are evil, but what is the Great Evil out there, and what are they doing, and why? (As the PS example brings to light, it doesn't even have to be Evil. It's just that a good versus evil conflict is the easiest to get PCs to care about.)
 

Gansk said:
I want as much detail as possible without a storyline. The cities and NPC's can be very specific, but give me an opportunity to decide what they will do.

So you prefer a campaign setting with lots of set-up and a general outline of the world's conflicts and then allows you to run with it... what kind of support products would you want for such a setting (Adventures, Regional Guides, etc...)? How much time would you want to elapse before a product was put out that lays out some major changes to the setting? A year, two, five, never?

Gansk said:
I would like the adventures to be portable to other settings, which imposes a limit on unique rules. If the setting has too much crunch, that is going to come out in the adventures and will make it less portable. As many adventures as possible, both campaign length and side-trek.

What about a setting that is highly portable, but with less portable adventures? A setting that allows you to play in it with or without affect on your current campaign (GM's choice), one you can switch to when you don't have all your players together and do not want to push forward with the main campaign, but want to run a short adventure? Would such a setting interest you?

Gansk said:
I prefer separate products, but once again if there are too many unique rules to entice the players, then the adventures will also be too unique to use in other settings.

What about a campaign with unique rules that don't carry over to other settings? Rules that only apply while a player is in the setting? This of course means the adventures are designed with those rules in mind and are quite unique to the setting... would you be more or less likely to buy the setting? The adventures? What if the adventures included notes on how to "standardize" the adventure for play without the setting's unique rules?

Gansk said:
This is less interesting than a whole bunch of adventures, but not without its merits. It should be a separate product, and should focus on regional-level events rather than earth-shaking, cataclysmic wars or natural disasters, etc. Usually the adventures do the talking for what happens in a given region, but if the product was cheap enough, it could substitute with a ton of adventure hooks.

So you would prefer a product of adventure seeds rather than major events... what about one that includes a number of optional major events? What about a product that gives you multiple outcomes for these major events and allows you to introduce them or not as you see fit? So rather than an almanac laying out a year's worth of events, it would be preferable to create an adventure guide that includes the possible major and minor events within the setting (by region) and include notes on adventures leading up to these events or stemming from these events.

What about the rest of you? Any comments, questions, or suggestions in regards to campaign setting adventures and adventure hooks?
 

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