What Is Your Favorite Campaign Setting?

[Wolfpack48]

I would think major Events would only be known by the GM and be introduced as they occur rather than the general party knowing all about 'metaplot.'

 

[Epic Meepo]

The only setting canon that matters is the setting canon in place immediately before the PCs start interacting with the world. After that, the only canon that matters is the canon established by the PCs.

Say you have an NPC get killed in your campaign and then the next timeline update make that NPC an important player in the new world shaking event. What now?

I would change the identity of the important world-shaking NPC in the PC canon timeline.

Say the players have conquered an evil castle and took control of a powerful artifact. And then the next timeline update starts with that castle being destroyed by the hero of a novel and the artifact gets used by a villain. What now?

I would change the identity of the artifact used by the villain in the PC canon timeline.

Say your players are making grand plants to take on a famous villain in a big awesome dungeon and halfway there a new timeline update comes out and says the villain was defeated by some writer's pet NPC. What now?

I would replace the writer's pet NPC with the PCs in the PC canon timeline.

 

[Reynard]

I kind of understand what @Yora is concerned about: if the whole point of playing the setting with the metaplot is that the metaplot is a thing, then there is ostensibly a danger that the metaplot negatively impacts your campaign by virtue of the writers not being aligned with whatever your campaign goals are. It is simplistic to say "just ignore it" but that runs counter to the whole point.

I think the right answer is to play a "dead" game with metaplot. That is, once that whole publisher story is over, take the metaplot as a whole into consideration while planning your campaign. Since you have the whole story, you can foreshadow, weave in important NPCs, locations and events, etc...

 

[DammitVictor]

Spelljammer + Oriental Adventures (3.0 but not Rokugan) + (undefiled) Dark Sun. Not the post-apocalyptic environmentalist allegory, but reinforcing the elemental bent of OA magic and coloring the pursuit for Immortality along the lines of Dragon Kings.

Super Mario Bros + Masters of the Universe + The Hyborian Age. Codifying and popularizing this subgenre of sword & sorcery fiction is my life's work.

I'm making Star Wars and Marvel Multiverse share an entry because they have something in common: screw canon. I run the latter almost exclusively in the eXiles format (Sliders meets Quantum Leap) where getting the canon wrong is the point and everyone's running their own personal version of their favorite character. Star Wars uses the planets and species and cosmology of the Galaxy Far Far Away, but none of the history; it's not in the distant past or distant future of the movies, it's a parallel timeline where none of the canon characters ever existed. (And, also, with more variety and texture of Force traditions.)

 

[thullgrim]

I kind of understand what @Yora is concerned about: if the whole point of playing the setting with the metaplot is that the metaplot is a thing, then there is ostensibly a danger that the metaplot negatively impacts your campaign by virtue of the writers not being aligned with whatever your campaign goals are. It is simplistic to say "just ignore it" but that runs counter to the whole point.

I think the right answer is to play a "dead" game with metaplot. That is, once that whole publisher story is over, take the metaplot as a whole into consideration while planning your campaign. Since you have the whole story, you can foreshadow, weave in important NPCs, locations and events, etc...

Good advice. I have both Coriolis and Symbaroum and would not bring either to the table until all the setting changes meta-plot adventure were available.

 

[Tonguez]

Super Mario Bros.... Codifying and popularizing this subgenre of sword & sorcery

wait Super Mario is Sword & Scocery? mind blown!!

 

[Aldarc]

That's not one I'm familiar with...wasn't it one of the runner-ups to the Wizards setting contest that got made into its own third-party product?

Yep.

 

[TheSword]

To answer the question…

My favourite settings to play in The Warhammer Old World and the Forgotten Realms.

Favourite settings to read Planescape and Darksun

Favourite settings for concept Birthright.

 

[Keith Langley]

Midgard (Kobold Press). The familiarity/ strangeness ratio of its Slavic/ Germanic/ Norse mythical inspiration just hits the right spot for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Since I've been running a game in Ptolus since 2006, I guess it must be Ptolus. At the time I bought it, I thought "I could run a game here for the rest of my life," and that looks like it may come true.

I like the systemless version of Freeport, when it got less silly, although after having played Pirate Borg, I don't know that I am ever going to heavily feature pirates in D&D again.

When it comes to TSR/WotC settings, I don't get fired up about any of them. I probably like Planescape, parts of Mystara, parts of Oerth and parts of Ravenloft the most. The only one I own any part of in 5E is Ravenloft (plus the OAR versions of Mystara and Oerth). If I was forced at gunpoint to run a TSR/WotC game, I'd probably do it in Glantri (Mystara) or Ravenloft.