What makes a great campaign setting?

[MerricB]

I have happily been running my current Greyhawk campaign for the last four years, and hope to do so for the foreseeable future.

However, I've become interested in Eberron, and doing so has made me aware of what really "sells" a campaign setting.

One thing I can assure you it's not: It is not the core campaign setting book! No, I find the ECS to be rather dull. I prefer reading other sorts of game books. (Complete Warrior makes me very happy. Go figure).

No, instead there are two elements that can make a campaign setting stand out and really make me want to play it:

* Novels
* Adventures

Looking down the list of campaign settings I find interesting (and have run games in), I find the following:

The World of Greyhawk - the granddaddy of settings, the WoG is rather unprepossessing with respect to its core books. However, when it originally was created, it had great adventures. Vault of the Drow? White Plume Mountain? The Slavers? Very, very cool.

Greyhawk never had a coherent novel line - I have Gygax's Gord books, but they're minor and late compared to the setting.

Forgotten Realms - Back when the FR came out, TSR was producing some rather substandard adventures. On the other hand, it coincided with TSR's discovery of some good authors. The FR novel line has always been one of its stronger points; and some of the early novels (especially Azure Bonds) were very evocative. So, the FR interested me, and I ran a campaign there for two years.

Unfortunately, then The Horde and Maztica came out, and TSR lost their way with the setting.

Dragonlance - This is a world built on the novels. It also has some fine (and not so fine) modules in the original series. Unfortunately, I don't like the world beyond the original storyline that much... but for a while, I was rapt and very interested in the setting.

Eberron - As I said, the main campaign book doesn't interest me that much, but the adventures (Shadows of the Last War, Whisper of the Vampire's Blade) are fantastic. Well, they are to read. I'll be very interested to see how they play, sometime in the near future.

The other thing which has helped "sell" Eberron to me is the short story included in the first adventure module - I love that story. Very evocative and makes me fascinated by the setting.

As for non-TSR/Wizards settings: I haven't been looking for them so much over the past few years. Maybe other people can chime in.

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

Ask and yea shall receive...For where ever the cry goes out "What Campaign setting to choose?!" I will be there with my ever pimage

"Scarred Lands!"

Yes what I think makes the Scarred Lands MUCH more fun is the fact you can use it anywhere, anytime AND it's still fun even with other d20 stuff.

For example...

Ironborn from Mike Mearls (whom also wrote Blood Bayou, a very decent to good Scarred Lands book even if people had issues with its cannonality.), can be reinterpreted as a creation of the Titans and their allies to "mock" the divine warriors as well as have their own strong fighters, sorcerers and rogues.

Then along comes Corean, takes a few prisoner and remakes them into his image! Thus they become the precusor to the Hollow Knights.

Or...

Frostburn. If you like using some of the stuff from there, Fenrilik makes a GREAT Frostfell. (Even if I'm sure the latest upcoming release will have some Ice features too.)

But you say you want adventures?! Serpent Amphora! Great little work and it can even be used seperately or wholly if you wish. (You can even add Necromancer Games mods. Those guys at Necro KNOW their Scarred Lands! )

Novels?! We well got a nice trilogy but it's not why I love the series. But hey if you like Byers, he wrote it.

 

[Wombat]

Hmmm, I never find either novels of game setting very interesting (or very well written), so they don't tend to inspire me to play in a given setting. For that matter, neither do pre-packaged adventures. There are a few worlds of literature I would be interested in playing in (Star Trek universe, Middle Earth, Earthsea), so I suppose you could put some of those thoughts in as inspiring me, but I'm not sure which was is meant.

I tend to create settings and get people interested in them, but that is all on a small-scale level.

Of the game settings that have grabbed my attention in the past, I would probably put Blue Planet near the top of the list. What do I like about it? Well, I can believe it could exist. I can say the same thing for Middle Earth, albeit with adding in magic, which some accept and others do not, but in both cases there is a feel to the world that is essentially realistic. There is a depth of detail, a richness to the history, and a feeling that you can actually smell that place that appeals to all my senses. I don't know of any Blue Planet novels, and I doubt I would buy too many of them, but I love the setting as it is written.

Most fantasy settings, sadly, lack the feeling of depth, of history, of vermisilitude that really gets me interested. Essentially, I am looking for a setting that I can believe would really exist, given a basic set of parameters. With most D&D worlds you have a very vague late Medieval technology setting (barring gunpowder and the like) and then magic (and a heckuvalotta monsters) are tacked on after the fact, along with very modern sensibilities regarding race and gender relations, economics, and social mobility, despite having a very early Medieval notion of social structure and organization. I would prefer a setting with fewer monsters and less magic, where the ramifications of those monsters and magic are more fully explored. But then again, my kind of setting would be to very few people's tastes and thus would not sell well.

 

[Psion]

I pay little attention to adventures. And none to novels. (If a setting requires me to read a novel to keep up, it's OUT)

 

[Nightfall]

I pay little attention to adventures. And none to novels. (If a setting requires me to read a novel to keep up, it's OUT)

Good thing SL only did one set huh Psion?

In any event I do agree but I need to pimp SL some more. We might be on life support BUT it possible we are waking up!

Btw you should really get Edge to compliment BCD. I think you'll like the Zodaic Planes.

 

[MerricB]

Here's the question: do you use your own setting or one that was designed by someone else?

In the case of Wombat, it seems that almost no published setting will engage his attention, so none will be great. Fair enough.

Cheers!

 

[dougmander]

For me, great campaign settings often have a distinct authorial voice rather than the feeling of something written by a committee. When you read the campaign material, you sense the guiding hand of just one or two creators for whom the campaign world is a labor of love or an obsession. I also tend to like campaign settings that cover new territory, or reinvent a tired old genre. Tekumel, Space: 1889, and Nyambe all come to mind.

 

[Nightfall]

Here's the question: do you use your own setting or one that was designed by someone else?

In the case of Wombat, it seems that almost no published setting will engage his attention, so none will be great. Fair enough.

Cheers!

Well I'm an NPC in the Scarred Lands...I freelanced in a few...so I guess I sort of wrote the Scarred Lands.

Personally I'm just all about the Scarred Lands.

 

[Ibram]

Here's the question: do you use your own setting or one that was designed by someone else?

I've always used my own setting... which does draw from several others (Conan being the biggest one right now).

 

[Buttercup]

I pay little attention to adventures. And none to novels. (If a setting requires me to read a novel to keep up, it's OUT)

Yeah. In fact, I won't run Forgotten Realms, ever, unless I can come up with a group of players who have never read any of the novels. I think they get in the way of the DM.