What makes a great campaign setting?

[DMH]

The reason I think Oathbound is the best camapign for me is the ability to add and modify just about anything. I picked up the Irok Kingdoms CG recently and decided to completely alter one of the domains of the Forge to give it a IK feel and technology. If anyone is interested in reading about the changes, I am posting them on Bastion's messageboard:

http://www.mortality.net/board/read.php?TID=9754

They are the bottom posts. But the whole thread are alterations I am think of incorporating into OB.

 

[Turjan]

Let me explain why I don't like it...

In theory, it's true; you can play in one specific area. However, there is one force that is strong enough to defeat any such theoretical game; the players.

Okay, I can understand this point. Although I'd say that the GM has to make it clear what is allowed in his game and what not, and although I'd like to play with people who have a feeling for a special campaign situation, I see that it's not always possible to abide by this rule if you play with a group of friends with their own interests.

Also, it should be said that the diversity makes a FR game very inaccessable for a new player in a group of veterans, since they would inevitably be using all the FR supplements, increasing the number of races to something like 25, the number of feats to the hundreds, and so on.

This goes in the same vein. It all boils down to playstyle. This does not make the setting good or bad, though. I like a campaign to follow a theme, and usually there should be enough space to live out different characters within this theme for everybody. It's also a group decision. If a player makes a peculiar character decision, there should also be considerations of the other players whether they really want somebody like that in their party. Why should a group of sneaky thieves in a Calimshite city take a Rashemi barbarian in their midst? As a bait for the guards?

On a side note, I also dislike the 'modernization' of FR with a passion; the whole reason I like fantasy is because I like all the medieval stuff so much. Oh well, it's a great setting when the DM is good, but my enjoyment goes out the door when they try to include a little bit of everything...which the two DMs I've played FR under have done without a doubt...<grumbles about a transdimensional bungalo with a toilet that flushes into the abyss>

LOL! That bungalow made me laugh . But I think this answer is based on a misunderstanding. A bungalow in the Realms is an abomination. I did not mean technical modernity, but societal modernity. A true medieval society is not really good for adventuring, except from a noble's perspective, maybe. Most D&D character concepts are unthinkable in this context.

That said, just about any setting is good to play in with a good DM, but as a DM I just don't like most of the stuff out there for reasons of taste. Now, I've got my homebrew for the low-magic-elves-and-dwarves-and-orcs style game, but I'd really like to see an all-human, super-rare-magic dark-age setting in a similar grain as the one in George R R Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire"...but with a much more fractured geopolitical situation...pretty much 9th century western europe, but with a different geography, different (but not too different) cultures, and just enough real supernatural stuff to make things a bit more interesting.

I agree on that GM part. 9th century Europe is very interesting, as far as history goes. I don't like historical settings (if I know too much about that period I will always feel in the chains of real history), but with your changes it might work. How does your "elves-and-dwarves-and-orcs style game" look like?

 

[rounser]

pulp

Was the whole Eberron contemporary pulp thing tacked on to the setting by WotC because they thought it was cool like warforged were? D&D is already pulp swords and sorcery, if they really wanted to play Mummy and Indiana Jones and King Solomon's Mines then save it for another game where it fits like the Polyhedron minigame...ah what's the point, they've already gone there, and obviously someone likes it.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

More generally, let me add that all campaigns need
- A driving conflict(s) that can be used as a common source for adventure ideas and plot development. (IMO, lacking this is what killed spelljammer.)
- A default activity/model for PC groups.

Well, they didn't go far enough with it, but I felt the whole elven/orcish cold war was a very compelling driving conflict. Especially the fact that it made groundpounder (and really any non-elvish/orcish) PCs feel like a tiny and insignificant part of a massive whole... yet left room for them to make a difference.

What killed Spelljammer was Planescape. And the lack of any kind of consistency in its novel line.

Anyway...

I like a strong - very strong - techno-fantasy element. Space sorcery, modern magic, cyberelfpunk... it's all good, but steampunk is my personal favorite. I'd rather lose the fantasy element than the sci-fi element.
Spelljammer, although like Eberron lacking any real tech, went way further out in creating its own interlocking web of magical 'sciences,' like the various types of helms developed by the different races and the elven and orcish 'biotechnology.'
Today, Mongoose's superb OGL Steampunk wins hands-down for this sort of thing, IMO, although the Iron Kingdoms, Dragonmech and the now sadly defunct Dragonstar have more concrete flavor. The OGL Steampunk mechanics and toolkit approach suit my present needs best, although all of those products (and, for all its awful mechanics, BESM d20 and its superior kin, Mecha d20) have been handy.

I like a darker, dare I say edgier, world. More Dune than Lord of the Rings, more Xenogears than Shining Force, more The Matrix than Star Wars.
Iron Kingdoms handles this to my satisfaction. Midnight and Ravenloft, although cool in this way, are less my style.

I like extremely competent PCs doing extremely cool things. But I also want extremely competent NPCs (enemies and allies) doing other cool things. If PCs can get to low-mid Epic levels (and they can, when I DM), so can NPCs. I suppose it's borderline 'superheroic,' but I like the end result and the way it plays out. Those things don't have to be overt, though - a superbly deft, suave infiltrator who can think and talk his way through anything is as appropriate, or moreso, than a hulking fighter who can cleave his way through an army.
Actually, from what I've seen, White Wolf's Exalted would be a good fit for my preferences in this. But high-level d20 works just fine.

I don't neccessarily like low-magic, but I strongly prefer low-spellcasting. That's a game mechanical preference - I hate dealing with D&D spells. Incantations, rituals and custom magic items are fine, although I also don't like the standard magic item treasures.
I like the incantations system. The magic systems of Conan, OGL Steampunk and Grim Tales all seem like possible alternatives. I actually prefer standard d20 psionics to their magical equivalents - fewer powers, greater control.

I like an unusual or offbeat villainous group - could be aberrations, could be intelligent, organized orcs, could be a particular type of humans. I don't like the standard D&D outsiders, good or bad, and I'm sick of the typical antagonistic races (stupid orcs, drow, yuan-ti, githyanki).
Eberron really soars in this regard; the Daelkyr are very cool, Rakshasas have always been faves, and the other potential villains have a lot of potential. Iron Kingdoms also does a solid job.

 

[NewJeffCTHome]

I like a few simple things from my campaign setting

1) Not too much detail, be it from tons of books or novels. While nobody says you don't have freedom to do what you want, if you deviate from novels, somebody might be disappointed. I prefer a nice outline that allows the DM & Players to fill in the blanks.

2) Hopefully, low magic. It is easier to add in a dragon in every cave and a troll under every bridge if you want a fantastical campaign and still keep the feel of the setting than it is to take Elminster, Drizz't & Undermountain out of the Realms.

3) Realistic geography, demographics, history and politics. No cities surrounded by walls of ice in the desert. And, each nation/kingdom should have a reason for existing and how it plans to deal with its neighbors.

4) 2nd most important thing - NO unifying theme or plot. While Midnight is great for one campaign, it kind of feels anti-climactic if you run through it again. If you have a world where you can pop a group in anywhere and run just about anything you want, that is what I want.

5) Most important - you can make a campaign just using the CS book and the 3 core rule books. You can basically 'plug & play' PCs from the PHB. I don't have a lot of time to learn rules from every 3rd party supplement out there, so I prefer to stick with the 3 main books.

 

[Doug McCrae]

D&D is already pulp swords and sorcery

Sure, Conan is one of the sources that goes into the mad blend that is D&D. Not the primary source though.

Eberron is supposed to be like pulp actually set in the 20s or 30s though, rather than pulp S&S - hence the Great War, lightning rail, Sharn AKA NYC and hard boiled PIs.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

I purchased the Eberron campaign setting thinking this might be intresting to try, but how can I put it? It left me cold, as if there was no real feeling within those pages. Perhaps mechanical is the word I am looking for. I crack open my FR books and I can feel warmth and goodness from them. Maybe it just me.


Scott

 

[Staffan]

What killed Spelljammer was Planescape. And the lack of any kind of consistency in its novel line.

I think a major part of what killed Spelljammer was the integration issue. A lot of space was used to integrate Spelljammer with Oerth, Krynn and Al-Toril. That space could have been used better in creating a stronger identity for Spelljammer itself. This is something Planescape did a lot better - it mentioned that you could use it as a "crossroads" setting in passing, but spent more pages describing Sigil and the Gatetowns and other planar places.

The last product for the Spelljammer product line was "The Astromundi Cluster", a box set describing a crystal sphere with no large planets (but TONS of small planetoids) where spelljamming was ubiquitous. This should have been the first product (well, and it should have been better as well).

 

[Dragon-Slayer]

3) There's the fantasy effect, of course, in all its escapist and entertaining facets. You have lots of Tolkien references that everybody knows, like wizards with pointy hats and elves with pointy ears. However, those wizards don't have very much in common with a Tolkien wizard except this pointy hat, and elves don't really play the role they represent in LotR (no big elvish powers).

Minor hijack, but this point has been bothering me for a while. I hope you realize that pointy hatted wizards have appeared in art and literature for centuries, as have pointy eared elves of various sizes, from sprite sized to human size.

Tolkien wasn't even a pioneer of fantasy fiction or novels. He merely melded several inspirations (not to mention mythologies/legends), altered some creaturesto suit his story, and created a wonderful epic. If anything, with his contributions being fairly recent (with the help of the movies) Tolkien has stayed in the forefront, which causes many people to mistakenly assume that he created these tropes of fantasy.

 

[Testament]

Hi-

I purchased the Eberron campaign setting thinking this might be intresting to try, but how can I put it? It left me cold, as if there was no real feeling within those pages. Perhaps mechanical is the word I am looking for. I crack open my FR books and I can feel warmth and goodness from them. Maybe it just me.


Scott

I'd say its just you. I opened the Eberron book and got the feeling of unlimited potential, a world waiting for heroes. I crack open any elFRealms book and think "Yay. Another fistful of uber NPCs to sit around waiting for the players to interact with them. In another hopelessly mishmashed part of the world.". Shining South is the only Forgettable Realms book that didn't do that to me.

Of course, I re-iterate, that's my opinion.