What setting to use as a base when players have creative powers?

[Ry]

Calling all setting critics! I need advice.

My next campaign will feature a lot of player-created stuff; allies, enemies, contacts, background events, and so on. Heck, they might even end up creating countries and historical events, if I can get them to.

What setting would you use as a base for that? Something with a (short!) player's guide or something would be fantastic, they love it when I give them something to work with.

 

[gunderval]

Settings

The Armageddon Clock is a neat setting. Made for Sorcerer/Charnel Gods but adaptable to be more generic. Trim down to leave more blank if you want.
http://home.earthlink.net/~glepper/tictoc.pdf

The Dying Earth is a great setting if you like the tone as "pretty much anything" can be written into it. The source of D&D's Vancian magic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth_series

Averoigne is a "magical/horror medieval never-never Europe" mini-setting created by Clark Ashton Smith suitable for low magic play. Worlds of Cthulhu published a "Cthulhu Dark Ages" adaptation of it. Creativity would be about families, relationships, curses, old lurking powers, vendettas, religious and political conspiracy.

Oh, and Freeport for a fun setting in itself where you can leave rest of world a bit blank to be filled in.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

The Diamond Throne, AU/E's setting, is very much a framework rather than a fully fleshed-out setting like FR or the Iron Kingdoms. There's some that's more fleshed out, especially around the giant kingdom of the Diamond Throne, a lot that's sketched, and a LOT that's very open for creation. The setting is kinda tied to AU/E, but it's certainly not inseparable, and the original gazetteer is available on Ebay for around sixish bucks.

EDIT: Make that $4.

 

[jdrakeh]

Well, I'd start with something small and localized, allowing the players to build on that. A city, for example. Ptolus might work well if you ignore the big book and just build upon what is in the Player's Guide (which you can purchase at RPGNow on the cheap). Alternately, Saltmarsh in the DMG II might be a good bet, as may "generic" city supplements such as Carse (from Chaosium) or Freeport.

 

[Clavis]

Calling all setting critics! I need advice.

My next campaign will feature a lot of player-created stuff; allies, enemies, contacts, background events, and so on. Heck, they might even end up creating countries and historical events, if I can get them to.

What setting would you use as a base for that? Something with a (short!) player's guide or something would be fantastic, they love it when I give them something to work with.

What you are describing sounds like the situation the original, 1st Edition Greyhawk boxed set was perfect for. Before TSR decided to make all the modules part of some kind of official canon, and lay a metaplot on top of the world, Greyhawk was meant to be a vaguely defined setting that would allow DMs and players to fill in the blanks as needed.

 

[Ry]

Yeah, that's sort of what I'm thinking, but honestly now that Greyhawk has grown so large...

Well, I was paging through Dungeon mags and the Lands of Mystery poster map fell out. I thought I heard a "ding!" when it landed in my lap.

 

[gunderval]

They also reprinted the maps for Isle of Dread. A nice map with evocative statements and plenty of blank space is good inspiration.

I added Freeport above as a d20 setting with lots of "room around its core".

 

[TerraDave]

Do you need one?

 

[Ry]

Do you need one?

I find some players (particularly newer ones) can seize up when faced with tabula rasa.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Planescape?

I had to/got to write up my character's home plane, and threw in some rules and flava for the DM to use if he wanted. I never thought one setting would draw from Babar *and* Thundercats at the same time...

Brad