What world should I run? Hunt, K of K or SL?

[bloodymage]

Hi all! I'm not really satisfied with running FR. Everyone has their fingers in everyone else's pie, too many iconics, too much cheese, and information overload. I'm opening a new campaign on my homebrew and am thinking of gating all my FR PCs to it. What's the deal, you say? Some background:

I started in 1e, strictly homebrew. I've always preferred running long-term campaigns that were coherent and consistent. My PC's live in their world. I sold all my stuff and left gaming for about 10 years shortly after 2e came out. I came back to 3e. I started to re-create Ert. A couple of my new players were brand new to D&D. Since I was new to 3e, I figured it would be easier to run from a published setting while we all learned. Enter FRCS. Initially, I was impressed but slowly became uncomfortable not having a good handle on the history, internal logic, and current events on "my" world. Information overload! I mean, people spend years learning about the Realms.

I still only have a bare outline of Ert. A tenative map, short descriptions of some broad areas and countries and a few NPCs. It still needs a lot of fleshing out, but I'm comfortable in it. Trouble is, it's not really ready to run. I "wing it" well, but I'm not comfortable doing that all the time because I have to. Enter ENworlders.

What world should I run and why?

 

[Crothian]

I think you should try out on of the great city suppliments like Freeport or Bluffside. Each book has enough info to run a campaign or ten without ever leaving the city.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

I was in a game for most of a year that really didn't do a good job of giving the world a sense of "setting". I knew about 3 towns/cities, one evil organization, and only about 6 of the ~20 gods of the world. The game wasn't going so great toward the end of that year.

The next year I took over as the DM. I started spending some time creating a homebrew game world and I really enjoy my creation. It was a lot of work, but my players felt like they knew it, the people, the places, the different cultures.

If you go homebrew, I make this one suggestion: keep the number of anything limited. I had 6 gods, roughly the same number of organizations, and roughly the same number of major cities in each kingdom (there were 4 main areas). My biggest problem with picking up a new setting is getting everything straight (Which god is it again? This if FR, there are hundreds of them!). So again, try to keep the numbers managable

Later!

 

[alsih2o]

if you can't wait for WoTC to choose my world i reccomend greyhawk...many campaigns can be run in one small area

 

[Desdichado]

It sounds like you really prefer to homebrew, but don't feel that you have the time, or the world ready yet.

Like someone else said earlier, I'd recommend something like Freeport, Bluffside, or something like that to get you through the stop-gap. Both are designed to fit into homebrews relatively easily, so you've got your immediate need filled while you continue to build your world. Then, when you're ready, you can leave town if you want and you're ready to go.

 

[Nightfall]

Well I guess since you asked...

Now understand Bloody, you're under NO obligation and/or soul contract to do any of this. But I think the Scarred Lands might appeal to you.

1. Lots of Wilderness. There are plenty of BAD spots on the Continent of Ghelspad, home of the Scarred Lands, doesn't mean though there isn't a bastion or refugee or two in the lands. But it does mean that you'll see more druids, rangers and barbarians running around along with strange and unnatural creatures. It makes the North in the FR look nearly tamed. From the rugged and unrelenting heat and oppresive winds in the Perforated Plains, the cumbersome and fierce wilds of the Blood Steppes, you have ample opportunity to run a wilderness based campaign EVEN if it's just in near one of the many city states inside Ghelspad.

2. More than just one continent to explore. In fact there are FOUR, Ghelspad, the jungles and wilds of Termana, home to the Blood Bayou and the Jack of Tears, Asherak, one of the few lands relatively unscathed by the ravages of the Divine War, and Fernirrik(sp) icy and frost and unforgiving. Ghelspad is so far all the SL fans know but soon comes Termana, home of the Forsaken elves and the empire of the Charduni, fierce dwarves devoted to Chardun, God of Slavery, War and chains. Then we'll see more of the other two. But really this just gives you an excuse to travel, see more than just one continent. I don't know of many places that do that.

3. You feel close to the gods. The Gods in the Scarred Lands, are not numerous but they are powerful and they have a great many followers. The Eight Victors, those that rose up against the Titans, their fathers and mothers, as well as creators of many races and things in the Scarred Lands, are known through out the land. Everyone respects them, for all fear the incur the wrath of ANY of them. The names, Corean, Madriel, Tanil, Hedrada, Enkil, Chardun, Belsameth and Vangal inspire equal parts awe and reverance as well as fear and dread to those that know them. They have a divine truce and though it has its problems, they know this is the only way to keep their universe from cracking apart and allowing the Titans to return.

4. It's not about good or evil, or law and chaos. What drives the Scarred Lands, isn't so much the "evil' or "good" but more like the need to bring civilization to a wounded land versus the incursions of the titan's servitors, called titanspawn. So it's more like a clash of cultures, those that serve the gods versus those that don't. Thus the conflicts rage and more creatures, many serving the titans, emerge, created as after effects of the Divine War.

5. Druids and clerics are different. Somthing else I've liked about the Scarred Lands. Druids are apart of the natural order. Clerics are apart of the DIVINE order. Some times they work together..but most of the time, druids are treated with fear and mistrust.

I hope that gives you some insight into the Scarred Lands. Oh and don't forget to see Hollowfaust, one of the more interesting cities since it's home to good/neutral type necromancers as well having one of the more orderly and cleaner places to live...as long as you don't die.

 

[bloodymage]

Why just 3 new choices?

Thanks Joshua. Intriguing suggestion. I'll probably go with it if I decide to concentrate on developing Ert.

Nightfall, your description causes me to think I should explain why I listed the choices I did. Btw, good informed salesmanship. Just what I want.

1) Kingdoms of Kalamar: From the reviews and what I read on these boards, I've often thought that K of K is what I should've bought instead of FR. I get the impression that it's less cheesy and more coherent. More "realistic," so to speak. I'm reluctant, though, for fear of going thru information overload again.

2) Scarred Lands: I bought R&R for the "crunchies" and was intrigued by the "fluff" (I like fluff, see Harn below). Sounded wild and wooly, like it would be a lot of fun. I'm leery of two aspects though. There doesn't seem to be enough civilization for me and the whole Divine War thing (Time of Troubles) and the seeming "gods in mortal affairs" element is something I don't like about FR.

3) Harn: Harn intrigued me in 1e. In fact, I owned Harn World. Sold it along with the rest of my stuff. As I said before, I like a coherent and consistent world and Harn is definitely that. I like plenty of detail to breathe "life" into my PCs. That said, I also like fantastic monsters, powerful wizards and bloody combats. Seems Harn would take a lot of tweaking.

These are the only settings that I'm "familiar" with that also interest me, so I included the "Other" choice for worlds I don't know about. And btw, I know about Greyhawk. Who from the "old days" doesn't? Too trampled over, not interested.

 

[der_kluge]

Having worked on Bluffside, I am biased, but I do know that there are a lot of people that use Bluffside as their whole campaign setting. It has all the details of the city, and some of the surrounding environments - at least enough to get you started so that you can fill in some of the details.

Furthermore, you can use Freeport - a port-based city very easily as a sister-city to Bluffside.

Others (Adlon from mortality.net, for example) mention that they are using both cities set in the Hunt:Rise of Evil campaign setting. You can use the gods in The Hunt, the gods in Bluffside (12 generic gods), or gods from the freeport (don't know if there are any in there or not; never read it).

So, there you go - 3 books, entire campaign setting, and enough information to last you and your party for years and years.

 

[Morpheus]

The Hunt: Rise of Evil

Perhaps you should take a look at The Hunt: Rise of Evil. The only part that might give you pause is the number of countries, but each country is patterned after a real-life culture making them easy to remember. On the plus side, there are a lot of neat and new ideas that you would probably like. On the minus side, it would all be new to you and require some effort to learn.

Just my .02

Morpheus

 

[Zot_Wyzo]

I'm a Hombebrew guy

Based upon what You've laid out, you have a problem doing the homebrew, but...

I still only have a bare outline of Ert. A tenative map, short descriptions of some broad areas and countries and a few NPCs. It still needs a lot of fleshing out, but I'm comfortable in it.

...you're right where you need to be! Do some basic sketches on the deities (you don't need no stinking stats). Get a bit of sketchy material on large organizations (these would be the euivalents of something like the Harpers or Zhentarim if you're into such a thing. Your tentative map should be covering a broader area, maybe a few countries named and no more than about a paragraph on each with basic motivations for the inhabitants and the government of each. Pick one and focus.

Now that you have a more focused area, start fleshing that specific country out. You need about a page here, not really much more. Do a more detailed map of that country with a few towns and/or cities. Give some brief descriptions of the regions and governmental entities for towns and baronies or counties, again, about a paragraph on each. Pick one very specific region of the country and once again, focus.

Now you're to the nitty gritty for starting a campaign setting. You have your specific region in a more fleshed out country in your sketchy world. Now pump out a couple of pages describing the peoples, governments, trade, economy, etc. of that region. Get more specific about places, especially places where adventures can occur. Flesh out at least one village for a starting point, mapping it. Do a very detailed map of this region. Add your NPC's, add water, and shake (don't stir).

Now growing this. For every adventure you create, you should count on putting down more detail on part of your specific region. From my experience, it's very easy to get more detail on specific places in this region as part of the adventure creation. For about every three or four adventures, you should do more detail on another specific region. After about 10 or so adventures, flesh out another country.

In no time at all, you have a world that you know like the back of your hand that is well on it's way to being the next FRCS. At least, that's how I started about 25 years ago...

Heck, when you look at my response, I've almost typed up as much information as you should put down for your starting country or nation. It's really not labor intensive if you start out basically, focus into specifics, and add as you go.