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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5273616" data-attributes="member: 22779">Heh, being astonishingly bored right now, I surfed back into the archives and found <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/164459-what-makes-d-d-d20-campaign-setting-great-2.html" target="_blank">This thread about what makes a setting great from 2006</a>.&nbsp; Interesting stuff there.Stormonu, I (obviously) disagree.&nbsp; I think for a setting to gain an audience in todays gaming circles, it has to stand out.&nbsp; It needs some essential hook or niche that will set it apart from the umpteen &quot;been there, done that&quot; settings that have come before.&nbsp; Funny how Mouseferatu nailed it staight on the head four years ago - &quot;A new setting has to be self-contained. While supplements are fine and dandy, it should be fully playable with a single core book--maybe two, if you really stretch it. More than that, you run into the problem Psion astutely mentioned regarding Scarred Lands: There's a large barrier to entry.&quot;Looks like someone was listening back then.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Back in the dawn of gaming, you could get away with vanilla settings because there was so litte competition.&nbsp; In 1e, you had only a small hand full of settings- Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (both of which were only very loosely sketched out), Dragonlance and Mystara.&nbsp; And Oriental Adventures.&nbsp; Even back then, settings were already starting to have hooks - Dragonlance and Oriental Adventures.&nbsp; Thirty years later, yet another vanilla product just won't draw much of an audience.&nbsp; At least not easily.&nbsp; Gollarian I suppose, but, then again, Gollarian is being driven by the modules, not the other way around.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5273616, member: 22779"] Heh, being astonishingly bored right now, I surfed back into the archives and found [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/164459-what-makes-d-d-d20-campaign-setting-great-2.html]This thread about what makes a setting great from 2006[/url]. Interesting stuff there. Stormonu, I (obviously) disagree. I think for a setting to gain an audience in todays gaming circles, it has to stand out. It needs some essential hook or niche that will set it apart from the umpteen "been there, done that" settings that have come before. Funny how Mouseferatu nailed it staight on the head four years ago - "A new setting has to be self-contained. While supplements are fine and dandy, it should be fully playable with a single core book--maybe two, if you really stretch it. More than that, you run into the problem Psion astutely mentioned regarding Scarred Lands: There's a large barrier to entry." Looks like someone was listening back then. :) Back in the dawn of gaming, you could get away with vanilla settings because there was so litte competition. In 1e, you had only a small hand full of settings- Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (both of which were only very loosely sketched out), Dragonlance and Mystara. And Oriental Adventures. Even back then, settings were already starting to have hooks - Dragonlance and Oriental Adventures. Thirty years later, yet another vanilla product just won't draw much of an audience. At least not easily. Gollarian I suppose, but, then again, Gollarian is being driven by the modules, not the other way around. [/QUOTE]

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