What's a good D&D campaign setting for a beginning DM?

[Gez]

I'd propose Archipelagoes (there's a setting book, and a campaign in three large adventures, and a few other stuff). It's published in English by Eden, but was developped by Oriflam.
http://edenstudios.net/archipelagos/news.html

Not sure if the campaign book has been translated yet, though. :\
If it has, it's (nearly) the perfect fit: simple to master, very few extra crunch, a young setting without a lot of stuff to track down, etc.

Only drawback: since he lacks "full map of the whole planet", he'll be disappointed. The setting is only about a cluster of Archipelagoes in a vast ocean, and do not bother about the continents. Even worse, the islands of the archipelagoes are not fixed in place -- they move and drift and circle in semi-predictible fashion.

(This decision was made so as to have sea travels move "at the speed of the plot", if you catch my drift. Travel between two islands takes as few or as much time as the DM wants, because the relative position of the two island can change, and thus isn't set.)

 

[johnsemlak]

I'm talking about *product* history. GH has a long line of products beginning from OD&D to 1E to 2E to 3E.

Really, all you need to run a Greyhawk campaing is any one of the Greyhawk Sourcebooks: such as the Living Greyhawk Gazatteer or the D&D Gazatteer.

 

[johnsemlak]

I'd propose Archipelagoes (there's a setting book, and a campaign in three large adventures, and a few other stuff). It's published in English by Eden, but was developped by Oriflam.
http://edenstudios.net/archipelagos/news.html

Not sure if the campaign book has been translated yet, though. :\
If it has, it's (nearly) the perfect fit: simple to master, very few extra crunch, a young setting without a lot of stuff to track down, etc.

Only drawback: since he lacks "full map of the whole planet", he'll be disappointed. The setting is only about a cluster of Archipelagoes in a vast ocean, and do not bother about the continents. Even worse, the islands of the archipelagoes are not fixed in place -- they move and drift and circle in semi-predictible fashion.

(This decision was made so as to have sea travels move "at the speed of the plot", if you catch my drift. Travel between two islands takes as few or as much time as the DM wants, because the relative position of the two island can change, and thus isn't set.)

Wow, this looks like a cool setting, and I haven't heard of it. Thanks!

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Consider this another vote for Eberron. Yes, it has a little crunch..several new feats, a few new spells, a new core class, three new races, a few new magic items...but it is a beautiful, beautiful setting and incredibly fun to play in.

I was through with D&D until I picked up Eberron. It's very cinematic, very pulpy and very fun.

In our first session, we had a fight atop a lightning rail train. In the sessions that have followed, the PCs have infiltrated a pirate city and made enemies of their leader. They're now on a cursed jungle island filled with dinosaurs and about to enter a pyramid (of the Mayan variety, not the Egyptian) that was built for giants by drow and elven slaves and taken over by lizardfolk.

All to rescue the crew of a ship and retrieve some ancient artifact the ship was bringing back from another continent.

I've found that the PCs have gotten much more into roleplaying than, say, in our previous Forgotten Realms campaign. They've even gone so far as to NOT kill a couple of major baddie NPCs (which is another change from our Realms campaign). Yep. Recurring villains!

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Really, all you need to run a Greyhawk campaing is any one of the Greyhawk Sourcebooks: such as the Living Greyhawk Gazatteer or the D&D Gazatteer.

And I did say that.

 

[Dr Simon]

Why does the world have to be a globe anyway? What's wrong with a good old flat-land?

I'm not sure if I'd characterise the Eberron CSB as having *that* much crunch - possibly because the crunch and the fluff are quite intermingled, maybe. You've got one new class and four new races, none of which are particularly complicated (trickiest is the warforged).

You don't have to have read the novels to play Dragonlance either. Leastways, I ran the original campaign when it first came out and then read the novels later. However, I've never found it to be a very good setting for anything *other* than the War of the Lance.

As for OOP stuff for settings like Forgotten Realms, for one thing you can get loads of then free from the Wizards of the Coast site (Downloads), plus pick up plenty for about 5 dollars each on RPGNow.com (and other PDF sites).

 

[Buttercup]

I'd advise going with Kalamar. It has an extremely rich setting, is fairly generic and can be boiled down to the campaign setting book, the player's book, and the atlas (all of which are good). It's about as close to generic Greyhawk style D&D as you're probably going to get.

Yup. Kalamar is the way to go for generic D&D. The production values are quite high for all of the printed products, you can find modules if you want to run them, the maps in the atlas are beyond compare, and the meta-plot isn't going to change on you.

 

[jester47]

Yup. Kalamar is the way to go for generic D&D. The production values are quite high for all of the printed products, you can find modules if you want to run them, the maps in the atlas are beyond compare, and the meta-plot isn't going to change on you.

Also, the Setting Book has almost 0 crunchitude. All the crunch is in the players guide... However its about as dense as FR.

Great atlas BTW.

Aaron.

 

[The_Universe]

The reasons have all been outlined by others, but I'll support Eberron - it seems to be closest to what your friend desires.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

Forget all these settings and start with a small village or town and slowly you can build up from there as based on player actions. KISS is invaluable for being a good GM.