Which D&D Settings Do You Play In?

Over on the right of the news page is a new poll which asks which D&D setting you currently play in. Obviously WotC has its own survey data, and we know from that that 55% of people use home-brew settings, 35% play in the Realms, 5% in Greyhawk, and the remaining 5% is divided between the rest. I figured it would be fun to see how closely EN World's members track to that overall survey; how closely to we represent the official data? To that end, I've listed a number of settings. The question is what you PLAY in? It's not "what would you LIKE to play in", or "what would you like to see more support for?" -- it's what are you PLAYING in right now? I know some folks have more than one game going and they may be different settings. That's why I've allowed a choice of three in the poll. If you have four or more games in multiple settings -- well, I'm envious. I took the list from the Wikipedia page of 25 settings, so if you're mad and incensed about the list or its ordering or whatever (because Internet) blame Wikipedia! Some settings incorporate others (Kara-Tur is in the Realms, for example), but I"m keeping it simple with the top level list.

Here's what WotC's survey says we play (that data comes from Chris Perkin's panel at Gamehole Con). Let's see how closely we match it. The survey is on the right hand side of the news page, or it's at the top of the discussion thread, depending where/how you're viewing this.

 

[Remathilis]

It means Bruce Heard has unleashed the Flying Monkeys.

Yeah, there was a call to arms on the Mystara Reborn Facebook group. A call similar to this resulted in the Ravenloft spike.

 

[Miladoon]

I have just finished B6, The Veiled Society, and now we are moving into Sandboxing GAZ1. It was a great way to introduce new players to D&D.

I also play a wild sorcerer in a homebrew world based off of Blake's Mythopoeia

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A shame that multiple answers aren't possible. FR is the default setting for our group atm but we are also all rather big fans of Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Dragonlance.

If you're playing in FR but all your players are SJ-aware, you can justifiably claim to be playing a Spelljammer campaign. My game is homebrew, but the players occasionally venture into wildspace, so I picked both SJ and Homebrew.

I have had one Ravenloft tie-in so far but haven't really pursued it much yet. Ravenloft is a pretty good "glue" setting though, just like Spelljammer and Planescape.

 

[dracomilan]

8 votes for Lankhmar! yeah!

I always adored that setting and the stories...

 

[Von Ether]

Yeah, there was a call to arms on the Mystara Reborn Facebook group. A call similar to this resulted in the Ravenloft spike.

Those sort of things can actually do more harm than good, depending on the situation.

There are some games where the vocal Internet doesn't represent the reality of what's happening. For example, the Battletech guys recently put out the final House book (Kurita) even though they confirmed that series was a slow seller for them. That doesn't sound like a great business decision to me.

They did it for the "fans" that kept asking for it in their forums. Fans that made a lot of noise on the Internet, but not with their wallets. As a business, at some point, you have to confirm if the fan base is growing or just growing louder. (What is that theory in entertainment/music where you have to be aware that as you are catering to your fans, you might be actually shrinking your fan base?)

And I say that as a big fans of both Mystara and Ravenloft. I enjoy the occasional FR book, but for me Mystara was my first love and the ultimate drop in and play setting*. (When your races were as vanilla as you can get, the designers had to focus on politics).

And Ravenloft is great for those nights you feel like an evil GM. YMMV, but for me DS and Eberron are great imaginative settings while FR is decent- but oversold.

*If I knew then what I know now, I would have just kept all my stuff until CnC and 5e came back around.

 

[Morrus]

There are some games where the vocal Internet doesn't represent the reality of what's happening. For example, the Battletech guys recently put out the final House book (Kurita) even though they confirmed that series was a slow seller for them. That doesn't sound like a great business decision to me.

Well, only they know whether it was a good business decision or not. Goodwill certainly has a value of its own, as does seeding core "alpha" audiences, even when those are small. There's a lot of things that can make that a good or bad business decision beyond raw sales figures.

 

[Goemoe]

Yeah, there was a call to arms on the Mystara Reborn Facebook group. A call similar to this resulted in the Ravenloft spike.

You don't even need to call out to other people. If you want to push a certain campaign, vote without logging in, clear the cookie, refresh, revote and vote and vote and vote...

Such polls should be tied to logged in users.

 

[salvaterra]

Mystara is my homeland. Although I am spending a few seasons in Terravasta, my home-brew world...

 

[dwayne]

My heart is greyhawk but I run only home brew settings as forgotten realms is a over merchandised setting. If yhey put just a few out for some of the others like greyhawk. mystera, Birthright, darksun, planescape, ect.. The numbers might be a bit bigger. I mean come on just a book or two to up date some of the settings information and to covert some of the stuff to 5th edition with the classes and creatures. Races, paths, sub classes sprinkle in some magic specific to the locations and a few adventures. I could see two or three per some of the more played older settings and they could maybe make a bit from it as well. Who knows most my buy them for the material alone even home brews would.

 

[Tallifer]

Still running two games in Eberron. I play in the various intermittent or false-start homebrews of my friends, but they often homebrew the system as well as the world. I only ever played briefly in Dragonlance, Golarion and Forgotten Realms.

I say Eberron, but it strays pretty far from the canon. For example, the Cookie Gnomes in the Underdark.

View attachment 100538