steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
Because I made it.
Simple as that.
Simple as that.
D&D General Why did you pick your campaign setting?
- Thread starter Elodan
- Start date
RoughCoronet0
Dragon Lover
I picked Homebrew because I wanted to come up with all kinds of crazy and off the wall ideas for my own campaign setting based around the idea of a world that was ravaged by the war of creation, only held to together by kaiju-like creatures that have to act as gods to keep things together.
I can have a huge archipelago of sea and sky islands that use to be one big continent that is in constant tension due to the sea and sky dwelling residents that were once the same people.
I can have a continent where half the creatures are organic and full of primal energy and the other half are mechanical and fueled by arcane and elemental powers, yet they seem to live in perfect harmony, a tentative balance between nature and technology.
I can have a continent that is shrouded in darkness where hoards of demons, devils, and beings of darkness crawl out of every nook and cranny and the only bastions of safety are literal points of light that civilization has sprouted around, that revere and are protected by a Tarrasque-like kaiju that has control over positive light and negative dark energy.
I can have a continent that is literal fused with the corpse of the dragon god Io that acts as a protective haven for both his dragon children, and a powerful primal spirit known as the World Tree that legends says Io actually sacrificed himself to protect as it is the soul of the world itself.
I can have a huge archipelago of sea and sky islands that use to be one big continent that is in constant tension due to the sea and sky dwelling residents that were once the same people.
I can have a continent where half the creatures are organic and full of primal energy and the other half are mechanical and fueled by arcane and elemental powers, yet they seem to live in perfect harmony, a tentative balance between nature and technology.
I can have a continent that is shrouded in darkness where hoards of demons, devils, and beings of darkness crawl out of every nook and cranny and the only bastions of safety are literal points of light that civilization has sprouted around, that revere and are protected by a Tarrasque-like kaiju that has control over positive light and negative dark energy.
I can have a continent that is literal fused with the corpse of the dragon god Io that acts as a protective haven for both his dragon children, and a powerful primal spirit known as the World Tree that legends says Io actually sacrificed himself to protect as it is the soul of the world itself.
Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
The first campaign I ran was set in Dragonlance, because I ready the DL Chronicles long before I had any idea what Dungeons & Dragons was. Once I started playing D&D I was overjoyed to learn I could actually make my own adventures in that world.
I moved to Spelljammer a while later because I lived its pulpy feel. I dove into Al-Qadim because I loved a different Weis & Hickman series, Rose of the Prophet, and I loved the visual aesthetic of turbans and scimitars and genies (as awfully Orientalist as that is).
I ran my own homebrew for a while, based on stories I wrote as a kid and the 3e Manual of the Planes - it was set on Ysgard and was wild. When Eberron came out I switched to that because I love the pulpy feel of it (see above) and also I loved the way gods and religions were portrayed similarly to those from Al-Qadim (i.e., not just big monsters to be eventually killed off).
I embraced Mystara when I started to really get into Basic D&D a bit later, again based out of the Emirates of Ylaruam (more turbans and scimitars!). I loved the Hollow World and rocked with that too.
In the 5e era I ran with Primeval Thule (more pulpy action and curved swords), mishmashing it with the World of Xoth and Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria. Eventually i moved on to mostly playing Dungeon Crawl Classics, which maintains that pulpy and weird fantasy feel no matter what.
TL, DR: I love pulpy weird fantasy and scimitars.
I moved to Spelljammer a while later because I lived its pulpy feel. I dove into Al-Qadim because I loved a different Weis & Hickman series, Rose of the Prophet, and I loved the visual aesthetic of turbans and scimitars and genies (as awfully Orientalist as that is).
I ran my own homebrew for a while, based on stories I wrote as a kid and the 3e Manual of the Planes - it was set on Ysgard and was wild. When Eberron came out I switched to that because I love the pulpy feel of it (see above) and also I loved the way gods and religions were portrayed similarly to those from Al-Qadim (i.e., not just big monsters to be eventually killed off).
I embraced Mystara when I started to really get into Basic D&D a bit later, again based out of the Emirates of Ylaruam (more turbans and scimitars!). I loved the Hollow World and rocked with that too.
In the 5e era I ran with Primeval Thule (more pulpy action and curved swords), mishmashing it with the World of Xoth and Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperboria. Eventually i moved on to mostly playing Dungeon Crawl Classics, which maintains that pulpy and weird fantasy feel no matter what.
TL, DR: I love pulpy weird fantasy and scimitars.
Voadam
Legend
For my current 5e Iron Gods game I chose my homebrew mashup setting which is a big part Ptolus and Golarion.
Ptolus has a big theocratic human empire that henotheistically worships an ascended paladin and is dealing with an internal succession civil war. The empire is big and sprawling and decadent with a lot of territory becoming essentially independent city states.
I really like the paladin church as a very D&Dized tropy big organization medieval church with a history of inquisitions and lots of saints and a LG base but also divisions and herecies and corruption and such. Lots I can work with there thematically. I have used the saints angle as the church incorporating elements of other pantheons as saints. For example the Holy Lothian church in my world incorporated the Golarion Death Goddess Pharasma as the Angel of Death who joined Lothian. At the same time there can still be D&D pantheons of "Old Gods" of different varieties in different areas as well to use outside of the Lothian church context.
Having a big civil war gives a great background for a D&D game. It draws powerful NPCs into that conflict leaving lots of local areas where the immediate party can be the protagonists in dealing with whatever is going on. If most fighters and clerics and such are drawn off to war, when a ghost eruption happens there is only the 70 year old local priest, a couple under aged altar boys, and the party to deal with it effectively. There can be high magic backdrop but no feeling that powerful local authorities will fix things.
Doing a big homebrew mashup also means I can jettison elements I do not care for such as the Ptolus closed cosmology and go with my own vague and sprawling cosmology with elements from 3e and 4e and others.
I run a lot of modules and that includes a number of Paizo Adventure Paths. I like Paizo's Golarion and a lot of the country themes and developments appeal to me and I find it easy and fun to overlay the Ptolus and other elements over a lot of stuff so there is a lot of Golarion in my game. So when I ran a 5e game of Carrion Crown Golarion's Ustalav was a province of the Ptolus Holy Lothian Empire whose prince was seeking the imperial throne so he had rallied armies and marched off to civil war.
I have run a number of games in this homebrew in various D&D editions so it is easy for me to use it as a backdrop for lore. When my current group were deciding on a campaign theme a couple of years ago the Iron Gods adventure path theme appealed to them so I am running that in 5e with the barbaric supertech land of Golarion's Numeria being in the barbarian lands outside of the empire, but I still have had Lothian elements show up. Also based on character concepts and things that have arisen in the game there are World of Darkness Werewolf the Apocalypse and Mage the Ascension aspects that have come in fairly seamlessly as well.
Ptolus has a big theocratic human empire that henotheistically worships an ascended paladin and is dealing with an internal succession civil war. The empire is big and sprawling and decadent with a lot of territory becoming essentially independent city states.
I really like the paladin church as a very D&Dized tropy big organization medieval church with a history of inquisitions and lots of saints and a LG base but also divisions and herecies and corruption and such. Lots I can work with there thematically. I have used the saints angle as the church incorporating elements of other pantheons as saints. For example the Holy Lothian church in my world incorporated the Golarion Death Goddess Pharasma as the Angel of Death who joined Lothian. At the same time there can still be D&D pantheons of "Old Gods" of different varieties in different areas as well to use outside of the Lothian church context.
Having a big civil war gives a great background for a D&D game. It draws powerful NPCs into that conflict leaving lots of local areas where the immediate party can be the protagonists in dealing with whatever is going on. If most fighters and clerics and such are drawn off to war, when a ghost eruption happens there is only the 70 year old local priest, a couple under aged altar boys, and the party to deal with it effectively. There can be high magic backdrop but no feeling that powerful local authorities will fix things.
Doing a big homebrew mashup also means I can jettison elements I do not care for such as the Ptolus closed cosmology and go with my own vague and sprawling cosmology with elements from 3e and 4e and others.
I run a lot of modules and that includes a number of Paizo Adventure Paths. I like Paizo's Golarion and a lot of the country themes and developments appeal to me and I find it easy and fun to overlay the Ptolus and other elements over a lot of stuff so there is a lot of Golarion in my game. So when I ran a 5e game of Carrion Crown Golarion's Ustalav was a province of the Ptolus Holy Lothian Empire whose prince was seeking the imperial throne so he had rallied armies and marched off to civil war.
I have run a number of games in this homebrew in various D&D editions so it is easy for me to use it as a backdrop for lore. When my current group were deciding on a campaign theme a couple of years ago the Iron Gods adventure path theme appealed to them so I am running that in 5e with the barbaric supertech land of Golarion's Numeria being in the barbarian lands outside of the empire, but I still have had Lothian elements show up. Also based on character concepts and things that have arisen in the game there are World of Darkness Werewolf the Apocalypse and Mage the Ascension aspects that have come in fairly seamlessly as well.
LordEntrails
Hero
Convenience. For all of 5E I've been using the Sword Coast because it's been convenient. It works well enough. I can use things as written, or as close to tat as I desire. Players bring their own understandings and I don't have to explain currency, or guilds, or factions, or deities.
It's not the most interesting setting, but it's easy to use.
It's not the most interesting setting, but it's easy to use.
Jacob Lewis
Ye Olde GM
Am I the only one that finds it odd that some people only play in one campaign setting all the time? 
Some folks build a game world continuously over decades. Others jump from world to world as one campaign ends and another begins.Am I the only one that finds it odd that some people only play in one campaign setting all the time?
It's always been that way IME - different folks run different kinds of games. For myself I couldn't run the same game world over decades - there are too many different types of games I want to run - but I know folks who do.
BenTheFerg
Explorer
Yeah.
There is a ****-ton of settings out there.
For 5e, I have used/ will soon be using:
Eberron, Midgard & it's Southlands (Kobold Press), Ptolus (MCG), Ravenloft, FR, Avernus, Underdark, Middle Earth (AiME) & Ruins of Symbaroum 5e.
Plus I am using Golarion soon for PF2E.
I will choose the relevant setting for the campaign. After I finish Rime (set in a non-canon version of Icewind Dale), I'm running PF2E's Abomination Vaults in Golarion. After that.... its probably Kobold Press' Plane of Shadow campaign/ Radiant Citadel/ Planebreaker (MCG) in some version of the planes (think I am going 4e planar cosmology.... but I need to read those campaigns first!
I don't have enough time is my chief problem!!!
Stormonu
NeoGrognard
I play in a myriad of campaign worlds, including some of my own making. But some of the reasons are below:
- Greyhawk; first campaign set I bought and used. Before then I was just running a string of dungeons with no world setting. It's home to the classic dungeons and NPCs of D&D and it's fun playing in that world
- Forgotten Realms; really in-depth that inspired me to draw up my own campaign world
- Amberos; my first homebrew campaign that I made and have been expanding on ever since; I've even written a fair few stories based in it
- Ravenloft; chosen because I had a special connection with the I6 module (I played Dracula in our school play back in the day), though I prefer to run one-shot "weekend in hell" games in it
- Dark Sun; this has a very gritty, Conaneque/John Carter of Mars feel that I enjoy
- Spelljammer; Swashbuckling/pirate adventures in space, what other reason do I need?
- Eberron; hated it at first, but beginning to enjoy the noir magicpunk aspects of the world
David Howery
Hero
Greyhawk at first, because that's all there was for a while. I ran a campaign in the FR during my short time in 2E days....
