Your ideal setting

[TheSleepyKing]

In no particular order:

• low, somewhat dark and gritty fantasy (at least in the low levels)
• dark ages feel - lots of ruins, lost knowledge, mysteries and legends
• magic is rare and unreliable; mages outlawed, operate in secret societies
• undead are truly scary (like the Fell in Midnight)
• human-centric, a limited selection of races for PCs (no Muppet's Show)
• limited selection of monsters, esp. aberrations, "signature" species
• power level capped around level 12
• credible NPCs with developed personalities, conflicting allegiances etc.
• shades of grey wrt alignment
• distant gods, often monotheistic God vs Devil type setup
• sandbox campaign setup, multiple parallel plotlines, multiple endings and ways of dealing with obstacles
• PCs grow into hero role, but the world doesn't revolve around them
• an overall "theme" to the campaign (i.e. a morally charged dilemma)
• overland travel incl. application of outdoor rules, random encounter tables
• in-game timeframe spans decades / two to three generations

I'd concur with many of those. Most of all, I like settings that have a mythic feel. Fey feel, well, fey; dragons are legends, not just monsters; elves, dwarves and humans don't all co-exist in a happy melting pot; corrupt priests rule millions and so on. In terms of D20 published settings, I'd guess Blue Rose might come close, but I really love Legend from the Dragon Warriors RPG -- it's probably the closest thing I've found to the kind of setting I'm describing. It helps that the designers weren't actually afraid to make the setting monotheistic (Christian, in fact) and have religion play a significant part of the game. It makes the game more relatable than made up gods.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I have other reasons for not being interested in FR, and it still seems a little more gritty than I'm looking for, and now with 4e's "points of light" approach it's more so.

Thanks for the response, though.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I have other reasons for not being interested in FR, and it still seems a little more gritty than I'm looking for, and now with 4e's "points of light" approach it's more so.

Thanks for the response, though.

I was going to say for non-gritty just look to 4E, FR, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Eberon, 7th Sea, Ptolus, Dawnforge, Diamond Throne, Freeport, Pathfinder, and a plethora of others but it appears that your definition of "non-gritty" and my definition are vastly different.

Midnight is gritty in my vocabulary - players can expect to suffer defeat, they must hide from the enemy and wage a guerrilla war. Playing Johnny Paladin is a quick trip to the graveyard. Hitting 10 level is a minor miracle.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a gritty world. Good guys can and do die. Armies rape and plunder the countryside. Innocents die while "good guys" plan a strategy to win rather than fighting the good, but doomed fight.

That kinda sums up what the phrase "a gritty setting" means to me. How do you sum up "a gritty setting?"


[EDIT] The mentioned setting are better described (to me) as cinematic, high fantasy, or swashbuckling.

 

[GreatLemur]

My ideal setting is custom made with a lot of input from the players.
A custom made race, new villages and cities, different cosmology, different deities, different role of said deities, eccentricities not found in the usual dnd setting (like specific fighting styles that aren't found in the rules)

I suppose it's simply going nuts with friends.

It's arguably kind of a cop-put answer, but I have to agree with this. There isn't any specific thing that I always want my settings to contain. I love loads of different stuff, I love creating new settings, and I love cooperative creativity.

I guess the one additional thing I should point out is that while I like the idea of starting off in an "everyone can add in anything" mode, I'd generally want to find the emergent themes and play them up, while closing the doors to things that don't fit the world that's taking shape.

Semi-related: I dig the hell out of the basic concepts of Eberron, but I kind of lose enthusiasm for it when I hit that "Everything in D&D has a place in this setting!" angle. I understand the motivation behind that decision, but it's really not ideal in my book. I'd like to play Eberron without elves and clerics and other things that scream "Dungeons & Dragons" at me.

 

[The Little Raven]

Regardless of ruleset used (3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, GURPS, Unisystem, WoD... anything) what does your ideal fantasy setting look like?

A fairy-tale storybook. I like strong, iconic archetypes, along with fantasy cliches and over-elaborate description. I use titles in the place of names for many NPCs (such as "The Red King," for example), and tend to have my storyline center around the stark contrast between light and dark (I tend to run Good games more often than anything else). I tend not to go with anything weird in my setting (basic D&D fantasy usually applies), though I do run one-off weird games at times.

 

[Desdichado]

Oddly enough, 4e fits a lot closer with what I'm looking for out of a game for this kind of world that almost any other version of D&D.

That's true for me as well, or at least the "implied setting" of 4e is a lot closer to my vision than something like "Greyhawk as default" ever was.

Making no judgements about the rules; I still haven't read very far into them, and since my group has no interest in switching (myself included) to a new system at this point, it's a moot point. I do have to agree that the implied setting assumptions about 4e are very intriguing to me, though, and went along many lines that I had already adapted into my homebrews.

I have other reasons for not being interested in FR, and it still seems a little more gritty than I'm looking for, and now with 4e's "points of light" approach it's more so.

I was going to say for non-gritty just look to 4E, FR, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Eberon, 7th Sea, Ptolus, Dawnforge, Diamond Throne, Freeport, Pathfinder, and a plethora of others but it appears that your definition of "non-gritty" and my definition are vastly different.

Yeah, ditto. If FR of any stripe is gritty to you, then I guess I can only suggest you play Exalted or something. From my perspective, the "grassroots gritty" movement I described still has a long way to go before it makes any kind of dent in the high fantasy pulp/swashbuckling feel of D&D settings in general, and most of the published ones in particular.

I guess I'm at a loss. If FR is too gritty for you, then I have no idea what you mean by gritty, because by my standards, FR isn't gritty at all. Even with the purported 4e changes to the setting.

 

[bolen]

Worlds like Robert Howard's Hyboria, Thieves’ World, and George RR Martin's world are the gaming environments I tend to enjoy most.

It seems like 4ed is moving away from worlds like this and even more into the "throw everything but the kitchen sink", type worlds. Please dont take this as a slam on 4th edition. It seems like the majority of worlds want to accommodate as many character concepts (classes) as possible. But I guess that is what sells best

I also really like the concept behind Midnight but it seems a bit too dark and hopeless. If you really wanted to run it the way that it is written, it would seem to me that the PC’s should die quite quickly. Interesting book, however and certainly one of the most original settings in the D20 market

I also really like the concept behind Midnight but it seems a bit too dark and hopeless. If you really wanted to run it the way that it is written, it would seem to me that the PC’s should die quite quickly. Interesting book, however and certainly one of the most original settings in the D20 market

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

A Song of Ice and Fire is a gritty world. Good guys can and do die. Armies rape and plunder the countryside. Innocents die while "good guys" plan a strategy to win rather than fighting the good, but doomed fight.

That kinda sums up what the phrase "a gritty setting" means to me. How do you sum up "a gritty setting?"

Yeah, ditto. If FR of any stripe is gritty to you, then I guess I can only suggest you play Exalted or something. From my perspective, the "grassroots gritty" movement I described still has a long way to go before it makes any kind of dent in the high fantasy pulp/swashbuckling feel of D&D settings in general, and most of the published ones in particular.

I guess I'm at a loss. If FR is too gritty for you, then I have no idea what you mean by gritty, because by my standards, FR isn't gritty at all. Even with the purported 4e changes to the setting.

Whoops! I think I messed up which word to use. I think I meant "grim" more likely than "gritty", I'm not sure. I'm not much for gritty settings as you describe them, either, but I really hate something else that I find in too many settings which I can describe only by example:

You know how some people complain that they don't need a game to give them a rule for every situation? I pretty much feel the same way about all the threats and dangers and hardships the beings of a setting are up against. It gets me very confused, as I look at all this stuff and go "Hey, exactly how do people live through all this?". I really can't seem to see the world from a non-fatalist position. I need a setting where all the comfortably dull stuff normal people go through is detailed so I know what that's like, and the rest is left up to me.
EDIT: And unfortunately trying to remove all that stuff from a setting just leaves big, gaping holes.

 

[Psion]

Regardless of ruleset used (3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, GURPS, Unisystem, WoD... anything) what does your ideal fantasy setting look like?

Generically speaking of characteristic, my ideal campaign setting would have:

• Tangible moral realism. The world of man may have shades of grey, but there is primal conflict on a cosmic scale in which there is a definable good and evil. Alignment is as per D&D 1e-3e.
• Powerful (but not ubiquitous) magic. Mages are widely feared. NOT everyone knows one and not every family has a magic item. The local sewers are not drained by magical gates. (I'm looking at you, FR).
• Mythic feel. This flows from the other two, but the heroes go on larger than life quests to protect their people.
• Brustian reality. No matter how powerful the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will cramp his style.
• Fantastic scenery. Cosmic rifts, floating cities, alternate planes that don't obey the laws of reality as known to men... this is the fodder of fantasy for me.
• Reasonable internal consistency. The laws of magic and prevailing conditions in the world should have consequences that flow from the facts.
• EXCEPT FOR THE BORING CRAP. Don't lecture me about fantasy economics.

Specifically, my River of Worlds mash-up is just about what I need. Scarred Lands also fits the bill rather nicely; if only it had a smoother 3.5 transition.

In addition, are you playing your ideal fantasy setting, or are you making concessions to your ideal to accomodate your group? If so, what concessions are you making?

Not really. I wish players cared more about details of deities; most of my players could care little more about a deity than what alignment they are and what domains they give.

 

[Ambush Bug]

No Tolkien-inspired races. I love LOTR with a fierce and burning love, but I'm sick of people playing hobbits and dwarves and mincing elves. Other races are acceptable, but the setting should be human-dominated.

Nations, ethnicities, religions, and cultures matter. Groups who have power use that power, and the world changes as a result. The PCs don't have to be involved in this stuff, but it will still happen backstage.

Magic obeys rules. Except when it doesn't, at which point it becomes strange and dangerous and Not To Be Trifled With.

Gods are unknown and unprovable. You'll never meet them, you'll never fight them, you'll never sleep with them.

Powerful beings that call themselves gods show up sometimes. They aren't actually divine, but they're dangerous enough that smart people pay heed to them anyway.

Thundarr could live there. So could Conan. So could Cugel the Clever. So could Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

In addition, are you playing your ideal fantasy setting, or are you making concessions to your ideal to accomodate your group? If so, what concessions are you making?

*grin* We're playing 7th Sea and Cyberpunk 2020. I haven't sold anyone on my homebrew Thundarr-meets-Flash-Gordon setting using the Hero System rules yet.