Your least favourite setting

[Brennin Magalus]

Finally, there's the issue of how cobbled together [Forgotten Realms] feels. Every region is so fruggin' different that it makes no sense to me how this world came to exist.

Absolutely. The same can be said of FR's insipid pantheon of powers.

 

[Staffan]

Al-Qadim was too well-done to complain about. Only DMed a short campaign there, but it stopped mainly because I changed cities, and didn't play again for several years.

I'm very surprised nobody's made an attempt to pick it up, or make something similar under the D20 license.

From what I understand, WOTC aren't selling licenses to their old settings anymore, and if they were they'd charge ridiculous amounts for it - I vaguely recall someone mentioning that they had asked them about the Planescape or Dark Sun license, and they wanted five-figure money just to sit down and talk about it.

 

[Blackthorne]

Pharaonic Egypt was not contemporaneous with Medieval Europe, so it is not, umm, just like, you know, The Real World.

So do you want your fantasy campign setting to be like the real world?

 

[wingsandsword]

Pharaonic Egypt was not contemporaneous with Medieval Europe, so it is not, umm, just like, you know, The Real World.

Absolutely. The same can be said of FR's insipid pantheon of powers.

Hmm, let's look at the pantheon and faiths of the Roman Empire. You've got the Olympian deities, which were borrowed and renamed from Greece, with a few new ones like Janus just invented. Then there is the sub-pantheon of Emperors who are worshipped as minor deities. You've got myriad little Mystery Cults which pop up all over the place and have their followers and secrets. You've got Mithras, a Persian god who was worshipped in the Roman society. Also this little strange religion called Christianity which is worshipped alongside all the others (in secret) and is regarded as a strange outcast faith. Then you throw in the "barbaric" gods of the Celts which the Romans run across, and are worshipped only by foriegners, but known to scholars of the Romans.

One neat, well organized little pantheon may look good on paper, but it often isn't like that in real life. Big civilizations that mix with other civilizations "cross pollinate" on religion a lot.

I think settings which have one huge monolithic culture across a continent, with one neat little pantheon, one human ethnic group, one language, and every government being a copy of medieval France/England/Germany is in its own way far more unrealistic. I think one of the reasons the Realms is so popular is that the world feels "lived in", it's not all nice and neat, it's gods are a cobbled together mass of various belief systems, which some favored more in some areas and some in others. It has a diverse set of ethnic groups, languages, and a wide variety of cultures. Yes, a lot of those are based on the "most interesting" parts of various Earth cultures, but that is seen by many as a perk. If a player wants to play a character inspired from a real-world culture, most of the cultures that gamers like to play appear somewhere on Abeir-Toril, and when a group goes to one of those Kingdoms it helps the DM and the players get a quick grip on the area by describing it in familiar historic and mythic terms.

Some vast, complex, totally alien culture might make a good novel, but it can make for lousy gaming. That's why I never liked Tekumel (for example); it's an interesting academic experiment, but way too alien to immerse yourself into for good roleplaying.

A monolithic culture where everyone acts the same, everyone is at the same level of tech, and there is one set of gods that everybody worships under the same name and in the same fashion is easy to learn, and quick to teach players, but it seems a little oversimplifed for my tastes.

 

[Ranes]

Some vast, complex, totally alien culture might make a good, but it can make for lousy gaming. That's why I never liked Tekumel (for example); it's an interesting academic experiment, but way too alien to immerse yourself into for good roleplaying.

Great points all round. It is with some trepidation that I await the latest incarnation of Tekumel, for the very reason that you mention in the quotation above. But I still want to give it a try. I've read about it for decades (literally, ouch) but never played or run it. And it does capture my imagination more than any other setting I've read.

As for FR, you almost made me wish I hadn't given away my copy of the 3.0 FRCS. But only almost. It's not the FR pantheons I have a problem with, nor its geography and cultures. It's the NPCs and the D&D++ power level of the setting. I know I can lose the NPCs and downgrade the power with a little work but I doubt I'd find many FR enthusiasts willing to play in my watered down realms.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Absolutely. The same can be said of FR's insipid pantheon of powers.

I like the fact that FR's pantheon of deities are more fleshed out than any other that I've seen. Granted, they seem petty individuals, but I think it's from the fleshing out that made them so.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

So do you want your fantasy campign setting to be like the real world?

Personally, I'd rather NOT. I'd like a little "escapism" from the real world for a few hours every week......

 

[Nightfall]

Darth,

Uhm no offense but I felt SL deities were way more realistical. Not to mention way cooler. (I'd like to see Bane do half as good as Chardun has done.)

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Darth,

Uhm no offense but I felt SL deities were way more realistical. Not to mention way cooler. (I'd like to see Bane do half as good as Chardun has done.)

"SL"?

 

[Nightfall]

SL = Scarred Lands.

Gee. You people would think by now that I'm a Sage and I have a tag line...