The last post about favorite monster got me thinking about this:
What is your favorite setting?
I have always wanted to run an adventure in cloud castle that could only be reached by some old magical ship or a huge blimp or something like that.
I also love games set in sewers under cities. These settings are just very resonant with me. I am curious about yours.
I like frontier areas of any sort...ripe with conflict. Civilization on one side of the border, having to cope with the effects of wild areas nearby. I enjoy trade routes snaking their way through largely unexplored areas to connect two distant trading posts. Dark castles heated by peat, primeval forests nearby, the distant howl of a pack of wolves while the woodcutters and farmers shutter their doors and windows for the night.
I prefer cold climate settings over warm ones, even though my current campaign has been taking place almost exclusively in a sub-tropical area.
I also enjoy coastal and seaborne settings quite a bit. I'm fond of tall castles overlooking cliffsides on the ocean.
I think the one drawing in Dragon magazine that captured my imagination the most was the the illustration of the three spear wielding, bearded fighters huddled in their cloaks, emerging from a snow covered pine forest while looking towards a stark and tall spired castle from which faint smoke was rising into the crystal clear winter sky.
I don't have access to my Dragon CD archive right now, but that would have been the issue from circa 1982-83 that had the original "Weather in the World of Greyhawk" article in it.
I'm very fond of the updated version of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign setting. I've read it cover to cover and it exudes the atmosphere I like, cold, dark, gritty, misty, foggy full of frontier conflict and with civilization always teetering on the edge of a knife.
I also like middle-eastern flavored adventures...that adventure from Dungeon magazine a few years ago where the PC's had to track down a piece of the true cross while battling tieflings in crusader-era Palestine was just awesome.
First of all almost anything underground is great, cold, dark, dank, yeah, lots of bad stuff is going to happen...Also I like keeps and castles, but mostly keeps and I have been designing tower adventures. It is kinda cool to have pc's run through a 4 to 8 story tower, each floor is a suprise and it is easy, as the DM to set up the encounter.
Outdoors, I like because of the randomness I can use to build an adventure, you can run into almost anything in the great outdoors!!....What say you??
thanks
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i prefer my settings somewhat dark and gritty, so that the heroes/anti-heroes done up by my players bring hope to the lesser inhabitants of said setting with their deeds. Fantasy Flight Games' Midnight is an example of such a setting. another would be Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms, based of their Warmachine and (soon to be released) Hordes minatures strategy games. but my all time favorite setting would have to be Greyhawk.
Greyhawk forever!
Its kind of avoiding the question but I loke almost all settings - I set my players up to go from one kind of setting to the next pretty constantly. That said I probably use the Dungeon more then any other setting. The campaign often goes something like from the Dungeon to the Jungle to the Dungeon to the city to the Dungeon...
I really like urban settings , but only with a DM who can pull it off. If the local bar is called "Generic" and the bartenedar is named joe then you ain't the DM.
Outside the city I like the dungeon.
By far I'd have to say the desert. The dunes of sand and the wierdest monsters in the realm along with ancient empires of magic mastering lords that became too powerful, etc, now lying beneath the dirt waiting for handy dandy explorers. The Parched Sea is probably one of the best FR books I've read so far.
I know it's not really what was meant, but settings (as in published ones) I really like are:
Forgotten Realms (you have to be cool to be so ordinary but held so dear)
Spelljammer (particularly with the Polyhedron rebreathing of life into it)
Darksun (just obviously the awesome bleak deadly kind of setting)
As for *kind* of setting I like best? I love a good gimmick. I'm really a sucker that way. I love some aspect of a setting you can't get anywhere else. After I've swallowed the hook, however I love it when a setting can reel me in with huge amounts of reality--depth and detail, settings where I can ball my fists up in the earth of it and smell the solid reality of it as I squeeze it through my fingers. Good politics has a lot to do with this, as does geography, pantheon and history.
Settings I don't like...heh-heh. Can I say how much I don't like the "standard D&D non-setting". It's -like- sorta' Greyhawk, but then not. See, there's all the stuff from Greyhawk, but then other stuff that isn't. It's whatever you want it to be, man...you're the GM...not MY problem.
AAAARGH! And every product is written for it so you can't escape it! It's like they're trying to make me go crazy and beat my head in with a D20...
Forgotten Realms is my favorite setting because its so versatile, 'big' and well written. I also like most of the novels.
I enjoy playing in epic fantasy games with a very grand and 'Dragonlance-flavor' to them.
As a DM, I enjoy running 'survival horror' stories and grim and gritty things myself.
I like urban adventures and the realms has plenty of big cities to explore, Westgate is my favorite.
I would like to play in a Darksun campaign sometime.
I like different settings for different reasons.
I like the officialness of Greyhawk, because it's basically the core setting. DMs can make their own setting around the core defaults, or they can take the official route and set it in the real Greyhawk, and both are equally valid. I like that.
Forgotten Realms is good for being vast, detailed and epic. Where standard D&D says "a wizard did it", Faerun says "a god did it". The setting has novels and novels worth of detail for you to explore, on top of the occasional region book. The reverse of this is that you risk your players knowing more about your setting than you do, as happened me when I tried to run Planescape. On a tangent, I have to wonder why they haven't cashed in on the popular Faerun games by writing region books on Neverwinter and Icewind Dale. How about it, Wizards?
Eberron is nice for being new, and the relative lack of detail right now means you have a ton of freedom. It fits particularly well if you're running criminal intrigue adventures in the City of Towers, rather than the "kick in the door" style of play. Downside, of course, is that it's somewhat different from standard D&D and not everyone likes those differences.
My homebrew was quite good, until a certain event involving a player character becoming a lich and a lot of villagers becoming incorporeal undead...
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I like the officialness of Greyhawk, because it's basically the core setting.
Same here, I like that Greyhawk has all that great histroy behind it of som many classic modules that made the game what it is today.
Forgotten Realms is good for being vast, detailed and epic.
I will say, more than playing the Realms, I have really enjoyed a lot of the books from that setting. And I loved it in 2E when they came out with boxed sets for Myth Drannor and Undermountain. Also, the Netheril boxed set was really cool.
As far as other campaign settings go, I like Revenloft and Spelljammer because my old groups had some great runs through each.
Regarding the other way of defining setting, I love the 'land struggling to unite into a new kingdom' type of setting. I also like a good dungeon crawl or ruin exploration. I prefer temperate settings since, depending on the time of year, you can get monsters that like it cold, or those that like it hot.
I like the outdoors. A dungeon that doesn't look like a dungeon, especially if the PCs are lost. One of my best days DMing ever involved the getting lost in a blizzard high in the mountians, and then a mad boat chase down the river.
Close second: extraplanar sites. My PCs took a trip to Xoriat once. It was awesome. WEll, except they killed the mind flayer boss with an all six lighting bolt (20 to overcome SR), and a critical with a greataxe.
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I also love a good maze, though it does seem like something that is rare and difficult to do. There was an old FR Undermountain module (Stardock?) that had a great maze. Everytime I see a maze, it reminds me of the original film version of The Shining. Jack Nicholson running through the thing with that axe = classic.
Hey!
Planescape is my fave. setting (I like Spelljammer for similar reasons) - because of all those fantastical sites to adventure in. And they're inspirational too.
Also I'm a *HUGE* Ghostwalk fan! The countries and people are great, being both well detailed and original. The rules support the fluff in an interesting way. Dwarves are more Fae-like (and I'm a huge Fae-fan too) and the Yuan-ti are more insidious (and I'm a huge evil scheme/plot fan... too...). Interesting fluff for Sorcerers, Monks and Barbarians, who often need it most.
Oh, how I wish I was on commission!
;P
Peace,
tfad
I love planescape. Well sigil to be more exact. Nothing like a large group of backstabbing factions to get my players all exited.
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Dwarves are more Fae-like (and I'm a huge Fae-fan too)...
I'm also a fan of the Fey, and I like that they made dwarves very Fey-like in Ghostwalk. It reminded me of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Good Ol' Doli of the Fair Folk. Right now I'm toying with a new honmebrew world that gets rid of elves and halfings, but keeps gnomes and dwarves as the primary fey folk. The history of the world would then be heavily influenced by the conlficts between the Seelie and Un-Seelie Courts
I also like middle-eastern flavored adventures...that adventure from Dungeon magazine a few years ago where the PC's had to track down a piece of the true cross while battling tieflings in crusader-era Palestine was just awesome.
Yeah, that was something for my taste, too. I love historical settings (that´s one reason I found Ars Magica just great), and the middle east is something stirring my imagination every time. (perhaps because it is steeped in history). I love the Al-Qadim setting (got everything printed on it), for the beautiful art alone - right down to the page margins. And it is middle eastern flavored, of course.
That said, I like settings with well-done historical backgrounds, even if it is a fictional history. Greyhawk has a sketchy history just waiting to be filled with details useful for adventures, like "Hateful Legacy" has shown.
I would love to do some pirate stuff someday, perhaps no complete campaign, but a story arc. I´m looking into green ronins freeport material for that.
The setting of the adventures themselves is not that important to me, its the adventure that matters. If it is set in an extraordinary environment, like desert, polar ice or the high seas, the environment should play a role in the adventure too.
Stefan
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I like temperate forest or jungles with ancient Aztec-ish type ruins for the dungeon crawls. I also love any underground settings with natural hazards like lava, slippery chambers, pools of acid, thin dangerous natural bridges, steam-vents, etc.
My homebrew is going for all this stuff with some frontier settlement flavor thrown in. If only time would permit me working on it more.
FH
My personal favorites (already published worlds) have always been greyhawk (due to the old modules) and Dragonlance (due to the novels).
As far as historical settings we would do homebrewed campaigns inspired by an alternate history of earth (my two favorites was a viking campaign...and one set in the early days of imperial Rome).
Lastly my absolute favorite setting is Oriental! I just love the old Kara-Tur boxed set...and now after playing L5R and reading the novels, i'm also in love with Rokugan!The only problem is that in all my roleplaying groups, no one knew oriental, and I always had to Dm...just once i'd love to play an Oriental campaign...oh well, someday =p.
I'm hooked on jungle as well... "Isle of Dread" was one of my first module as a player and I guess I really never returned from there ;o). And "Predator" is one of my favourite movies as well. I wrote a short side-trek based on this movie who scared one of my players to tears back in high school days. I revamped it for 3ed but didn't have a chance to DM it so far... But as I DM the SCAP I'm sure I'll find a chance. :))
I'm fond of urban environment too and I love to write stories with sophisticated political intrigues which take place in huge med-fan cities. I'm currently considering to take my next campaign to Waterdeep but since all the adventures in Sharn I read in Dungeon were great, perhaps I will make it Eberron. If AP3 is written by Uri Kurlianchik and feels like "Murder in Oakbridge" I will be a very happy DM !!! :))
Bran.
Big city -- but they're hard to pull off (too many people and places, I think). Then dungeons.
Jack
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I like temperate forest or jungles with ancient Aztec-ish type ruins for the dungeon crawls. I also love any underground settings with natural hazards like lava, slippery chambers, pools of acid, thin dangerous natural bridges, steam-vents, etc.
My homebrew is going for all this stuff with some frontier settlement flavor thrown in. If only time would permit me working on it more.FH
Right with you there, FH. I'm a HUGE fan of jungle-themed settings; there is so much one can do with the surroundings and atmosphere. Right now my PCs are navigating their way north from the southern edge of Xen'drik in Eberron, taking storms of acid rain and giant mile-spanning ravines in stride as they battle athatchs and drow in long running battles. The ecology of the jungle environment is so immediate and encompassing, and the ruins of past civilizations help to emphasize the idea that older peoples tried and couldn't survive in such a cuthroat environment.
Your homebrew sounds like fun too, though...
Russ
If AP3 is written by Uri Kurlianchik and feels like "Murder in Oakbridge" I will be a very happy DM !!! :))
Bran.
Uri Kurlianchik & Nicolas Logue for 2008!
For a campaign setting, large conflicts help generate the driving force to sustain a group from 1st to 20th level. The more facets that are included in the conflict, the deeper and more developed the campaign can be. For instance, a typical canned adventure has a marginal amount of background for the setting (see non-threaded Dungeon adventures). A large-scale adventure played over a long period of time has the potential to develop deep and sustanible subplot roots including: religious, political, military, planar, ethnic, racial, familial, cosmic, and non-liniar settings (see time/space influences). The event-based conflict is typically considered the "climax" of the campaign that all previous adventures structurally build to and the PCs actions up to and during this conflict will determine the scope of the world in some fashion after the conflict is resolved (for good or ill).
For our group, after playing different kinds of campaign settings for over 15 years, has settled on this mode of gaming as supplying the most opportunity for both story and character development over the long-haul.
As ever,
ACE
If AP3 is written by Uri Kurlianchik and feels like "Murder in Oakbridge" I will be a very happy DM !!! :))
Bran.
If AP3 will be written by me I will be very happy indeed...
And thanks for the support, Bran.
I'm an extremist, I perfer either endless roving over all over the game world we happen to be adventuring in, or my character has no desire to leave the five mile radius outside his poorly kept hovel.
unfotunately I'm in the samllest minority in my game group, so I'll not be seeing the light of the sun for a while, because they think all a goblins treasure disappears when sunlight hits them.
I like anything that shows imagination. Great settings spark adventure ideas -- enough to fill a campaign, or more. Likewise, great adventures always occur within the context of a great setting, whether it's classic but lovingly crafted ("The Styes"), completely exotic ("Quicksilver Hourglass"), or just plain cool ("Kings of the Rift").
I like settings where the PC's are commisioned by a higher power, particularly if the higher power has many ulterior motives the PC's don't know about. In fact, little do the players in my homebrewed 'Dragonslayer' campaign realize that the kingdom of Agloria and the Church are actually towards the end of their millenia long companionship and that they both are preparing to separate during an inevitable war with the P.H.T. (People of High Technology). The beauty part is it forces them to choose allegience eventually, and they could possibly reunite the two powers. Also, it allows them to fight in any clime, because a country with its hand in many different efforts is sure to be in different climes. In fact, they are in the process of making their way to the frozen north, passing through great mountains and ancient forests. I like settings that bring in minor features, while leaving many questions to the minds of the players.
Also, I have been having trouble finding 3rd Edition Spelljammer rules. Does a source rulebook exist?
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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The campaign I'm currently running is an Eberron campaign and my next will be SCAP in Greyhawk, but, I enjoy a great diversity of settings. One I've wanted to run for ages is a homebrewed fantasy historical campaign set in Britain just after Roman occupation complete with Celtic myth, invading Saxons, and Arthurian seasoning.
My favorite setting was Al Qadim. I didn't get to play in it nearly enough, because the group that I DM'ed using that setting dispersed to the four corners of the country shortly after we began playing. But I loved the arabian nights feel.
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I used to play FR for years and know quite a bit about it!
But over the years I found that it's not exactly a total setting I like, but special areas or concepts of one.
Presently I DM on Khorvaire with using stuff of my old FR-library (which is extensive).
I would like to make up my own world, but as I am pretty short on time, I am happy to have these things done for me. Althoug I changed a lot of things in Eberron, especially the Warforged thing...
I start loving Greyhawk! I unknowingly played there as a player a long time and started to get interested in it with all the ruckus about it in Dungeon mag.
I can't say a thing about Spelljammer or Darksun, or Dragonlance, as I'ver never used them.
But I know that I don't like Ravenloft. First, you need a really good DM for that setting, and second: As a player I always felt lost there. Never got used to an npc, because after the adventure we "jumped" to the next domain in RL.
Planescape was a hit for me - as player and DM! I would love to have this setting again in 3.5 with all new art over it (although Tony Diterlizzi's art was great and gave PS a special feel).
Oh, It has to be Eberron's Mourbnland, a creepy ash covered land of the dead... if your DM sucks though...
But otherwise :)