Has anyone ran a campaign set on an this planet magical or otherwise? I've tried a couple and thought I'd ping out and see if I was the only one.
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Not really using DnD but another fantasy system, we rolled ourselves up as characters. Then, for some reason, the laws of physics took a different course (I got the idea from a novel called Ariel) and magic started working and electricity stopped.
Goblins and dragons and elves slowly but surely came out of the woodwork. Rumours started circulating that the treasure of that old dragon Fafhrd from the Volsungsaga had been located, and Siegfried's sword needed to be located. It all started in Gainesville, Florida and we ended up in the Black Forest of Germany, before real life gathered up my players and hurled them to the ends of the earth.
Years later much our circle came back together...Gainesville, Fla seems to have a power to draw its sons and daughters back into its fold... and we restarted the campaign with the same system somewhat updated. I ended up adapting that old adventure Umbra from Dungeon magazine to the other system, and it has become one of my all time favorite adventures. We did a lot of round robin GMing, and had a lot of fun.
A good friend of mine used to run his games on Earth. What he did was he placed the "coolest" features from each region together to form a campaign world. The Roman Empire, the Greeks, the Carthiginians, the Russian City states, the Norse, King Arthur, several large feudal and theocratic kingdoms in central Europe, the Egyptians, the Nubians, etc....it was a great time and a fun setting. He was a history whiz and a masterful narrator and brought the whole thing to life. Too bad his DM style was a bit too heavy handed, monty-haul and deux ex machina to be fun for long term play, but so it goes.....
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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One Day I hope to run my Aurthurian Campaign. Rome has withdrawn from England and the Saxons have begun thier campaign of conquest.
Dispite the fact that it is earth it won't be our earth, in this world magic works and the gods are real and so the PC's may through valor change the course of history.
The campaign draws heavily on some History Books, Gurps Sourcebooks(Camelot, Rome, and Celtic Myth), the old D&D historical supplement for Imperial Rome, some newer d20 supplements and the fiction works of Jack Whyte (Camulod Chronicles) and Bernard Cornwell (The Warlord Trilogy).
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One Day I hope to run my Aurthurian Campaign. Rome has withdrawn from England and the Saxons have begun thier campaign of conquest.
Dispite the fact that it is earth it won't be our earth, in this world magic works and the gods are real and so the PC's may through valor change the course of history.
The campaign draws heavily on some History Books, Gurps Sourcebooks(Camelot, Rome, and Celtic Myth), the old D&D historical supplement for Imperial Rome, some newer d20 supplements and the fiction works of Jack Whyte (Camulod Chronicles) and Bernard Cornwell (The Warlord Trilogy).
The old Pendragon game from Chaosium had a lot of reeeeeealy
good stuff, if yerr interested.
One Day I hope to run my Aurthurian Campaign. Rome has withdrawn from England and the Saxons have begun thier campaign of conquest.
Dispite the fact that it is earth it won't be our earth, in this world magic works and the gods are real and so the PC's may through valor change the course of history.
The campaign draws heavily on some History Books, Gurps Sourcebooks(Camelot, Rome, and Celtic Myth), the old D&D historical supplement for Imperial Rome, some newer d20 supplements and the fiction works of Jack Whyte (Camulod Chronicles) and Bernard Cornwell (The Warlord Trilogy).
Several years ago, Dragon did an issue revolving around Dark Ages Europe. All the rules information is in Second Edition, but they gave a decent rundown of available weapons, armor, fantasy races, castes, and races (both real and folklore derived). Not the chivalrous medieval period, but one with more historical accuracy. I don't have the exact issue number for you at the moment, but it could be a handy resource when you do decide to run this campaign.
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Several years ago, Dragon did an issue revolving around Dark Ages Europe. All the rules information is in Second Edition, but they gave a decent rundown of available weapons, armor, fantasy races, castes, and races (both real and folklore derived). Not the chivalrous medieval period, but one with more historical accuracy. I don't have the exact issue number for you at the moment, but it could be a handy resource when you do decide to run this campaign.One Day I hope to run my Aurthurian Campaign. Rome has withdrawn from England and the Saxons have begun thier campaign of conquest.
Dispite the fact that it is earth it won't be our earth, in this world magic works and the gods are real and so the PC's may through valor change the course of history.
The campaign draws heavily on some History Books, Gurps Sourcebooks(Camelot, Rome, and Celtic Myth), the old D&D historical supplement for Imperial Rome, some newer d20 supplements and the fiction works of Jack Whyte (Camulod Chronicles) and Bernard Cornwell (The Warlord Trilogy).
Do you know what ish that was? My 1/2 price books has a mass pile of old Dragons, and I think I buy it.
I've personally tried campaigns twice in the british isles circa 1066 twice, and America 1862 once, unfortunatley after the inital "cool factor" wears off people get discouraged with the campaign, and the campaign grinds to a halt.
Has anyone else had similar experiences , or are my groups just hexed?
I think a DM has to put just as much effort into keeping an Earth based campaign going as any other campaign. What makes the setting attractive is the instant frame of reference everyone has and the easy visualizations when the DM describes "norse longship" or "roman legionnaire" etc.
However, this doesn't absolve the DM from making sure he has a good campaign set up--the DM still needs to set up factions, conflicts, towns, realms, villains, etc...and probably has to be more careful with how things are set up than if creating a world from scratch.
I think a DM has to put just as much effort into keeping an Earth based campaign going as any other campaign.
F2K is right - the advantage of an earth (magicla or otherwise) is all of the detail is there.
The thing that makes campaign worlds work is that they are extremely light on history, economics, religions, politics. That simplicity makes them very flexible to the needs of gamers. Of course that is also whats frustrating about them.
A halfway deal where you kept the cultures - but pitched the history and created a current scenario might work, but I've yet to see it done. Or just poach what you want from history as examples and don't worry too much about explaining how the world got to be that way.