RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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So, there are a lot of campaign settings for D20 / D&D 3.5, everything from Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Eberron to Ptolus, Golarion, PCI's Arcanis, White Wolf's Scarred Lands, etc.
Help me out, please. I'm trying to articulate a big idea, and it's only half formed.
I'm trying to see how different settings have different flavors, and call for different adventures.
As a clear example, a Dark Sun campaign would have a lot of different magic and equipment, some new or re-imagined races, and an emphasis on psionics. But how should adventures fit into that? It seems wrong to just plop a Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classic into Athas.
But why? Does a Dark Sun adventure necessarily have to lead the party around Athas to make the setting important?
"Ages of Worms" does in fact involve a tour of the lands of Greyhawk. "Savage Tide" doesn't. Was AWAP "more Greyhawk" than STAP?
Can you give me an example of an adventure that you think works particularly well in a given setting, and why?
Can you give me an example of what you'd want to do to a "generic adventure" to make it resonate more with a particular world?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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lots of stuff
Well I think each setting has a 'theme' even the so called 'hodge podge' like Faerun, and to a lesser extent Golarion. I also think a good campaign setting needs a theme.
Here's how I see 'em:
Greyhawk: Ancient land with secrets of lost empires buried under the surface. Gods move (mostly) subtly, with the potential for godhood out there.
Forgotten Realms: I prefer the original, where Faerun is where our legends went when they seperated. It is a pastiche world, which means everything can fit somewhere
Eberron: Magepunk, to use the cliche'd term. While you can explore the ancient ruins of Oz, the Campaign book is more hundred years war or tense. It also goes 'off the board' without being too gonzo, taking some tropes to a conclusion (why don't the lawful evil humanoids organize?) and some off in a new direction (Necropheliac elves, dino riding halflings)
Dragonlance: Meh, I like the setting, loved Legends of the Twins rule book, but never got into the age of mortals thing.
Dark Sun: Al Gore invades the D&D world! Seriously, it's a given that the world is dying and anything that doesn't build on that really clashes. AFAIK, Darksun is my weakest world when it comes to knowlege.
Ravenloft: Originally the 'vacation to hell! In 3-D' It evolved into the dark gothic world. While it still suffers from the 'hodge-podge' (lets put a dark age land right next to the Rennisance!) the borders and domain lords do help. I bet I could change the names of the domains and run a game and my players would be none the wiser, as long as they never saw black books. Bright cheery adventures won't work here (duh) but neither will Dragons and hoards or things like undermountain (which would likely be a domain in itself)
Golarion: Anotehr 'hodgepodge' but where Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are 'High fantasy' Golarion is more Pulpy. I grew up on Doc Savage, Tarzan, and John Carter and Carson Napier. So that's what appeals to me.
Oh, and the STAP vs. AoWAP. Both are 'greyhawky' both build on Greyhawk history and lore, even if STAP stole an island from Mystara to do it ;-)
So, Matt, iI understand you to be saying that, rather than the plots or encounters of adventures, it's the parts of the rules that make a setting?
As I said, I think this is a hard question.
What makes an Eberron campaign particularly Eberonny?
I think you've touched on some ideas, here are a few big areas to consider:
Technology (stone age, low metal, lots of metal, gun powder, etc)Magic (Level of, type of, psionics possibly, etc)
Deities (number, types, interaction, etc)
Environment (water, desert, jungle, mountains, etc)
Political Structures (kingdoms, republics, monstrous organizations, etc)
For a campaign/adventure/module to be considered appropriate for a setting it should at least not violate the standing of these (and others) for that setting and it would be better if it fit many of them precisely. So your typical adventure designed specificly for Eberron probably wouldn't make sense in a Dark Sun setting because there are too many gross differences in some of these areas.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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It's not just the rules, it's the themes.
I don't know how best to describe it. Something like the Godswar, for example works in the realms, but doesn't work in say Dark Sun (no gods) or Ravenloft (things being that blatent/over the top)
Groups like the Zhents don't work as well in Eberron, which plays up the shades of grey.
At the same time, fear and horror checks don't work in the Realms. thematically. The realms are more of 'you animated my dead sister, die fiend!' than teh shock and horror of Ravenloft, or Call of Cthulu for that matter. While Heroes of Horror introduced the rules away from Ravenloft, Ravenloft PCs are more 'normal' than the larger than life PCs of Greyhawk and Eberron, etc.
While Eberron's magepunk technology (the lightning rail, elemental airships etc) make sense in a Greyhawk/Realms setting (Niven's Law in reverse) it doesn't fit thematically. Even the Realms network of mage gates, which comes close, is still a guarded secret. Either by wizards themselves (gates between Everska, Evermeet, and Blackstaff Tower for example) or by Merchant caravans (Gates to Kara-tur mentioned in Unapproachable East) I'm not aware of any gate networks in Greyhawk though, and Dragonlance keeps having cataclysms that prevent the development of magepunk style stuff. Though the flying citadels come close.
Actually, now that I think about it, Khelben and others actively repress magepunk. I remember a story where the Blackstaff blew up a warehouse of smoke powder to 'prove' how unstable it was and have it banned from Waterdeep.
Golarion, by design, is too unstable to develop large scale magepunk/magetech. Divinations are unreliable, and the archmages blowing stuff up are the exception, not the rule. It can exist. It does exist in places like Kaer Maga, and likely in some of the Thassilon ruins and maybe in Azlant ruins, but it's lostech, beyond the abilities of the modern age to recreate.
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So, Matt, iI understand you to be saying that, rather than the plots or encounters of adventures, it's the parts of the rules that make a setting?
I think what makes a setting is the options you have to account for when creating content/adventures. For example:
Some Settings have no Gods of note, while others have a group of 100s of gods. You need to account for how active these gods are in the world.
If there are many modes of transportation like in Eberron, you don't want to plan a big overland treck where your PCs may just grab a seat on a train, but in Golarian, that is a viable adventure idea.
Also look at the state of magic. Golarion happens to have very weak divination. Dragonlance has a very structured system for mages to learn their art. Things like this that can seems simple, actually can shape how the world ends up (see the point directly below this one)
How well known is the history of the world? Dragonlance is well chronicled. Golarion has at least 2-3 lost civilizations that have left ruins that the current people know nothing about (or havn't even found). A search to find a new structure location (take gamermastery module J1 for instance) is less likely to work in a setting where the entire globe is mapped out, and the people have accurate records of everything of note that has happened for the last 1,000 years.
How do the races treat each other? In Planescape, you have angels and devils walking by each other in Sigil peacefully (a good amount of the time), most other settings would have that erupt in bloodshed. Golarion Halflings are slaves in parts of the world. Are 1/2 orcs and/or 1/2 Elves always the product of rapes? Can Drow be good, or are they always evil? Do the other races even know of the existence of one another?
These are things that you have to account for when planning adventures for different settings, as they may alter the plot of your adventure, or how your PCS view a specific roadblock.
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I would like to add low-magic worlds/settings, such as Birthright and Midnight. Both are very unique. In Birthright the main theme is death of gods, which infused the mortal world with divine bloodlines, and in Midnight we have a Lord of the Rings gone wrong, with Dark Lord almost conquering entire world. I like Midnight a lot, btw.
Part of it has nothing at all to do with the advetnure, per se, but rather the descriptive text of the adventure. This ties in closely with the technology level, the magic level, etc. But basically, how you describe the world around the PCs, regardless of the specific mechanical content of the adventures, is going to be a big deal. Eberron's Sharn is similar to a stylized modern city, with numerous sky scrapers and the sounds of the lightning rails, the orderly conduct of business in materials and services which would never be found in another setting. NPCs treat those lightning rails and airships as common; they are expected and incorporated into the adventure, no big deal.
Even in the Realms, where airships exist amongst certain races and nations, it would be a far bigger deal to encounter them. The wilderness is played up. There aren't defind countires with definite borders, or at least not many of them. City-states are the rule, with Renaissance-style architecture and technology just on the verge of things like gunpowder. Magic is powerful and prevalent, with many high-level practicioners of the Art. Yet at the same time, it's out of most people's reach enough to keep the world more medieval in appearance.
Golarion is similar to Faerun in some aspects, as has been pointed out, but sans the abundance of high-level mages and clerics and the like. They certainly are out there, but not in numbers great enough to really change the socio-economic state of the world on a wide-scale basis. There's a sense of discovery and newness that isn't just because the setting is in its infancy. There is a constant revelation of new horizons (sometimes literally, such as when your characters have to leave Korvosa and come over the Storval Rise), rounding a bend and going "Whoa." A sense of possibility and uncertainty lying at the edge of and outside of the reach of civilizations like Cheliax, and even within the hearts of teeming (and mysterious and dangerous) cities. Grit and pulp is the order of the day.
Good topic. I really enjoy low fantasy campaigns with a focus on gritty action and the personalities involved. There is a lot of mileage in understanding how mundane things operated in a medieval style environment and a lot of flavour that can be established with some research.
As an aside, while running different settings for the same players, I always have one NPC that pops up as a well know villain that the PC's are aware of - but never actually get to fight (I use the same image each time, I like visual aids).
Sometime this year I plan to run a fantasy set in the 'real world', where this villain plays an important part. He travels to different worlds, looking for the best one for the dark powers he serves to infiltrate. Having surveyed different possibilities (all the other settings the players have adventured in) he finally settles on modern Earth as his choice...
Good topic. I really enjoy low fantasy campaigns with a focus on gritty action and the personalities involved. There is a lot of mileage in understanding how mundane things operated in a medieval style environment and a lot of flavour that can be established with some research.
As an aside, while running different settings for the same players, I always have one NPC that pops up as a well know villain that the PC's are aware of - but never actually get to fight (I use the same image each time, I like visual aids).
Sometime this year I plan to run a fantasy set in the 'real world', where this villain plays an important part. He travels to different worlds, looking for the best one for the dark powers he serves to infiltrate. Having surveyed different possibilities (all the other settings the players have adventured in) he finally settles on modern Earth as his choice...
<off-topic warning>
This reminds me of a particular NPC which a fellow GM used in every Storyteller campaign that he ran. The PCs would often end up in hot water because of him and then have to figure a way out somehow, incidentally doing some unexpected good along the way. This NPC was a very slippery character, and was never caught by the PCs. Often a game session would end with the frustrated PCs shouting "Winslade!" at a speck vanishing in the distance.
'Winslade!' - hehe that has a good ring to it! I may have to borrow that name for the final incarnation ; >
Good topic. I really enjoy low fantasy campaigns with a focus on gritty action and the personalities involved. There is a lot of mileage in understanding how mundane things operated in a medieval style environment and a lot of flavour that can be established with some research.
I personally find medium/low magic settings the most appealing, as it allows the PCs to truly anchor themselves into a believable world while still allowing for the thrill and excitement of magic. The relative sparcity of said magic makes it all the more impressive, which I prefer. In such settings, consciousness about the mundane lives of the world's other inhabitants is absolutely necessary.
[mini-rant]One of my biggest pet peeves is the application of modern thoughts and concepts to a supposedly pseudo-medieval setting. I see it crop up in adventures now and then, mainly in things like banking, and I don't think it's clever or inventive or exciting. I think it breaks immersion and grounding in an imaginary world striving for believability. Those elements do make sense in a setting like Eberron, because that's its whole schtick; but I also find I don't like Eberron primarily because of its deviance from standard sword and sorcery archetypes.[/mini-rant]
To tie back into the main conversation, Arcane Joe hits upon a similar point to the one I made previously. What is the tech and magic level of a setting? How do you describe it? What actual options are available to the players, in-game and mechanically? Are they riding horses and using bows? Or are they driving clockwork carriages using guns?
That combines with description. Does the DM emphasize grotesque horror and terror? Does he speak of the daring and fast-paced action of the heroes? What tone of voice does he use? Which adjectives are applied? What facial expressions does he make? It's all these small things bound together which really lend atmosphere and definition to a setting, just as much if not moreso than actual adventure content. Both the Realms and Eberron could involve an expedition to the ancient and exotic southern jungles to delve ruins left by giants. But, if the adventures are being "true" to their settings, they will be presented in radically different ways above and beyond the idiosyncratic differences in history and the names of places.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Thank you, folks, for the replies so far.
One thing I'm gathering is that, maybe, the parameters of a setting have an impact on different answrs to the question: "What's the right (or smart) decision to make in this situation?"
Do I attack the orcs on first sight? Do I parley? Do I try to ally with them against the green dragon in the valley?
The campaign implied from the Dungeon Crawl Classics from Goodman Games would have one answer. Eberron might have another. Midnight might have still another.
So, if I could ask for a practical example: take a low-level adventure (say, the Sunless Citadel) or a mid-level adventure (for example, Entombed with the Pharaohs) and explain how you'd adapt it for use in a different campaign world.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm, let me take Sunless Citadel.
Realms/Greyhawk, pretty much as is. You might change some fluff text, the tower might be from the Greyhawk Wars or a lost outpost of the Cult of the Dragon from the Realms.
Eberron: Hmm, Well i'd make the druid part of the.. ash sect is it? Or a follower of the blood of Vol. I don't remember how kobolds fit into eberron and too lazy to dig out my books.
Ravenloft: Doesn't really fit, except maybe in Darkon. The two captured adventurers could be falling to stages of corruption, and the druid and his animal companion would definately be. I'd make the goblins more like goblyns, could with effort make it a pocket domain.
Darksun, ruins fit, but the rest doesn't really, I don't think.
Dragonlance: Cataclysm (pick one!) explains the ruins. Chemosh explains the vampire tree, but does DL even -have- kobolds?
Golarion: Would work pretty much as is, except for flavour changes in the kobold/goblin war
One thing I'm gathering is that, maybe, the parameters of a setting have an impact on different answrs to the question: "What's the right (or smart) decision to make in this situation?"Do I attack the orcs on first sight? Do I parley? Do I try to ally with them against the green dragon in the valley?
Or do I run like mad? heheh
I like the way you've expressed that. It could be argued that it is the DM's role to providing the information, atmosphere and tone that will provoke appropriate choices from such questions.
One of the best things I ever saw a DM do to set the tone of the world was in the first session of a Stormbringer campaign. We were at a port and he described this absolutely gargantuan ship that sailed into the harbour. For me this was like the Titantic turning up in ancient Britain. I recall a sense of wonder... a sense that things were a little different here... I knew he wanted to surprise and delight us.