So if pathfinder didnt have golarion, or if you dont like the golarion world setting, what would be your other option? would you use a prebuilt one like forgotten realms, dragonlance, or any of the other DnD settings? Would you go with a non traditional dnd world like ptolus? would you put the time and effert into creating the world found in one of your favorite novels (shannara series, belgariad/mallorean by eddings, for example)? or would you create your own world?
Well, my first Pathfinder campaign was run in Ravenloft. I tried to transition that to a version of TSR's "Hollow World" after the PCs left Ravenloft, but the campaign died.
Before that, I ran a (3.5) game set in TSR's "Mystara" (the world of the D&D boxed sets from the 80s). Wouldn't have been my first choice, but I inherited the campaign from another DM.
Honestly, I don't think I have time to create a world with anywhere near the depth of Golarion, and there's so much info added on these boards that it's just a really attractive option. If I were to create my own setting, I'd start small (town or village) and flesh it out as the PCs grew, to avoid creating a bunch of stuff I'd never use.
When I was running a Pathfinder game I was using the Greyhawk setting because that is the setting I started playing D&D with and I didn't know enough about Golarion to compare (I also already have all the setting books). There are a lot of great meta-plot hooks from Greyhawk that I wanted to see played out (still do): the schemes of the Scarlet Brotherhood, the depredations of Iuz, etc... In fact, I am still every now and then running the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk for my daughter (once a week or so).
At this point, though, I think I'd like to switch to Golarion because I think it is very well thought out and I really like the quality of the APs.
Now if I were going to create my own setting there are two that I'd like to do:
1. A post-apocalyptic setting in which small communities of very wealthy people survived in domed cities (like Logan's Run) or bunkers wherein they have bioengineered themselves into immortals with almost magical powers that are actually the working of nanobots. Before the apocalypse these people lorded it over the regular humans and also bioengineered what are essentially dwarves, and orcs and others to be their slaves. These other races are currently free of their former masters and each domed or underground city-state has various relationships with the former slaves - some are outright enemies, some are treated as equals, and some are still in some state of servitude. Outside the domed cities and high-tech bunkers the rest of the landscape is more baseline human and things are more like the Mad Max movies. The baseline humans are variously afraid of, in awe of, or resentful of the immortals in their domed cities and their creations. For this I would use Pathfinder rules but also some of Gamma World and Darwin's World.
2. 14th century Japan when the Imperial Court was split into a Northern Court and a Southern Court and were in a perpetual state of civil war for half a century. New forms of Buddhism were coming into being (Nichiren Buddhists were establishing themselves in the capital of Kyoto and Zen was starting to become a powerful institution of Japanese Buddhism and a rather corrupt form of left handed tantra was at large in the land). The Kamakura shogunate had fallen and the Ashikaga shogunate the pulled the strings of the Northern Court didn't really control much of the country at all. A Rasputin-like Buddhist monk utilizing the aforementioned left handed tantra pulled the strings or at least had great influence on the Southern Court. Peasant militias and rebellions swept the countryside. Amidst all this political chaos I would put in the supernatural - hiding in the shadows and working their own angles. For this I eagerly await the upcoming Pathfinder materials for Asian-like settings, though I still have all the 3.5 materials to draw upon as well and also a book for d20 called Legends of the Samurai. I also just saw the movies 13 Assassins and I highly recommend it - anyway that got me thinking about this kind of campaign again.
I always play in the same ''homebrew'' world, it's like magical/mythic Earth. Parts of other fantasy settings that I like are included and adapted into it. Parts of Golarion are the greatest additions to the world in the last 3-4 years. The map is different, e.g. Varisia is in the area similar to the southeastern Europe, Ustalav is north, Karameikos (from Mystara) is south of it.
Every other game setting has something worthy to include, FR (Thay, Waterdeep ...), WoG (SB, Ivid ...), Eberron (religions), WH (Lustria, Tomb Kings), and so on with Planescape and Spelljammer in the background.
Also it's great to use places, ideas and people from Hyborea, Westeros, Bas-Lag, Discworld, Malazan, Second Apocalypse, Zothique etc.
It's the APs that matter cause we don't have much time anymore. Tough they aren't complex enough, e.g. we've combined first two APs with one more story. Rules are not that important, we use a classless 2e/3.5/PF hybrid.
So if pathfinder didnt have golarion, or if you dont like the golarion world setting, what would be your other option? would you use a prebuilt one like forgotten realms, dragonlance, or any of the other DnD settings? Would you go with a non traditional dnd world like ptolus? would you put the time and effert into creating the world found in one of your favorite novels (shannara series, belgariad/mallorean by eddings, for example)? or would you create your own world?
GMing requires so much work, that designing my own world seems like a daunting task. Although there is no question that I would prefer using my own world. If I could GM for a living (how sweet would that be?), then I would create my own world.
So in my case I almost always use a pre-built world. Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms mostly. Currently I am using FR because I transitioned my 3.5 game over to Pathfinder.
I am currently running Golarion, and the other princiapl GM in our group always runs homebrew. I'm feeling my creative juices starting to churn, however, and may start a new homebrew setting soon.
I'm running the homebrew world I developed originally for my 3.5 games... I barely know anything ABOUT Golarion let alone run any games in it. And that's actually one thing I appreciate about the rules--that I can apply them easily to my homebrew, even though I know there's an intent to make sure they specifically work well for Golarion (but what I do know of Golarian is it's a bit of a kitchen sink by nature, so that makes it easy to pull stuff out of the rules to apply what you need).
Another friend of mine will be running a Forgotten Realms (3.x era) game using the Pathfinder system.
I'd make my own world up. I've done it lots. You don't have to start big. Just enough to give the player a feel, expand it as you go. I did a whole subterranean game from 1st to 20th level that way.
My current long-running campaign is the third time I've created a campaign world, but it's the most thorough since I'm (a) not 13 this time and (b) it's been running for 5 years with a defined plot.
On the other hand, I'm using Golarion as is for the second table I'm running; I don't have time to create another world.
We also just retired a convention campaign that lasted from 2e all the way through 4e, but that was someone else's home campaign that became a convention campaign.
Lastly, myself and a second GM are working on the skeleton of a new convention campaign that will be Pathfinder-based when it kicks off likely sometime early next year.
Right now I'm playing in a Dark Sun game with PF rules.
I am working on a conversion for Ravenloft for next year.
My other friends who are DMs tend to run Forgotten Realms.
Last summer I ran homebrew.
Planescape and the Forgotten Realms are my settings of choice.
I've grown tired of standard fantasy and Forgotten Realms will always have a special place in my heart, but I've grown apart from it. I love homebrewing, but if I had to choose a specific world it'd be Dragon Star.
I DM'ed my first PF game last Fall, and started with a [WIP] homebrew setting, though I am using a mix of homebrew and PF deities until I finish it. I started them off in one place and have just let them travel, making things up as I go.
About 5 or 6 sessions in, I was wishing I had just started in Golarion, but it's getting easier, and I'm glad I took the plunge. I'm fleshing out my world, little by little, especially since my players decided to split three ways.
My 25 year old homebrew world campaign setting that has gone through 2E, 3.0/3.5E and Pathfinder. A number of my old playing partners would also attest to that.
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I used to be a pretty solid Realms fan, but I can't muster up the same enthusiasm after the 4E Realms book was released. I still like it, but I've been warming up to Golarion lately.
I used to be a pretty solid Realms fan, but I can't muster up the same enthusiasm after the 4E Realms book was released. I still like it, but I've been warming up to Golarion lately.
Do you mean you don't like some of the changes they made in the story choices for the 4E book?
We abandoned 4E after 2 games, but I am interested in using the 4E Forgotten Realms stuff for it's roleplay value.
I used to be a pretty solid Realms fan, but I can't muster up the same enthusiasm after the 4E Realms book was released. I still like it, but I've been warming up to Golarion lately.Do you mean you don't like some of the changes they made in the story choices for the 4E book?
We abandoned 4E after 2 games, but I am interested in using the 4E Forgotten Realms stuff for it's roleplay value.
We've played 2E in Forgotton realms for YEARs... For the majority of it we just ignored the novels and such and our DM wrote his own epics in that world.
However, our last game came pretty close to working in the established stories and our own characters have crisscrossed with established canon a LOT now... I absolutely LOVE it...
However with Spellplague and 100 year jump... I also lost a LOT of enthusiasm for the Realms... The total scrubbing of places, npcs, countries etc... bewilders me. If they wanted a whole new world... i wish they'd just made a whole new world, instead of ruining the one I enjoyed...
I'm more annoyed with what they did to the setting, then any 4E rule/mechanic changes...
Since then, we've still got a 2E realms game going, where our DM is planning on tweaking the spellplague into something awesome and that will PROBABLY be the last we do with the realms...
/weeps....
Now, with the new pathfinder rules.... and the new Golarion setting... we've kind of jumped ship over to here.
I still wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a Planescape or Ravenloft game again sometime though...
I used to be a pretty solid Realms fan, but I can't muster up the same enthusiasm after the 4E Realms book was released. I still like it, but I've been warming up to Golarion lately.Do you mean you don't like some of the changes they made in the story choices for the 4E book?
We abandoned 4E after 2 games, but I am interested in using the 4E Forgotten Realms stuff for it's roleplay value.
They blew the realms up! They killed half the gods, tore the weave asunder, killed the main characters, and randomly rearranged the world. Like...what were they thinking?
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I have never really felt the urge to write my own campaign world, mainly because I would then have to spoon feed it to my players - ideally my players would read up on the basics of the setting so they know the nations, gods, important organisations, level of tech etc.
I also don't like having to do conversions so although Eberron is my favourite D&D setting if I was going to run a Pathfinder RPG game I would likely use the Freeport setting as there is a PF RPG companion for it that I have (no conversion necessary).
My first Pathfinder game is probably going to be when I run a conversion of Death in Freeport to the PF system during a game weekend later this summer. I too have the Pathfinder companion for Freeport. I'll probably either ignore the world at large or use the rather loosely defined world outlined in the Pirate's Guide to Freeport.
Golarion sounds cool and I did just pick up the Inner Sea guide but for now I'll probably stick to some of the settings I know better and have a lot of source material for, namely Greyhawk and Mystara when I run a longer campaign. That said, if the Freeport game continues beyond the trilogy I thought of working a variant Ravenloft idea into it, where the lands of Ravenloft are literally islands/continents in the same world as Freeport and the PCs could end up sailing there.
L
Ptolus if the campaign I were running was typical-fantasy-urban in nature.
Dark Sun otherwise.
I have played only about 4 sessions in Glarion. 1 when I ran Master of the Fallen Fortress at Free RPG Day last year, and 3 when my group started RotR and then I took a break as DM for personal reasons. The next DM had our campaign set in Hell, where our characters were forced to compete in gladatorial combat for the amusement of Asmodius.
Our usual campaign setting is Forgotten Realms, pretty much ignoring continuity. The other we have used is Eberron, but that campaign was a casualty of my wedding day approaching, and after that us wanting to start the ill-fated RotR campaign. I am slowly working on putting together a homebrew setting, but it's a long ways from being anything close to done.
I have never really felt the urge to write my own campaign world, mainly because I would then have to spoon feed it to my players - ideally my players would read up on the basics of the setting so they know the nations, gods, important organisations, level of tech etc.
For me, this is the chief appeal to homebrewing. I remember when I started playing, everything was new and wondrous precisely because it was unknown. It's like starting a new book series with its own unique setting - many times I want to keep reading to find out what's just over the horizon.
Maybe I'm just a sucker for nostalgia, but if I can recreate that feeling of wonder in my players I'll consider my job well done. That's harder to do if they know the next town down the road has 2185 inhabitants (1996 humans, 82 dwarves, 55 elves, 27 halflings, 24 gnomes, and a half-orc named Bubba), is ruled by Lord Mayor Albrecht Lichtenstein (Wiz7, a former adventurer), and is currently afflicted by a minor grain shortage.
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That's harder to do if they know the next town down the road has 2185 inhabitants (1996 humans, 82 dwarves, 55 elves, 27 halflings, 24 gnomes, and a half-orc named Bubba), is ruled by Lord Mayor Albrecht Lichtenstein (Wiz7, a former adventurer), and is currently afflicted by a minor grain shortage.
I just hope for players learning the basics, not the intricacies. Basically when I mention the Sovereign Host in an Eberron game it is nice if the players at least know that it is the most widespread religion and is made up of a number of deities. The sort of background info their characters would know.
I would still like them not to know the secrets of the setting so I can still wow them :)
Planescape or bust.
I consider all my games to be Planescape games, whether they use that setting or not.
I'd go with Greyhawk or Eberron or the Caves of Chaos, depending on what kind of feel I was looking for.
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I love classic (pre fall of the Gods) Forgotten Realms. Great variety of settings and locales, tons of Gods and factions, I think it's great. Finding material that isn't 4th edition may be difficult, however.
Currently, using Birthright as my setting of choice. It has a couple of things I really like. 1st the hard part IMO, of creating maps, naming places, and people and establishing a history is already done, but also vague enough to allow me to add just about anything homebrew or lifted from other settings. 2nd while Golarion and the old 2e Realms have a lot of great things, they come across as kind of busy. Every village worth a name, has some monster haunted ruin next door, underneath, or in town. While that makes the GM's job easier, it also seems to be a little bit of overkill. I want my players to feel they are unique. There may be other adventures/mercs/professional troubleshoters out there, but they are rare. Adventurer is not just a job.
I also like Ravenloft for short campaigns, but find it difficult to keep the horror going, when the characters start to hit mid to upper levels.
If I were a little more creative, I always wanted to run a homebrew world based off the Suikoden games, but I never could quite "get it right".
For me, this is the chief appeal to homebrewing. I remember when I started playing, everything was new and wondrous precisely because it was unknown. It's like starting a new book series with its own unique setting - many times I want to keep reading to find out what's just over the horizon.Maybe I'm just a sucker for nostalgia, but if I can recreate that feeling of wonder in my players I'll consider my job well done. That's harder to do if they know the next town down the road has 2185 inhabitants (1996 humans, 82 dwarves, 55 elves, 27 halflings, 24 gnomes, and a half-orc named Bubba), is ruled by Lord Mayor Albrecht Lichtenstein (Wiz7, a former adventurer), and is currently afflicted by a minor grain shortage.
I'm kind of the opposite.
I'm almost exclusively a player... but one of my favorite things, is to weave my character INTO the established Canon. For example having a character raised in Evereska, who then went adventruing in Tethyr, who hears about a siege in everska... Wants to HELP them.
If I don't know ANYTHING about the world... I feel less emotion when I hear that Elminster is missing, or Calimport was destroyed. I don't get that sense of awe...
This is one of my biggest complaints about Golarion... I'm in 2 APs and I know they have a book or two coming out about ancient lost civilizations...
That mean nothing to me... To be honest, THAT city lost in the jungle is no bigger mystery that 'as a player' I'm psyched about exploring, than the starting city our characters MET!
It's ALL a brand new world, and I'm hoping for a few games to come up where we deal with the PRESENT :) Or at least get some more novels (Love ALL of them so far ;) ) that deals with the regular world...
I mean... I'd heard the stories and legends about Myth Drannor and Undermountain LONG before i had a character actually get to EXPLORE them... THOSE were exciting!!!
Currently, using Birthright as my setting of choice. It has a couple of things I really like. 1st the hard part IMO, of creating maps, naming places, and people and establishing a history is already done, but also vague enough to allow me to add just about anything homebrew or lifted from other settings. 2nd while Golarion and the old 2e Realms have a lot of great things, they come across as kind of busy. Every village worth a name, has some monster haunted ruin next door, underneath, or in town. While that makes the GM's job easier, it also seems to be a little bit of overkill. I want my players to feel they are unique. There may be other adventures/mercs/professional troubleshoters out there, but they are rare. Adventurer is not just a job.
I also like Ravenloft for short campaigns, but find it difficult to keep the horror going, when the characters start to hit mid to upper levels.
If I were a little more creative, I always wanted to run a homebrew world based off the Suikoden games, but I never could quite "get it right".
A suikoden pathfinder game would be great! But you're right, difficult to get the feel of.
The main games I run/play in Pathfinder tend to be in some facsimile of the realms (1372-3ish timeline but with the 2e Great Wheel cosmology) intersected with bits of Planescape and other settings. I'm neutral about the 4e shakeup of the realms and haven't decided if the spell plague will hit the world or not. Might depend on what the players do to prevent/incite it. For the most part, I'll prolly just selectively weave bits and pieces of it into our game's 'canon'. But that's what I like to do anyway, kitbashing stuff and inserting it into the Realms. It's so big and convoluted it's relatively easy to do. Case in point: running the Standing Stone (the old 3.0 adventure) at the standing stone where the Dalelands Compact was signed in Cormanthor. Thank goodness for that online Forgotten Realms wiki though, dunno what I would do without that.
We currently have 3 campaigns running, one in Golarion, one in Dragonlance, and then a homebrew campaign that I run. I've been playing dragonlance for 16 or so years and really love that setting, Golarion is really growing on me, I like alot of it, especially the kitchen sink type feel that someone mentioned. My own homebrew really isnt that time intensive to create, it probably is more work, but the work is very enjoyable imo, I find world building very fun.
I typically like my own worlds.
Though if I had groups for it I'd love to be playing in Dragonlance or Dark Sun.
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So if pathfinder didnt have golarion, or if you dont like the golarion world setting, what would be your other option?
I like Forgotten Realms and if I ever run Pathfinder again, that's likely what I'll run. I dig Greyhawk, but don't necessarily know it well enough to run it, I think.
My other choices of worlds are better suited to a "Pathfinderized" Iron Heroes. :)
I have yet to actually play in Golarion; I'd certainly like to try it at some point, though.
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Right now I'm playing in a Dark Sun game with PF rules.
I am working on a conversion for Ravenloft for next year.
My other friends who are DMs tend to run Forgotten Realms.
Last summer I ran homebrew.
Oh! I forgot about Dark Sun! Man, I want to play in that setting sometime! Don't know how I feel about psionics, though.
If we weren't using Golarion (which rocks, BTW), I think we'd look at converting either Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.
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So if pathfinder didnt have golarion, or if you dont like the golarion world setting, what would be your other option? would you use a prebuilt one like forgotten realms, dragonlance, or any of the other DnD settings? Would you go with a non traditional dnd world like ptolus? would you put the time and effert into creating the world found in one of your favorite novels (shannara series, belgariad/mallorean by eddings, for example)? or would you create your own world?
FR most likely. GH is another choice. But if I was interested in doing a bit more work I would use my own homebrewed world.
I always created my own worlds.
Monster manual is for me a list of actors ready for casting :D
One thing I've thought a lot about doing is a post-apocalyptic world (New York being just a rotted out giant rusting structure thought to have been a gnome ruins, NORAD being a mystery known only to the Dwarves, etc.)
Don't forget the hidden gate to other worlds at the bottom of NORAD's base at Cheyenne Mountain! :D (Stargate and related spin-offs.)
I've been DMing in the Forgotten Realms from 2e through to the end of 3.5 (and played there since 1e). (As far as I'm concerned, the 4e version of the FR does not exist.) In my own FR games: there have been some modifications to canon (ancient history, deities, etc.), I usually don't pay much attention to the novels, and I use 2e's Planescape/the Great Wheel cosmology as well as a modified Spelljammer setting (not that that comes into play much - it's more of an "in the background" element). So, theoretically a party could travel from Toril/FR to Oerth/GH, Krynn/DL, and even more exotic locations if they (or I!) so desire.
I also have some murky plans for a Ravenloft game. To that end, I got my hands on the 3.x RL sourcebooks to supplement what I had already managed to collect from 2e's RL. Both the "weekend in Hell" and the campaign models appeal to me.
With the change to Pathfinder (but keeping some of the 3.5 stuff alive too), I've become interested in Golarion.
Future campaigns will probably still be set in the FR, unless I decide to run a Golarion-based adventure path. I would be open to characters having come from Golarion to Toril by accident before joining a party. And to characters coming from Toril to Golarion before starting a Golarion-based AP. There are also some good Golarion-based modules; depending upon the individual module, I would run it either in FR or Golarion.
I've been reading through it, and I'm really digging Oathbound 7 as a setting.
A "medieval Europe with magic & monsters" setting might be quite fun if I had the time to work it out.