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I've been reading through the What Don't You Like About Golarion thread (surprising good for idea mining for my homebrew, actually), and it has me wondering what cool things just don't get used enough in Dungeons and Dragons settings.
Personally, I'm going to go with firearms as my first choice. Personally, I'm all or nothing with guns. Either the setting is a guns everywhere setting where every soldier is issued one, or it's a guns nowhere setting. I don't like stuff that's in between. There is a deep wealth of guns nowhere settings to pick from, but the guns everywhere settings tend to ditch most Dungeons and Dragons tropes, such as elves, dwarves, dragons, and wizards, or they have a setting where magic is hidden from public view. I want to see a guns everywhere setting where demihumans, spellcasters, dragons, and all the other fun stuff about D&D is there, and the public at large knows it's there. Also, revolver magus.
A close second is settings where humans are not the majority. Humans aren't bad, but I'm tired of worlds where they are the default everywhere. want to see a setting where no demihuman race can claim clear superiority over the others.
We played a 3.x game where all the characters were Fey of one sort or another. Without the use of the book like the ARG we improvised. It was a different type of game that I wish had lasted.
A game I had bought years ago is called Expedition to Barrier Peaks it is for 2nd Edition. A space ship crashes on the planet and the group explores and finds things like a laser rifle. Of coarse the group is at least 15th level.
I think there was another 2nd Edition supplement called Spell Jammer and I think you road between the stars on a magical ship. Of coarse Pathfinder has changed the rules on all that, but it would still be cool to jump between worlds if you were high level and using Mythic levels etc.
I am only in the middle of one game and looking at another, but I don't think there are many adventures that specifically take place UNDERwater.
I suppose Fantasy is what you make of it. Fantasy horror would be interesting and thus you could have a modern game (old west with some magic) with some Chuthulu.
Dragons. And vampires.
They just never seem to show up.
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Druids (and rangers) who are not tree-huggers nor "live in harmony with animals and nature" activists.
Also, necromancers (and death clerics) who are "pro living" and "live in harmony with dead and spirits" activists.
Iron Kingdoms has ecoterrorist druids that make human sacrifices. It's all for a good cause! If they don't destroy industry and stuff, their god will devour the world!
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Having the characters paid entirely in barter goods by the common folk when taking missions for them.
What, you think that farmer has 10 gold laying around? He doesn't, but he might have a pig he can pay you with.
I think futuristic stuff meshed with standard fantasy settings would be very jarring; it would be difficult to role play. Not a big fan of guns either. Aiming for a game where early guns were coming into play might be good, but when you see a class specifically designed to use guns, and then magic specifically designed to reload guns, ick.
As far as things you don't often see:
1.) Different times/cultures as the default. A campaign set in a world that resembles ancient Egypt could be very cool. A lot of the items in the book wouldn't be available.
2.) Building on the "humans are not the majority", how about humans are not a selectable race. You could set the world during the pre-human arrival (typical settings seem to have most races living in relative balance until humans arrive.)
Or, go Birthright style, and make different cultures of humans that each are their own race. You can't just be a default "human", you have to pick a culture. This also helps with fleshing out a character's history.
I think we should see more of the notion that each culture (whether it be human, dwarf, elf, whatever) has some unique feat/skill/ability bonus.
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I wish there were more low CR outsiders, so they could be used at all levels of an adventure that started at 1st level.
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I think futuristic stuff meshed with standard fantasy settings would be very jarring; it would be difficult to role play.
I don't think it would be, it just requires a bit of a shift in perspective.
They'd most likely, if they were cohabiting the same universe, be two paths to the same end. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and vice versa.
The Wizard says "I cast Burning Hands!" the Technopath says "I activate my wrist mounted flamethrower!" and it all comes out to roughly the same thing, but with a different feel.
There's a few unique things you can do with it as well, with each side having their own advantages and disadvantages (technology obviously isn't going to be shut off by an Anti-Magic Field, for example, but it's also unlikely they'll be ripping portals to another dimension on a whim), Magic/Tech rivalries and even wars, and so on.
It requires the entire world to be built around the assumption, mind you (unless the place with the future tech is small and isolated, ala Numeria in Golarion), but it's not difficult to roleplay, really.
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I would say nonhuman races that don't default to elf/dwarf/orc/halfling expies.
And a lot of settings have either have monolithic elf/dwarf/orc/halfling cultures, or suffer either from:
They can't just have different ethnicities/religions/cultures, they have to be some sort of unique subrace (bonus points if the subrace is tied to an element or environment.
I would also agree with guns.
And finally...unique fantasy settings that are based on other real world cultures/ages. We don't really see much in the way of people adapting Native American, or classical age Europe, etc. And when they do, they tend to either shove traditional fantasy races in, or make the setting a theme park land within a greater setting that mostly follows European middle age tropes.
Druids (and rangers) who are not tree-huggers nor "live in harmony with animals and nature" activists.
Also, necromancers (and death clerics) who are "pro living" and "live in harmony with dead and spirits" activists.
The first part they definitely have in the Forgotten Realms. Several evil gods have druids in their priesthood.
including Talos God of destruction especially natures fury.Malar of evil lycanthropes, hunting and bloodlust
Talona goddess of poisons
A game I had bought years ago is called Expedition to Barrier Peaks it is for 2nd Edition. A space ship crashes on the planet and the group explores and finds things like a laser rifle. Of coarse the group is at least 15th level.
Actually, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was for AD&D 1st. Ed. I think it was published in 1979, if memory serves me correctly. It was a crossover with TSR's first science fiction RPG, Metamorphosis Alpha, which was itself the precursor to Gamma World.
James Jacobs has said more than once that Barrier Peaks was the inspiration for the Golarion nation of Numeria.
It also saw the first appearance of the weird-yet-classic D&D monsters the froghemoth and the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing.
Shadowrun sticks demi-humans, tech and magic all together. It's even got dragons. It's set in a near future Earth.
...and the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing.That thing is downright horrifying.
But cool!
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-Church-like Churches: Even though the Church always seems to show up in one way or another (an Inquisition here, a Cardinal there, etc), it's very rare to see a religious institution in a D&D setting that exists in a manner and context similar to that of the real-world Catholic Church. That's it, a single, all-encompassing institution that exists in all levels of society and handles a multitude of tasks, with immense influence and, most importantly, existing as a single superior body above all other powers, judging kings and crowning emperors. I think the predilection of D&D settings to have huge pantheons generally makes it very hard to have a single super-church, but I've ran some games in a homebrewed setting with a stand-in Catholic Church and it can provide a very nice wealth of story plots.
-Clockwork/Millwork: There seems to be a lot of steam-powered stuff in D&D settings, but clockwork/millwork in a more Da Vinci style appears to be far less common, even though it would generally make more sense to have that (and the more flamboyant nature of that period in the history of machinery I think lends itself very well to D&D games).
-Trans-Arabian Cultures: Middle Eastern culture and history is among my favourite subjects, so I'm always looking for settings that give a nod to that. However, almost everything we see is Arabian in nature, with very little influence taken from the African, Persian, and Bactrian (Afghanistan and surroundings) parts of that world. Golarion averts this a bit with Qadira, though.
-Mediterranean Medievals: Perhaps because of my cultural background I tend to use South European material very often in my games, but I've noticed most D&D settings really glaze over a lot of cool stuff related to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other Mediterranean cultures.
Scenarios where combat isn't the prime activity. Scenarios that deal with fey in a way that differentiates them from other monsters.
Guns and bad druids existed aplenty within Forgotten Realms, but weren't really explored there. Barrier peaks-style stories have returned from time to time: Tales of the Comet, a boxed set for 2nd edition, and two articles in Dragon magazine that featured machine ("sheen") invaders, are examples. A setting specifically without human dominance is Termana, the second continent of the Scarred Lands. But of course, these are just examples, most of fantasy lack these things.
Klaus' post made me remember another thing: Kingdom actually governed by a king.
Many books refer to nobility but in most settings, nobility is actually hard to find or else wield little power/influence.
[edit] although this is easy to understand why. in D&D, everyone is born equal and get more power with levels. High-level is power; so those in power are logically self-made men/women.
But if the feat/skill/ability bonus is culturally derived, then being adopted makes no difference--why wouldn't an elf raised by dwarves have some culturally "dwarven" characteristics?
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I believe there is room for both mechanics to exist, side by side.
The Holy Roman Empire doesn't get enough analogues. When you see 'Empires', they're generally bigger kingdoms, very monolithic.
The Holy Roman Empire, at times, was... really not that, and that'd be a fun campaign setting all on its own. The adventures that could come when an Emperor was near death, and all the lords start jockeying for power...
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Klaus - or village churches or shrines that venerate all gods, cause the last thing you want to do is piss off the evil gods....
"Kylannian sighed as she broke the hamsters neck and laid it on the shrine dedicated to the dread goddess. She hated doing it but if the blood of one small creature could ward off the wrath of Lamashtu then the sacrifice was worth it. Some days being the only priest in town wore her down. She turned her mind to the fun days where she blessed the fishing fleet or the first wine of the season and those very special days offering Pharasmas blessings to the newborn, to blot out the supplications to the dark gods.
The small town priestess looked around the holy precinct the small shrines of all the gods & goddesses had the correct offerings and all of the all of the rituals had been performed, except for those of her patron. She knelt in front of the alter of the Lady of Forgiveness and Redemption, "forgive me my lady for I have sinned".
Dragons. And vampires.
They just never seem to show up.
Sorry for the borderline thread-necro, I just tumbled onto this topic.
I totally agree on the dragons and vampires bit. I had a campaign planned(but never came together) that was going to utilize a myriad of dragon half-breeds, to add the dragon flavor there in the game.
I have used Half-dragon Dire Wolves in other campaigns, on several occasions. With their size and relative shape, they can easily pass as minor dragons themselves(being large, they even get wings). This gives the players the impression of dragons being present in the setting, without having to bring out the big guns and drop an actual dragon on a low-level party.
As for vampires, aside from Ravenloft, I haven't seen very many either.
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Count me in for
> Non-Humanocentric Settings
> More dragons
> More vampires
> Guns in fantasy
> Tech (of all kinds) in fantasy (including Viva La Magitek!)
> More non-European, non-Asian real-world analogues (done what I can in my own homebrew with this, with expies of the Medeo-Persian Empire and Zoroastrian-age Arabia in our world alongside Ancient Rome and Camelot knock-offs)
As far as tech goes, I like it to be pretty separate from D&D-ish fantasy stuff. I play a lot of Star Wars rpg's, so I get my tech fix there.
In those games, my characters tend to be very tech-y gearheads, customizers and slicer/hackers. I'm currently playing a high-INT heavy-gunner soldier, former Imperial mechanic. So, every piece of equipment I have, has had some modifications done to it.
I don't mind guns in certain flavors of fantasy, such as settings emulating post-renaissance European-type places. But, when it's a standard sword and sorcery campaign, I prefer to leave guns and most tech out. I'm even a huge Final Fantasy fan, which blends tech and fantasy in every game, I just don't care for it at the game table.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it if someone does like it, it's just not my thing.
1) Settings that are not humanocentric. Either having no humans at all, or few humans. It is why I enjoyed the Hobbit book (and movies), because until the end, there were NO humans. Of course, a human saves the day, but 90% of the book was about dwarves and a hobbit.
That's my biggest thing. Thankfully, I can make said setting, and have. My campaign world has no humans any longer. I love Pathfinder, and Golarion is a pretty cool setting, but the extreme humanocentrism of the default setting just dampens my fun.
2) One more that I remembered: Gnolls that aren't the typical gnolls. You know, the demon-worshipping always chaotic evil slavemakers who go on rampages killing everything in their paths. Same goes for the always chaotic evil rampaging barbaric rage-fuled orcs who go around slaughtering and raping everything in sight. I don't mind the barbaric portion of the orcs, but the rest of the stereotype I do mind.
I am just glad that I can change all the things like this for my own setting.
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What is not used often (nor enough) in fantasy RPGs is politics.
I can't help but notice that nothing of import, adventure-wise, has been written regarding Taldor in Golarion. The Paizo developpers seem wary of this politically-motivated land.
I entertained the notion some time ago of playing a campaign located in the Song of Ice and Fire setting, so as to have my fix of politically motivated stories, but alas the DM who did a one-shot adventure in that setting handed it poorly, which discouraged me from playing long-term in that world (for some reason*, some people think the general theme of a Song of Ice and Fire story is "You're shafted ! Life is tough !")
*In truth, it's written that way by GRR Martin - so it's only natural, I suppose.
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What is not used often (nor enough) in fantasy RPGs is politics.
I can't help but notice that nothing of import, adventure-wise, has been written regarding Taldor in Golarion. The Paizo developpers seem wary of this politically-motivated land.
I entertained the notion some time ago of playing a campaign located in the Song of Ice and Fire setting, so as to have my fix of politically motivated stories, but alas the DM who did a one-shot adventure in that setting handed it poorly, which discouraged me from playing long-term in that world (for some reason*, some people think the general theme of a Song of Ice and Fire story is "You're shafted ! Life is tough !")
*In truth, it's written that way by GRR Martin - so it's only natural, I suppose.
^^ This. So This.
Characters with families.
Seems that so many people start characters with the dead/murdered parents, abandoned, raised by a sage warrior, yada yada, yada...
-MD
I think that's mostly to stave off the GM using them as hostages/leverage/etc.
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It can also be used for motivation of character. For instance, evil gnolls killed my family now I hate them!! (ranger favored enemy) Campaign is about Hellknights so player has family arrested tortured and killed by hell knights in backstory. So thats why I hate hellknights. etc etc.
Not saying I agree with it but thats what I tend to see at tables a lot.
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Characters with families.
Seems that so many people start characters with the dead/murdered parents, abandoned, raised by a sage warrior, yada yada, yada...
-MD
Maybe, just maybe, RPGing is for many of us a blessed respite from the intricacies of real-life families ;-) ?
Characters with families.
Seems that so many people start characters with the dead/murdered parents, abandoned, raised by a sage warrior, yada yada, yada...
-MD
My first D&D 3e character had a fully-developed family tree, complete with a home village, local hierarchy, etc.
The DM saw fit to murder off my character's family, and pin the crime on my character, thereby exiling my character from the village.
Needless to say, I don't get so storied with my characters anymore.
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What is not used often (nor enough) in fantasy RPGs is politics.
I can't help but notice that nothing of import, adventure-wise, has been written regarding Taldor in Golarion. The Paizo developpers seem wary of this politically-motivated land.
I entertained the notion some time ago of playing a campaign located in the Song of Ice and Fire setting, so as to have my fix of politically motivated stories, but alas the DM who did a one-shot adventure in that setting handed it poorly, which discouraged me from playing long-term in that world (for some reason*, some people think the general theme of a Song of Ice and Fire story is "You're shafted ! Life is tough !")
*In truth, it's written that way by GRR Martin - so it's only natural, I suppose.
I despise politics. I guess that comes from the inborn hatred of politicians in my country. So i pretty much never put politics in my games, and 99% of my characters are chaotic with a strong anti-authoritative streak, and hatred of politicians and politics.
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I despise politics. I guess that comes from the inborn hatred of politicians in my country. So i pretty much never put politics in my games, and 99% of my characters are chaotic with a strong anti-authoritative streak, and hatred of politicians and politics.What is not used often (nor enough) in fantasy RPGs is politics.
I can't help but notice that nothing of import, adventure-wise, has been written regarding Taldor in Golarion. The Paizo developpers seem wary of this politically-motivated land.
I entertained the notion some time ago of playing a campaign located in the Song of Ice and Fire setting, so as to have my fix of politically motivated stories, but alas the DM who did a one-shot adventure in that setting handed it poorly, which discouraged me from playing long-term in that world (for some reason*, some people think the general theme of a Song of Ice and Fire story is "You're shafted ! Life is tough !")
*In truth, it's written that way by GRR Martin - so it's only natural, I suppose.
Going to stir the pot here but didnt you start a thread about a player always playing the same type of character? Being an anti-authorative politican hater doesnt neccesarily remove politics either.
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I think there should be more non-European inspired settings.
More horror settings
Psionics that are well balanced/different from magic/ and feel truly integrated into the rule system instead of just tacked on
Not enough Anti-magic or dead magic zones
And I agree with the "church that feels like church". I would love to see a religion that is super strong and oppressive to the populous. And on that note a monotheistic setting with one supreme and good god and maybe a Lucifer type creature who can grant domain spells and powers but is truly evil and depraved.
Also an adult RPG that deals with mature and disturbing themes.
an RPG that doesn't have some system that is basically an alignment system. (there are a few)
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Going to stir the pot here but didnt you start a thread about a player always playing the same type of character? Being an anti-authorative politican hater doesnt neccesarily remove politics either.I despise politics. I guess that comes from the inborn hatred of politicians in my country. So i pretty much never put politics in my games, and 99% of my characters are chaotic with a strong anti-authoritative streak, and hatred of politicians and politics.What is not used often (nor enough) in fantasy RPGs is politics.
I can't help but notice that nothing of import, adventure-wise, has been written regarding Taldor in Golarion. The Paizo developpers seem wary of this politically-motivated land.
I entertained the notion some time ago of playing a campaign located in the Song of Ice and Fire setting, so as to have my fix of politically motivated stories, but alas the DM who did a one-shot adventure in that setting handed it poorly, which discouraged me from playing long-term in that world (for some reason*, some people think the general theme of a Song of Ice and Fire story is "You're shafted ! Life is tough !")
*In truth, it's written that way by GRR Martin - so it's only natural, I suppose.
That is one facet of my PCs that I tend not to change. But they all have very different personalities otherwise.
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I am surprised so many people said "vampires". I think I've played about three or four APs, all of which featured vampires. Maybe I've just had a strange choice of games, but vampires seem almost played out. (Didn't help that my friends' two homebrew settings both had vampire big bads.)
Undead in general are just too overdone. I think every high level game I've been in has gone Undead-Demons-Undead-Devils-Undead-Demons, rinse and repeat.
Also dragons. I think dragons should be rare. That should be the ultimate showdown - at the very least, it should be near the end. If dragons show up more than one time in your campaign (not counting a recurring big bad/NPC) I think you're doing it wrong.
I know this has been said over and over, but I'd like to see more evil outsiders used besides Tanar'ri and devils. I think a Thanatotic Titan would be an interesting switch from the usual Balor/Pit Fiend. Daemons are ultracreepy and have such an interesting backstory with the oinodaemon. Qlippoth have friggin' Rovagug for gods' sake! (I won't even mention Demodands. I know they're related to titans, but they're stupid and I refuse to acknowledge them. Except for that initial acknowledgement to point out my refusal to acknowledge them.)
Also aberrations. They show up all the time as random encounters in dungeons, but I've yet to see a story built around them. Even the Cthulhu mythos stuff seemed to use more undead than anything.
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The Holy Roman Empire doesn't get enough analogues. When you see 'Empires', they're generally bigger kingdoms, very monolithic.
The Holy Roman Empire, at times, was... really not that, and that'd be a fun campaign setting all on its own. The adventures that could come when an Emperor was near death, and all the lords start jockeying for power...
Living Arcanis very much made "rome" the focus of the game
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What doesn't get used enough in fantasy these days? Common sense.
- Demons and devils who employ strategies and tactics befitting their vastly superior intelligence, nigh-infinite patience and immortal lifespans. Same goes with elves and dwarves, whose longevity would give them immense advantages over humans in any reality where the races interacted.
When time is not problem, the amount of time used might become a problem. How often they find that their perfect plans were outdated by decades or even by centuries?
Cultures that are NOT real-world analogues, or interesting combinations of facets of real-world cultures. If I recall, the old Greyhawk settng did a decent job with this.
I'll second divisions of demi-humans by culture, rather than statblock. Eberron's Valenar and Aerendel elves are a decent example.