Game settings

[Dracyian]

What is the preference for settings?
Do you like to homebrew your own from complete scratch?
or
Take a made setting and modify it?
or
Run a setting as it is with fwe to no alterations?

What about making settings based off of worlds from published works?

Like a middle earth setting (I'm aware of the one ring game, have yet to play it. I have always wanted to do a 2nd age game. I have been thinking about it, I would have to alter the wizard and Illusion class to fit the "Istari" I could reason with myself to leave druids alone seeing as you have Beorn and Tom Bombadil and its just mean to cut out clerics, it makes it harder lol, and there are fantastic elven subraces but now i'm digressing)

I"m in the process of rereading some of Eddings works and I think it would be a nice setting for a campaign, it has monsters and baddies could add the dwarfs, elves, gnomes and halflings and modify the current inhabitants to fit the races.

So I guess my meandering mind is looking to use the experience of others on how the develop the campaigns they use for their games

[Buttmonkey]

I do a combination of your first two options. Reading and mastering someone else's setting feels like homework and I just can't do it. I don't just modify someone else's setting and I also haven't done my own homebrew setting from scratch. I make my own setting, but heavily steal ideas from other people's stuff. For example, for my current campaign, I'm using the A0 - Rising Knight module. I am not entirely thrilled with the Blacktooth Ridge area from Airhde (too much fae, too German, etc.), but when it came time to create an environment to stick the dungeon in, I used a lot of the stuff from A0 and A1. The dungeon from A0 is close to the village Malforten. There is a Dunderry River running nearby that also passes by Blacktooth Ridge and the village of Botkinburg. I expect to steal some stuff from the modules for the contents of the towns (e.g., I might keep the same tavern names), but the population and important NPCs will probably be my own. I'm planning on steering the PCs toward a more settled environment with a city and then introduce a megadungeon that the party can mess with if it wants to, drawing lots of inspiration from the Anomalous Subsurface Environment. I won't go gonzo like ASE does (my players voted for a more straight fantasy game), but I'm sure I'll steal a lot of concepts for my city from the way ASE describes Denethix. For example, I'll probably create factions inspired by the ASE factions, I'll let PCs acquire citizenship in exchange for cash a la ASE, and I may steal some or all of the random city encounter charts from ASE. I'm planning on basing the megadungeon on ideas stolen from Stonehell. It will be a prison that was buried at some point in the war with Unklar. Fast forward a few hundred years and someone has rediscovered an entrance. The monsters inside will be based on the things that survived in the prison (e.g., some of the guards will have formed a community with prisoners that has evolved since the dungeon was cut off from the outside world; monsters will have infiltrated the dungeon by tunneling in over the years and taken residency; the inevitable evil wizard who had a lab at the prison for performing twisted experiments on troublemaking prisoners will have left all sorts of bad things behind; maybe the upper levels were taken over by Unklar's agents at some point during the war and now there are still remnants of those humanoid forces). The overall theme is I am running with ideas stolen from other GMs and making them my own rather than modifying their material slightly or doing everything from scratch. In addition to stealing from published RPG materials, I'm trying to find ways to work in concepts from the Black Company novels (without getting too dark and gloomy) and other fantasy literature. I'm simply not creative enough to make something awesome entirely on my own. I intend to steal my way to a great result. All the better if my players don't know how I got there and think I am a genius.

[Omote]

My main campaign is half-homebrew, half-published (sorta) setting, set in the Necromancer Games Lost Lands. This campaign is has stretched out of the published Lost Lands material over the past 3+ years to encompass my own ideas. The mechanics are "advanced" C&C with a fair amount of additions that, at times, make the game sort of feel, well, not like C&C.

My "sometimes" campaign is pretty closely set in the East Mark/Yggsburgh setting. Only minor alterations have been added due to the fact that this setting is not as expansive.

My "White Box" campaign is set within James Misher's Wilderlands of High Adventure. A fair amount of material has been added to give the Wilderlands some extra detail.

The campaign I play in (CK every other campaign) is set firmly in the Greyhawk setting with virtually no modification from printed matter.

My next campaign will probably be set firmly in the Birthright setting. The only modifications that will be made are from areas not covered in the released documentation, and rules converting it from 2E to C&C.

~O

[Relaxo]

I set mine to 11.

[Rigon]

My current campaign is set in "greybox" FR. i don't tend to add much from outside sources and just run with the setting however I feel like. The setting can still be described as FR, but it has enough of my flavor to be different.

I like working on homebrews, but just can't seem to find the time to do much to get into it anymore.

R-

[Lurker]

...
I like working on homebrews, but just can't seem to find the time to do much to get into it anymore.

R-

Rgr on that, I have ideas for an amazing home brew ... but do not have the time to put it to effect. Heck, I don't even have time to play much less DM a game and then much less DM a setting I put together

That said, back in the day, it was a mix of choice 2 & 4. I'd run a FR gray box setting with additions of some of the other areas, but trim WAY back on the high level NPCs etc. Ten I'd run a setting inspired by books (ME tended to be my favorite) and just cover the AD&D rules with that background.

[serleran]

I have a lot of games and I have a lot of game settings. I take the parts I like, make ones I don't like, and then call it a day. I don't use any setting as its written because I don't like them as they're written, including things I did myself. But, in the aggregate, I find a way to meld "perfection" from the various chocolates.

[Dracyian]

...
I like working on homebrews, but just can't seem to find the time to do much to get into it anymore.

R-

Rgr on that, I have ideas for an amazing home brew ... but do not have the time to put it to effect. Heck, I don't even have time to play much less DM a game and then much less DM a setting I put together

That said, back in the day, it was a mix of choice 2 & 4. I'd run a FR gray box setting with additions of some of the other areas, but trim WAY back on the high level NPCs etc. Ten I'd run a setting inspired by books (ME tended to be my favorite) and just cover the AD&D rules with that background.

ME????

[kreider204]

... Ten I'd run a setting inspired by books (ME tended to be my favorite) and just cover the AD&D rules with that background.

ME????

Middle-earth, I'm guessing.

I run an informal, non-canonical version of Greyhawk. It's the D&D setting I grew up with, and I like that there's enough material out there that I can run it without a lot of work, but not so much that I feel overwhelmed by it. I also like that Gary's attitude seemed to be "Greyhawk is whatever you want it to be," so I don't feel bad when I stray from canon.

[Dracyian]

... Ten I'd run a setting inspired by books (ME tended to be my favorite) and just cover the AD&D rules with that background.

ME????

Middle-earth, I'm guessing.

I run an informal, non-canonical version of Greyhawk. It's the D&D setting I grew up with, and I like that there's enough material out there that I can run it without a lot of work, but not so much that I feel overwhelmed by it. I also like that Gary's attitude seemed to be "Greyhawk is whatever you want it to be," so I don't feel bad when I stray from canon.

I love the Middle earth setting, it almost seems like the Parent to a lot of the D&D and C&C roots and core and with the bestiary for middle earth giving a description of the creatures including, one of my personal favorites the dumbledores, I would imagine it would be easy to find creatures and monsters in the compeduems for the two games to generate stat blocks for

[Zudrak]

... Ten I'd run a setting inspired by books (ME tended to be my favorite) and just cover the AD&D rules with that background.

ME????

Middle-earth, I'm guessing.

I run an informal, non-canonical version of Greyhawk. It's the D&D setting I grew up with, and I like that there's enough material out there that I can run it without a lot of work, but not so much that I feel overwhelmed by it. I also like that Gary's attitude seemed to be "Greyhawk is whatever you want it to be," so I don't feel bad when I stray from canon.

I use the GH Folio and 1983 Box Set. There's enough in them to begin my campaign(s) each time we start a new group and plenty of room to customize and make it your own. Like you, Greyhawk is the setting I grew up with. I do plan to incorporate Frank Mentzer's Aquaria and the original vision for OA into it (Aquaria east of the Flanaess over the Solnor Ocean and OA's lands east of that, though near the Western portion of the continent of Oerik, per EGG's Q&A several years ago) at some point, but it seems less and less likely my player characters will ever venture there (unless I complete my own Castle Greyhawk and jettison some PC's to the other side of Oerth!).

Anyway, as you state "Greyhawk is whatever you want it to be." That's the best part about it. The framework is there and the rest is up to the DM/CK and players.

As to my campaign that is set to begin in July, I am placing A0 and A1 in the borderlands between the Principality of Ulek and The Pomarj. I may go on with the series beyond A1, but I am also placing EGG's B2: Keep on the Borderlands in the same area -- all near the Jewel River, my stand-in for the Drunderry.

[Dracyian]

Does anybody include place/use features from the Airhde setting in their greyhawk world, like having blacktooth ridge on Oerth or making plans to have the haunted HIghlands take place somewhere. I have seen talk about it being a possibility on these boards, just curious

[Treebore]

Does anybody include place/use features from the Airhde setting in their greyhawk world, like having blacktooth ridge on Oerth or making plans to have the haunted HIghlands take place somewhere. I have seen talk about it being a possibility on these boards, just curious

I actually have Airhde be the true "desert" to the West, hidden for centuries under an Illusion created by Unklar to keep meddlesome kids from GH from messing with his plans. With that desert gone, the inhabitants of GH are realizing the former desert is once again a lush and forested land filled with many new cultures, and vice versa. Very little has actually happened because the mountains do make a formidable natural barrier to trade and general travel.

[kreider204]

Does anybody include place/use features from the Airhde setting in their greyhawk world, like having blacktooth ridge on Oerth or making plans to have the haunted HIghlands take place somewhere. I have seen talk about it being a possibility on these boards, just curious

I actually have Airhde be the true "desert" to the West, hidden for centuries under an Illusion created by Unklar to keep meddlesome kids from GH from messing with his plans. With that desert gone, the inhabitants of GH are realizing the former desert is once again a lush and forested land filled with many new cultures, and vice versa. Very little has actually happened because the mountains do make a formidable natural barrier to trade and general travel.

That is awesome!

[ThrorII]

I'm with Rigon on this. I run my games in the '83 Greyhawk Box Set. It is a solid, defined, but vague enough setting. I import adventures from C&C, DCC, and anywhere else. Scratch off the serial numbers, rearrange a few bits, and there you go.

[Zudrak]

Does anybody include place/use features from the Airhde setting in their greyhawk world, like having blacktooth ridge on Oerth or making plans to have the haunted HIghlands take place somewhere. I have seen talk about it being a possibility on these boards, just curious

Well... I kind of alluded to it above:

As to my campaign that is set to begin in July, I am placing A0 and A1 in the borderlands between the Principality of Ulek and The Pomarj. I may go on with the series beyond A1, but I am also placing EGG's B2: Keep on the Borderlands in the same area -- all near the Jewel River, my stand-in for the Drunderry.

The Blacktooth Ridge ties into the hills that run south of the Lortmil Mountains and between the Principality of Ulek and the Pomarj. I make the hills merge with the Suss so that they run across the Jewel to the hexes where I am setting A0 & A1. (I need to map this out on hex graph paper...)

[Go0gleplex]

I've always ran my own creations. I get caught up in second guessing or how what I'm doing is going to be affected by "canon" events when dealing with published settings...and other quirky issues.

[Rigon]

I've always ran my own creations. I get caught up in second guessing or how what I'm doing is going to be affected by "canon" events when dealing with published settings...and other quirky issues.

I never understood that about "canon." For me, canon is what happens in my campaigns. If something is published that I don't want to happen in a campaign I'm running, then it doesn't happen. I've never had a player, who knew about the published "canon," tell me I wasn't doing it right or by the book. I tend to use the published setting as a framework that I didn't have to build, but I sure as hell can modify as much as I want to.

And, like I said before, I like creating my own worlds, I just don't have the time or energy to do it anymore.

R-

[Lurker]

I never understood that about "canon." For me, canon is what happens in my campaigns. If something is published that I don't want to happen in a campaign I'm running, then it doesn't happen. I've never had a player, who knew about the published "canon," tell me I wasn't doing it right or by the book. I tend to use the published setting as a framework that I didn't have to build, but I sure as hell can modify as much as I want to.

And, like I said before, I like creating my own worlds, I just don't have the time or energy to do it anymore.

R-

I never had that in "D&D" games, but the ole d6 Star Wars games I ran and played in ... there were 2 players that were SW encyclopedias and wanted everything by cannon.

[Dracyian]

The CK for one of my games and I were talking about Forgotten realms and he made mention that he didn't want to run a FR campaign just because there is so much cannon he didn't even want to deal with the setting and the cannon and putting his own spin on it, but he does run the Greyhawk setting fantastically

[serleran]

Give them cannon. Fire them.

[Zudrak]

I've always ran my own creations. I get caught up in second guessing or how what I'm doing is going to be affected by "canon" events when dealing with published settings...and other quirky issues.

I never understood that about "canon." For me, canon is what happens in my campaigns. If something is published that I don't want to happen in a campaign I'm running, then it doesn't happen. I've never had a player, who knew about the published "canon," tell me I wasn't doing it right or by the book. I tend to use the published setting as a framework that I didn't have to build, but I sure as hell can modify as much as I want to.

And, like I said before, I like creating my own worlds, I just don't have the time or energy to do it anymore.

R-

It does become a waste of energy and a divisive reason to exalt one's self (and others of similar ilk) over other players: "You do (not) use the _____ box set/book with your campaign? You're doing it wrong."

Meh. C&C was a great way for me to escape the noise of "BadWrongFun."

[Zudrak]

Give them cannon. Fire them.

Starboard or Port, sir?

[Dracyian]

Give them cannon. Fire them.

Starboard or Port, sir?

Whichever will target the Aft of their ship quicker with precision Commander

[Treebore]

Nothing is canon until the CK says it is. Problem solved. Player doesn't like it? Tell them its time to find another game.

[Rigon]

Nothing is canon until the CK says it is. Problem solved. Player doesn't like it? Tell them its time to find another game.

Basically how I would do it anyways.

R-

[Dracyian]

Nothing is canon until the CK says it is. Problem solved. Player doesn't like it? Tell them its time to find another game.

Basically how I would do it anyways.

R-

Thats how I would run it if I ever ran into that, but I think for my CK it is more of an issue of his respect to the authors and creators of those worlds and staying true to their inspiration in respect. He does modify, mix and match but keeps the overworld setting pretty much the same.

[Treebore]

Thats how I would run it if I ever ran into that, but I think for my CK it is more of an issue of his respect to the authors and creators of those worlds and staying true to their inspiration in respect. He does modify, mix and match but keeps the overworld setting pretty much the same.

I try to as well, but if its going to get in my way of doing something I want to do, "canon" gives way to what I want to do every time.

[Rigon]

Thats how I would run it if I ever ran into that, but I think for my CK it is more of an issue of his respect to the authors and creators of those worlds and staying true to their inspiration in respect. He does modify, mix and match but keeps the overworld setting pretty much the same.

It's not that I don't have respect for what they written, it's more about me making the setting my own. Take FR as an example, what exactly is "cannon?" The old grey box? The 2e box? The novels? What? I mostly gamed using the 2e box set for most of my 2e days. However, as a CK, I much prefer the feel of the old grey box FR. That's about all I use when I run FR games nowadays. Is it still "cannon?" Sure is, but nothing, and I mean nothing, that came after it was written has any baring on MY game. So "cannon" only means what you want it to mean. Hell, when I run DL, I only use the DL modules (plus a few other references to flesh some things out with) as my setting info and it is usually 5-10 years after the War of the Lance has ended. Nothing else that was officially released for DL ever enters my campaigns. Same with DS. I only use the original box set, nothing else. So, while I do stick to cannon when I run my games, it is MY cannon that matters.

R-

[Zudrak]

I agree with Treebore's assessment above.