New Campaign -- which setting?

[Snoring Rock]

Over the summer, my group has seen a lot of changes and a major TPK. I am running the G-series from TSR until GenCon, but after I get back, we will start a new campaign.

I am struggling with choosing what to do. I have run Judges Guild Wilderlands as long as I can remember. I have everything ever printed and soem fan stuff as well. I even ordered Rallu, City State of the Sea Kings.

I also have a crisp, brand new set of maps just out of the shrink wrap of Aihrde. The maps are of the highest quality and they have that new gaming book smell to them. The same one you experience when you walk into your favorite gaming store. Ahhhh...

Ok, back on point. I want to run a long campaign. One of those that stretches on and on. I have to choose one. There are pluses and minuses to both settings. Aihrde is new and alive and has support by the publisher. TLG is churning out good stuff. But the setting does not have the following that Wilderlands does so it does not have as many ideas out there. Then again, I am the CK so I should be making this up myself any way.

Wilderlands has a few things I dont like. One is the mixed up random placement of deities. You have several Egytian deities in a Roman type city with place names from Wales. That really erks me. The culture in Aihrde is rich and distinctive but there are some things that are bothering me. I just dont get a "feel" for it.

The old Aihrde map shows Castle Aachen on the sea coast. The new maps moved it inland. This renders the old large overall map useless in my mind. Also, if you look at the map of Darkenfold, there are so many place names and towns, and features with names. The same is true for the Balcktooth Ridge area. Why isnt this detail given to other areas of the map? Is it because the modules have not been written?

I would prefer a completed campaign setting with all of it filled or none of it filled. Waiting for the update or moving forward with my own and then seeing the published thing on the shelf later....that bothers me. I know, make it my own. I do not have the time to draw up a homebrew and maybe I should just do it. In the end the players see it how I express. The other stuff I see, but do not express, they never know anyway.

I love the hex-crawl Wilderlands, love the detail, the filled hexes, the flavor....but the weird random placement of orc cities between civilized areas and mixed up cultures bugs me.

It is hard to break away from what I know.

[Fizz]

So are you only trying to decide between Aihrde and Wilderlands? Or are other settings up for consideration as well?

-Fizz

[Snoring Rock]

It down to Aihrde or Wilderlands. I have Greyhawk too.

I like the tech level and poulations called out in the Wilderlands. But Aihrde is wide open to define as I see fit, but that is work. I must be getting lazy.

But then again, when are those details really critical? I can always plug stuff in as I go. Very few of the cities of the Wilderlands were ever finished and published.

[Fizz]

Of those three, i'd probably go with Aihrde. Sounds like it will let you do more of what you really want to. Yeah, it is a bit of work maybe, but in the end you get what you want to run. And you only have to do the work when you get to a part of the setting that requires it.

-Fizz

[tylermo]

I'm not all that familiar with Wilderlands, but James M. has a good reputation in the field. As for Aihrde, there's a lot of support material...A0-A11, at least 4 other adventures set in Aihrde, Aihrde maps, and M&T of A. A12 is being edited, and Codex of Aihrde "should" be released this year? Stephen told me that A13 will probably be as big as all of A0-12 combined, or pretty close at least. I can't speak as to any timetable on that lengthy tome. Plus, Haunted Highlands is being officially set in Aihrde by way of an upcoming adventure written by Stephen at some point. Even if you don't use the material as written, there's plenty to work with.

[alcyone]

Lately I've just been running my own. I like Aihrde just fine, and the Wilderlands are neat, but the freedom of a setting you know everything about, rarely contradict yourself on, with infinite space to make stuff up is just too good. And it takes me far less time than prepping a campaign that already exists. No studying! No looking over timelines, remembering where Kayomar is in relation to Angouleme, etc.

Of course, that's just if you are lazy like I am and are ok with looking at how far your group will probably travel in the next session or two, making something up, and going with it. If you are the type who needs the whole world to be there already, or feels that it's unfair to the players to put a lair down at the last second, then it's not for you.

I get it though, I wish I had time and my players had the interest for me to run every setting I've ever seen. But I think they like mine better, not because it's that good, it's not. It's because I am lazy and they fill in the blanks; it's really become their setting.

[Relaxo]

Do Aihrde! the change will do ya good!
and there's links to Haunted Highlands now too, so totally do Aihrde.

[Treebore]

Regardless of what setting I use, first I decide what adventure modules I want to use. Like in my current campaign I have used the Wilderlands as the setting and a bunch of 1E AD&D modules, such as the Saltmarsh series, the Slavelord series, and several others, like Lost Caverns of Tsojanth, Lost Temple of Thairzdun, etc...

I do this because it helps me decide where in a campaign world I will run them, because I have to have the locations of towns and terrain be as close as possible, even if it means I switch the map upside down to have it fit the setting better. IE make what was North for the Greyhawk setting now be South to fit The Wilderlands better. Or East in the module is now West for this setting, and so on.

I have also found that to make a setting "come alive" you have to actually start using it, and then as your campaign grows, the setting your using comes more "alive" as you and your players interact with the setting and put your own "stamp on it".

As for which to use? I'd suggest giving Aihrde a try. A fresh new blank slate is often reinvigorating for me. Sure, Aihrde is far from "blank", but it is as far as what you and your players have done within the setting.

[Snoring Rock]

Thanks for your comments. Tree, I think you are right, I need to jump in and make it mine. I have been close to drawing up my own, but the time needed is just not there.

Ok, I am taking the plunge....

[Sir Osis of Liver]

There's a lot of good stuff in Aihrde. I've been getting more and more familiar with it the last year or so. I've had the folio for a while, and the 3.x Codex, but as to what I've been running, it's been strictly homebrew (except, of course, the Society tournament at GaryCon). The homebrew is one of those things that has come together over the course of years of tinkering here and there with my mapping software and just see where things take me. I know exactly which part of the world map the campaign focuses on, and I like the flexibility of generating the story arcs completely from scratch.

Why, you might ask? Because I don't want players becoming intimately familiar with the setting through picking up and reading published material on it. I don't want to deal with rules lawyering about, "Well in the official timeline, it says x, and you're not consistent with that!" We make the timeline as we go. I enter the details into my campaign manager, and the timeline for the world, in the era being played, writes itself from session to session. Makes for some interesting times around the table.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

The players know their part of the world through their character descriptions and the flavor text I've provided them. Part of the fun is learning the ins and outs of the world when they travel out into it.

[Snoring Rock]

Ok, so having listened to my good friends here on the forums, I have spun an adventure arc together that is open-ended. Many years ago, when I first discovered D&D (Muldvay), I developed my own setting. It was a combination of my own ideas mixed with Tolkien and other sources. I came up with this killer mega dungeon I called The Tower of Bondage. I have found a way to set up portals to this dungeon if one is not careful!!

So I have recreated the world of my youth, spun into Aihrde. The party has been gathered by Jervis the Gray Wizard, to find a piece of a magic amulet (that is a map to a series of portal used by Unklar) that was hidden in a castle. The ruined castle lies in the Uglar territories in the Gelderlands. It is inhabited by an orc chief and his underlings. They have no knowledge of what they are sitting on. The party must sneak in and get the relic and return it to Jervis.

It all fits so well in Aihrde.

[Dracyian]

I like, good luck and happy crusading