What Do You Like/Hate in a Campaign Setting?

[afroakuma]

Hello the boards! As some of you may be aware, the first Vote Up A Campaign Setting project on our homebrew boards has been completed and released, and we are currently recruiting a team (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203076) to assemble the next one.

Before the voting begins, I'd like to get some feedback as to what people like to see/dislike in campaign settings. Races, classes, unusual features, genres, any feedback you have would be most appreciated.

I have the original list of campaign "genres" we used for VUACS 1 displayed here to stir commentary:

Classic/Low Fantasy
Epic/High Fantasy
Arabian Nights/Desert Fantasy (the previous winner)
Age of Sail/Pirate Fantasy
Sci-fi Fantasy
Space Opera Science Fiction
Cyberpunk Science Fiction
Modern/Realistic
Western/Frontier
Victorian/Steampunk
Realistic Medieval
Stone Age/Ice Age

This is of course by no means an exhaustive list, so suggestions on others are also most welcome. I look forward to your feedback!

[Seth62]

My best homebrew was a low-magic steampunk game that took place in 2020. All the gasoline in the world was gone and people used steam wind and solar powered devices. The party favorite was the solarbeam backpack in the shape of a flower bulb.

[Eldan]

I like things that are far removed from Earth as it is today, and haven't been done before. Exotic features, strange cosmologies, unusual time periods as a base, i.e. those that don't seem as much coverage as the European late middle ages, dark ages, renaissance, 18th century or Japan.

[Psyren]

The whole divine system in Faerun (the Wall especially) is pretty borked. And psionics somehow use the Weave without using the Weave, with no functional difference between it and magic as a result.

[Yora]

There is only one thing I really hate in a setting. And that is creating fantasy version of real world countries from all over the world and different times and putting them all together and calling them a setting. That's really bad work.
Yes, I mean you, Golarion.

I also dislike it when a world is essentially a science project by bored deities that added some random elements like a huge gem at the north pole that magically powers all life on the planet. Of course they created all the races in their final forms for specific purposes.
Middle-earth, it's your fault this has become popular.

I'm also not a fan of Splat-Punk settings. 19th century style factories with poor workers and dirt, combined with mad science is not my cup of tea.

Instead, I really like settings that don't have the entire creation of the world explained in detail and set in stone, but rather have life evolved naturally and history really only begins when the first civilizations evolve with nobody really knowing what had been before.
Also, distant gods. Gods you can talk to really make the whole fantasy religion stuff boring.

And I really prefer Star Wars style Used Science Fiction over everything is perfect and (american) humanity is the greatest race in the universe like Star Trek.

[afroakuma]

Instead, I really like settings that don't have the entire creation of the world explained in detail and set in stone, but rather have life evolved naturally and history really only begins when the first civilizations evolve with nobody really knowing what had been before.

So you'd be against even a distant and unknown (or unknowable) creator god creating sentient races, even if they were created in a state of ignorance?

...yewks this is really skewing close to a big thick line.

[Herabec]

I enjoy a mix of low fantasy and high fantasy. The games I run tend to start as Low Fantasy and turn toward High Fantasy as the group becomes stronger and problems become more global or planar.

[Tvtyrant]

I like basically the opposite of everything Yora likes :P A complete history that involves both deific and extra-planar events is pretty much mandatory to keep my interest.

My particular likes are settings with:
Undead
Afterlifes
Eldritch Abominations
ancient civilizations
extreme environments

[Lateral]

Halflings riding dinosaurs. Really, that's all I want out of a setting. :smalltongue:

[Herabec]

Halflings riding dinosaurs. Really, that's all I want out of a setting. :smalltongue:

I had the group get attacked by twenty kobolds riding Fleshrippers...that's kind of similar, right? :smallbiggrin:

[Lateral]

I had the group get attacked by twenty kobolds riding Fleshrippers...that's kind of similar, right? :smallbiggrin:

That's almost as evil as the time I invited some friends over for a one-shot and then had them fight Awakened Monstrous Crab Warblades.

...Okay, not even close. :smalltongue:

[Godskook]

I think #1 on my list of hates is static PC stereotypes. WoD is *VERY* guitly of this one, even if it is a completely different system. Not sure how that'd help here, though.

[Tyndmyr]

Fantasy/Space Opera.

So very rare to be meshed well.

[Mulletmanalive]

I'm not a fan of magic. Pretty much full stop, unless you're doing something specific with it, which is almost never as most designers key point on magic is "it can do anything." Usually even ruin the plot.

That's level 11+ play for me all over.

What I actually HATE is inclusiveness. The utter bland mishmashery that ends up from a setting that's designed to include everything and offend no-one.

Faerun is one of the worst for this but Golarion is certainly getting that way as they publish more stuff and they even did it to Eberron by the end. No group is descriminated against socially [too much anyway], every class is represented and more often than not, has a homeland where almost everybody is one and every race can walk into a town without being assumed to be there to eat your children.

oh, and long timelines. **** hate that. If there's more than 3000 years of recorded history, i'm calling shenanegins! 45,000 years Eberron? Not on my watch! And when more than the last 6-700 years of that are important to current events? You better hope you can get out of the room before i put on my ass-kicking pants!

Oh, and "there was once a mighty empire that was impossibly superior to us and we're barely nipping at its heels." No, just no. I don't even hate this, I just refuse to play along anymore. Adventure is about being close to the bleeding edge of something; stumbling across other people's solutions is not adventure.

[Tyndmyr]

Dude, almost all great adventuring setups are post-apocalyptic, and thus, follow a much greater civilization.

It's the best possible explanation for abandoned dungeons/buildings with large amounts of treasure and wildlife inside.

[Draz74]

It's a very broad question ... I can normally answer it only on a case-by-case basis. (Distant gods? Could be awesome, or lame. Long timeline? Could be awesome, or lame. Steampunk? Could be awesome, or lame.)

But I more or less agree wtih this:


What I actually HATE is inclusiveness. The utter bland mishmashery that ends up from a setting that's designed to include everything and offend no-one.

Faerun is one of the worst for this but Golarion is certainly getting that way as they publish more stuff and they even did it to Eberron by the end. No group is descriminated against socially [too much anyway], every class is represented and more often than not, has a homeland where almost everybody is one and every race can walk into a town without being assumed to be there to eat your children.

A world is going to be much more flavorful if it doesn't try to include every humanoid race and their dog that has been published for past campaign worlds. Pick a few things that really define your world, and stick to them and develop them deeply. Variety can come from the different campaigns and adventures, not from the world being huge to start with.

While I like a lot of the ideas in the Zihaja setting, the fact is that I haven't had a chance to read through it all the way yet because it just got too blasted big. Too many nations and cultures and leaders to try to keep track of.

So I guess what I'm realizing as I type this is, I like small settings. The kind your brain can actually take in with only a few hours' effort. I feel like depth can still be achieved.

[Stix]

loves:

good organizations: guilds, governments, armies, etc. they need to be developed and at least semibelievable. A city guard in a LG community led by a drunken jack*** doesn't jive. and the bumbling king who actually controls the kingdom is right out.

Individual societies: i've always loved being able to walk into a city and immediately tell it from other cities. too often a city feels just like the last and the next.

hates: generic. (that's a period)

overused gags: funny the first time. the 50th time you run into the same hobo it's just annoying.

votes for: space opera

[Honest Tiefling]

What I dislike...

* Nireland, Rance and Angland: Okay, so some people like Not-Westren Europe. I'm personally a bit sick of it and would gladly strangle my DM to play in Not-Russia for once. Not-Japan is not helpful, but Not-China might be more interesting. Poor Not-Africa barely exists.

*The Demihuman ghetto: Is it just me, or are many settings just a varitey of human lands with far-flung places for the demihumans to originate from? I rather see more integration between the races unless there is fantasical racism (Hence a reason for why all kingdoms are segreated).

*Culture A = Good guys/Culture B = Bad guys: I dislike it when the setting is heavily slanted to make certain cultures good. I rather see a setting where all cultures have their good and bad sides, and an equal amount of good and evil unless there is a very good explanation for why this culture when one way or the other.

*Not all female NPCs have to be pretty. Really now. If you cannot make an intriguing plain or ugly female then hand over the NPC making duties to someone else. It also does not help if all of the viziers are evil and everyone with facial hair is evil. Do not give your NPCs very cliche appearances, or PCs will stab all busty females with black hair and all bald men with goatees.

What I like...

*Consistency. If there is little sex discrimination in your world but all of the leaders are male, please explain why the females were unfit to lead. If a race is mostly good, please do not make them seem like they would gladly purge the world of everyone else. If a race has a penatly to a particular stat, it should probably influence their culture. If magic is widespread, people should be using it and not react much to it.

*Varied gods. If you have gods, please give me lots of gods. There should be gods of things adventurers do not do, like cooking or farming. There should also be enough gods for many different archetypes. Please do not force me to pick up a love and/or sex goddess for my CG rogue/assassin. (The profession, not the prestige class).

*Really good god selection! Also while we are at it, please make gods make sense and not give gods dogmas with really oddball things. Try to limit the number of gods who cannot work with most people. A few is fine, but too many really cuts down on god choice.

*If you use the term adventurer, define it and what is the difference between it and a mercenary and a militia. What do people think of when they think of adventurer? Who is an adventurer?

Space Opera might be nice with lots of different planets. Instead of having them all interact with one another from the beginning, there's only three or so at the start. As players discover new planets, they start to interact with the world as contact is opened up. And the DM can toss out any they don't like or think the PCs will hate.

It could also go either way, as either the DM can use serious planets or gag ones depending on the game.

P.S. Sorry if there are issues with this post, my internet failed twice on me as I tried to post it.

[stainboy]

oh, and long timelines. **** hate that. If there's more than 3000 years of recorded history, i'm calling shenanegins! 45,000 years Eberron? Not on my watch! And when more than the last 6-700 years of that are important to current events? You better hope you can get out of the room before i put on my ass-kicking pants!

Yeah that. The Eberron timeline bothers me way more than it should. All those ruins you're supposed to explore should have been reduced to dust by now. I just mentally divide all the numbers on the timeline by about five.

Eberron has the same problem with distances. The world just isn't varied enough culturally for how big it is. Every nation and culture expands about five times too far in every direction. The maps are full of lakes hundreds of miles across and rivers twenty miles wide. Khorvaire feels like it should be about the size of western Europe, not the size of Eurasia.




*Not all female NPCs have to be pretty. Really now. If you cannot make an intriguing plain or ugly female then hand over the NPC making duties to someone else.

In fairness, D&D has gotten way better about this in the last ten years.

[Honest Tiefling]

To be fair, a lack of cultures can be attributed to 'A tarrasque did it'. A lot of beginning civilizations probably died to famine caused by CR 5 rodents eating all of the food, being eaten by something, or magical diseases. I sorta imagine that many DnD worlds are far more dangerous then Europe way back when.

I wonder how many cultures That Damned Crab has destroyed alone...

EDIT: Oh, it probably has. Still, I would not trust anyone with pale blonde or black hair. Light brown or dark blond is fine, however. Red can go either way.

[Veyr]

Undead
Eldritch Abominations
A setting with these sorts of things as normal, every day races would be kinda awesome.

I'd like to see an undead nation done right. E.g. not the Forsaken of WoW.

[Draz74]

* Nireland, Rance and Angland: Okay, so some people like Not-Westren Europe. I'm personally a bit sick of it and would gladly strangle my DM to play in Not-Russia for once. Not-Japan is not helpful, but Not-China might be more interesting. Poor Not-Africa barely exists.
I would agree, except that I don't want more competition for my own not-Russia and not-Africa settings. :smallwink: Not-India could definitely use more love.

Not-Europe doesn't actively bother me, if it's done well (e.g. the Giant's example articles). But other places are indeed a refreshing breath of air.


*The Demihuman ghetto: Is it just me, or are many settings just a varitey of human lands with far-flung places for the demihumans to originate from? I rather see more integration between the races unless there is fantasical racism (Hence a reason for why all kingdoms are segreated).
Agreed.


*Culture A = Good guys/Culture B = Bad guys: I dislike it when the setting is heavily slanted to make certain cultures good. I rather see a setting where all cultures have their good and bad sides, and an equal amount of good and evil unless there is a very good explanation for why this culture when one way or the other.
Agreed.


If a race has a penatly to a particular stat, it should probably influence their culture.
Heh, that would be novel indeed.


*Varied gods. If you have gods, please give me lots of gods. There should be gods of things adventurers do not do, like cooking or farming. There should also be enough gods for many different archetypes. Please do not force me to pick up a love and/or sex goddess for my CG rogue/assassin. (The profession, not the prestige class).
Mixed feelings here.

I agree that in a "standard world," where adventurers are weird eccentric heroes who keep saving the helpless masses, Gods shouldn't be nearly so adventuring-centric as they are in e.g. Greyhawk. (On the other extreme, it could be quite amusing to use the Greyhawk pantheon in, say, a setting where the world is explicitly a board game that the gods are playing against each other, and adventurers are explicitly the pieces.)

But I don't feel like large numbers is all that correlated with a quality pantheon.* In fact, I think when you have 74 significant deities like Faerun, you've done a great job at making me not care about the setting's religion at all. It's just not worth keeping track of. I could definitely see a set of two or five gods still being very interesting, with broad enough portfolios for each of them. Gives you more opportunity to play them as complex characters, too.

* While I'm sort of on the subject, calling the setting's gods a "pantheon" when they are sometimes opposed to each other or fight each other is a pet peeve of mine. A "pantheon" of gods should be beings that are on the same "side." They're welcome to squabble like a somewhat dysfunctional family, in proud Greek tradition, but in the end of the day, their nemesis shouldn't be from the same pantheon, a la Hextor vs. Heironious or Bahamut vs. Tiamat. If they have a nemesis, it should be a different pantheon (the two opposing Hosts in Eberron are an ok example of this) or a non-god group of monsters. (The 4e Primordials were actually a step in the right direction, although I feel like the rivalry was somewhat wasted in the effort to make divine and primal characters still be playable in the same party.)


Eberron has the same problem with distances. The world just isn't varied enough culturally for how big it is. Every nation and culture expands about five times too far in every direction. The maps are full of lakes hundreds of miles across and rivers twenty miles wide. Khorvaire feels like it should be about the size of western Europe, not the size of Eurasia.
Oh wow. Yeah, I always thought it was more Europe-sized, too.


A setting with these sorts of things as normal, every day races would be kinda awesome.

http://www.the-reel-mccoy.com/movies/2001/images/MonstersInc4.jpg

[Honest Tiefling]

Not India perhaps has many gods. I do see your point regarding overly large pantheons/too many gods. I have played a lot of FR and I get frustrated that if I make a CG person interested in looting and cash with a slight destructive streak who runs away from unfavorable battles follow Sharess if I want a chaotic good god. I didn't think it was that strange for an adventurer to do!

Combining gods into more complex versions would be fine, just please let me have decent chaotic good gods that aren't about large perky...Eyes.

FR was bad on the pantheon, as the Faerunian Pantheon was just all of the human gods except the Mulhorandi smooshed together. Yes, a few of the gods died, but I doubt they all bonded over beer and talked about the good ol' days when their original pantheon was still around.

[Draz74]

Not India perhaps has many gods.

Ah, but it's unlikely that the players or DM would ever have to learn or reference more than a few of them, as most characters -- Clerics included -- would be affiliated with a whole group or category of them.

Oh yeah, that's another part of how a true "pantheon" should work -- like the Eberron hosts, it should be normal for a Cleric to serve all of them at once, if there are several "pantheons" in the setting.


Combining gods into more complex versions would be fine, just please let me have decent chaotic good gods that aren't about large perky...Eyes.

Yes, I can definitely get behind that. In fact, the whole love/lust goddess is pretty cliche in general, and if she exists at all, I don't see why she should have to be chaotic good in the first place. I could easily see TN, CN, CE, or other alignments for such a being.

[Alleran]

In fairness, D&D has gotten way better about this in the last ten years.
Yeah, you only need to look at the art of Mialee to see that there is definitely something other than just "the beautiful people" everywhere.

Anyway, I don't mind high-level characters or high-magic settings and the like, as long as they make sense (that said, by the time you reach levels 17-20+ I'd normally expect characters to be spending more time on planar jaunts than mucking about in mortal politics). Nor am I particularly against having some medieval Western-Europe nations in a setting. However, this is D&D, and there should be more than enough space within the rules to allow for a suitable injection of fantasy, myth, wonder and magic alongside it. And on the note of myth... if you're going to include definite gods and religion, then I like having plenty of them. Other than that, a planar cosmology just has to include spelljamming and the Great Wheel, and I'm golden. :smallcool:

I am also fond of a world that will "continue to exist" in some manner regardless of whether the PCs are in it or not. I agree that in a game, the PCs are the protagonists, but that doesn't mean they're the saviours of the world (so to speak). I suppose a simulationist world is the one I like best.

[afroakuma]

Yes, I can definitely get behind that. In fact, the whole love/lust goddess is pretty cliche in general, and if she exists at all, I don't see why she should have to be chaotic good in the first place. I could easily see TN, CN, CE, or other alignments for such a being.

I did a chaotic evil goddess of hedonism. :smallwink:

[Yora]

So you'd be against even a distant and unknown (or unknowable) creator god creating sentient races, even if they were created in a state of ignorance?

...yewks this is really skewing close to a big thick line.
Well, there could be one, or it could be not. As long as the mortals don't know for sure what the god intended with everything, I think it's quite interesting.
The point is, that the mortals have to come up with several explainations themselves, that possibly contradict each other. That's how religion becomes interesting and more than "there are some very powerful outsiders".



What I actually HATE is inclusiveness. The utter bland mishmashery that ends up from a setting that's designed to include everything and offend no-one.

Faerun is one of the worst for this but Golarion is certainly getting that way as they publish more stuff and they even did it to Eberron by the end. No group is descriminated against socially [too much anyway], every class is represented and more often than not, has a homeland where almost everybody is one and every race can walk into a town without being assumed to be there to eat your children.

oh, and long timelines. **** hate that. If there's more than 3000 years of recorded history, i'm calling shenanegins! 45,000 years Eberron? Not on my watch! And when more than the last 6-700 years of that are important to current events? You better hope you can get out of the room before i put on my ass-kicking pants!

Oh, and "there was once a mighty empire that was impossibly superior to us and we're barely nipping at its heels." No, just no. I don't even hate this, I just refuse to play along anymore. Adventure is about being close to the bleeding edge of something; stumbling across other people's solutions is not adventure.
Let me add my signature under this.

[Lord_Gareth]

I did a chaotic evil goddess of internet trolls :smallwink:

Tell it like it is, Afroakuma. Maqur managed to troll her own followers from beyond the grave, she deserves her proper title.

(And for those of you wondering, no, she's not an undead goddess. She's dead-dead. And she's still managing to troll her followers. Because she's just that good.)

[Lappy9000]

I like High Fantasy settings that attempt to do something new within the established norm. Crazier settings that have drastically different ideas and concepts just don't seem to have as wide of an appeal to me.

[The Dark Fiddler]

I like High Fantasy settings that attempt to do something new within the established norm. Crazier settings that have drastically different ideas and concepts just don't seem to have as wide of an appeal to me.

This. It's a very fine line, but a very important one. If a setting has elves that are just the same tree-hugging mages, that's boring, but it's not much better if they're really aliens with four genders from the future that eat your liver and burn everything to the ground.

Though at the same time, races that are too much like "humans except x" also bug. Of course, we ARE humans, so it's tough to get out of that mindset.

[Mulletmanalive]

Dude, almost all great adventuring setups are post-apocalyptic, and thus, follow a much greater civilization.

It's the best possible explanation for abandoned dungeons/buildings with large amounts of treasure and wildlife inside.

I wouldn't claim the Mayans were significantly more advanced than the Incans that came later, despite them leaving big old ruins full of interesting things to explore.

The idea that one has to be an advanced society of warrior scholars from space in order to build a lot of underground temples is kinda...needless.


Let me add my signature under this.

Not really sure whether that's a plug for Ancient Lands or a reference to the LGBTitP logo...

If the latter, I'm referring to campaign settings; you need tension to tell stories. If I've come off as discriminatory previously, it would have been nice if you'd chided me privately because that wasn't my intention.

[AtlanteanTroll]

A Tropical Setting, Dinosaur, Pirates, and Undead. They make me happy.

Small Races. They make me mad.

[Eldan]

Small Races. They make me mad.

Can I ask why? I mean, there's even real world precedent. Well, peoples, not races, but still. Hominids were pretty small for a long while too.

[Draz74]

Not really sure whether that's a plug for Ancient Lands or a reference to the LGBTitP logo...

Neither, she was referring to "signature" meaning signing a petition, not a Forum Signature. She was just saying she agreed with your expressed tastes. :smallsmile:

[Honest Tiefling]

I wouldn't claim the Mayans were significantly more advanced than the Incans that came later, despite them leaving big old ruins full of interesting things to explore.

The idea that one has to be an advanced society of warrior scholars from space in order to build a lot of underground temples is kinda...needless.


I will admit, it is used quite a lot. But the Mayans probably didn't leave around a whole lot of +2 weaponry. (If they did, I need to become an archaeologist The thing is, the ruins need to have better stuff then what you can buy from the blacksmith, or a large part of why adventurers run in dank smelly caves is gone.

Through any other beginning would be welcome, if someone can think of one.

[Techsmart]

Gotta say steampunk and/or ice age
My next campaign will actually have both. A large Ice age forced the humans, gnomes, dwarves and some elves (they weren't as fond of this, but to preserve their race, they helped) created, essentially, a steampunk fortress. They believed that all other people died. However, several small settlements survived.

[afroakuma]

Looks like Vote Up A Campaign Setting 2 will be launching soon! Any further feedback on this question beforehand would be quite welcome! :smallsmile:

[Urist]

One of the biggest things that bugs me in a fantasy/sci-fi setting is inefficient use of magic/technology. If the ability to make everlasting balls of light is commonplace, why is anyone still using lamps? If guns can output enough energy to vaporize a human body and be fired for near forever on a little tiny powerpack, why hasn't the energy crisis been solved yet? If the answer to that question is "because the DM says so" or "it kills flavor"...:smallfurious:

Eberron is a good example of widespread magic done right, whereas Faerun is the poster child of such a world poorly done. No culture with more mages than knights should be stuck in the Dark Ages still!(This is all assuming magic/tech is safe and usable on a large scale, of course).

That's one other thing that bugs me: magic/tech being usable for PC's/normal NPC's, but being made inherently "unsafe" or "evil" because the system wants to punish people who use magic. I find less issue with this outside of systems like D&D, but especially in systems which are designed for superhuman feats and epic tales, this tendency seems like a crutch for the creators and DM's to lean on to prevent players from breaking the system, rather than something chosen to deliberately enhance the setting. Essentially, I feel that gentleman's agreements should be the major limiter on magic, not setting decrees.

[Yora]

Not really sure whether that's a plug for Ancient Lands or a reference to the LGBTitP logo...

I meant I'd also sign that statement. :smallbiggrin:

[Danin]

I would be much interested in an African themed campaign. Not a misrepresented stereotype of Africa either, with small little villages and everyone running around in loin cloths throwing spears at lions.

What I do mean is powerful kingdoms that are fairly geographically remote. Lack of mineral wealth making swords and armor harder to come by. Flash floods created by large storms then droughts that last months. Wild animals, yes, showing the dichotomy between the wilds and the enormous monuments being created by some of the most powerful nations on earth. Foreign invaders with powerful magic landing on the shores and reshaping the world as it exists...

Bring in elements of power struggles between other nations bringing their conflict to these shores, powerful ritual magic and entire sections of the continent that have yet to be mapped or explored... I'd say that is something suited for adventurers.

[Honest Tiefling]

Anansi, statted up for DnD and Not Africa? Color me excited.

[havocfett]

To all those who create Middle Earth 0.5 and call it a Setting:

Buzz off. Your world is derivative, boring, annoying and unwelcome. I don't want to hear about Fantasy West fighting Fantasy Hitler and the Fantasy Arabs again. Tolkien did it well, and managed to not make me pissed about the Easterlings portrayal (Which is rare). You, whoever you are, didn't. The fall of the glorious empire, and the evil totally-not-orcs, and the bloody elves are boring.

To all of those who claim to be writing Middle East Settings:

Your work, if I have read it, sucks irredeemably. Every. Single. Work. That I have read so far that claims to be set in the middle east, is actually about a white guy saving a white girl from a Harem that's guarded by stereotypes, if we're lucky his allies are positive stereotypes. If the damsel isn't white, she tends to be written even more horribly. Your work is offensive, and you should feel bad about it. You only get to make racist jokes about your own ethnicity.

The one exception: Terry Pratchett. Who did this in a hilarious, inventive and funny send up in 'Jingo'

To Steampunk Writers:

http://highlatencylife.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/whos-awesome_dog.jpg

To those who actually write well realized, unique worlds:

Thank you.

Note: I may not have read your work if you're in one of the hated categories, and it's fully possible that you would be an exception if I did.

But you probably aren't.

[Veyr]

To all of those who claim to be writing Middle East Settings:

Your work, if I have read it, sucks irredeemably. Every. Single. Work. That I have read so far that claims to be set in the middle east, is actually about a white guy saving a white girl from a Harem that's guarded by stereotypes, if we're lucky his allies are positive stereotypes. If the damsel isn't white, she tends to be written even more horribly. Your work is offensive, and you should feel bad about it. You only get to make racist jokes about your own ethnicity.
For reference, the first VUACS was desert-themed. There were some things based on Arabian Nights-ish style tales, but that was as close as it got to claiming to be Middle Eastern. For the most part, I don't think it bore particularly much resemblence to the Middle East of stereotype or reality. I'm kind of curious what you think, though.

Also, don't really agree with that last line.


The one exception: Terry Pratchett. Who did this in a hilarious, inventive and funny send up in 'Jingo'
Jingo was hilarious, on that I agree.

[afroakuma]

And speaking of VUACS:

Vote Up A Campaign Setting 2 is now LAUNCHED! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11227775#post11227775) Please go and vote for the kind of setting you want to see!

[The Dark Fiddler]

I would be much interested in an African themed campaign. Not a misrepresented stereotype of Africa either, with small little villages and everyone running around in loin cloths throwing spears at lions.

What I do mean is powerful kingdoms that are fairly geographically remote. Lack of mineral wealth making swords and armor harder to come by. Flash floods created by large storms then droughts that last months. Wild animals, yes, showing the dichotomy between the wilds and the enormous monuments being created by some of the most powerful nations on earth. Foreign invaders with powerful magic landing on the shores and reshaping the world as it exists...

Bring in elements of power struggles between other nations bringing their conflict to these shores, powerful ritual magic and entire sections of the continent that have yet to be mapped or explored... I'd say that is something suited for adventurers.

Powerful natural disasters, power struggle involving the entire continent, dangerous wildlife, and invaders wielding strange powers? Oh boy, sign me up!

[Flickerdart]

You know how there was that tidally locked world that everyone was really excited about, and then it never happened? I want that. That's what I like in a campaign setting. Tidally locked worlds.

I am hard to please. :smallbiggrin:

[Talya]

The whole divine system in Faerun (the Wall especially) is pretty borked. And psionics somehow use the Weave without using the Weave, with no functional difference between it and magic as a result.

Faerun's my favorite setting, by far. (at least, prior to 4e).

Including The Wall, The Weave. The extended cosmology, multitudes of tangible gods and varying flavors of clerics/paladins/druids for each of them, detailed geography and maps better than Tom-Tom is typically able to provide for a GPS, a detailed setting history that stretches back over a dozen millenia...it's so rich and detailed and nearly perfect. And it still offers several entire continents of untamed, undetailed wilds if you really want to hit a frontier.

(I'll ignore psionics, because I dislike them in general.)

[stainboy]

I think I agree with Psyren on the Wall and the weave stuff. Faerun's gods are squabbling teenagers and one-dimensional class stereotypes. That would be fine if the setting treated them all as antagonists and petty tyrants, but it doesn't. The world forces you to worship the gods and expects you to like it.

On the weave, specifically, it's hard to stomach that every single wizard in the world is shackled to one uninteresting Neutral Good adventurer from a novel. (Or to Shar, who is just the Team Rocket version of Mystra.)

[Talya]

I think I agree with Psyren on the Wall and the weave stuff. Faerun's gods are squabbling teenagers and one-dimensional class stereotypes. That would be fine if the setting treated them all as antagonists and petty tyrants, but it doesn't. The world forces you to worship the gods and expects you to like it.


I want my fantasy to actually be fantasy. The Gods being very real, very human-like, and very imperfect makes it fantasy. (As opposed to, say, gods being of questionable reality, very beyond humanity, and very perfect.) The Gods of Faerun are like the Gods of Greek, Norse, or Roman antiquity, only with form and indisputably alive and powerful. Much like morality in a fantasy game--clearly defined good and evil, unlike the relative morality of day-to-day life that we play D&D to escape. This is ideal. There's a clarity there that is lacking in my daily life. I like it.

[stainboy]

Fair enough.

I'm actually fine with the idea that Talos can have a bad day and bury everyone you've ever loved under a ten-foot layer of permafrost and there's not much you can do about it. I'm also fine with the idea that Helm and Tyr aren't really any better, they just happen to wear the white cowboy hats. Those are good sources of conflict with roots in real mythology.

I just don't like the few specific instances where the setting requires that the gods get involved with my character's existence. So the Wall, and the Weave if Mystra isn't dead this week. It's not a big systemic problem, just a few specific things.

[Hecuba]

I had a campaign recently based on Hawaiian mythology. It was rockn'. I was a Divine Crusader of Nāmaka.


Oh yeah, that's another part of how a true "pantheon" should work -- like the Eberron hosts, it should be normal for a Cleric to serve all of them at once, if there are several "pantheons" in the setting.

In my mind, the ideal would be somewhere between. In many most pantheon polytheistic traditions, a priest/priestess would be expected to honor all gods of the pantheon, but had a specific patron that they were in service to. Often, they would even practice something relatively equivalent to the idea of intercessory prayer: instead of praying to each god individually, you would pray to your patron to carry your request to the god in question.

[afroakuma]

It'll be interesting to see the gods vote this time around. I know Faerun-style divinity is a major point of contention.

[Alleran]

On the weave, specifically, it's hard to stomach that every single wizard in the world is shackled to one uninteresting Neutral Good adventurer from a novel. (Or to Shar, who is just the Team Rocket version of Mystra.)
Er... they're actually not. Mystra accepts characters who worshipped her predecessor (who was LN - the head of Mystra's church in Waterdeep is actually a LE necromancer, and yes he still receives divine spells from her) and doesn't restrict Weave use to anybody. She's not allowed to do that, so even the most evil wizard can use the Weave as he chooses, and she won't stop him unless what he's doing is a direct threat to her and to the Weave (e.g. trying to re-create Karsus' Avatar, and even then she's more likely to send a bunch of her followers at you rather than personally throwing an avatar at the offending wizard).

She can have whatever alignment and personal dogma among her clergy that she feels like, but she must administer her duties equally to all. The same goes for any other deity. Cyric has to spread chaos among both his own followers and everybody else, Kelemvor has to judge the dead fairly in accordance with his duties, Oghma is forbidden from restricting knowledge... the list goes on.

The only exception to this is Shar, who can use and administer the Shadow Weave however she feels like.

(EDIT: That's one of the big things that actually annoyed me about FR more recently. Just the over-the-top adoration of Shar and everything to do with her. It was immensely tiresome.)

[havocfett]

For reference, the first VUACS was desert-themed. There were some things based on Arabian Nights-ish style tales, but that was as close as it got to claiming to be Middle Eastern. For the most part, I don't think it bore particularly much resemblence to the Middle East of stereotype or reality. I'm kind of curious what you think, though.

Also, don't really agree with that last line.

The last line wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

The first VUACs setting actually seems kind of neat. Other than one world sharing a name with my brother, which is going to stop me from using it in RL. He has a large enough ego as is.

[afroakuma]

Well, I hope you'll come throw some votes at us for the current VUACS, then. :smallsmile:

[havocfett]

I plan on being rather active.

And if I can actually get some of my homebrew done as a resume, applying for build team.

[afroakuma]

Alright, let's tweak the question a bit:

What themes do you like/dislike in campaign settings? Heroism? So-called "epic" fantasy? Horror? Exploration? War? What other themes can you think of that had an impression on you, whether good or ill?