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Arcanist
2012-10-13, 05:00 AM
Yes, we all have those... Those campaigns that we wish our DM's allowed us to play because we know that we couldn't DM it properly (Because we love it so darn much).

My personal dream campaign is a campaign where you have magic effecting every aspect of life. Art, Music, Literature, Fighting, Trade and yes! Even Gaming (In my dream campaign the NPC's play a game called "Fighters and Fiends", "Roadfinder" and the best setting is the "Remembered Realm" Action Setting)

So what is your personal dream campaign setting? :smallamused:

Craft (Cheese)
2012-10-13, 05:32 AM
Eberron... in space! Think Spelljammer with all the stupid taken out, modeled after The Culture but powered by magitech instead of post-singularity techno-wizardry (Well, it's basically the same functionally, it's only the aesthetic that's different). This is less due to my ability to DM it (I've actually been drawing up plans for a while now) than my players' lack of interest in actually playing it. They just have no vision! ;-;

Eldonauran
2012-10-13, 02:22 PM
... my players' lack of interest in actually playing it. They just have no vision! ;-;

:smallconfused: But, that sounds so awesome!


I like all kinds of campaigns. I prefer to play 'gish'-type characters (Magus, Duskblade, etc. Not thrice multiclassed and prestiged, one level dipped gishes.) Anywhere I can swing one of those and look good doing it, is the campaign for me. :smallamused:

MichaelGoldclaw
2012-10-13, 03:04 PM
Modern D and D

"The dragon pulls out an Ak-47 and opens fire" -DM
"I cast Eisenhower's Arcane Signal Smoke and call in a meteor artillery barrage" -spellcaster

Craft (Cheese)
2012-10-13, 03:20 PM
:smallconfused: But, that sounds so awesome!

I should explain: My players, as a rule, prefer more gritty and down-to-earth styles of gaming. Playing an immortal exoself remotely controlling dozens of avatars in artificially-constructed pleasure palaces is a bit too... "out there?" If I had them play members of the many enslaved alien races living under humanity's thumb they might go for it more, but then it loses the intended charm.

Eldonauran
2012-10-13, 03:29 PM
I should explain: My players, as a rule, prefer more gritty and down-to-earth styles of gaming. Playing an immortal exoself remotely controlling dozens of avatars in artificially-constructed pleasure palaces is a bit too... "out there?"

:smallconfused: Uh... Yeah, I can see their point. I'd still give it a shot, though starting out virtually immortal takes a lot of punch out of the setting.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-10-13, 03:38 PM
:smallconfused: Uh... Yeah, I can see their point. I'd still give it a shot, though starting out virtually immortal takes a lot of punch out of the setting.

Well, the setting is intended for exploring social/ethical ideas, not for dungeon crawls (I have a totally separate dream setting I'd like to use for dungeon crawls). In this setting, you have to argue your opponents into submission by convincing them that you're right, using force to spread your ideas is impossible. In other words, more talky, less blasty.

jackattack
2012-10-13, 07:25 PM
Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar. A fairly compact world with good background and several styles of magic to play with. Not much of a bestiary, though.

hiryuu
2012-10-14, 02:04 AM
My personal dream campaign is a campaign where you have magic effecting every aspect of life. Art, Music, Literature, Fighting, Trade and yes! Even Gaming (In my dream campaign the NPC's play a game called "Fighters and Fiends", "Roadfinder" and the best setting is the "Remembered Realm" Action Setting)

I run this setting already. Magic is based on the amount of authority you can bring to bear on a situation or object: everything is sentient to some degree and magic is about using your social connectivity, family importance, and personal assertiveness. Someone with a strong "meaning" or importance can literally order stuff to happen, like dropping fire out of the sky or telling a river to get out of your way. Just as much of this comes from your connection to the world: cloistered wizards don't work, to do magic you literally have to make the world accept your authority, which also comes with this weird sort of responsibility - if you can shoot lightning, you're expected to listen to and help storms do their job (this leads to scenes of people listening to the weather for cues to shoot lightning or spray water into the sky, and lends it a very tribal/American mythology feel). Magical protocols and the mechanics of how the world works are so difficult to get used to that I've had players playing in it for years and still haven't gotten it.

Silus
2012-10-14, 03:25 AM
Low fantasy, high magic, medium tech world.

Only the core races from D&D (Elf, Dwarf, Human, ect) plus Orc, the Elf subspecies, and Centaur. No magical monsters, no demon incursions, no dragons wrecking people's day. And as a result, technology has been allowed to progress to an Industrial era where coal and steam power are becoming a thing and firearms are becoming more and more advanced.

Canon changes would be as follows:

Centaur: Broken up into "wild" and "civilized". The wild ones are more akin to traditional D&D. The Civilized ones are, well, civilized, working their way into society as easily as humans. Because of their size and bodies, they're often employed in militaries as a form of ranged calvary, utilizing large bore, shoulder mounted cannons.

Drow: Changed from demon worshiping evildoers to simply amoral scientists. The most prevalent field is a magi-tech form of gene-splicing, often creating nightmarish monsters that sometimes escape.

Orcs: From brutish barbarians to brutish shamans. Like the Warcraft Orcs with the shamanism taken up to 11. Inspired greatly by the Dominic Deegan orcs (if you read the webcomic).

My ideal gaming world <3

Kelb_Panthera
2012-10-14, 03:38 AM
Modern D and D

"The dragon pulls out an Ak-47 and opens fire" -DM
"I cast Eisenhower's Arcane Signal Smoke and call in a meteor artillery barrage" -spellcaster

Two settings come to mind for this; Shadowrun and d20 modern's urban arcana. The latter can make use of nearly anything in 3rd edition D&D to boot.

I don't really have just one dream campaign setup. What I want to do can shift radically over a relatively short period of time, now and then.

Recently however, I've been toying with the idea of a campaign set in Eberron's Riedra shortly (as in a decade or so) after the cylce of the age in Dal-Quor rolls over.

The idea being that the dreaming dark was caught completely unawares and since it doesn't exist anymore the people of Riedra suddenly have no source of unity manipulating them from the outer planes. I'd have the players as members of the now competing inspired houses that used to be how the quori bred their vessels. They'd also be asked to make their characters members of the various secret organizations trying to break up the Riedran empire; one is actually kalashtar, one is a member of the Thousand Eyes; which is now trying to wrest control from the inspired houses; maybe ask one to play a Blood of Vol cultist, etc. Cap it all of with the fact that the Hanbalani are starting to malfunction from lack of maintainence creating just a touch of civil unrest here and there, that the inspired houses have no idea how to deal with since there's been no such thing in centuries.

....... Can you tell I was inspired by Paranoia on this one?

MichaelGoldclaw
2012-10-14, 05:37 PM
Low fantasy, high magic, medium tech world.

Only the core races from D&D (Elf, Dwarf, Human, ect) plus Orc, the Elf subspecies, and Centaur. No magical monsters, no demon incursions, no dragons wrecking people's day. And as a result, technology has been allowed to progress to an Industrial era where coal and steam power are becoming a thing and firearms are becoming more and more advanced.

Canon changes would be as follows:

Centaur: Broken up into "wild" and "civilized". The wild ones are more akin to traditional D&D. The Civilized ones are, well, civilized, working their way into society as easily as humans. Because of their size and bodies, they're often employed in militaries as a form of ranged calvary, utilizing large bore, shoulder mounted cannons.

Drow: Changed from demon worshiping evildoers to simply amoral scientists. The most prevalent field is a magi-tech form of gene-splicing, often creating nightmarish monsters that sometimes escape.

Orcs: From brutish barbarians to brutish shamans. Like the Warcraft Orcs with the shamanism taken up to 11. Inspired greatly by the Dominic Deegan orcs (if you read the webcomic).

My ideal gaming world <3

I like the idea. Other than shadowrun, d20 urban arcana, and Pitfalls and Penguins (http://teamsnowday.com/pnp/), there is no RPG that has magic and modern(or modernish/sci-fy) weapons

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-14, 08:11 PM
Modern D and D

"The dragon pulls out an Ak-47 and opens fire" -DM
"I cast Eisenhower's Arcane Signal Smoke and call in a meteor artillery barrage" -spellcaster


Well, the setting is intended for exploring social/ethical ideas, not for dungeon crawls (I have a totally separate dream setting I'd like to use for dungeon crawls). In this setting, you have to argue your opponents into submission by convincing them that you're right, using force to spread your ideas is impossible. In other words, more talky, less blasty.

Um... yeah. You play D&D if you want to play D&D. Neither of these are D&D.

For the modern fantasy one... Cortex Generic has rules for auto-rifles, and it has a dragon statblock. Go to town.

For the other one, I'd... I don't even know what system would work for that, but it sure wouldn't be the combat-focused system that is D&D. The best I can think of is "Autochthon conquered the galaxy, you're all Essence 8+ Alchemicals" in Exalted's Shards of the Exalted Dream, which has the Space Age setting Heaven's Reach.

---

My preferred setting? Um... well, I think some sort of mixture of technologies in a Renaissance era would work. Why couldn't the dwarves invent muskets and bombs, while in the same century, the humans and gnomes come up with steampunk and magitech? Elves would be like 4e's elves, or 3.5's Wood and Wild Elves.

Arcanist
2012-10-14, 08:27 PM
Well, the setting is intended for exploring social/ethical ideas, not for dungeon crawls (I have a totally separate dream setting I'd like to use for dungeon crawls). In this setting, you have to argue your opponents into submission by convincing them that you're right, using force to spread your ideas is impossible. In other words, more talky, less blasty.

I am not a fan of Dungeon Crawls... I prefer going out into the "world" and actually interacting with all the interesting NPCs :smalltongue:

Craft (Cheese)
2012-10-14, 09:59 PM
Um... yeah. You play D&D if you want to play D&D. Neither of these are D&D.

This is the general roleplaying games forum, is it not? Who says we have to talk about settings for D&D games?

Might as well give an overview of that idea for a dungeon crawl setting that's been clanking around in my head for a while: The premise is the PCs were born and raised in an underground city, completely cut off from the outside world by tunnels filled with dangerous creatures. They've been cut off for so long that no reliable records of what the surface world was like exists, only old legends. The PCs are explorers who have decided to explore the tunnels and see what's out there, fighting off monsters and traps and slowly discovering the truth behind the surface world... The fun part is the heroes never actually get to the surface, and the clues they find are interpretable in multiple ways:

- The surface really did exist, but the city was built as part of an elaborate conspiracy whose purpose has now been lost... or has it?

- The surface world was destroyed and made completely inhospitable, and the city and tunnels were built by the survivors to find shelter. The city the PCs come from is the only colony to still be surviving... or is it?

- There really isn't a surface world. The tunnels just keep going up forever, or at some point you just bump into a ceiling and can go no higher. The legends were 100% made up.

They get to decide for themselves which one is true.

hiryuu
2012-10-15, 01:17 AM
Barring the whole surface idea, I'd like to play in a setting that -just- lost its magical empire due to great war. Not Eberron. Like. Fallout. Magifallout. A Netheril style civilization just fell not 100-200 years ago. Elves still alive might even remember it and not even realize it's happened!

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-15, 01:09 PM
This is the general roleplaying games forum, is it not? Who says we have to talk about settings for D&D games?

Well, the other guy said "Modern D and D", and you said that your idea was Eberron in space. Plus, you used the acronym "DM".

Terumitsu
2012-10-15, 01:24 PM
Eberron... in space! Think Spelljammer with all the stupid taken out, modeled after The Culture but powered by magitech instead of post-singularity techno-wizardry (Well, it's basically the same functionally, it's only the aesthetic that's different). This is less due to my ability to DM it (I've actually been drawing up plans for a while now) than my players' lack of interest in actually playing it. They just have no vision! ;-;

This sounds like something I'd totally go for... Kinda reminds me of Eclipse Phase with how you described it. But yeah, that sounds wacky but in a completely awesome sort of way.


Um... yeah. You play D&D if you want to play D&D. Neither of these are D&D.

...Wat.

I'd have to disagree with you on that point. Given the huge number of ways that DnD can be played while in combination with whatever houserules a DM/GM (Same thing with a different name) may implement, I don't see how that can be called 'Not DnD.' Maybe not your preferred flavor of DnD but that doesn't mean it isn't what it is if they're using the DnD system.

--------

Anyway! My dream setting is one that I've been working on for quite some time and is basically an entire existence contained within a dyson sphere-like 'planet' (Think the size of earth but one can dig through the crust and wind up on the other side of the world due to it being a 'closed universe' and all.) It's a bit heavy on musical concepts down to the core workings of the world but I think it makes for some fun flavor. And.. Maybe a little bit of eldrich stuff here and there. Because that just seeps in regardless of how hard I try to keep it out.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-15, 01:48 PM
...Wat.

I'd have to disagree with you on that point. Given the huge number of ways that DnD can be played while in combination with whatever houserules a DM/GM (Same thing with a different name) may implement, I don't see how that can be called 'Not DnD.' Maybe not your preferred flavor of DnD but that doesn't mean it isn't what it is if they're using the DnD system.

I once asked someone why they play D&D when there are tons of other great systems out there, such as Warrior, Rogue, and Mage for the fantasy, FATE 3e, Cortex, and GURPS as good systems for playing whatever you can come up with, and White Wolf games for the White Wolf settings. He said something about D&D being different from those.

So I repeat. You play D&D if you want to play D&D.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-10-15, 08:12 PM
I once asked someone why they play D&D when there are tons of other great systems out there, such as Warrior, Rogue, and Mage for the fantasy, FATE 3e, Cortex, and GURPS as good systems for playing whatever you can come up with, and White Wolf games for the White Wolf settings. He said something about D&D being different from those.

So I repeat. You play D&D if you want to play D&D.

Dude, that's like saying that you drink when you're thirsty. There are so many different ways to play D&D that it's ridiculous to even imply that there's only one 'correct' way to do it.

Maybe there's another system that can do something you like better than D&D, but some people like to stick to the system they know instead of jumping from one RPG to another constantly, others may like to do a wide variety of things within the same system, or even with the same character. D&D may not be the best system for any given type of RP, but it's broad enough to cover most types of RP on at least some level.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-10-15, 08:25 PM
Well, the other guy said "Modern D and D", and you said that your idea was Eberron in space. Plus, you used the acronym "DM".

My apologies then: I use "DM" and "GM" interchangeably, even in systems that call the role something entirely different like Storyteller or something. Sorry for the confusion.

Arcanist
2012-10-16, 12:56 PM
Enough on the subject of what is D&D and what isn't D&D. :smallsigh:

Please stay on topic and just post your dream setting. I never asked which system you like or what kind of dice you like to roll (d10 system) or anything of the sort. I simply asked what type of dream setting you have (fluff wise).


My apologies then: I use "DM" and "GM" interchangeably, even in systems that call the role something entirely different like Storyteller or something. Sorry for the confusion.

I do the exact same thing and I'm sure a lot of other people do the exact same thing.

Kane0
2012-10-18, 10:07 PM
Hmm...

Probably a slightly modified Planescape setting, with the Prime being mostly Forgotten Realms. Just make sure everything makes sense and maybe introduce some firearms and fundamental magi-tech and I'd be lovin' that game.