[For DMs] How many Campaign Settings do you use?

[Vortalism]

Hi everyone.

I was just wondering how many of you DMs use more than one campaign setting when you want to run something different? Be it a campaign or some other kind of mini-adventure. As a DM I've never had the opportunity to run a full campaign into completion and so far the most experience I've had is running site-based adventures that usually involves dungeon crawling, due to hectic schedule that my group has.

Do you use multiple campaign settings for different stories, or can you run multiple stories in a singular campaign setting? Is it better to do so? Is it more fun?

[hymer]

It's a little of both for me. There are two worlds where I've run multiple campaigns. The rest have so far been the scene for one or no campaigns.

[Kol Korran]

In my group, so far we've run different campaigns in different settings. Two were published (FR, Eberron) The rest were our own homebrew. Though we haven't played that many campaigns yet, it takes us awhile.

[BWR]

While there are many settings I would like to try, I tend to run long campaigns, several years at a time, so I don't have time to try a lot of new stuff. Also, if I run a setting it is because I like the setting and want to do more in it, and not every player is as famlliar with it as I so I don't want to waste a lot of time introducing a new setting all the time.

[some guy]

I usually play in my own setting. I'm close to completing my 4th campaign in there, and I have had plenty of one-shots in there. The only exception is that I'm also running Better Than Any Man at the moment, which takes place in 17th century earth, but the players started in my home setting.

When I'm bored with the setting I usually run Call of Cthulhu or Gamma World.

[GungHo]

I used to run a lot. Now I run two because I just don't have time to maintain more than that. Both are shared worlds that I and a co-DM both collaborate on.

I have primary ownership over the fantasy world where we used 3E and now Pathfinder as the primary ruleset. It's wholly ours. He has one "side" of a continent and I have the other. What he does in one campaign is heard in rumors by my side, and vice versa, though cataclysmic events or other major shifts in power necessarily will have an impact. There are crossover events, but very rare.

He has primary ownership over the Star Wars SAGA world. It's in a different, far future time frame from the movies and KOTOR and such so that no one can say "nuh unh, Darth Obscure ruled this planet in Crappy Book You Never Read" all the time. Jedi and Sith exist in a relative detente but the galaxy is a loose set of confederations rather than galaxy spanning empires or republics. Rather than split a continent, we split parts of the galaxy. Otherwise works the same... rumors, major power shifts happen. The parties don't really cross over, but major antagonists might.

We really just figure out what kind of mood we're in and who has time to do what and that's the "side" we play.

[VariSami]

I mostly use my own settings which are designed for one or two campaigns with their quirks.

However, of late I have been running Planescape and Eberron, and I enjoy both vastly. Of course personal settings have their allure as well but I think that I will mostly use them as a part of Planescape in the future.

[valadil]

Tried world building once. Didn't much care for it.

Since then I've used FR for D&D and real world Boston for WoD. This has been more than adequate for any story I've wanted to tell.

I like having players bring campaign knowledge to the game. I'm okay with playing a game on the beaten path if it means the PCs know things about the world they live in.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oodles. Mainly because I play a lot of different games. I usually use a new setting for each campaign I kick off, anyhow.

[Binks]

Our group has, effectively, 1 shared world for D&D (very similar to points of light, but with a hint of the Magic the Gathering multiverse and, of course, the events of our past characters being recorded history) and Star Wars (we have yet to run any games at exactly the same times, but the universe is big enough to tolerate such things).

Everything else is a unique universe.

Personally I enjoy the 'multiple campaigns in a single setting' just because it leads to callbacks which are fun as a GM or Player. Hearing about the mythological actions of your former PC is fun every once in a while. It's riskier, however, as you run the risk of either devaluing those past games (yes, those last guys fought off villain X, but here is villain X*10! You guys are so much better than those losers for beating him) or making them irrelevant (all their sacrifices to keep the world going, and you destroy it to start your new campaign).

You need to be careful with a shared multiverse but, done correctly, it can be infinitely more enjoyable than a bunch of individual worlds.

[Angel Bob]

Our group started off using 4E Forgotten Realms, so we started in Loudwater, ended up in Waterdeep, et cetera. However, we soon ended up branching off from that campaign setting into one of our own devising (a few of the players + DM collaborated to dream up some ideas), and now every campaign we play is set in that homebrewed setting. It's worked pretty well. We still have Loudwater and Waterdeep in this setting, but that's pretty much in name only.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I usually use a new setting for each campaign I kick off, anyhow.

Same here. The only setting I've played/run more than one game in is Eberron. I've been itching to finally find/make a setting to run a long-term campaign in, though.