5e: Which settings and when?

Will · July 18, 2014, 05:23:52 PM

Speaking of Sword and Sorcery, I'd sell a kidney to see Lankhmar...

Not my OWN kidney, mind you.

LordVreeg · July 18, 2014, 07:11:57 PM

I'll never understand this.
RPGs were mainly created for GMs to make their own settings. I know this is a popular thing...but it has never made a whit of sense to me.

Will · July 18, 2014, 07:14:52 PM

Personally I never use existing settings, but they can offer cool ideas and rules to steal for my own settings.

One Horse Town · July 18, 2014, 07:48:28 PM

It's about time a new setting was dreamed up by the brain-trust.

Ronin · July 18, 2014, 07:56:22 PM

Quote from: One Horse Town;770450It's about time a new setting was dreamed up by the brain-trust.

Agreed, maybe something like,

Quote from: Haffrung;770406It would be nice if WotC published a sword and sorcery setting for D&D. Something more like the Wilderlands or Hyboria than Dragonlance or Faerun.

Didn't Mongoose drop or lose the Conan license? That could be a nifty sword and sorcery setting for WizBro to license.

robiswrong · July 18, 2014, 08:08:59 PM

DragonLance: The Setting is decent.

DragonLance: The Original Modules is a good argument in favor of book burning.

LibraryLass · July 18, 2014, 08:13:05 PM

Quote from: Haffrung;770406It would be nice if WotC published a sword and sorcery setting for D&D. Something more like the Wilderlands or Hyboria than Dragonlance or Faerun.

What, like Dark S--

QuoteFrankly, I've never seen much difference between Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Faerun, and Mystara. They're all pretty much middle of the road, vanilla fantasy settings. It would be nice to to have a setting that is weirder or grittier than Greyhawk or Faerun without going full Dark Sun with insect people and no metal.

Never mind, then.

Quote from: One Horse Town;770450It's about time a new setting was dreamed up by the brain-trust.

We had Nentir Vale, but I guess that doesn't seem to have gone over except among the hardcore 4e crowd.

Saplatt · July 18, 2014, 08:54:32 PM

Quote from: Haffrung;770406It would be nice if WotC published a sword and sorcery setting for D&D. Something more like the Wilderlands or Hyboria than Dragonlance or Faerun.

Not sure how their licensing is going to be structured, but I'll be surprised if we don't see some 3pp settings along those lines.

JeremyR · July 18, 2014, 09:51:17 PM

Quote from: Haffrung;770406It would be nice if WotC published a sword and sorcery setting for D&D. Something more like the Wilderlands or Hyboria than Dragonlance or Faerun.

Frankly, I've never seen much difference between Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Faerun, and Mystara. They're all pretty much middle of the road, vanilla fantasy settings. It would be nice to to have a setting that is weirder or grittier than Greyhawk or Faerun without going full Dark Sun with insect people and no metal.

I dunno. Mystara always seemed drastically different to me than other settings, because it was based on the BECMI D&D rules. Things were somewhat different than the AD&D settings, because the rules were different.

It also had a lot of over the top stuff. Flying ships. Hell, a flying city protected by magical biplanes. You had it being hollow and and elevator to the center of the planet.

Dragonlance was somewhat different because you had different classes. And races. And the main enemy wasn't orcs or humanoids, but dragons and draconians

jadrax · July 18, 2014, 10:08:45 PM

Quote from: Ronin;770452Didn't Mongoose drop or lose the Conan license? That could be a nifty sword and sorcery setting for WizBro to license.

Kind of. The people who owned it decided that it was worth about ten times more than Mongoose were willing to pay due to the film coming out...

LibraryLass · July 18, 2014, 10:43:57 PM

Quote from: jadrax;770486Kind of. The people who owned it decided that it was worth about ten times more than Mongoose were willing to pay due to the film coming out...

We see how that ended up.

Haffrung · July 19, 2014, 09:41:02 AM

Quote from: LordVreeg;770438I'll never understand this.
RPGs were mainly created for GMs to make their own settings. I know this is a popular thing...but it has never made a whit of sense to me.

RPGs were also created for hardcore gamers of college age who had 20 hours a week to devote to their gaming. Today, a lot of people have trouble finding the time even to play the game, let alone design an entire world to play in.

I've mostly used my own settings in the past. But with my current lifestyle, I wouldn't mind a published setting I can use out of the box.

Quote from: LibraryLass;770456We had Nentir Vale, but I guess that doesn't seem to have gone over except among the hardcore 4e crowd.

I liked Nentir Vale. Though more for the manageable, practical scope than any great originality.

Shipyard Locked · July 19, 2014, 10:48:59 AM

Quote from: Haffrung;770555RPGs were also created for hardcore gamers of college age who had 20 hours a week to devote to their gaming. Today, a lot of people have trouble finding the time even to play the game, let alone design an entire world to play in.

I've mostly used my own settings in the past. But with my current lifestyle, I wouldn't mind a published setting I can use out of the box.

Yeah, I vacillate between making my own setting and just saving time for the most important stuff by using a premade. While the "homebrew setting lovingly crafted over many campaigns across decades" thing really appeals to me, if I'm honest most of my best campaigns took place in either a) settings I threw together at the last minute with lots of player input after too much perfectionist hesitation on the "perfect" setting, b) premade settings.

Lately I'm even doubting the purity and competence of my world building.

LordVreeg · July 19, 2014, 11:32:24 AM

Quote from: Haffrung;770555RPGs were also created for hardcore gamers of college age who had 20 hours a week to devote to their gaming. Today, a lot of people have trouble finding the time even to play the game, let alone design an entire world to play in.

I've mostly used my own settings in the past. But with my current lifestyle, I wouldn't mind a published setting I can use out of the box.

I liked Nentir Vale. Though more for the manageable, practical scope than any great originality.

I didn't say who it was created for, I say what it was created to do. I can't disagree at all that it was created for the college aged crowd and those that were just past it (which is partly what made it also so perfect and tantalizing for those younger at the time).

I said it didn't make sense to me; I guess that is because the big-picture, artistic side of me uses game and setting creation as my main creative outlet. Some people like to play the game; I get a much bigger charge out of the PCs interacting with what I build. And I seem to do a good job...or get very lucky...finding people who appreciate the setting work.

Will · July 19, 2014, 11:32:38 AM

For first 20 years or so of my life I adored making big, elaborate settings.

But the thing is... in pretty much every case, the players didn't care. Only the immediate scope really mattered to them.

Whenever I play, next, I'm inclined to do a Sword and Sorcery 'port city' type immediate setting, some local politics, and leave the rest of it in broad brushstrokes until the players actually poke at it. (And possibly use various methods to get players to actually be involved, if they want to be, in what further details evolve)