I have been looking at the D&D basic setting Thunder Rift for a standard fantasy setting campaign and I 'm considering hunting down the books.

My hope is that it would have less baggage than Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc.

Did anyone play it? Thoughts?

I searched through the "least liked settings" thread and didn't see it come up. Hoping that is a good sign but it could also mean it was just never used by anyone here.

Thank you in advance.

I didnt even know it existed! Interesting

Never heard of it. Tell us about Thunder Rift!!

Ive only got the main book. Heres part of my review.

Its presented as a wilderness campaign for beginner DMs and players. And alot like early Karameikos it gives you the bare basics. The rest is left to the GM and players to make their own, and some areas are deliberately left blank. It also early on emphasizes interacting with NPCs, the lack of the usual big cities that PCs so often rely on for advanced supplies, and treating the PCs as more than a block of stats and to get out of the dungeon and experience the setting.

Its set in and around a huge canyon originally populated by mostly Dwarves and Elves and some Halflings. The Dwarves and Elves eventually warred brutally with eachother untill a united goblin and orc hoard fell on the remnants, forcing them to unite. Orcs were totally run out of the region and goblins fled to the hills. Later humans settled the area and tensions grew again, only for the goblins to errupt from the hills to plague the elves and the orcs returned to assault the dwarves. Eventually the human settlers convinced the two to unite with them and stopped the attacks. Dwarves, and Elves though settled back into a mostly isolationist mindset and other races are not overly welcome in their domains.
Then a plague sweept the land, effecting human and demi-humans. But not goblinoids. Human clerics staved off a total loss from plague and renewed goblin and orc assaults. But the region was depopulated.

This lead to a determined attempt to try and get along before things got worse again. An elite adventuring group was formed from each representative race and sent out to travel the land and beat stuff up. The survivors were made special representatives of their respective race and of the original group a dwarf and an elf fell in love and got married. And then they and their unborn child were killed by a dwarf-elf alliance against such unity. This shammed the two races into dropping their open hostilities thereafter.

This followed bulding of class themed academies that eventually led to a war between the warriors and the wizards. When the wizards started wane they laid ruin to the whole region of the fighters academy and its populace. But a year later the survivors exacted revenge and slaughtered the wizards and their apprentices. Both areas are now abandoned and very dangerous.

The rest is a description of two small towns and one small city and then about a paragraph or two on some locales.

Hope that helps?

Been a long time since I had a look at Thunder Rift, not even sure I still have it but I found some comments I had post a few years back which may be of interest.

I think TR is a charming micro-setting. It is all very compact and small scale. There aren't any really big towns so their is no real market for buying for selling magical items which again is just another interesting twist. The setting book suggests players best bet to acquire magical items is to seek out retired adventurers. Cute.

If you look at individual TR adventures, they are a pretty shallow (the ones I have at any rate). However if you piece them together they paint a coherent picture of a region which until recent was quite prosperous and populated which has fallen on bad times. The (human) population of TR has dramatically declined in numbers (and I am not sure it's explained why). As a result the various ruins to explore were not lost thousands of years ago, they've been abandoned a generation or so ago, like a whole bunch of wild west ghost towns.

Anybody got a list of what products cover Thunder Rift or a link to a list?

Thanks!

Harl

The core 'gazetteer' and many of the short adventures are on DriveThruRPG

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17150/Thunder-Rift-Basic

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17149/Assault-on-Ravens-Ruin-Basic
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17161/Quest-for-the-Silver-Sword-Basic
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17152/The-Knight-of-Newts-Basichttp://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17153/Rage-of-the-Rakasta-Basic
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17162/Sword-and-Shield-Basic

I expect it may be a while before the big boxed adventures--Goblins' Lair, Dragons' Den and Haunted Tower--arrive there, though.

I liked it when it came out. It's a bit silly in places, but overall, a lot of fun.

I have an adventure that takes players in Thunder Rift through a portal and into Mystara. It came with the DM shield for the Rules Cyclopedia. Pretty much proof that TR is designed for beginners, like you're not expected to play there long term, low levels only. You're suppose to "graduate" to Mystara. But, since a lot of settings (including Mystara) tend to be bloated, one could view the limited nature of Thunder Rift as a feature, not a bug.

Fan forum here.