Quote from: pspahnNot a setting, but when I was a kid I saved up to buy the D&D Fiend Folio (or was it the MMII?) only to find pages and pages of walking triangles and squares inside.  Talk about a major letdown.  

You're thinking of the Modrons, which appeared in MM2. I never really liked them either, but they've gained something of a following over the years.

Fiend Folio was pure brilliance in comparison, although I think a lot of my love for it is derived from the illustrations of Russ Nicholson.

Quote from: J Arcanehonestly, the biggest thing that kills a setting for me is one single question:

"OK, now what the fuck do I do with it?"

THS does this for me.  OK, I've got a laundry list of ridiculously powerful tech, I can download my brain into a computer and live forever in cyberspace as a God, influencing the outside world only the cameras and computer screens.

Whoopty goddamn shit.  There's still fuck all to do, partly BECAUSE everyone's a damn God.  

Exalted gets a similar meh to me.  It's loaded to the gills with "kewl powerz" or whatever the fuck, and largely surreal and bizarre settings details, but as far as I've been able to tell, there's no realy gameplay there other than wandering about wanking on about how kewl your character is.  

Rifts is another.  In half a decade of play I still never figured out what the fuck you were actually supposed to do with any of that shit.  It has to be the most static and uninteresting gameworld ever devised, just a bunch of shit plopped on random points of the map that basically just kind of stands around and does fuck all.

Good call, few answers make me groan more than "you can do anything in this setting".  I don't want to do anything, I want to do something.

Quote from: BalbinusGood call, few answers make me groan more than "you can do anything in this setting".

Typically followed by either the statement, "But that character concept won't work very well with the adventure I have in mind," or the question, "Okay, so how do you justify that character being with these other guys?"  There's a difference between a game world and a game setting.  The game-specific setting gives you an idea of what sort of adventures to expect and to plan accordingly.

!i!

Quote from: DrewFiend Folio was pure brilliance in comparison, although I think a lot of my love for it is derived from the illustrations of Russ Nicholson.

If Russ had done all the illustrations for the core AD&D books, that would have been awesome.

The modrons after Planescape were great. The little that I've read of them before that was uninspiring, to say the least. Planescape itself was great until the Faction War, which seemed petty. That alone wouldn't've been too bad (since you could always ignore it), but the guys who got handed the "official" Planescape 3e conversion website took it as canon, which made any effort to run a 3e Planescape game that much more work.

Forgotten Realms was OK before I realised that Waterdeep is Magical Toronto, and before I read that infamous document Greenwood wrote about the sexual habits of FR cultures. Now I can't take the setting seriously.

Heavy Gear was great until the focus left Terra Nova. Then it became Just Another Space Opera. The feeling of a looming war both sides were simultaneously trying to avoid and instigate collapsed into a space shoot-em up with the CEF. I blame Heavy Gear 2 the computer game for this.

Exalted's move from epic heroism with a dash of anime to a magitech superhero game spoiled the setting for me.

Quote from: StuartIf Russ had done all the illustrations for the core AD&D books, that would have been awesome.

Yep. He was criminally underused.

If anyone has a link to a decent gallery of Nicholson's work then please share it. Online representations of his work are sparse, to say the least.

[Talislanta]...none of the maps made any sense geographically. The river that flowed upstream, and the other major river that had no source, but instead connected two seas (and no, it wasn't a canal), were the final straws.

How can you tell that a river is flowing upstream from a map?

I think I know what you're talking about for the second, though: it's that the Inland Sea (in the east of the continent) has two outlets, one the Shan River flowing north, the other Chana River flowing south. I hadn't noticed it before but now that I look at it, it is odd. I'm no geologist but I doubt it's possible. Closest thing I've found is the two outlets of Lake Edward in Africa.

Quote from: Elliot WilenHow can you tell that a river is flowing upstream from a map?

There's a major river in the West that starts a couple miles from the sea in the north, and flows  over mountains, forests, and hills - to an outlet many hundreds of miles away in the south. That's just fucked.

You don't have to be a geologist to understand that the way you draw maps is to put the mountains in first, then start rivers in the mountain basins, follow the path of least resistence, and end in a sea. I understood that when I was drawing D&D maps when I was 10 years old.

The fact that so many RPG setting designers aren't aware of this most basic fact of geography - and hardly anyone seems to notice or call them on it - leads me wonder just how illiterate most gamers are when it comes to maps. Have they ever looked at real maps, as opposed to the ones in the front of hack fantasy novels? I mean, this isn't obscure or sophisticated stuff. Water moves downhill.

Quote from: HaffrungThe fact that so many RPG setting designers aren't aware of this most basic fact of geography - and hardly anyone seems to notice or call them on it - leads me wonder just how illiterate most gamers are when it comes to maps. Have they ever looked at real maps, as opposed to the ones in the front of hack fantasy novels? I mean, this isn't obscure or sophisticated stuff. Water moves downhill.

Geography isn't taught much in American schools anymore, along with the history of any given state (Minnesota state history isn't taught in the state schools, and the same is true nation-wide.), because it's not valued by many employers, trade unions, etc. due to the lack of immediate application to the workplace- and they have sway over education policy.

Okay, I saw that one, too, but all I picked up on was that it was crossing the continent instead of going to the sea a short distance away. Looking more closely (e.g. at this 2.7 MB color jpeg) I see at least a couple more rivers that do the same thing. That said, if you can draw a reasonable set of basins and continental divides, I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with having rivers cross continents, even going through mountain passes--it just has to be all downhill. Mountains are local prominences; the land as a whole can still be sloping downward.

To a degree the Amazon could be taken as a precedent, perhaps even the Nile and the Congo. But yeah, on the whole, it's a big stretch.

BTW here's a neat map showing the major river basins of the (real) world.

Quote from: DrewIf anyone has a link to a decent gallery of Nicholson's work then please share it. Online representations of his work are sparse, to say the least.

Some good stuff can be found at http://www.fightingfantasy.com/

Savage Worlds: 50 Fathoms: Really cool fantasy world without the old cliché. Really imaginative descriptions of aquatic races and then... humans. Like in "real humans from our earth (or the 19th century our earth anyway)"- meh.
Same beef with Harnmaster.

Quote from: alexandroSavage Worlds: 50 Fathoms: Really cool fantasy world without the old cliché. Really imaginative descriptions of aquatic races and then... humans. Like in "real humans from our earth (or the 19th century our earth anyway)"- meh. ...

Yeah, that is kind of weird and I'm not sure what their thinking was.  The new WizKids Pirates of the Spanish Main RPG might be a result of 50 Fathoms being too weird for a large audience.

That being said, I love it because: a) it feels very much like "The Pirates of Dark Water", b) its plot point campaign is brilliantly written, and c) it's gonzo fantasy adventure + pirates.

Engel: it suffered from the aforementioned "okay, now what do I do with it?" syndrome. It's like, alright. I have some Engel and a monolithic church. I have some bug things that pour into reality from the pillars of flame ravaging the world. I have some Mad Max shit in between them. But what do I do with it? Like, besides killing bugs and learning the predictably awful truth about the church?

It's one of those books I find cool to read but boring to run. Everything it tries to be I can do better with another game/setting.

-=Grim=-