I tend to prefer TSR era style of a fantasy world, which isn't very medieval authentic. Basically you have these small towns a few days apart with dangerous roads and distant capital cities. Something that probably wouldn't work in reality(trade would be too hard and towns can't be that isolated). But I generally want an unexplored wilderness of ruins and dungeons to explore that people don't know much about.

It's basically a western setting, remote, lawless, dangerous, with a fantasy skin on it. It's really there just as a vehicle for the adventures, dungeons and so on with scattered safe havens for recruitment, rest, and rumors.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Honestly (and I'm being serious), are you burnt out on Middle Earth as Tolkien wrote it, which is in many ways RADICALLY different from what others 'adapted' of his work (or imitated). I find a lot of people ascribe things to Tolkien that are 100% not true. Like the idea of Irredeemably Evil creatures, which basically cannot exist except as things that were utterly alien like Ungoliant/Shelob and The Watcher in the Water, The Nameless Things. Even Melkor (Sauron's boss, and basically Satan) was not Evil in his beginning as he came from Eru.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on June 05, 2024, 04:23:54 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Honestly (and I'm being serious), are you burnt out on Middle Earth as Tolkien wrote it, which is in many ways RADICALLY different from what others 'adapted' of his work (or imitated). I find a lot of people ascribe things to Tolkien that are 100% not true. Like the idea of Irredeemably Evil creatures, which basically cannot exist except as things that were utterly alien like Ungoliant/Shelob and The Watcher in the Water, The Nameless Things. Even Melkor (Sauron's boss, and basically Satan) was not Evil in his beginning as he came from Eru.

I'm burnt out on the imitators and on the profit-driven requels. I watched Lord of the Rings and, despite divergences from the source material, I am satisfied with it. Hollywood needs to let stories, and entire franchises, end. If they continue onwards, then they rot into horrible zombies.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

There's lot of alternatives. Sword & sandal, sword & planet, specific cultures, far future fantasy, etc.

There's also other non-fantasy genres like conspiracy thriller, political scifi, urban fantasy, etc. There used to be more options in the past, but call of cthulhu, traveller, and world of sex pests killed anything else that tried to make forays into rpgs. WotC tried to turn d20 modern into a universal post-industrial rpg to recycle TSR's old dead IPs, only to cancel it when 4e came around and never try again.

For example, on my list of pitches is one that's basically a mix of Dresden Files, Carnival Row, Anno Dracula, Space 1889, A Princess of Mars, etc. Tir Na Nog holds seats on the House of Lords, Dracula is prince consort to Queen Victoria, the British Empire is trying to colonize Barsoom, Santa Claus is king of the unseelie and denies funding unseelie terrorists, etc.

For an actual era I prefer the late 12th to 13th century. Lots of interesting (and often recognizable to players) things going on all over the world: Crusades, Robin Hood, Genghis Khan, Gempei Wars and the birth of the first Shogunate, etc. That said I've read some Sagas recently and the late 5th century seems like a very magical place full of Dragons, Dwarves, and other weirdness. Arthur, Siegfried, Dietrich von Bern, Beowulf, and others all just about coexist temporally.

I tend toward the late Medieval in fantasy settings though.

I hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

While I did previously spell out why the nature of the fantastic elements tends to make a real world equivalent unrealistic, I will add that in terms of favored settings elements I generally pull much more from the early Medieval (i.e. the Dark Ages; c. AD 500-1000 and specifically more the 600-800 period where the Western Empire had fully collapsed, but before even the concept of modern nation states were forming).

Basically, decentralized authority (a King might rule 30-100k people and decisive battles involving just hundreds to low thousands where the kings take the field and hold their lands by being effective warriors), lots of unknowns beyond your borders, and ruins of the empire not yet so decrepit that nothing of value remains.

Basically, a world where a small band of highly skilled individuals like a PC party could really make their mark, but also one rough enough they can't just run over the local ruler because they and their troops have no experience at war (i.e. if you're a lord it's because you ARE a name level character).

Quote from: Lurker on June 06, 2024, 09:54:53 PMI hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

Greetings!

My friend, GREY BOX FORGOTTEN REALMS is as "Old School" as it gets! Along with some of the eartly Forgotten Realms supplements, the Wild Frontier, Moonshaes Islands, there was a great selection of them. Yes, OSR from the get go. Those products really showed TSR at their best. Excellent writing, evocative storytelling, numerous campaign hooks, interesting NPC's everywhere, lots of danger, and laced through it all were frequent surprises. Then, on top of all that, you also had excellent artwork, maps, cartography, and lots of advice on how to present the material differently, or otherwise adapt the material to your own campaign. 10/10!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

In my previous gaming I used Harn and it was fairly medieval authentic and I liked it that way.
Now I'm getting back into GMing and I'm using Forgetten Realms as my old crew and I get up to speed again.
Eventually I will shift over to a Sword and Sorcery world I've been working on for some time. Something like Conan meets Kane.

For fantasy games, I think my interests would fall under a subcategory of ren-faire pseudo-medieval.

Likes: Alchemy, alien fey / elves, medieval crafting methods / recipes, magic that actually takes time to learn / master, weapons and armor from the Bronze Age to the Renaissance.

Dislikes: Gunpowder / black powder, steampunk or clockwork, air travel outside of flying mounts

This is probably kind of a "basic" answer, but it is true for me, haha.

I prefer when things are different than "standard" medieval fantasy.

Either more or less advanced can be interesting. For example, a scenario where science and technology are in an almost Renaissance-like stage, with gunpowder or even a few clockpunk stuff, or inversely a Dark Ages-based scenario where crossbows still have not being invented, and cities and markets are rare.

However, I'm more into Medieval Europe instead of other regions.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Are you familiar with the non-fiction work of Graham Hamcock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods & Magicians of the Gods?  That's essentially his premise for what really happened on Earth.  Essentially, massive comet strikes destroyed the earliest human civilizations around 12,800 BC, launching the last Ice Age and societies had to rebuild. Fascinating stuff, with lots of scientific and historical evidence.  If nothing else, you can use it for inspiration.

Quote from: SHARK on June 07, 2024, 10:40:17 AM

Quote from: Lurker on June 06, 2024, 09:54:53 PMI hate to admit it but most often my world is Forgotten Realm, especially back in the day years ago when I was in HS . It was the original Gray box and a few region books (before the travesty or 'Time of Troubles').

Now if it is my home brew(s). When it is low magic I lean to a modified Tolkien Middle Earth (the lands are not completely depopulated), or it borrows heavily form early to mid-medieval times. I love the ideas and events in the King Stephen v Empress Matilda, the after effects of the conquest of Span by the Muslim raiders (and the start of the slow reconquest), and of course Charlamagne and the Vikings.

Now if it is high magic, it is WAY more renaissance (including the Black Death type events) and the wars between .... well everyone fighting everyone else at one point and time. I have never gone far enough to make it all the way to having flying ships etc, but I have always liked the idea of adding 'Stardust' type elements.

Greetings!

My friend, GREY BOX FORGOTTEN REALMS is as "Old School" as it gets! Along with some of the eartly Forgotten Realms supplements, the Wild Frontier, Moonshaes Islands, there was a great selection of them. Yes, OSR from the get go. Those products really showed TSR at their best. Excellent writing, evocative storytelling, numerous campaign hooks, interesting NPC's everywhere, lots of danger, and laced through it all were frequent surprises. Then, on top of all that, you also had excellent artwork, maps, cartography, and lots of advice on how to present the material differently, or otherwise adapt the material to your own campaign. 10/10!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I actually got a far bit of mileage out of the Kara Tur & Horde boxed sets that built upon the original Realms set.  We ran a campaign where we played all of the Oriental Adventures modules, plus the Black Courser trilogy, which I still think is quite good.

Quote from: Persimmon on June 09, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Are you familiar with the non-fiction work of Graham Hamcock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods & Magicians of the Gods?  That's essentially his premise for what really happened on Earth.  Essentially, massive comet strikes destroyed the earliest human civilizations around 12,800 BC, launching the last Ice Age and societies had to rebuild. Fascinating stuff, with lots of scientific and historical evidence.  If nothing else, you can use it for inspiration.

Graham is either crazy or a genius, or both. He can so easily inspire setting info for gaming.

Quote from: Jason Coplen on June 09, 2024, 09:54:27 AM

Quote from: Persimmon on June 09, 2024, 09:42:50 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 05, 2024, 10:49:56 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2024, 10:45:22 AMI'm burnt out on the Middle Earth-ripoff renfaire stuff because it's oversaturated. I already played Baldur's Gate 1 and everything else is redundant. I want absolutely anything else.

Despite my prior comment, I do really feel this. If you ask me what I picture with a "typical D&D setting" it'd be something like Mystara or what a few other commenters have mentioned: a pastiche of multiple historically inspired cultures taking influence from all across the pre-industrial era. I guess a lot of people were getting tired of that, because it seems to be behind the impetus in the OSR towards rooting settings in much more specific historical periods or locations. That works, but its not the only alternative. You can also move out of the pre-industrial influences and lean on more modern ones, like Final Fantasy started doing from FFVI onward, or try to divorce the setting from any particular historical reference, like Dying Earth or Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique.

The latter approach is the one I've been leaning towards for the homebrew setting I'm putting together, but I've seriously considered incorporating the former. I'm working with a similar post-post apocalyptic premise of a world where humanity was once an ultra-advanced species, but lost all its knowledge in a calamity and had to build back up. That leaves a lot of open questions for just how much technology humans have recovered, and what order they'd develop it in.

Are you familiar with the non-fiction work of Graham Hamcock, such as Fingerprints of the Gods & Magicians of the Gods?  That's essentially his premise for what really happened on Earth.  Essentially, massive comet strikes destroyed the earliest human civilizations around 12,800 BC, launching the last Ice Age and societies had to rebuild. Fascinating stuff, with lots of scientific and historical evidence.  If nothing else, you can use it for inspiration.

Graham is either crazy or a genius, or both. He can so easily inspire setting info for gaming.

Greetings!

Graham Hancock is *awesome*. And yes, he is either crazy, a genius, or both! *Laughing* So many WTF? ideas from him, and yet, also ideas that make you say "What? Hmmm..." Fantastic scholar and thinker.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK