Me, I loved Planescape, Birthright and Ravenloft.
Didn't much care for Spelljammer or Jakandor.
Never got into the 2e setting craze. Stuck with my own game world (heavily pulled from Grayhawk). I know I'm an outlier, but I had no desire to play Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape, or Ravenloft. In fact, planescape just turned me off.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759392Never got into the 2e setting craze. Stuck with my own game world (heavily pulled from Grayhawk). I know I'm an outlier, but I had no desire to play Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape, or Ravenloft. In fact, planescape just turned me off.
That's cool. Sad they didn't do much for Greyhawk during that time.
Ravenloft was and remains my all-time favorite, and I like what I've seen of Al-Qadim, and selected portions of Planescape. OTOH, Planescape fans could sometimes annoy me with their attempt to dictate to the D&D 'multiverse' as a whole. :)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;759398Ravenloft was and remains my all-time favorite, and I like what I've seen of Al-Qadim, and selected portions of Planescape. OTOH, Planescape fans could sometimes annoy me with their attempt to dictate to the D&D 'multiverse' as a whole. :)
Al-Qadim was good times.
I loved Ravenloft, Dark Sun and Al-Qadim (think the last one was officially part of Forgotten Realms). Also liked stuff like the Glantri material they put out at the time and enjoyed being a player in Spelljammer. Lankhmar was good too. Was not very into Greyhawk. Not that it was bad, it just never jumped out at me or got me excited about running it.
The thing about AD&D 2e settings is that, despite the abundant and well-documented failings of the AD&D 2e-era editorial line, they were all pretty fucking good. Not flawless, but even the worst were very good. Compare to the average setting supplement line nowadays and you'll see.
Dark Sun is awesome, and made even awesomer by dint of being gritty S&S in an age in which D&D was adopting a bowdlerised, kid-friendly Romantic high fantasy trade dress and art direction.
Birthright conversely took the fairy-taley high fantasy angle and ran all the way with it. The regency mini-game was okay, I guess, but the setting was really, really cool. You had nobility stealing each other's bloodlines, and "the king and the land are one", and grudges between noble houses dating back thousands of years. You had archetypal monster patriarchs, the awnsheghlien (THE Gorgon, THE Chimera, THE Vampire). You had scary, fey elves. You had mysterious baddies like the Swordhawk, the Magian and the Cold Rider. You could ignore the kingship stuff entirely and run an absolutely kick-ass sandbox game with the setting material alone.
Ravenloft was really cool too, and I got to play it quite a few times, but I'm not sure how the "all Hammer Horror all the time" schtick would hold up for a long-term campaign, especially at higher levels.
Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance were marred by novel-shilling lameness, but really, the settings were big enough that there was plenty of room to set a game that ignored whatever it is that irked you.
My old gaming crew had an epic Al-Qadim campaign back in the early 2000s but I was studying my butt off back in medical school and missed out on it. They loved it, but I understand the DM took great liberties with the setting, up to and including hand-inserting the serial numbers to the real world Middle East back in. He did use many of the classes and monsters, though.
Never really got to play with Greyhawk (but it looked like a great alternative to DL and FR), Spelljammer (odd duck but I think I could make it work) or Planescape (heard lots of hype, never played, read a couple things but the "cant" put me off).
Never even heard anything about Council of Wyrms or Jakandor, other than that they existed, until much later. Don't think I would've enjoyed either.
You're dead on about Birthright. Love that setting.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759392Never got into the 2e setting craze. Stuck with my own game world (heavily pulled from Grayhawk). I know I'm an outlier, but I had no desire to play Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Planescape, or Ravenloft. In fact, planescape just turned me off.
Sorry Man, but if you don't have a burning desire to play Dark Sun or Ravenloft you are dead to me :)
I can definitely see why Spelljammer or Planescape might not be everyone's favorite though.
Dark Sun was awesome all the way. Ravenloft started out good, but then quickly got overplayed like a Top Forty song on the radio.
Spelljammer was stupid from the get-go.
Quote from: Bill;759412Sorry Man, but if you don't have a burning desire to play Dark Sun or Ravenloft you are dead to me :)
.
haha. You see, I was never into the whole Goth scene, so Ravenloft didn't hold any great appeal. And Dark Sun just didn't fit. I'm from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, so I like forests and plants in my fantasy setting. Dark Sun just seemed to overdo it, making everything spiky and brown.
Quote from: jeff37923;759415Dark Sun was awesome all the way. Ravenloft started out good, but then quickly got overplayed like a Top Forty song on the radio.
Spelljammer was stupid from the get-go.
I love Ravenloft but once the players are intentionally metagaming dark powers checks....blah!
Works best with either players unfamiliar with ravenloft, or with players capable of not metagaming.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759418haha. You see, I was never into the whole Goth scene, so Ravenloft didn't hold any great appeal. And Dark Sun just didn't fit. I'm from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, so I like forests and plants in my fantasy setting. Dark Sun just seemed to overdo it, making everything spiky and brown.
And the 'plants' might have psionics, might be mobile, and probably want to kill you.
Quote from: The Butcher;759403Ravenloft was really cool too, and I got to play it quite a few times, but I'm not sure how the "all Hammer Horror all the time" schtick would hold up for a long-term campaign, especially at higher levels.
I managed to run two full campaigns through highschool. One lasted many years amd continued after graduation. I ran another long campaign after that as well. I think what makes it work long term is to embrace some if the campiness. But then I was raised on Universal and Hammer. The harder I trued for high end horror, the less well it held up. The more i tried for classic horror movie vibe, the better it worked. You also have to contrast heavily. If it is all horror all the time, people stop reacting. You need to break it up with some light hearted stuff and less horror-based stuff.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;759428The harder I trued for high end horror, the less well it held up. The more i tried for classic horror movie vibe, the better it worked.
That's the money tip right there. There's a similar old trick to running World of Darkness like an 80s splatter-horror flick, you get much better results. Less
Interview With the Vampire, more
Fright Night.
*Puts on her flame retardant suit*
Favorites
1. Dragonlance (dodges the rotten tomatoes thrown her way)
2. Dark Sun
Did Not Understand
1. Planescape
Disappointed In Because I Wanted To Love It
1. Ravenloft-come on at least do horror right
Wished Burned In A Fire
1. Spelljammer
Don't Care Either Way
1. Forgotten Realms
2. Greyhawk
Dragonlance and Spelljammer were the ones I thought were the coolest. Dragonlance had the neatest stuff going on. Spelljammer was the neatest concept.
Dark Sun and Planescape were the ones I didn't like. They weren't entertaining to me in any way.
Quote from: Marleycat;759438*Puts on her flame retardant suit*
Favorites
1. Dragonlance (dodges the rotten tomatoes thrown her way)
2. Dark Sun
Did Not Understand
1. Planescape
Disappointed In Because I Wanted To Love It
1. Ravenloft-come on at least do horror right
Wished Burned In A Fire
1. Spelljammer
Don't Care Either Way
1. Forgotten Realms
2. Greyhawk
Just curious; what was you initial exposure to Ravenloft like?
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759418haha. You see, I was never into the whole Goth scene, so Ravenloft didn't hold any great appeal. And Dark Sun just didn't fit. I'm from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, so I like forests and plants in my fantasy setting. Dark Sun just seemed to overdo it, making everything spiky and brown.
Dark Sun was probably more for the Dune crowd. That may be one of the reasons it appealed to me, it had a Dune/Mad Max vibe.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;759442Dark Sun was probably more for the Dune crowd. That may be one of the reasons it appealed to me, it had a Dune/Mad Max vibe.
I will say that I did like the piecemeal armor rules and Jazst kit from the 2e Dark Sun splatbook (complete gladiator's handbook)
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;759442Dark Sun was probably more for the Dune crowd. That may be one of the reasons it appealed to me, it had a Dune/Mad Max vibe.
I also love how in the Dark Sun setting the Gods are long gone or even dead.
Everything, plant or animal is likely to murder you.
Bards are Assassins.
No Paladins. (And Paladins are my favorite class in dnd)
Irresponsible use of wizardry has ruined the planet; defoliated most of it, mucked up the Sun itself.
The Oceans are gone; turned to dust.
It's a refreshing change of pace.
I loved Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, and Ravenloft - I still like using those for games. Birthright was really cool, too, but I never got to play too much of it (though I did play a blooded paladin who used his position to create a youth corps of zealous followers to smite heretics of our god).
Never got much into Greyhawk or Dragonlance, I used Forgotten Realms for my more standard fantasy setting (which I thought had a wealth of good stuff). But its just too much now; I'd only play it if a game was based solely off the original gray box set.
Planescape is one I never got the love for. Didn't like the name, didn't like the concepts, really didn't like the art. Not much on planar adventuring.
Similarly, Spelljammer is so far from what I'm looking for with a D&D experience that I can't see why it exists (too cartoony for me).
I can't recall any other settings for 2e that I know more about than hearing the name once.
Quote from: Bill;759444I also love how in the Dark Sun setting the Gods are long gone or even dead.
Everything, plant or animal is likely to murder you.
Bards are Assassins.
No Paladins. (And Paladins are my favorite class in dnd)
Irresponsible use of wizardry has ruined the planet; defoliated most of it, mucked up the Sun itself.
The Oceans are gone; turned to dust.
It's a refreshing change of pace.
"Everything's dead! It's refreshing!"
:D
Quote from: Bill;759441Just curious; what was you initial exposure to Ravenloft like?
Mind now I initially really got into RPG's as more then I'm just there because of my friends via Vampire then Mage and things like Whispering Vault, Kult, Neliphim and others so Ravenloft felt staid too classic 1950's almost to me. And then it got stupid as it matured.
One problem is that it's too small and straightforward for me I like my horror to be subtle or off kilter in some way and mysterious. Or hopeless but big like WHFP and 40k.
Quote from: Marleycat;759448Mind now I initially really got into RPG's as more then I'm just there because of my friends via Vampire then Mage and things like Whispering Vault, Kult, Neliphim and others so Ravenloft felt staid too classic 1950's almost to me. And then it got stupid as it matured.
One problem is that it's too small and straightforward for me I like my horror to be subtle or off kilter in some way and mysterious. Or hopeless but big like WHFP and 40k.
I would agree with you it is more classic horror movie (it kind of ran the gamut from 1930s universal horror to 70s Hammer and ealier Hammer Horror). I see that as its strength though. I never really liked the white wolf vibe but I did like Call of Cthulu, Orrorsh and what I saw of Kult (the last one kind of reminded me of Clive Barker).
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;759442Dark Sun was probably more for the Dune crowd. That may be one of the reasons it appealed to me, it had a Dune/Mad Max vibe.
Correct. It wasn't Goth.
Quote from: Marleycat;759448Mind now I initially really got into RPG's as more then I'm just there because of my friends via Vampire then Mage and things like Whispering Vault, Kult, Neliphim and others so Ravenloft felt staid too classic 1950's almost to me. And then it got stupid as it matured.
One problem is that it's too small and straightforward for me I like my horror to be subtle or off kilter in some way and mysterious. Or hopeless but big like WHFP and 40k.
Warhammer as a horror setting works for me. very off kilter.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759418haha. You see, I was never into the whole Goth scene, so Ravenloft didn't hold any great appeal.
Ravenloft was Gothic, not Goth. There's a difference. :D It must be remembered that Ravenloft
predates the World of Darkness by a full year.
Seriously, Ravenloft's ambiance is very much Universal/Hammer/horror literature, as Brendan points out. You can find that fact going all the way back to the Black Box and its recommendations for reading, viewing and designing adventures. But that's probably why I love it--I grew up reading about the classic monster movies, playing the Castlevania video games, etc. So Ravenloft hits those buttons just perfectly for me.
And to really work, the setting requires a stronger sense of contrast than most horror games. This is perhaps a result of it being designed as the 'Twilight Zone' of D&D. But it really doesn't work so well if you embrace the nihilism that so often goes along with Cthulhoid, WoD or 40K horror.
Quote from: Marleycat;759452Correct. It wasn't Goth.
Goth at Burning Man? ;)
Favourites: Al-Qadim and Planescape.
I've always loved Arabian Nights flavoured stuff and I like DiTerlizzi's art in PS. The other settings never interested me that much.
However, nowadays I might swap out Dark Sun for Planescape. While I love Sigil and the concepts surrounding it, I now feel that it seems rather uneasily dropped into the Great Wheel cosmology. Dark Sun seems to be a gem I overlooked at the time.
Quote from: dragoner;759455Goth at Burning Man? ;)
Heh, Gothic Horror really isn't like the Goth scene though they can be connected. Dark Sun was Post Apoc/Environmentalism and other similar vibes. It's not horror as I conceive of it.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759447"Everything's dead! It's refreshing!"
:D
Yup.
Elves frolicking in the forest gets old.
In a Dark Sun game I ran, an Entity claiming to be an Elven god emerged; such a nice caring individual. This new god was gathering the nomadic elves to a miraculous oasis in the desert.
Too bad no one knew it was not really a benevolent nature god come to revitalize the world.
It was Lolth.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;759454Ravenloft was Gothic, not Goth. There's a difference. :D It must be remembered that Ravenloft predates the World of Darkness by a full year.
Seriously, Ravenloft's ambiance is very much Universal/Hammer/horror literature, as Brendan points out. You can find that fact going all the way back to the Black Box and its recommendations for reading, viewing and designing adventures. But that's probably why I love it--I grew up reading about the classic monster movies, playing the Castlevania video games, etc. So Ravenloft hits those buttons just perfectly for me.
And to really work, the setting requires a stronger sense of contrast than most horror games. This is perhaps a result of it being designed as the 'Twilight Zone' of D&D. But it really doesn't work so well if you embrace the nihilism that so often goes along with Cthulhoid, WoD or 40K horror.
That all may be true, but it was all the Goth kids (The Anne Rice crowd) who were in love with it, so that's what I associate with it.
I liked a lot of those settings in concept if not execution.
Mostly I wanted to excise the D&D-isms out of them... get the trad-fantasy races out and change up the magic.
Mostly I mined them for ideas without using them straight up.
Ravenloft and Dark Sun in particular (I've always been curious about Birthright but never bought/read/played it).
I think Ravenloft might work best, for me, as a 19th century sandbox version of Supernatural... crossed with bits of The Whispering Vault to set up Shadowlands/Domains and the Buffy/Watcher campaign.
Spelljammer was better done as Spacemaster's Dark Space.
Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms never interested me... except for the Underdark, which I happily stole for my homebrew setting.
Quote from: Bill;759459Yup.
Elves frolicking in the forest gets old.
In a Dark Sun game I ran, an Entity claiming to be an Elven god emerged; such a nice caring individual. This new god was gathering the nomadic elves to a miraculous oasis in the desert.
Too bad no one knew it was not really a benevolent nature god come to revitalize the world.
It was Lolth.
Ok, that's pretty horrific. Imagine Dark Sun Elf Driders?:D
Quote from: Marleycat;759458Heh, Gothic Horror really isn't like the Goth scene though they can be connected. Dark Sun was Post Apoc/Environmentalism and other similar vibes. It's not horror as I conceive of it.
Yes, I agree, as literature, Gothic Horror and the goth scene has nothing to do with Gothic Horror; which is a great genre as well for its social commentary.
I had some Goth friends go to Burning Man, and their pictures they brought back of them covered in dust was great. The movie Hardware kinda did that too.
My favorites are the ones that I felt took interesting risks and then pulled them off:
Dark Sun because the setting was a return to the pulpy Sword & Sorcery and Science Fantasy roots of the game in the vein of Howard, Burroughs, Moorcock, and Vance, while still presenting a very original and compelling world with its own unique take on pre-existing tropes. I also adore Brom's artwork for the game.
Ravenloft was wonderful because it has some really quality adventures, and because campy Gothic horror can be a ton of fun. I never felt that Ravenloft took itself too seriously; even when it was in full Anne Rice brooding mode it felt like it was sort of winking at itself. I love the Gothic and horror generally, and I think it understands the genre it's playing with very well. It might not be the best fit for the D&D system, in some ways, but I still like it a lot (enough to run annual jaunts to Ravenloft in October).
Planescape is probably my all-time favorite of the era because it married "high weirdness" and wild, even gonzo imagination with a really detailed urban fantasy/noir/punk aesthetic of a very unusual and ambitious sort. I love DiTerlizzi's illustrations and unlike some enjoyed the attempt to incorporate conflicts around ideas, beliefs, and philosophies into the game. It didn't require a philosophy degree to understand, but it presented groups and characters motivated by concepts and ideas in a way that's rarely been done. Some people (I know the Pundit is of this opinion) don't like the way that it undercut the gravitas or "specialness" of the Planes, but I find the cynical, hard-boiled way it approaches things like gods and demons quite compelling. I am currently DMing a (pre-Faction War) Planescape game that's just passed it's 2 year mark.
As for settings I didn't care for:
Dragonlance was certainly not my favorite since it led to some detrimental trends in the way adventures were written and the way TSR did business. I don't think the setting is all that interesting or appealing, either. It really feels like just a homebrew setting that's fine to run a game with, and everything, but that didn't really merit dozens of novels, sourcebooks, and modules.
Forgotten Realms gives me very mixed feelings, because I love some aspects (the Underdark is great, for example), but overall it just feels a bit hackneyed and stale. I can appreciate the immense detail and I can see it as a viable alternative to Greyhawk for some, but it's just not really my cup of tea.
Spelljammer is fairly ridiculous and doesn't really hang together. Unlike Planescape, which takes pains to adapt itself and integrate elements from other settings in a way that makes some kind of sense, Spelljammer always just felt tacked on to the D&D multiverse. The first module, Wildspace, literally just has a spaceship dropping anchor in front of the characters and pulls them into a space adventure... it just struck me as clumsy and awkward and not very well integrated into the existing material. It could have worked if instead of doing the whole "different settings are crystal spheres" thing it had done something more like Shadowrun, where it's an original world in its own right but still makes use of fantasy tropes mixed in. So I guess it really just suffers from a botched execution, in my opinion.
Quote from: Bill;759459It was Lolth.
That is a good twist.
I have played her out as the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan or Spider Woman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan
Quote from: Marleycat;759464Ok, that's pretty horrific. Imagine Dark Sun Elf Driders?:D
That would be a great monster.
Buck Rogers XXVC was my favorite 2E setting. :P
Quote from: Bill;759473That would be a great monster.
Good you should use it next time you run Dark Sun.
My favorite was Dark Sun. Hands down. As long as you ignored the last parts of the Prism Pentad, it was awesome, novels and all.
My second favorites were Ravenloft and Spelljammer (though I liked the idea of Spelljammer more than the reality.)
My least favorite was Dragonlance.
Forgotten Realms novels were great, but I never played there.
I never got to play or read Birthright or Planescape, though I was very interested in the latter.
I loved Birthright. It just felt epic. It's actually one of the few setting that has a PC I played that I remember in any detail (and have frankly recycled from time to time).
I loved the idea of Spelljammer (but not the execution) and liked bits of Dark Sun, but not the whole, though the Brom art really helped set a mood.
I liked the idea of Planescape, and loved the art, but never had a chance to really delve into it enough to grok it.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;759392Never got into the 2e setting craze. Stuck with my own game world (heavily pulled from Grayhawk).
I was the same too. We mostly played out of Dungeon magazines in 2e and implied a setting much like we did in 1e with Greyhawk and the early modules. I didn't encounter settings outside of GH, FR and DL until 3e and 4e.
Quote from: BranderI liked the idea of Planescape, and loved the art, but never had a chance to really delve into it enough to grok it.
In case you were interested in reading more without tracking down the old books, quite a bit of the setting is now online (http://dotd.com/planescape/indexold.htm).
Quote from: Steerpike;759526In case you were interested in reading more without tracking down the old books, quite a bit of the setting is now online (http://dotd.com/planescape/indexold.htm).
Wow! Thanks a lot.
Another vote for Dark Sun. I think it was a kind of Grimdark (Grimhot?) done well.
I found Council of Wyrms forgettable. I really can't remember a single thing about it.
Put me down for XXVc as my favorite 2e setting and my favorite version of D&D. I say this as a 2e hater too. Where 2e was bungled was weapon proficiencies and thieves skills and XXVc offered a pretty much seamless and brilliant patch.
Spell Jammer could have been awesome, there are awesome ideas in there mixed in with Jeff Grubb's gonzo fetish. Spell Jammer is very useful as it illustrates the point at which gonzo D&D just plain out fails.
Quote from: JamesV;759540I found Council of Wyrms forgettable. I really can't remember a single thing about it.
I vaguely remember every dragon character being assigned the equivalent of a humanoid sock-puppet to serve as a pair of normal-sized hands while adventuring.
Quote from: David Johansen;759544Put me down for XXVc as my favorite 2e setting and my favorite version of D&D. I say this as a 2e hater too. Where 2e was bungled was weapon proficiencies and thieves skills and XXVc offered a pretty much seamless and brilliant patch.
Spell Jammer could have been awesome, there are awesome ideas in there mixed in with Jeff Grubb's gonzo fetish. Spell Jammer is very useful as it illustrates the point at which gonzo D&D just plain out fails.
XXVC is pretty great. I am going to use at least the rules for my next space game. It ties with DS as my favorite 2e setting. I think, actually, with some fairly minor tweaks Athas would make a pretty great Mars stand in for a Golden Age/ pulp SF setting.
Quote from: Gib;759561I think, actually, with some fairly minor tweaks Athas would make a pretty great Mars stand in for a Golden Age/ pulp SF setting.
Isn't the inclusion of the Thri-Kreen to Athas a shout-out to the Tharks? I thought it was.
I definitely think that Dark Sun is channeling Barsoom, as well as the Dying Earth and Zothique.
Quote from: Monster ManuelWow! Thanks a lot.
Glad to help!
There's also a great site, planewalker.com, that had a ton of canonical material as well as some fan-made stuff, but they're currently recovering from a fairly cataclysmic server crash.
mimir.net (http://www.mimir.net/) is badly "decayed," but still has some great info.
kriegstanz.com (http://www.kriegstanz.com/) has some incredibly useful content, mostly for converting Planescape stuff to 3rd edition. I run Planescape using Pathfinder (and find the two are a match made in Celestia - the huge diversity of class/race combinations possible in 3.X is perfect for Planescape), so it's been an invaluable resource for things like Faction prestige classes and NPC stats.
Quote from: Gib;759561I think, actually, with some fairly minor tweaks Athas would make a pretty great Mars stand in for a Golden Age/ pulp SF setting.
To me, Athas and
Dark Sun was already 99% Barsoom.
Favorite: Spelljammer. Finally I can legally kill characters falling from orbit! mwah-haa-haa-haa!
Neutral: Planescape and Ravenloft. Some good bits, some bad.
Disliked: Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun. Just did not enjoy these for various reasons. Especially Dragonlance as things progressed.
My favorite was Ravenloft, though my most used was Forgotten Realms. I also really like Birthright and Planescape. Dark Sun started out ok, but was no good at all after the novels 'reenvisioned" it.
Forgot about Council of Wyrms. Got the hardback version. Fairly neet concept and setting.
Friend has Buck Rogers. Part of Lorains cash grab project. Not a bad game overall.
Didnt like the 2e version of Gamma World. The whole Meriga, and ass backwards attempts to turn the old naming conventions into a language just fell flat for me. Some of the other elements just didnt click either.
Friend has Birthright. Backstory reads oddly like Red Steel's in a way. Except with more armies.
Council of Wyrms is interesting. I only got to run a short campaign, and I was not the veteran gm I am today.
Using the superpowers of Hindsight and Experience, I would ditch the 'humanoid sidekicks' and just have the Dragon's. Humanoids would exist, but none of that 'every dragon has a humanoid sidekick'
Unless that evolved naturally from play.
Quote from: Bill;759738Council of Wyrms is interesting. I only got to run a short campaign, and I was not the veteran gm I am today.
Using the superpowers of Hindsight and Experience, I would ditch the 'humanoid sidekicks' and just have the Dragon's. Humanoids would exist, but none of that 'every dragon has a humanoid sidekick'
Unless that evolved naturally from play.
Thats what I did. The players werent interested in the "sock puppets" as they called them and just wanted to deal with things as the dragon. Worked overall. They just had a much harder time dealing with anyone who rabbited into a hole they couldnt fit in.
Planescape was awesome. Least favourite was Spelljammer. Liked Dark Sun & Ravenloft, never really interested by Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. Dont know much about the others. Mostly made our own worlds.
Quote from: Omega;760064Thats what I did. The players werent interested in the "sock puppets" as they called them and just wanted to deal with things as the dragon. Worked overall. They just had a much harder time dealing with anyone who rabbited into a hole they couldnt fit in.
It gave me a chance to use all of those dragon gods that showed up in 2e.
Assuming you can count them as "2e", I might say Taladas and From the Ashes. Al-qadim was pretty good too.
If you mean directly "settings that first came out in 2e", then Dark Sun was probably the best. Planescape was the worst. Spelljammer was a great idea with a really shitty execution.
I sometimes find myself wondering if Spelljammer could be "pruned" into something useable without radical changes. Just a question of never mentioning (or at least seriously repackaging) the stupid elements and highlighting the inspired ones.
Favorite:
Planescape. While one of the least standard D&D settings, it got me into RPGs in the first place, and then swiftly into writing and freelancing. Its style, tropes, and atmospheric themes continues to be an influence of mine. Cook, Cook, McComb, Vallese, Baur, et al created a truly spectacular setting, and combined with artwork by DiTerlizzi's, Knutson, Ruppel, and others it was a thing of beauty.
Least Favorite:
Spelljammer. Despite my adoration of Planescape's extremes and strangeness, I never really enjoyed Spelljammer as a whole (though the late Nigel Findley's contributions to the line are amazing). For me at least, too often it had elements that crossed over from wild, evocative, beautiful, horrific and crazy (ala PS) to campy and things I couldn't take seriously. Almost entirely an issue of style here.
Shemmy, is your name a reference to Shemeska the Marauder?
Also... wild stab in the dark, but given your self-description as a freelancer and writer... you're not by any chance the Shemeska of Shemeska Story Hour AKA Todd Stewart of Planewalker fame, are you?
Quote from: Steerpike;761157Shemmy, is your name a reference to Shemeska the Marauder?
Also... wild stab in the dark, but given your self-description as a freelancer and writer... you're not by any chance the Shemeska of Shemeska Story Hour AKA Todd Stewart of Planewalker fame, are you?
That would indeed be me. (http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmysmile.gif)
Quote from: Shemmy;761169That would indeed be me. (http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmysmile.gif)
Awesome. How about explaining the setting to me. I expected to actually be playing in the planes but I got high concept like Mage the Ascension and Wraith. What the heck am I supposed to actually do? I ask because I want to love it but I don't actually get it enough to use it.
Quote from: Marleycat;761176Awesome. How about explaining the setting to me. I expected to actually be playing in the planes but I got high concept like Mage the Ascension and Wraith. What the heck am I supposed to actually do? I ask because I want to love it but I don't actually get it enough to use it.
Oh, for Planescape? I so wanted to run a group of "police" solving crimes in Sigul.
Quote from: Silverlion;761179Oh, for Planescape? I so wanted to run a group of "police" solving crimes in Sigul.
That was how we played it but I just feel I missed the whole point of the setting.
Quote from: ShemmyThat would indeed be me.
Nice to meet you. I've read and enjoyed a lot of your stuff over the years.
Quote from: Randaconda;760112It gave me a chance to use all of those dragon gods that showed up in 2e.
I can see this.
Dragon character "Hey Bahamut! Can you dig these twits out so I can eat them?"
Bahamut "Sure thing!" dig-dig-dig-dig-dig!
:cool:
Quote from: RPGPundit;761148Assuming you can count them as "2e", I might say Taladas and From the Ashes. Al-qadim was pretty good too.
If you mean directly "settings that first came out in 2e", then Dark Sun was probably the best. Planescape was the worst. Spelljammer was a great idea with a really shitty execution.
Spelljammers problem is that it was all over the place. You had setting specific stuff which seemed like it would have been better as its own thing. And then you had the original stuff that was pretty interesting. Astrodomini was a bit too overblown. But otherwise viable. Some of the other modules and adventures were darn good for the 2e era.
Planescape set out to be its own thing from the get go and you didnt get as much setting intrusion from outside.
Dark Sun started out interesting. But felt like it lost cohesion and its original focus as things progressed.
Quote from: Marleycat;761183That was how we played it but I just feel I missed the whole point of the setting.
Well Sigil is a sort of dark London. So a group of fantasy detectives would be perfect for the place. I allways felt that Sigil could have used a good analog to Sherlock Holmes.
Favorites - Ravenloft & Dark Sun
Neutral - Forgotten Realms (aka DM-PC wank-land)
Least Favorites - Planescape & Spelljammer
Quote from: The Butcher;759403made even awesomer by dint of being gritty S&S in an age in which D&D was adopting a bowdlerised, kid-friendly Romantic high fantasy trade dress and art direction.
So if D&D is kid-unfriendly it's awesome? What kind of monster are you? :D
Dark Sun was weird and cool, love the setting.
Planescape was weird and cool, but Pundit's right about de-mystifying the Planes, also it's very postmodern cosmologically. Not to mention kind of steampunky, so Hit and Miss for me.
Spelljammer was pure unadulterated awesome gonzo without going off the deep end into parody too many times. "Scro?" WTFD&D
Ravenloft was kinda cool, in the end I just never bought the premise of this evil sentient plane that brought all the worst evil fucks from the universe together. Like Planescape and Spelljammer totally changed the fundamentals of how things fit together.
Greyhawk is still my favorite D&D setting with Grey Box FR second. Sodomize the Time of Troubles with a broken bottle.
I was gone from D&D with the release of 2.5, the Black Border Edition, Skills & Powers Edition or whatever you want to call it, so I never cared what Council of Wyrms was, and have honestly never even heard of Jarkandor before now.
Birthright was the one D&D setting that got away. I wanted to get into it, but literally was playing so much other D&D I didn't have time.
Quote from: Marleycat;761176Awesome. How about explaining the setting to me. I expected to actually be playing in the planes but I got high concept like Mage the Ascension and Wraith. What the heck am I supposed to actually do? I ask because I want to love it but I don't actually get it enough to use it.
Planescape in a nutshell IMO: the outer planes, their denizens, and even the gods themselves are created and shaped by mortal belief. The cosmos is vast, bizarre, and often paradoxical. Law and Chaos, Good and Evil are physical things and they have struggled against one another in their various iterations since time immemorial. At the center of this all, atop the Infinite Spire, the city of Sigil sits at the metaphysical fulcrum of it all. At least that's how many view it, and much of the metaphysical conflict on the planes (the Blood War, etc) intrudes within the City of Doors, and from within, it has its own conflicts that reach out just the same way (the Factions, etc).
1e laid the groundwork for the Great Wheel cosmology, but it was very often never more than an extraplanar dungeon. The early sources were nice, but they didn't go crazy in terms of detail, ecology, or any "high concept" discussion as you frame it.
While the setting is sometimes criticized for "de-mystifying" the planes, I truly see it as being the exact opposite. There's a difference between something being full of wonder and awe because you've gone out of your way to incorporate open questions, mysteries, and fantastical imagery, and then there's something that just never had a lot of detail in the first place.
The focus of the 1e material really didn't lend itself to going crazy with flavor text, planar ecologies, planar history, etc. Greenwood's Dragon material on the 9 Hells was good and the 1e MotP laid lovely groundwork for what came later in 2e, but I feel that they were constrained by the design ethos of the period.
Obviously a number of people are going to disagree with me strongly here.
2e Planescape turned the planes of 1e from bigger dungeons with stronger, stranger monsters in a landscape littered with mythological material and material new to D&D, into one that was fantastic, beautiful, horrific, and downright odd, where the concepts those planes represented came first in design rather than 'can we kill it and takes its stuff'. It's a very different take on the planes, and it might not be for everyone (FWIW, I didn't play RPGs till 3e D&D, and went back for the 2e PS material, enjoying the style and design much more to my liking). It took the 1e planes and massively expanded them in detail, worked to provide an ecology for the creatures that lived there and explain their interactions and their history. It took a marginal, high level only part of D&D and turned it into a campaign setting of its own, and then went wild.
If I haven't completely alienated everyone yet, here's how I run games in the setting (and keep in mind I never actually ran the setting in 2e, only in 3.x using the 2e source material). Combat in my games or lack thereof is entirely based on where the PCs go and what they do. We might spend half of a session in combat, or we might go a session with only a few rolls of the dice. There's a lot of PCs talking with other PCs, a lot of talking with NPCs, exploration, politics within Sigil (Factions, sects, guilds, powerful movers and shakers in the city, etc) and for most of my campaigns, a -lot- of lower planar politics. Arguably I inject more horror into the setting than is there right out of the box, and I've also never focused as much on the Factions since I've always run the setting post-Faction War since I didn't get into it till after the fact.
I can't say that how I run the setting is typical of other folks and not entirely idiosyncratic to my own style, but at the least it's an example of what -can- be done with the setting. I enjoy it, and since 2001 or so it's been a considerable pleasure to run and an inspiration for my freelancing (including a few overtly PS pieces in 3e and one in 4e).
Reading through my first storyhour over on Enworld is probably a good way to see how I use the setting with respect to taking all of the setting's crazy/amazing/hellish material and throwing the PCs into it in a way that they can meaningfully interact with it all and have a way of influencing things.
Quote from: The Butcher;759403You had archetypal monster patriarchs, the awnsheghlien
It was literally a decade before I realized you're supposed to pronounce that as "Unseelie".
It was literally until 30 seconds ago before I realised you're supposed to pronounce that as "Unseelie."
I love Planescape, Ravenloft and Dark Sun. I've run many campaigns in those settings, especially Planescape where I loved the combo of Politics + Exploration.
I loved the outer planes in AD&D, but it was all about high level play. Planescape opened the setting to low level play and in many ways, made the outer planes more dangerous with the addition of scheming factions and the Blood War.
As for Dark Sun and Ravenloft, I loved those for some dark fantasy gameplay. Ravenloft was D&D Warhammer for my crew who weren't into Warhammer. Dark Sun was nasty fun, and the no water, no iron was a fun aspect.
I always used the Player's Option books for Planescape.
Quote from: daniel_ream;761863it was literally a decade before i realized you're supposed to pronounce that as "unseelie".
mind = blown
Quote from: The Butcher;761903mind = blown
I still can't decide if it's a clever use of Gaelic that suits the implied setting or just really, really pretentious.
Quote from: SteerpikeAwesome. How about explaining the setting to me. I expected to actually be playing in the planes but I got high concept like Mage the Ascension and Wraith. What the heck am I supposed to actually do? I ask because I want to love it but I don't actually get it enough to use it.
Shemmy did a great job of summing it up, but here's my take to add to that.
Basically, I think of Planescape as Sandman meets Dickensian London. It plays as a big, gonzo mythological mashup but filtered through a kind of quasi-steampunk urban fantasy lens. There's a bit of philosophy involved, but you don't need a Master's degree or something to understand it.
In my game we definitely do play in the Planes, not just high-concept stuff in Sigil. I'd say for every session in Sigil we have 3-5 sessions elsewhere. So far my players have visited:
Pandemonium
The Beastlands (a lot)
Limbo (briefly)
Ysgard (a whole lot)
Elysium
Arborea
Acheron
Baator
The Grey Waste
Carceri (for a moment or two)
Ravenloft/Demiplane of Dread (twice)
The Para-Elemental Plane of Magma
The Para-Elemental Plane of Ooze (to their chagrin)
The Quasi-Elemental Plane of Radiance
The Seelie Court
Dungeonland/The Land Behind the Magic Mirror (demiplane)
The Ethereal Plane (one of the Lady's Mazes)
The Astral Plane (Yggdrasil)
The Outlands (specifically Bedlam and Glorium)
That's in about 2 years of roughly weekly to fortnightly gaming. They've seen the Lady of Pain I think twice in that time.
I really want to give them a good reason to go to Mechanus at some point, and at some point I'd love to drop them in Athas. Before the campaign wraps I'd also really like to take them to the Far Realm.
We strike a pretty even balance between political intrigue - the bickering of the Factions, philosophical battles, diplomacy, Anarchist spies, all that fun stuff - and swashbuckling surreal fun in crazy places, like a Hobgoblin village spread across half a dozen Acheronian cubes floating through space, linked together by bridges and rivers flowing in peculiar directions, or a Vegepygmy hive-warren with walls of living slime in the depths of the Para-Elemental Plane of Ooze. One session the players might be sneaking into the Dustman Mortuary, another they might be mediating a dispute between the Mercykillers and the Doomguard, in a third they might be hunting Trolls in Jotunheim.
Quote from: CRKrueger;761348And have honestly never even heard of Jarkandor before now.
Jakandor: I've heard of but never actually seen. It was a campaign setting based on a large Island or somesuch with a high magic kingdom on one side and a low magic barbarian nation on the other. Island of War was the first one I believe in the late 90s.
Sounded like it was supposed to be a smaller scope setting like Thunder Rift?
Quote from: Omega;761929Jakandor: I've heard of but never actually seen. It was a campaign setting based on a large Island or somesuch with a high magic kingdom on one side and a low magic barbarian nation on the other. Island of War was the first one I believe in the late 90s.
Sounded like it was supposed to be a smaller scope setting like Thunder Rift?
I think Jakandor's gimmick was essentially not having a good/evil alignment axis, highlighting the cultural differences between the sorcerous nation and the barbaric nation and making it okay for PCs to pick either side.
So it was essentially AD&D 2e Dragon Pass. ;)
I liked Birthright, didn't care very much for the rest.
Except Maztica which looked snore-inducingly boring.
Quote from: daniel_ream;761906I still can't decide if it's a clever use of Gaelic that suits the implied setting or just really, really pretentious.
It's a tabletop game, therefore pretentious.
I'm fluent in French and used to be really into using authentic French spelling and pronunciation for stuff, but I realized all I was doing was slowing things down, making detail retention difficult, provoking blank stares, and providing fodder for "misheard hilarity" from my players. Now I just write everything phonetically and Americanize the pronunciation for their benefit. It's just a game.
Quote from: daniel_ream;761906I still can't decide if it's a clever use of Gaelic that suits the implied setting or just really, really pretentious.
What? It can't be both?
Quote from: Bobloblah;761865It was literally until 30 seconds ago before I realised you're supposed to pronounce that as "Unseelie."
Quote from: The Butcher;761903mind = blown
Quote from: daniel_ream;761906I still can't decide if it's a clever use of Gaelic that suits the implied setting or just really, really pretentious.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;762011It's a tabletop game, therefore pretentious.
..
Quote from: Bobloblah;762053What? It can't be both?
QFT, all of it.
I was even in a large Birthright campaign for a while (like 20 people, though not all at once) and NO ONE pronounced it that way. I believe (it's been a while) we tended towards "awn-shay-len."
Gaelic should never have been transliterated into the Latin Alphabet, or if it was, it should have been done well. I think it would be easier to pronounce with friggin cunieform symbols.
Quote from: Omega;761227Spelljammers problem is that it was all over the place. You had setting specific stuff which seemed like it would have been better as its own thing.
I'm surprised that Spelljammer hasn't gotten an OSR treatment yet; I guess because it's so marked as 2e. But really, doing something that's somewhere between Spelljammer and Princess Ark but without any of the 2e-TSR-corporate crap would be awesome.
Crawljammer? (http://crawljammer.blogspot.ca/?m=1) World of Calidar? (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ambreville/world-of-calidar)
Crawljammer looks very cool, but its not an actual book, is it?
Calidar may be as awesome as Princess Ark, or it may be Bruce Heard just trying to rebottle lightning; we don't know yet. I hope its great, but somehow I suspect it'll be too much like if the Beach Boys try to make a comeback album or something.
RPGPundit
Quote from: CRKrueger;762126Gaelic should never have been transliterated into the Latin Alphabet, or if it was, it should have been done well. I think it would be easier to pronounce with friggin cunieform symbols.
I still haven't figured out if "pishogue" is supposed to be pronounced "pie shoog" or "piss hog."
JG
Quote from: James Gillen;763342I still haven't figured out if "pishogue" is supposed to be pronounced "pie shoog" or "piss hog."
JG
Visage