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[Yes, I know this isn't a complete list of large scale conflicts by any means. I want to see how these particular options fare against each other.]

Which of these setting-defining conflicts would interest you the most and why? Does your opinion change if you would be running it as a GM or playing through it as a player?

If some of the options are ambiguous to you, feel free to define them as you please.

Sword and sorcery fan here.

I actually enjoy all of them, save Good vs Evil or Law vs Chaos, as I feel like I've just been there too many times.

Can you use checkboxes instead of exclusive choices? Anyway I picked schemers v schemers, but most of the rest are fine with me, too. Except good v evil (tends to be railroady; besides, I hate good, while evil is full of posers) and world v world (sounds like dimension-hopping, which is often arbitrary and ungrounded).

Cosmic forces make me think of Cosmic Encounter, I wonder if I still own that. I voted world vs world, but any is fine as long as it is done well, some are done better than others though, and easier to do.

I put Schemers vs. Schemers as that's really a smaller scale conflict that any of the other types could also encompass and usually do.  Also, it's basically Humans vs. Humans so is almost always topical.

Pretty much tied/a close second would be Savagery vs. Civilization.

My current RQ6 Conan game is set in Zingara during the aftermath of the civil war, so Schemer v. Schemer and Savagery v. Civilization are very prevalent.

Good vs. Evil as Cosmic Forces I'm always up for.

Law vs. Chaos as Cosmic Forces is harder to get my head around without a specific setting example, like Moorcock.  However, not as Cosmic Forces, it's pretty close to Savagery vs. Civilization.

Nation vs. Nation or Community vs. Community usually always come down to some other conflict.  In other words, why are the nations or communities fighting?  Other than simple survival or resources, it's Good v. Evil, Law v. Chaos, Sav v. Civ, God v. God, Rel v. Rel, Ideo v. Ideo etc... or just politics, ie. Schemer v. Schemer.

Quote from: CRKrueger;896172I put Schemers vs. Schemers as that's really a smaller scale conflict that any of the other types could also encompass and usually do.  Also, it's basically Humans vs. Humans so is almost always topical.

I had the same thought, I like the personal and human situations and it can easily combine with any of those larger ones.

Religions/cults/sects/religious doctrines vs something else. I always liked the Bigger Picture more than local schemes.

Ideology vs whatever. For some reason its a recurring theme I've used. And looking back quite a few of my characters have ended up through no aegis of their own at the forefront of some ideology war.

At other times I like multiple layers. Schemes vs schems vs nation vs nation vs order vs chaos vs whatever.

And another I like thats not listed is People vs Nature.

That depends on the game system and setting (or rather genre?) used.

My favourite fantasy setting/subgenre is "tolkienesque", so when I run something in that vein the overarching campaign conflict would be Good vs. Evil but on the session level it could be nation vs. nation (equivalent to Rohan vs. corrupted steward-controlled Gondor) or schemer vs. schemer (Gandalf vs. Elrond vs. Saruman vs. Sauron).

Years and years and years ago I pitched a campaign to my players that would have been decadence (civilization) vs. savagery, but they didn't bite...

Which of your answer choices comes closest to "immortal powermonger with god-like powers (but no philosophical or religious concept/teaching) vs. immortal powermonger with god-like powers (but no philosophical, ideological, or religious concept/teaching)"?

Nation vs nation for me.  I've never understood why fantasy has to be yoked to titanic G vs E conflicts, when good old geopolitics do the job just fine.

They're all interesting, but I picked civ v. savagery because that which is "savage" is often a matter of hubris.  Civilization in the game world may be little more than organized and/or mire efficient savagery.

The two I am least interested in are Good vs. Evil and Law vs. Chaos. That's not to say I won't play in a game with those themes.  They just don't get me immediately interested.

All the others have more potential to me. I think Krueger makes a good pitch for schemers vs. schemers as my number one pick. That's partly biased by the fact that Some of my more proactive players are good at that kind of thing. Scheming usually means that players are helping to drive the campaign rather than waiting to be pointed somewhere. Plus, schemes need to be carried out, which means you aren't missing out on action. The most interesting campaign in one where the PCs want something(s) and set out to do it. Whether that involves conflict between nations, religions, cultures, etc. is secondary.

Schemers vs. Schemers

Most of the rest are fine, and as pointed above kind of encompassed in "schemers vs. schemers" anyway.

The ones I find kind of boring are the good/evil and law/chaos on a cosmic scale. And while I don't mind some ideological or religious tension in my games, having it raised up to the level of setting-defining is a big fat no. That's just begging for the GM to try to shove some kind of religious or political point down my throat in a world where he holds all the cards. Yeah, that sounds like fun. :rolleyes:

Oh, how I wish this question actually mattered to my current campaigns. I'm lucky if I can even get my group to engage in Schemers vs Schemers. I need to put something right in front of them and wait for them to punch it in the face. That is about the level of setting buy in they usually go to.

Mine is more civ vs civ, that's why I put world vs world, which encompass worlds on each side, and it can involve each one, sort of all of the above. However, I guess this is one of those things that separates sci-fi from fantasy as genres.

Quote from: dragoner;896719However, I guess this is one of those things that separates sci-fi from fantasy as genres.

You can have 'world vs. world' in fantasy... just drop the spaceships and add magic portals, or have an invasion from/into Hell/Heaven/Fairyland.

Or you can play Rifts and have all of the above, all at the same time. :D

Quote from: Simlasa;896740You can have 'world vs. world' in fantasy... just drop the spaceships and add magic portals, or have an invasion from/into Hell/Heaven/Fairyland.

Sure, one campaign led off from Q1 where we were going into the worlds from the portals, we even stole Lolth's steampunky spider ship. We also did a high level campaign invading Hell to stop a devil invasion. These weren't so common, and people still look at me weird sometimes when I mention them.

Quote from: CRKrueger;896746Or you can play Rifts and have all of the above, all at the same time. :D

Did and done, I played Rifts for almost 10 years, I dropped a chunk of cash at Games of Berkeley on Shattuck.

A Glitter Boy, Cosmo Knight and Vagabond walk into a bar; the Vagabond dies. It was an MDC bar. ;)

I have voted for community but woudl have prefered culture vs culture. I like my conflcfts being about things rather down to earth - and then spice it with a little bit chaos vs. order for special effects and random monsters to avoid that some players get too bored.

I want to run a Man vs. Gods campaign.

Quote from: Spinachcat;896806I want to run a Man vs. Gods campaign.

So like half the Final Fantasy games. ;)

Quote from: Spinachcat;896806I want to run a Man vs. Gods campaign.

Heh, I want to see a Man vs Gods campaign where the men are summarily curb-stomped.  Because, you know.  Men.  Versus GODS.

All of these are potentially interesting to me.  I would another one that I have made a lot of traction with: 'brother vs. brother'.

Quote from: Ravenswing;896881Heh, I want to see a Man vs Gods campaign where the men are summarily curb-stomped.  Because, you know.  Men.  Versus GODS.

Tribe 8 did this pretty well

Schemers versus schemers.

Homo homini lupus.

Quote from: Spinachcat;896806I want to run a Man vs. Gods campaign.

The last Amber campaign I ran had an aspect of this. A group on one Earth found out about the existence of the multiverse and Amberites and Chaos lords, and very carefully, slowly, and gradually started to set up a huge organization dedicated to protect their Earth and other parallel Earths from interference. This meant learning a lot of supernatural stuff that humans could do, learning how to find shadow paths, and later broken pattern, secondary and direct observation of known Amberites or chaos creatures to study their ability and weaknesses, making alliances (and sometimes taking over) governments on other earths, building up technologies capable of harming Amberites/Chaos-lords and disabling their powers, and then eventually hunting and capturing or killing the ones who were operating in their area of the multiverse.

So it was Man vs. Gods, where the PCs were the 'Gods'.

It was quite interesting, because I played it so that early in the campaign this organization was relatively harmless but the longer the campaign went on the more powerful and dangerous they became.  Eventually they had different factions (the humans who thought some trans-dimensional creatures could be reasoned with versus those who wanted to contain/kill them all) but they also eventually started manipulating Chaos beings and Amberites for advantage, turning them on each other, or recruiting renegades to help them, etc.

In the end the organization was taken down, but they actually got far enough to be a really serious threat. And all without adding any new powers or deus ex machina to give them an edge!

Quote from: RPGPundit;898052So it was Man vs. Gods, where the PCs were the 'Gods'.

I imagine the players found this to be an immensely satisfying roleplaying opportunity. Sounds like a good video game premise actually.

I really like "clash of cultures" or Civilization vs savagery in this case. One of the most awesome is history of America - colonists vs Indians. While the movie "The Revenant" really sucked, I absolutely loved the scene where Indians raided the colonists. The action, cinematics was very well done and most of all, Indians were really alien culture there. I wish they made more movies about this theme. So I would not mind if there were well made historic RPG game about this in existance - RQ supplement of the mythic series would be awesome.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;898090I imagine the players found this to be an immensely satisfying roleplaying opportunity. Sounds like a good video game premise actually.

Well, they loved the campaign, and this was a part of it they were quite surprised by (because some of them were veteran Amber players,not at all used to 'normal' humans being any kind of threat at all).  

Of course, I've never had an Amber campaign that its players haven't loved.