Your favourite settings? (worlds)
Don Anderson Jr.
Surveyor
Well it has been a tad quiet here lately, so I'll start another query.
What is your favourite setting, and why so?
When I first got introduced to Dungeons and Dragons there was only Greyhawk and it's two piece beautiful map by Darlene. It was awesome with it's great colour palette. Fast forward a bunch of years to the release of the Grey Box for Forgotten Realms.
This amazing product just blew my mind, because of it's detail and lack of detail at the same time. Giving you lots to work with, and then lots of room to expand upon. Just like the included maps. Which introduced something new. Zoomed view. With release of new products they would pick regions and provide zoomed in views. Then everything changed when they released the Waterdeep boxed set, with it's massive blown up view of the city setting. The coolest part was that it was done with Campaign Cartographer.
So what are settings really speak to you, and what draws you to them?
Comments
I saw "favorite setting" and immediately misinterpreted it as a CC3 setting, like the sheet effects (of which my favorite is the Color Key cutout effect). Every campaign I've ever been in has been a homebrewed world, occasionally supplemented with commercial modules dropped in as side quests. I first started playing in 1979, when Greyhawk was the only world around, but I only have a passing familiarity of Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.
But I've been invited to join a Pathfinder campaign set in the world of Golarion, so I'll be learning a lot more about that world soon.
I did not know that Waterdeep was designed with Campaign Cartographer. That's really cool.
Same here. :D While I haven't played in it in a long time, my favourite setting is still my own world of Jhendor, which I developed in the late eighties and used for my games for 20 years.
Greets,
Anything run in RoleMaster---which I'm using for my games and have done so since 1984. The core world/campaign for this was ShadowWorld, a high fantasy theme.
Love the system.
Cal
Thanks for the link. I went and snooped at all the maps. I love them, because they look in a similar vein to the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas.
I have to agree with Ralf, my own setting, Virana, has to be my favorite. I loved the forgotten Realms for many years, that is where I started my journey, first by playing computer games like Eye of the Beholder, and later pen'n'paper games set there.
But, while all the detail is wonderful, I also found it a bit limiting in the end, so I created my own world and never looked back. It allowed me to make a world that was a perfect match to the campaigns I wanted to run.
I am not good at updating the Wiki, so only basic information and maps can be found there, but it is an overview at least.
With that in mind, it's probably way too much to go into the specifics of each in a little tiny post, if you're at all familiar with the setting then you probably have a pretty good idea already. In no particular order (which may change depending on the day):
Thanks for sharing the link Monsen. I liked the world map with links to a few regional maps. Also like the God symbols.
I love me some Firefly. That is my comfort show to fall asleep to on most nights.
Wheel of time was pretty OK for the ones I read. Got signed copies of some of his works, when he came to Edmonton.
Another also is Roger Zelazny's Amber. Particularly the Trumps, and the whole thing about the Amber and The Pattern, and how other worlds (including this here one) are Shadows (or 'echos') of Amber. Travel between the Shadows of reality can be done by those with the ability by slowly keeping. removing and adding details from the one they're in.
Buck Rogers XXVc
This was a sci-fi RPG setting by TSR from 1989-1991 that is not related to the comics and 1970s TV show aside from the titular character's origin. This was my main reason for buying Cosmographer. I have presented arguments at more than one convention to more than one TSR historian about the merits of this setting. Alas, I have been in the minority.
That is quite interesting you are a fan of that setting. I didn't even look at it, as it was released.
It was essentially the turning point for TSR's failure. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, if they didn't try shove it down everyone's throat. That's just my viewpoint. I may have to take a look at it and see what's what.
@Don Anderson Jr. wrote:
I liked the world map with links to a few regional maps.
You should be able to spot some quite familiar maps among them.
Slightly surprised to find the comments earlier suggesting Greyhawk was the first world setting in/around 1979, given that Judges Guild's Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting was first published in 1977, along with City State of the Invincible Overlord. I mention these, because they were parts of the first world setting I bought for D&D as soon as they were available in the UK, in 1977-78, and there was nothing else like them for D&D at that time. They really were astonishing products, and expanded my thinking about large-scale settings considerably, and how they could be created and mapped, because of course they had lots of large paper maps! Everything published subsequently that I've seen, while having pros and cons, I've always been mentally comparing their impact on me with what "Wilderlands" had been. Probably unfair, but accurate!
Maybe I should have clarified more fully that Greyhawk was the only one I was exposed to at that time. Edmonton in the early 80's was really backwoods in terms of larger Canadian cities (500 000 population, but may be counting a few other close cities). I think there was one Comic store that dabbled in minutures and gaming products.
Later in the mid eighties a few more hobby stores popped up to feed the new demand. Then we started to get some decent products.
Sorry bout that.
The timing was bad, I'll agree. One can't deny Loraine Williams' motives either. However, on its own and apart from other TSR properties, it was good. It was unique. I saw it at a hobby shop and thought it was the first pulp sci-fi setting for a system that I knew well. It had adventures, modules, maps, novels, and video games. It got a lot of bad feelings, I think, because it was different. It was not for fantasy people, and it wasn't for cyberpunk people. It was what Conan was to Middle Earth: gritty. If you strip away the business side and the large leap from Forgotten Realms, I think it's a great pulp sci-fi setting on its own.
Which is fair enough!
I think at the time I was bought the original D&D boxed booklets, and even when the City State arrived, there were two UK importers for the whole country here, so it was never easy - or cheap - getting hold of any of the US-published items. Made it all a bit more special though!
Hmmm. Have to give this some thought.
Started playing TTRPG's seriously in early 2000 at the ripe old age of 37.
I'd been introduced to D&D via the Dragonlance novels in the early '80s and bought the Red Box Basic set with Sturm Brightblade facing off against a Dragon on the cover. Found a local game, no idea how back then - no internet and phones were either firmly affixed to a wall or attached via a cord! That first game didn't really do it for me so I left it for a bit. Fast forward a decade or so, and I ended up buying the Baldurs Gate computer game for my first Mac, a model LC575 (I think) an upgrade from my Apple IIe... At the time I was heavily into fantasy literature and had aspirations of becoming an author. I convinced my significantly better half to buy me the D&D 3E Player Handbook as an aid to character development. As a bonus, I scored Chaosium's, Dragonlords of Melnibone, I'm an avid fan of Moorcocks Eternal Champion novels, featuring Elric! of course, Dorian Hawkmoon, Corum and Erkose and a few sundry others in passing. I think you maybe able to guess where this long-winded post is heading...
Anyhow, to cut a long story very short, I ended up finding a group playing AD&D 2ED in Greyhawk. Then a couple of the younger guys and I left to play 3E blah, blah and I've been playing with those guys regularly for 20 odd years.
During the debacle of 4E around 2009-2010 we became disillusioned with D&D and though we'd never played DLoM, it had an advert for Elric! the game. Some researching led me to Mongoose's Elric of Melnibone using their 2nd edition of the Runequest rules. I was hooked! We played a lengthy campaign in the Young Kingdoms of Elric's world - set quite a few years earlier than the stories, it was a blast and hence is my favourite fantasy TTRPG and setting. I have fond memories of the 3E Forgotten Realms, along with its stunning maps. I'd run a fantastic campaign there and we had some fun in Eberron to. I've always had a thing for the maps in games ever since I picked up the Red Box Set, and thankfully that continues to this day.
I don't play with that same bunch anymore, we started playing Pathfinder and having had my eyes open to Call of Cthulhu, well, let's just say my TTRPG tastes have changed somewhat...
I too bought the original three book D&D set along with Chainmail back in the 1970's. But my favourite world setting (apart from any of my own), is Mystara, which has an enormous fan-club. And the best adventure of all time (IMO), the Night's Dark Terror. I admit I could never get into Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk didn't have enough published for me to get that interested, although i did run a Wild Coast campaign based on the city of Safeton, for about a year while I was at uni (as a tutor, not an undergraduate - that goes back to the 60's!)
When I was doing fantasy, I played Empire of the Petal Throne. Now it is classic Third Imperium (Traveler 1105).