No.423574
Sure, there's always the chance to make your own setting. Most of us in the end will make one at some point. All the same, there was something great about cracking open a published setting book to pour through these labors of love, properly polished through editing teams and productive meetings. And all that hard work, right in your hands. And in one or more tomes, you hold the knowledge to an entire universe for you to explore with your friends. While in-depth setting books aren't as easy to come back nowadays, they were a thing of beauty back in the day.
So, let's talk about your favorite gaming settings, doesn't even have to be D&D. Preferably old school (pre New Millenium, maybe even prior to that). Let's celebrate our favorite moments and worlds, recanting glories of days gone by.
For starters, what's your favorite classic setting and why?
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No.423575
>>423574
For me, it's The Known World/Mystara, which embodied BECMI D&D. It's a world rife with exploration, politics and the fantastical. Despite being high magic in a lot of the world, it still felt grounded and relatable. Its Earth-inspired cultures didn't feel completely copy-paste either (like with the Forgotten Realms), they felt developed and felt like they belonged in a fantasy world. Plus, the players could make their own impact in multiple ways; helping to develop and mold lands, even ascend into immortal deity-like powers.
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No.423599
I am just now realizing that I don't think I've ever read a campaign setting on its own. Adventures set in it? Sure. Summaries? Of course. But I never sat down with, say, Spelljammer or Shadowrun and read the whole thing. I suppose I should get around to that if I have any plans on my own setting being worthwhile?
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No.423619
I loved spelljammer. I loved pirates, space, sci-fi, magic stuff, whatever, as a kid. Spelljammer gave me all of that. The ship rules were wonk, but it was easy to fix that.
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No.423982
Gotta be Dark Sun. The overpowered kreen, rampant psionics, defiling magic, giant bug caravans, cannibal halflings, brutal pseudo-god sorceror kings and their city states, weirdo monsters, fruit potions, lack of metal, unique dragon evolution - all great stuff
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No.424066
>>423982
Dark Sun was great! You needed larger than life characters beyond starting level just to handle the harshness of the wasteland! Society is awful, but everything beyond is worse! Undead with a vengeful streak against anything not of the Old World, massive abominations that either pre-date the apocalypse or were melded by it, completely insane psykers who will mind-rape you for seemingly no reason at all, rogue defilers on the run from Sorcerer-Kings' agents (but they're fine with killing off a few witnesses) and more! It was grimdark done right.
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No.424305
>>423599
I'm in the same boat anon. I've always created my own settings or taken things from books and films to use in them. The closest I've come is reading the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook in its entirety, although each of their sourcebooks are meant to be compatible and explore different cultures and events from the same world, so I don't know anyone who can say they're familiar with the entire setting.
My first D&D was 5e and their settings were boring as fuck. 3.5e and earler seemed to have some interesting settings but at that point I was already so used to using books as inspiration for my own settings that I didn't want to bother, but the allure still exists.
I think part of it is the fear of making some great contradiction whilst improvising a scene, so I'm more comfortable doing that in my own setting where I can take any contradictions I make in-game and amend them in my setting notes. The only way to allay the fear would be to invest a lot of time in learning the ins and outs of the whole setting, however it's far more interesting to me to create the ins and outs of my own. Anyone else have this problem?
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No.424313
>>423574
The most fascinating campaign world I've seen would be Arduin. Everything about it screams being the work of a creative mind. Never mind that the game books themselves are useful as a supplement, but there's a lot of passion; more than that, there's a lot which shows that it was the work of a world developed at and for the table, rather than one some fellow dreamed up and then decided might work for a game setting.
Also, the Thri-Keen are just inferior rip-offs of the Phraints.
>>424305
>Anyone else have this problem?
It's a good problem to have. Campaign settings can be evocative tools, but you're ultimately better off running your own thing; and most of the time, you'll find more evocative writing in actual books, so in practice, any setting that fills up more than an appendix is giving you diminishing returns.
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No.424316
>>424313
Arduin is also based because it pissed off old man Gygax.
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No.424321
>>424316
What? How does Gygax.hating something make it based? As far as old men goes he is far more reasonable then 98% of them.
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No.424323
>>424321
Arduin is a product of that era in game history where D&D came out, and everyone immediately got to writing their own shit - the same exact thing that Gygax did when he realized how fucking amazing Blackmoor was when Arneson ran it. Gygax ousted Arneson and the rest of his folks from TSR, and managed to drive out the Kuntz brothers in the process, and immediately began turning his gaze onto anything that remotely looked like it might take away profits (the same exact thing he never forgave the Tolkien estate for doing to him). TSR changed direction from producing supplements and content to reformatting rules; they stopped encouraging house-rules and demanded standardization; they focused in on tournament modules with pre-made stories (this path eventually evolving into Dragonlance, the black road to railroading and Kender); they worked, in other words, to do the exact opposite of everything that OD&D and Arduin stood for.
Things Gygax liked prior to around 1974 can generally be considered good. Things Gygax liked after he was ousted from TSR and got the same treatment from the new management as he gave Arneson, can also generally be considered good. But that interim period where he managed TSR, he never spoke a single honest word.
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No.424399
>>424323
>But that interim period where he managed TSR, he never spoke a single honest word.
Welcome to business, I lie sweet little lies as readily as I breath as part of my job. So I fail to see or understand why his opinion actually matters to decide if something is based or not.
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No.424410
>>424399
I fail to see or understand why it actually matters if something is based or not.
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No.424422
>>424399
It's pretty simple:
>everything Gygax said post-Classic era was to benefit TSR profits
>everything TSR sold post-Classic era was shit
>therefore, things Gygax spoke out against in that era were good
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No.424465
>>424410
>>424422
That's just business, all I see is that Arduin has no inherent value if you have to use Gygax's opinion to judge it.
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No.424466
>>424465
*And after some double fact checking I noticed a rather large discrepency in that Gygax only had full control of TSR for at most 2-3 years, being outplayed by the Blume family and his control over the company slipping as the years went by. My intuition tells me you got all your info about Gygax from hearsay.
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No.424474
>>423575
Hell yeah Mystara. Right now Im buying the gazetteers I can. Might run it for some people but in the ACK system. I wish people did more of the higher level stuff and immortals was written better.
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No.424477
>>424465
The "inherent quality" is already noted here:
>>424313
Nor does one necessarily preclude the other. Faulty logic.
As per company control, the statement was not that Gygax had full control, but that Gygax had ousted Arneson and the rest of his group. At the time, Kaye being dead, the board was Gygax and Blume as directors; and then the Kuntz brothers, Carr, Sutherland, Megarry, and Arneson. The Minnesota group intended to put Melvin Blume on as a third director, didn't secure the votes, and were ousted. Arneson left, Megarry left, and both Kuntz brothers left. This being around '76. The degree of control Gygax maintained did slip over time. This all being accounted for by Kuntz, as well as by checking the records - your intuition, like your logic, is faulty.
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No.424486
>>424477
>The "inherent quality" is already noted here:
Since I cannot verify if you said that previous post or not, I am not going to take it into account when addressing you specifically. I acknowledge it, but I am still excluding it. Since the next post after it is bringing up the opinion of a guy which amounts more to him just being an embittered and jaded bussinessman instead of being a politically driven ideologue.
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No.424592
>>424465
I never cared about Gary's opinion. I love Arduin, whether or not Gary Gygax did either. Even if you don't play it, the setting and beyond is a gold mine for ideas.
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No.425084
>>423619
Once you strip out the silliest stuff, Spelljammer is pretty much the perfect science fantasy setting for me.
Plus, the 1889-space Polyhedron article just adds to the tech aspect for me, even though I don't play Space 1889...
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