leadpipe
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Post by leadpipe on Feb 18, 2015 2:56:50 GMT
So I wonder what you guys have come up with for your settings, or what kind of setting you have been part of/are currently part of that you have loved. I think it's a rather cool discussion  I, sadly, haven't played many different settings. As some of you may know, I've had almost no player experience and about a month's worth of DM experience, and so far my settings have only been as varied as "From MMO-ish to Lord of the Rings-ish", the latter in a campaign I've been running for my family to introduce them (Which prolly wont last longer than 5 sessions). So I wonder what kind of settings have you laid for your campaigns? I figure it's something cool to talk about, and some people get some pretty cool ideas that others might've never considered before, such as a crusade or jihad across the dessert or a Mediterranean charting company. So don't be shy, go ahead and share |
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Post by 13thSyndicate on Feb 18, 2015 3:23:54 GMT
Well, as I mentioned in my opening post, I have done a FFX Pathfinder setting which I'm in the middle of typing up for y'all. And I once was toying with a Fate RPG hack based on the late Monty Oum's RWBY webseries.
But my pride and joy right now is a pure fantasy setting called Ellara, which is a world where every country is based on a unique element of magic. The world has thirteen elements and magic is all based on those elements... it's really cool.
But I won't talk too much about it because I'm already talking your ears off about the FFX setting....
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leadpipe
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Post by leadpipe on Feb 18, 2015 4:37:55 GMT
Hey, that Ellara setting sounds pretty cool! One of my ideas was running a game of Shadowrun that took place on my homecountry Costa Rica, just for shits 'n' giggles (plus, we're pretty much tools to the states and China anyways, so it would actually have potential for a storyarch about a trifectual fight for dominance between companies ) |
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Post by 13thSyndicate on Feb 18, 2015 5:03:25 GMT
That sounds pretty awesome, actually. TBH I don't know much about Costa Rica but doing a game set there would be so neat. It's too bad that most official games that take place in the modern world assume you're either here in the US or in Europe.
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imnvs
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Post by imnvs on Feb 18, 2015 9:41:21 GMT
When playing Shadowrun, I highly recommend you read up on the setting that comes with the game. The world is well developed and a LOT of countries or regions have some documentation for what's going on there. Obviously, a few have a lot more than others... but then, the game is primarily intended to be run out of Seattle because that's a place with a lot of stuff going on in that world (seeing as how it's a city technically owned by a country on the other side of the continent and mostly owned by the corps, surrounded by semi-hostile folk all around). Actually, if you're using a game that comes with a setting, or a setting already developed for a game... it's best to stick to what they've already put hours and hours of work into putting together instead of doing it all over again, unless you're used to the setting and know how you want to change it. As for me... I've played pure science fiction games (like Cyberpunk, Star Trek), pure fantasy games (like D&D, Palladium, Earthdawn) and science fantasy games (like Shadowrun, Star Wars, Rifts). The only game I've devised my own setting, however, was for a D&D campaign from long ago... the primary land mass was a large continent divided into four main kingdoms and each corresponded to one of the four primary elements (there were other smaller countries too), and this was all before I ever saw any Avatar: The Last Airbender.  The opposing element countries did count each other enemies and at war constantly. Someone from those countries that wanted to play a wizard was required to play a specialist wizard that specialized in that country's element. There was a fifth large country that took up less space on the map than a city would... because they were extra-dimensional, accessed through their "doorstep" on an island in the centre of the continent, wedged between the other four countries. Anyone wanting to play a character from that country was required to play a wizard... and this being D&D 2e and everyone from that country being human, they were free to dual-class, but their first level had to be wizard. It was high fantasy, this world, with airships powered by captive air elementals, boats powered by water elementals, etc. Not everyone was a wizard, as it may sound, but the world was wizard-friendly and they ran with it. |
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Post by 13thSyndicate on Feb 18, 2015 18:11:15 GMT
I've always played fantasy games with essentially custom settings. I like building my own worlds and so has everyone I've played with. But, that's just the group of players I play with. I think the only real 'official' setting I've played with is Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic, and we used the setting and threw out the rules because they're bad. |
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Moonjuice7
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Post by Moonjuice7 on Feb 18, 2015 18:36:07 GMT
One of my favorites was playing at a post-apocalyptic version of my university. I didn't tell my players (most of whom are also students). I Just ran it and let them figure it out about 4 sessions in. It was a lot of fun.
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Post by 13thSyndicate on Feb 18, 2015 18:56:50 GMT
My mom (who's a huge gamer) tells a story of how she and her friends were playing Stalking, and since they were in the town that they all lived in, they were using IRL directions over their intercom to confuse the bad guys, it was apparently a whole lot of fun XD
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AnarchsCry
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Post by AnarchsCry on Feb 18, 2015 23:12:44 GMT
I'm rather a setting whore. Between being the primary GM for my group and doing some writing on the side, I've got piles of worlds, many of which I've never gotten to run. There's a few that I've really developed, though, if we want to go down that road.
The big one, and my pet project, is ApocSaga. The whole thing is divided into four segments (ApocOne through ApocFour), each one a particular portion of a rather long timeline. Add in the timey-wimey ball in the last act, and the whole thing gets complicated. "ApocOne: A World Collapsed" is a post-apocalyptic setting, after fairly benevolent aliens land on earth and open trade relations. Unfortunately, they brought along one of their native diseases which spreads to humanity. A couple twists later, and we wind up with most of the world dead, most of the survivors having gone insane and feral, and the rest of them possessing mutations both cosmetic and beneficial. The PCs are in the last group. I'm currently running the third iteration of ApocOne with my local group, after various electronics failures caused the old data to be lost.
"ApocTwo: A Mutation and a Madness" takes place thousands of years after the end of ApocOne, after the world has largely reset. Humanity has largely returned to the state it was in before ApocOne, and all evidence of the past has vanished. The same plague that arrived in that distant past hasn't left, though, and it has become active again. Yet this time it isn't killing. Mutations are occuring, but they're not the same low-key physical mutations from ApocOne. In short, ApocTwo is a rather human superhero setting, where heroism is still in short order and discrimination against Metahumans runs high. There's a lot of inspiration from X-Men in there, though I've worked to distance myself from it. The PCs are metahumans, and the focus is on how they use their powers and the way the world reacts to them. Less comic book, more human drama.
"ApocThree: Midian's Gifts" is one I'm still working on fleshing out. It started by interpreting the Rush song "2112" through the lens of a few characters from ApocTwo, and with most of my effort currently going into the first two Apocs, I haven't really gotten around to going past that. I know for sure, though, that the same aliens that arrived in ApocOne make their comeback here.
"ApocFour: Universal Destruction" is the endgame. The timeline has advanced another couple thousand years, and we wind up with future tech developing. Cybernetics and robotics are ubiquitis, but the important part is the Temportals: devices allowing instantaneous transport through space and time. Then the war starts, and we wind up with the basic problem with a Time War. Each side abuses the Temportals to pre-empt strikes from the other side, leading to a lot of wear on space-time. Things begin to unravel, and reality starts to break down. The PCs are drawn from different time periods (including ApocOne through ApocThree), recruited to fight a shadow war to set right the things that are going wrong throughout time, and hopefully repair the damage done by the Time War. This is also where we start explaining some of the stranger things from the first three Apocs. Non-linear time is in full force, and I'm still working on getting everything written out in a way that makes some semblence of sense. ApocFour is one I'm still waiting to run, what with the timeline being so tangled. But oh, the plans.
I've got a sizable list of other settings I've developed, but none of them have gotten the kind of love ApocSaga has. At this point, I'm probably going to be writing a full storyline for the whole thing, though I'm leaning towards a graphic novel for most of it. I just don't have the art skills for it, and there's a lot of gaps in the metaplot that need filled in. It's a goal, at least.
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leadpipe
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Post by leadpipe on Feb 19, 2015 0:31:47 GMT
Welp, yeah, you could definitely get a novel or rather a saga out of all of that Also, everytime I run fantasy games I like running my own settings as well. I really hate having the geography and social background of the world my players play in being memorized (Although I would never dare mess up a module, specially an official one). |
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Post by Vorgh R on Mar 10, 2015 21:41:27 GMT
I dunno, my best experience DMing was actually running a Forgotten Realms game on 3.5. Maybe it was because my players weren't excessively familiar with the setting in the beggining, but even after they'd poured through a bit of the FR books, they didn't try to dictate the world to me too much (and whenever they did, I called them out on it pretty quick so it didn't become a recurring thing).
I felt the same way as you about campaign settings at first, but reading FR totally changed my mind. It was just so much more complex and fleshed out than I could manage on my own, it felt really good to use it.
Plus, I think a lot of DMs underestimate how much personal touch you can imbue to a prepackaged setting, especially a well designed one. There's always a lot left for you to interpret, and the way you present it to the PCs also makes a lot of difference. And that's to say nothing of the convenience.
Long story short, I wouldn't dismiss running a prepackaged setting before you try it (or at least gave a good one a read, for inspiration if nothing else).
PS: a shadowrun set in Costa Rica sounds awesome! I kinda wanted to create/expand a shadowrun setting in Brazil (where I'm from) and the rest of South America too. It's just fun to imagine how your own region would fare after the Awakening, hehe!
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Moonjuice7
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Post by Moonjuice7 on Mar 11, 2015 5:55:13 GMT
Slightly off topic, But just wanted to say welcome to Vorgh, and we invite you to make an account. I would love to hear what you do (if anything) with your brazil based setting, and if you ever run it (in portuguese or english) let me know.
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leadpipe
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Post by leadpipe on Mar 12, 2015 0:30:07 GMT
Yeah, Shadowrun is a game that really allows you to explore the world, and that's something I like. It gives enough information to give you a general idea, but not too much as too make it almost uncustomizable |
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stlaughter
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Post by stlaughter on Mar 12, 2015 2:31:46 GMT
A friend ran a game where the idea was that your players start out as the equivalent of dumb hicks, knowing nothing of the immediate area- then stuff happens and the party explores the world. The neat thing was that everything was player-designed, with players told "ok, now elaborate where we are" or "tell us what this class' role is in this world". Really fun. We ended up fighting a God of Rot with the help of the Shadow Queen and an ancient society of wizard-maguses focused on battleaxes.
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leadpipe
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Post by leadpipe on Mar 12, 2015 21:54:20 GMT
That sounds cool! I would love to do something like that for my players how did you manage it? |
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The opposing element countries did count each other enemies and at war constantly. Someone from those countries that wanted to play a wizard was required to play a specialist wizard that specialized in that country's element. There was a fifth large country that took up less space on the map than a city would... because they were extra-dimensional, accessed through their "doorstep" on an island in the centre of the continent, wedged between the other four countries. Anyone wanting to play a character from that country was required to play a wizard... and this being D&D 2e and everyone from that country being human, they were free to dual-class, but their first level had to be wizard. It was high fantasy, this world, with airships powered by captive air elementals, boats powered by water elementals, etc. Not everyone was a wizard, as it may sound, but the world was wizard-friendly and they ran with it.
