Quote from: Arkansan;688890Right, a good DM can make a fun game even in a boring setting. I just wondered what kind of things people see in the context of a classic D&D setting that they take notice of.

No, boring is just boring. The question, I think, is (a) where the familiar comes in, and (b) where the novel comes in.

I personally found Empire of the Petal Throne and Metamorphosis Alpha easy to get into because the essential game structure (as well as the mechanics) was familiar: home base, dungeons, wilderness; monsters, traps and treasures. The colorful peculiarities of the planet Tekumel or the starship Warden -- both generally, and each GM's take -- were cumulatively of the same order as what I might expect in a campaign more prominently featuring the baseline material in D&D (pseudo-Tolkien, Greek mythology, touches of various fantasy and SF writers, monster movies, etc.).

There was also the factor that some of the inspirations for EPT and MA were as familiar to me as some of those for D&D. Coming from a background of SF fandom (of that particular era, one of a renaissance in publication of much old material) helped, as did a general interest in history and anthropology in the case of EPT.

On the other hand, some people find the first impressions of those worlds too strange. They more quickly get their bearings in a milieu strongly reminiscent of Tolkien's (or Norse Mythology's) Middle Earth, Howard's  Hyborian Age, popular depictions of Arthur's or Robin Hood's England, or some combination of like evocations.

Quote from: Arkansan;688897is there a bad way to go about a "vanilla" D&D setting? Can it be done "wrong"?

If it's too bland, has no personality of its own at all, doesn't help the users to plug their imagination into it in any way, shape or form, that there just isn't anything in the world that just begs for a band of adventurers to "get out there, and get exploring", I believe something would be wrong in D&D's context, yes. I think it basically can be done wrong.

Quote from: Benoist;688895(Good game products) ... provide the context, leave room for personal touches, empower players and DM to breathe their own life into the thing. To play THEIR own game. To unlock their own imagination, and run with it.

Just so. The original Wilderlands of High Fantasy and City State of the Invincible Overlord, the Gygaxian folio and boxed editions of World of Greyhawk, and so on, provided a foundation of preliminary matters. At the same time, they did not dictate very much beyond that even if one chose to modify nothing presented. I would include the first edition of the Forgotten Realms boxed set in that category, although the detailed supplements on various regions start to go beyond.

Later products have tended to pin down so much that "canon" easily becomes a burden. At the extreme -- what seems par for the course today -- they do not so much relieve the GM of labor as impose a lot of work in study, as if playing the game were supposed to be like going to school or holding down a professional job.

Sort of similar to a lot of what's been said: the vanilla elements are good grounding material, a backdrop that's instantly familiar.

But what makes such a setting "pop" for me are those bits of localized weirdness, like Greyhawk's cambion-lord Iuz or the white pudding mother in the adventure outlines chapter of the '83 box.

That said, I do enjoy settings that are a bit left of center, like Aos/Gib's Metal Earth, but even they still retain a certain familiarity.

Can't say I find anything of interest in a vanilla setting to be honest. Give me sweeping canyons with cities hanging from the spanning bridges, give me wastelands where jewels on the wind have eroded pillars of rock into glyphs telling the secrets of aeons past, a different one from each point of arcane compasses, give me acid seas sailed over by great and wise stone ships, jungles where cocooners dwell under silverine moongroves and civilisations formed of whispers drive men mad.

I don't want to wander through fantasy analogues of historical countries in a fantasy game unless the game is specifically sold on the basis of being 'fantasy Europe' or something, like Ars Magica, which is a lot of fun. Takes on Tolkien meets trope aren't of much interest either.

That's not to say everything has to be breathtaking, inns and markets exist in most places, but even 'normal' countries should be different and unique, it shouldn't take much more than a couple of paragraphs for players to find their feet.

I totally get why other people like them and play in them though. Having something to focus on and connect with immediately can be very useful, then the game can be built on that basis.

NO Elves or Dwarves - I'm Sick of them.


Stuff that looks 'familiar' - yet somehow still breaks stereotypes somewhat.


- Ed C.

Quote from: The Traveller;688935I totally get why other people like them and play in them though. Having something to focus on and connect with immediately can be very useful, then the game can be built on that basis.

Yes, and different people can immediately focus on different things. My friends can't "connect with" superhero games because they have no background as fans of the comicbooks. Past a few levels, D&D becomes likewise too ludicrous to them. They have little acquaintance with the sword & sorcery genre apart from D&D, so references to Dunsany, Howard, Le Guin, Leiber, Norton, C. A. Smith, Vance, etc. -- indeed, to Tolkien's work as opposed to movie adaptations -- are likely to bewilder them.

Quote from: The Traveller;688935I totally get why other people like them and play in them though. Having something to focus on and connect with immediately can be very useful, then the game can be built on that basis.

I went with a sort of 'fantasy Europe' aesthetic for my own recent campaign (in the other subforum there). In defense of that sort of thing, a campaign world doesn't exist just for PCs to explore; it also gives them places to come from, so that players have a range of character concepts.

A little bit of humor. I'm not turned off by the ducks in RuneQuest, for example.

Personality. Those little touches where the personality and obsessions of the GM shines through. The Clint Eastwood gags in in the 1st Ed Warhammer FRP adventures, for example.

Cool names. Early Forgotten Realms was great in this regard.

A sense of swashbucklery and roguish freebooting. Heroes that smile and laugh and jump around and romance girls. Corny old-movie stuff. The stuff that made the first Star Wars movie great.

Quote from: Piestrio;688873Plain settings are where it's at for me.

I like to focus on the actual game happening. What the are characters doing, what's happening, etc...

Too much focus on "setting" and making it "deep" or "unique" tends to distract from the immediate act of playing IMO.

It's similar to the way too much focus on "plot" or "rules" distracts from the actual act of role-playing.

A little is good, a lot is bad.

The most interesting and compelling thing in the game pales in comparison to the act of discovering that thing. So much so that the exact details of the thing aren't really that important.

If that makes any sense.

I don't use canned settings, but I always find that it is in the details that vanilla gains subtle favors.

I'm not much for 'vanilla fantasy'... if by that you mean the vaguely Eurocentric Faux-Tolkienesque stuff that most fantasy double-dodecadologies are written about. Like a bad ren-faire with LOTS of magical doodads.

I do like the early Warhammer setting though... at least as filtered through the Enemy Within Campaign. Maybe it's the lower magic level and dark humor. Maybe it's because I can picture the peasantry there, out working on their farms and not wandering very far from them. A pack of wild dogs (or beastmen) still feels like a viable threat.
If magic starts to be ubiquitous then I'd just as soon go full Planescape/Spelljammer/Arduin Grimoire kitchen sink.

I have a review show, which does not make me more qualified but it does mean I try to be articulate about what works and what does not. The terminology I came up with is a setting should be a bit like a salad bar; well stocked with good options so the participants can assemble the "meal" they want. Warriors, wizards, etc... so long as the setting presents a good spread in terms of decent material, then the setting is doing its job. It need not be cutting edge or "great" but it should facilitate a game with possibilities that can be combined to make something great.

This is why I hate 4E FR, because in this metaphor all the little pots of bacon bits, sweets peas and tuna salad were replaced with pots containing nothing but wilting lettuce. And not even wilting romaine lettuce, just regular ol' wilting lettuce.

setting is really important for me. I see the D&D rules and monster lists as providing a rich range of options for a DM to add to their setting.

I think when a DM makes no effort with setting the immersion fells less partly becuase the PCs have no context but mostly becuase the DM hasn;t really thought about settign and so can't convey it well to the palyers.

Now Settings can be broadly described so,  Meltibor is a quasi Roman world. The Bachian Empire that rules this are they impose a common language and have a strong military based on legions that recruit ... to the east are barbarian lands of the great stepps, the to south the dense jungle kingdoms of Jan home to the Elven Hos tribes and to the west the great Ocean adnd the island of ...

Just from writing a paragraph the players get a feel for how the world is different and how its the same as default D&D. Will there be triefilings, Dragon born etc how do those races fit in to the wider world? What classes or kits are open to elves? what goss are there etc etc ...

The setting need to be a little cliched and must be grokable almost from the get go but little things like Brachian empire coins being described as Gold Eagles, or coppers as Denari or whatever just add a little colour. The same is then true of food, technology, this setting doesn't have Plate mail its more iron age than medieval etc.

I think a DM spending a few minutes coming up with a setting is worth hours and hours of work on an individual dungeon or a bunch of NPCs.

I have impatience with DMs that use the generic D&D setting with no thought of how it fits together. Dave plays a Dragonborn, where do they come from? is there is kingdom of them are they common rare? how are they treated by the other races? what are the other races etc etc ...
Now this gets worse when you add the extra splats or go to later D&D with more and more races and classes and so on.

When I was younger the trapping of genre was what important the cool swords, spaceships, whatever. But now what I find what hooks me is cool characters and good acting.

While RPGs are not tv or film, I also had a similar shift in that is that what hooks me is good character both PCs and NPCs and interesting situations revolving around characters. Cool guns, tech, magic, have lost much of their former fascination. Sure I am always interested in something new and good, but I find what hold my interest more is people and the situation around them.

There are only a finite number of guns, spells, and monsters and eventually a player will become become familiar with all of them. The only thing left that is interesting is what you do with them or what occurs that involves them.

One way of dealing with this is to switch games. Even within a narrow genre a new game and the new campaign for that game can bring back much of the novelty as you learns to master the system. But even that will get old as truly different designs in RPGs only come along once in a great while.

But luckily RPGs are not just a game but also about roleplaying which revolves around characters (PC and/or NPCs). A good campaign engages what I call the Soap Opera Effect, taking advantage of the fact that for many people what most interesting is other people. When properly done the Soap Opera effect allows even a mundane situation to become compelling and capable of holding interest for many sessions or an entire campaign.

And that bring me around to the original OP. Even a well used set of rules in a well trodden can create be used to create a great campaign if the referee create interesting and compelling situations and characters Even the most fantastic setting full of flavor can result in a dull campaign if  the situation and characters are weak. I am sure most here have experienced both.

What makes a vanilla fantasy setting interesting are the folks the referee chooses to populate it with. And the situations that he throws his players into.

I had to face this situation early on when I decided to stick with the Majestic Wilderlands as my main fantasy campaign. Especially with one group of players that I been with for nearly 25 years. Two things allowed it to remain fresh to this day. One that the players are able to create lasting changes small or large. Two that I have a wealth of interesting characters and situations for them to interact with that engages the Soap Opera effect.

An observation is that one reason that vanilla fantasy stuck around is that its familiarity allow it tropes to fade into the background and gamers can focus more on other aspects of the campaign, including those that are most apt to ignite a Soap Opera effect.

You can have a game with all the standard vanilla fantasy tropes, without making them inert cliches.

Portray the dwarves as intensely greedy for gold and suspicious of outsiders. The elves sapped with ennui and fatalism. The halflings as parochial yokels who care only for their creature comforts.

Knights and Kings and all that stuff? Okay, the knights are arrogant superjocks, kings are scheming and intolerant of any dissent, the peasantry dull-witted and resentful.

Orc and goblin invasions? They enslave those who they don't kill, and the orc and goblin camps swarm with slave traders. Communities that don't want to be looted secretly bribe the orcs. Allied defenders who stand up to the orcs in battle are defeated because of squabbling and incompetence. Refugees clog the roadways, and are locked out of towns and castles, leaving desperate mobs roaming the countryside.

Laboratories beneath wizard towers? Let your imagination run wild with experiments gone awry, arcane artifacts of ancient providence, and weird mystical effects.

Undead haunting graveyards? Evoke them as genuinely horrifying, corpse-devouring abominations.

Dragons? Fuck yeah. Think of an ancient and cunning wizard, obsessed with treasure, and then think of him in the body of a huge reptile.

Simply exaggerate every one of those tropes and you have a setting pulsing with color and drama.