What setting does your campaign use?

[Alcamtar]

I'm prepping for a new FH campaign and trying to decide between a homebrew or published setting. This isn't really a "sell me" thread, I'm just trying to sort through my thoughts.

 

(Also, it's nice to trade ideas and stuff with an online community and I'm wondering how many folks are using the Turakian Age. But I'd love to hear from everyone.)

 

Personally I enjoy homebrewing and that way you know it inside and out, but it can be a lot of work writing everything up from scratch. Also, a homebrew is limited to only my ideas and can feel stale and/or sketchy. A published setting does things differently than I would and as a result it seems large and mysterious, more real. It also stretches me as a GM far more than I'd ever push myself. Anyone else find this to be true?

 

So...

 

What campaign setting are you using? Why did you choose it? How is it working out?

 

If you've run or played in other FH campaigns in the past, what setting did you find most successful? Least successful? Why?

 

Mike

[Shike019]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Well, I'm currently writing a fantasy setting. (no where near done), but playing in a champions game. I'm also playing a d20 game (yes I know, but I still like the system some) in the Forgotten Realms. (as I haven't finished my world yet.)

[Eosin]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

We (our group) uses two primary settings.

 

Modern Day games use Dark Champions - Hudson City with a touch of the fantastic to it (like the X-Files but way watered down). THere are a few costumed freaks but mainly it is bad guys with guns.

 

Fantasy uses The Last Dominion - a setting I published under license from DOJ. To be honest, I pull from everything when running a fantasy game and tend to find myself most influneced by Vampire: Dark Ages, Arthurian Tales that take place just after the Romans withdraw, Midnight, Lovecraftian Mythos/Monsters, and 7th Sea (pretty Lovecraftian if you ask me).

 

I am thinking that I would like to run a fantasy game of Dark Champions where the Player Characters struggle against the bad guys in some medieval "urban abyss." It would run much like a cross between Delta Green and standard Dark Champions. Ugly stuff and ugly people are out there in positions of authority and the only way to oppose them is to strike from stealth and security.

 

PS - our most successful games have been using those two settings. We have tried a strait Birthright, Greyhawk, and Star Wars game but they never catch the spark.

[Curufea]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Heavily modified Western Shores

[CourtFool]

Champions of Faerûn

 

I had tried to create my own homebrew, but I was no where near completed when I started a campaign with it. The players really noticed that it was not complete and I think it hurt that campaign badly. Since then, I have not had time to sit down and really bang out a world. I know a lot of people suggest starting small, with say a village and build as the players begin to explore. That is exactly what I had tried to do, but failed miserably.

 

I now use Eberron and Forgotten Realms. There is plenty of material to use and most gamers are at least vaguely familiar with the settings. I found quite a wealth of free material for Forgotten Realms on The Website Which Shall Not Be Named.

 

I have seriously considered using The Turakian Age. I may in some future campaign.

[Alcamtar]

Re: Champions of Faerûn

 

I had tried to create my own homebrew' date=' but I was no where near completed when I started a campaign with it. The players really noticed that it was not complete and I think it hurt that campaign badly.[/quote']

 

That burned me in the last campaign I ran (set in the Wilderlands): I started early and improvised too much. I have a strong desire not to repeat that experience.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I'm using a homebrew - Via. I certainly haven't fleshed out the whole thing, but I do have a good overall view of what it's like and where the really major cities are located. But it's meant to be a slight parody of a fantasy world, and contradictions and impossibilities are the name of the game. So, I feel quite comfortable making up the details as I go along.

[teh bunneh]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I run a homebrew world. It's (obviously) not complete, but I find that when the players ask questions or make assumptions, it helps me fill in the facts. When the players ask, "What's the duke of so-and-so like?" I can respond, "You don't know, but you can do a little research..." Over the next few days I figure out who the duke is and why he's that way, and then at next week's game I tell them, "You've talked to some people who know him. The duke is ..."

 

And now, I have a writeup of the duke for my own sourcebook.

[CourtFool]

my hat of d02 nose know bounds

 

I think part of the problem I experienced came from dealing with players from the Game Which Will Not Be Mentioned. I am frequently assaulted with questions like, “What class can I be?†When I answer, “Whatever you want.†I get a blank stare.

 

They fear freedom.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I use Eberron, d20 or HERO.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Concerning incomplete homebrew campaigns, I am of the same mind as bill.

 

When I built my old AD&D campaign (back in the late 70's - early 80's), I started running the game with only a few sketchy notes, a bloody huge world map, and a damn fine bunch of players. When they noticed that most of the map was blank (except for really major terrain features), I set them upon a mission of discovery not unlike the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

 

That one mission took up about 2 years of in-game time and almost 8 months of real time. During that time, my players mapped a large expanse of the main continent and established a trade route between two coasts... not at all what they expected from a fantasy game.

 

I ended up with a very satisfied group and a much more fleshed out campaign world. I also noted numerous plot hooks for future adventures where my gang would return to further explore the more exotic areas that they didn't have time for the first go-around.

[Fitz]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I've tried using published milieus for my campaign, but I always end up going back to my homebrew -- its been evolving peripatetically for the last 25 years or so and still is nowhere near complete, but I prefer to develop as I go rather than having to learn somebody else's stuff. That's too much like work.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I'm using a homebrew world. I'm just now getting started with the campaign. The first thing I did was draw a "world map" which is actually just an island about the size of Australia where the party will adventure. I then came up with several playable races and a background for each race. Then, I fleshed out the major historical events. Finally, I split the island up into provinces roughly the size of Texas and gave a brief description for each. I haven't yet bothered to place any cities except for one major one.

 

During chargen, I asked my players where they wanted to be from, suggesting their race's home area for the location. I let them decide how big the city was and what it was like. Thus, Harborville and Tuscon were born. Yeah, Tuscon, like the one in Arizona.

 

I haven't run a scenario yet but I should start on that next week. A bunch of my friends were away last night so I couldn't start just yet.

 

I'd highly suggest homebrewing if you've got a lot of time. If you don't, I'm sure TA plays just fine.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Also, I don't reveal any of the history or specific geography to the players unless they have the appropriate KS's. This gives a very nice bonus to someone who puts some points into KS: Local History. Otherwise, it remains a mystery to the players (and me too hehe).

[Curufea]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I reward my players for filling in the blanks in my homebrew.

[keithcurtis]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I use Hero specifically because I enjoy homebrewing. Too many other systems are so intimately tied to their settings that it's nigh impossible to do something different. For generic systems, I have run both Hero and GURPS, but settled on Hero because even GURPS cannot shake an adherence to an official mechanic. With Hero I can envision the world first, and then adapt the rules to fit my vision. Very few compromises.

 

In point of fact, almost any time I have contemplated an off-the-shelf world, I have failed to summon up the level of interest necessary to hold me till the end of the book. I can't even find the passion for adapting an existing property (Serenity, Farscape, etc.) My enjoyment as GM comes from creating.

 

Keith "YMMV" Curtis

[Yesman]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I'm gearing up to start my second campaign using the SJgames Yrth setting.

 

Before that I used a homebrew setting loosely based off of Fading Suns, but re-imagined back into a medieval fantasy setting.

[tkdguy]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I use a bunch of different sources, particularly Warhammer and 7th Sea. There is no magic in this campaign, but there's a lot of swashbuckling swordplay and cinematic (but not wuxia level) kung fu.

[teh bunneh]

Re: my hat of d02 nose know bounds

 

I think part of the problem I experienced came from dealing with players from the Game Which Will Not Be Mentioned. I am frequently assaulted with questions like' date=' “What class can I be?†When I answer, “Whatever you want.†I get a blank stare.[/quote']

 

There's an easy way around that, Llama. When they ask what class they can be, tell them, "Oh, the usual -- fighter, paladin, wizard, bard, whatever." They'll create a character just like they were playing D&D, but eventually someone will say, "I'd like my paladin to be able to pick locks, 'cause he used to sneak out of the seminary at night..."

 

You tell him that of course he can do that -- just buy the appropriate skill. "What, I don't have to waste tons of points because it's a cross-class skill?" Nope, sez you, just go for it. It may take a few sessions for this fact to catch on, but when it does, watch your players' eyes light up with the possibilities.

[Kabluey]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

At least based on the replies, I'm one of the few people who actually uses a published setting, Harn specifically. Like a lot of the people here, I've been GMing 20+ years or so, and in that time I've created quite a few worlds. But I've never really been happy with them. I've tried various approaches, but none of them have really worked satisfactorily for me.

 

Harn meets my desire for a consistent, low-magic, realistic-yet-still-fantastic world. It's got beautiful maps, and since it's been supported now for over 20 years, there's a ton of information out for it (including an inordinate amount that is fan-produced and of high quality and free).

 

We're still pretty early in the campaign, but thus far it's worked out wonderfully. I've sent the party on a quest that will take them from one end of Harn to the other, thus giving me the opportunity to show off all the wonderful places I've been reading about, and will give me the chance to tie in to some of the bigger political plots present in Harn (the Jarin rebellion and the Kaldor succession crisis, to be specific).

 

And overall I think the players have responded well to it. I was a little concerned, given that we all had a long D&D/high-magic background, but thus far the response to Harn's lower-magic setting has been quite positive.

[Markdoc]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Homebrew. There are certain "official" worlds that I have enjoyed GM'ing (principally Tekumel and Glorantha) and I have done a number of "historical" campaigns (I actually like that because it's less work), but like Fitz, I always end up looping back to my own homebrew.

 

What I tend to do, though is run each campaign in a different part of the world, so that I flesh out a new magic system, new culture, new geography, etc, each time I do it, thus extending the level of detail of the world.

 

cheers, Mark

[Krieghandt]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Hybred I like to take the initial release of a world, and change a few odds and ends, then move it in a new direction. My next one will be TA, but I've already rewritten the League cities histories and race compisitions. I've also added in salt and buffalo trading systems in the player areas (ALWAYS annoyed me where all those carnivores were getting lunch. At 1200 lbs, a bull buffalo presents a good sized snack) I've also stolen ideas from Keith "keep creating" Curtis that have changed things as well. Namely the magic ranges/decay rates in Savage Earth. Now my wilderness stays wild

Krieghandt

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I reward my players for filling in the blanks in my homebrew.

As do I. I've been giving out contacts and XP for filling in gaps.

 

Sadly, only one player is still cooperating. Ah, well. He's a LEAST as creative as I am . . .

[Edsel]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

Currently I have a character in Eosin's Last Dominion campaign.

 

The last time I ran a Fantasy Hero campaign I used a homebrew that borrowed from several places (Westen Shores, SJ Games Yrth, Middle Earth, etc.)

[Alcamtar]

Re: What setting does your campaign use?

 

I've also stolen ideas from Keith "keep creating" Curtis that have changed things as well. Namely the magic ranges/decay rates in Savage Earth. Now my wilderness stays wild

Krieghandt

 

Do you have a link?