My new favorite Setting is the Pathfinder Chronicles Setting. (from Paizo) And of course the Midnight Campaign Setting from FFG was great to, that is if you like Dark Fantasy, which i do.
Greetz
Ganzir
Favourite D&D Setting
I guess I'll bump this very old thread that was recently bumped not that long ago.
I love the idea of a premade world. I think it works out pretty well so long as you start small and then go big. I basically had a world created but when I started DMing my players insisted I use a premade world. Apparently they had some bad experiences with other DMs who had made their own. It sounded like instead of creating a simple, fun world, the DMs created huge, overpowering ideas that would make their campaign world so different, and the players just didn't care that much.
So I picked Forgotten Realms, and I like it.
I consider any place on the overall map to be only a vague idea. I draw up maps with a lot more towns and villages, more rivers and creeks, etc. I give them the flavor of Forgotten Realms, which I love, but with my own details. The Forgotten Realms have a wonderful mix of standard fantasy and crazy ****. Plus it's easy to get new players familiar with it. "In the Tuigan crusade, the Tuigan/Mongolians conquered Shou Lung/China by breaking down the Dragon/Great wall. Then they came west. They made a deal with the evil red people, Thay/Russia. The king of Cormyr/England called in allies and met them...." I know that sounds ridiculous, but it can help sometimes.
Right now I have them in the Moonshae Isles. I've given a thick Welsh/Irish theme and a clash with the Vikings. I read the Darkwalker on Moonshae books (which were some of the worst books I've ever read) to get a feel for it.
I don't like Dragonlance. I love Weis and Hickman, but from their Dragonlance books it seems like the entire world is on fire and under attack. I never got a feel for where people are happy, it just seems like everything is a ruin. The Realms have "the heartlands"... but I never got a feel for that in the Dragonlance books. It was just all chaos and woe, with humans living in little villages where they attempt to scrape by their meaningless lives.
For comparison, here is the map I drew up of Gwynneth (the roughly similarly shaped island in the middle) and the Moonshaes from the book. Yes, my scale is off. It should say about 70 miles instead of 100. That's because I'm not very good with the software yet. Anyway, you can see I'm basically creating my own campaign world inspired by what is provided in the premade set.
Detailed map of Gwynneth
Moonshae Isles
I love the idea of a premade world. I think it works out pretty well so long as you start small and then go big. I basically had a world created but when I started DMing my players insisted I use a premade world. Apparently they had some bad experiences with other DMs who had made their own. It sounded like instead of creating a simple, fun world, the DMs created huge, overpowering ideas that would make their campaign world so different, and the players just didn't care that much.
So I picked Forgotten Realms, and I like it.
I consider any place on the overall map to be only a vague idea. I draw up maps with a lot more towns and villages, more rivers and creeks, etc. I give them the flavor of Forgotten Realms, which I love, but with my own details. The Forgotten Realms have a wonderful mix of standard fantasy and crazy ****. Plus it's easy to get new players familiar with it. "In the Tuigan crusade, the Tuigan/Mongolians conquered Shou Lung/China by breaking down the Dragon/Great wall. Then they came west. They made a deal with the evil red people, Thay/Russia. The king of Cormyr/England called in allies and met them...." I know that sounds ridiculous, but it can help sometimes.
Right now I have them in the Moonshae Isles. I've given a thick Welsh/Irish theme and a clash with the Vikings. I read the Darkwalker on Moonshae books (which were some of the worst books I've ever read) to get a feel for it.
I don't like Dragonlance. I love Weis and Hickman, but from their Dragonlance books it seems like the entire world is on fire and under attack. I never got a feel for where people are happy, it just seems like everything is a ruin. The Realms have "the heartlands"... but I never got a feel for that in the Dragonlance books. It was just all chaos and woe, with humans living in little villages where they attempt to scrape by their meaningless lives.
For comparison, here is the map I drew up of Gwynneth (the roughly similarly shaped island in the middle) and the Moonshaes from the book. Yes, my scale is off. It should say about 70 miles instead of 100. That's because I'm not very good with the software yet. Anyway, you can see I'm basically creating my own campaign world inspired by what is provided in the premade set.
Detailed map of Gwynneth
Moonshae Isles
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