Campaign Setting and Adventure discussion - Everybody hates Dragonlance

Hexmage-PA

I've been working on a modified version of the Points of Light setting that I'm calling Godswinter. Here's an overview of the setting:

The War of Winter has ended. Khala, the goddess of winter, has emerged victorious. She and her allies are known collectively as the Pantheon of the Unending Winter, and together they reign over the struggling mortals of the frozen world. The Pantheon of the Lost Seasons, a group made-up of Pelor and the other enemies of Khala, has largely been subdued, and the power of the primal spirits is rapidly fading as much of nature dies in the supernatural cold.

At present the world is a place of cold and darkness. Warmth and daylight are rare, as a permanent solar eclipse blocks most of the sun's vitalizing rays. Massive glaciers carve the land, slowly but surely pulverizing the ruined cities of a bygone age. Undead tread the snow under the pall of darkness, terrorizing the small tribes of mortals still trying to eke out a living on the surface. Nearly all the major communities on the surface of the world are governed either by the Pantheon of the Unending Winter or the Pantheon of the Infernal Planes, an organization of gods who oppose Khala but are just as malevolent. Large numbers of people retreated for the relatively more habitable Underdark, but they are not safe; the evil races followed them underground, and the Underdark boasts many horrors of its own.

The primal spirits are dying, the gods who would oppose Khala stand on the brink of utter defeat, and many threats from other parts of the multiverse are preparing to attack the Astral Sea and obliterate the divided gods. Now that the gods and spirits have failed them, the only force that could possibly save the mortals of the world are the heroes in their midst.

Here's a write-up for yet-to-be-named a location in Godswinter. I'll bold the parts that are especially important:

The souls of those who die within in the dismal caverns of the Underdark belong to Torog, god of suffering and imprisonment. Those who wish to escape this fate must end their lives outside of the Underdark. The endless winter of the surface makes dying there a most unpleasant end, and the caves between the surface and the Underdark are filled by opportunisitic predators.

To counter these harsh realities and insure that as many souls as possible do not fall into Torog's awful clutches, the leaders of several otherwise warring underground city states have cooperated to construct a fortified city of mausoleums within the cavernous border between the surface and the Underdark. In this necropolis the strong-bodied and able toil alongside the old and ill to construct elaborate tombs for the purpose of interring and protecting the remains of each city-state's nobility. In return, the well receive compensation for their work that is sent home to their families in the Underdark, and the dying receive a relatively tolerable place to spend their last days. Unfortunately, due to the intermingling of the healthy with the diseased, those men who work in the necropolis of their own accord often come to join the ranks of the dying.

The necropolis' existence is tolerated by two deities of the Pantheon of Unending Winter: the Raven Queen and Zehir. The priests and priestesses of the Raven Queen escort the ritually protected souls of the wealthy, as well as large numbers of those soon to die, to the necropolis. The price paid for this service is the denial of magical means by which the dying may be cured, as the Raven Queen forbids any measure to stave-off death and deny souls to her. Only the wealthiest visitors to the necropolis are allowed the luxury of healing magic.

The services offered by Zehir are even more ghastly; those who cannot wait for death to take its natural course and are unwilling to end their own lives give themselves over to the servants of Zehir as sacrifices to their dark god. As this practice deprives the necropolis of workers, it is only available to those with the means to pay its steep price. Many dying citizens store up their money for the purpose of purchasing the destruction of their souls in the belly of the serpent god.

Services to other deities are performed in secret. The followers of Pelor undermine the law of the Raven Queen in order to relieve the suffering of the sick. Small congregations devoted to Pelor form in the shadows of the necropolis. Though the shadows are ostensibly Zehir's domain, the Pelorites claim that the shadows they inhabit are cast by the light of the sun god himself. Despite this claim, the ritual slaughter of Pelorites upon the altars of Zehir is not an uncommon occurence.

Not all unauthorized worship is performed with such altruistic intentions, however; diabolatry is performed in secret, as well. Devil worshipers pledge their souls to the devil-god Asmodeus and the Dukes of the Nine Hells. Though the tortures enacted upon the weak damned are well known, the opportunity for advancement in the social hierarchy of the Hells is equally well known. Every individual devil worshiper believes that they will succeed where others among the damned have failed and climb to a position of power among the devils. They deny ownership of their souls to Torog, the Raven Queen, and Zehir, but in their pride and self confidence they condemn themselves to the Hells.

The necropolis is a bleak place, and the peace of the city-states cooperating to maintain the city is highly unstable. Conflicts periodically break-out between the representatives of the city-states, threatening to send the necropolis tumbling into anarchy. An unofficial council has formed in the necropolis with the goal of making the necropolis into an independent city-state, but it has so far been unproductive. Though the Raven Queen and Zehir have a vested interest in sustaining the necropolis, their followers have thus far neglected to side with the council against the chaotic nature of the city-states.

Many dangers plague the city. The planar barrier between it and the Shadowfell is weak, allowing the energies of shadow and undeath to permeate the city and give rise to many undead. This situation is due in part to the massive levels of death and suffering in the necropolis. The Votaries of Vecna have also played a role in this planar instability; they seek to inflitrate the dungeon-tombs of the dead and animate their remains for the purpose of transforming the necropolis into a city of the dead devoted to their god.

Powerpuppies

Hexmage, that wanted posters thing is a really cool idea and it gave me another idea involving a train robbery.

Hexmage-PA

Powerpuppies wrote: »

Hexmage, that wanted posters thing is a really cool idea and it gave me another idea involving a train robbery.

Glad to be of service.

Hexmage-PA

Here's an idea I had for a new Cryptic Alliance in Gamma World:

Obecitizens - Many of the fattest people on Gamma Terra count themselves as Obecitizens. They seek-out stockpiles of pre-packaged junk foods left by the Ancients, which are calorie dense and have remained preserved for over a century. By eating these foods, Obecitizens believe they can become more like the Ancients and gain their prosperity. The Obecitizens utilize the remains of fast food restaurants and food processing factories for hideouts. If one of these facilities is restored to operation, the Obecitizens capture slaves and force them to work preparing their food. When traveling, Obecitizens use customized mechanical devices to help reduce the effort required to move their bloated bodies.

netgremlin

I've ran Dragonlance one time using the Saga Ruleset. The problem with the setting that I experienced was that one of my players was a die-hard Dragonlance novel fan. Every time my game diverged from something that was laid out in one of the novels, this player would throw a tantrum. That's honestly the only problem I've had with published campaigns.

Kay

Yeah, running with established settings can throw up some serious nerdrage problems if you try to do something different. I'd just run with it, and see where the DM was going, but...

I've been playing a pretty even split of homebrew settings and official ones lately. I've been enjoying them all, so... One of them is played on the boards here (Hippofant's 'God is Dead', if anyone is interested), while the other two are quite different.

One was a one-shot game that I ran, a five encounter game set in a faux-african environment. Primal characters were very common, as were certain Martial classes, powers of a Divine origin were seen as something to be feared, and Arcane was openly distrusted. The party were basically all Primal classes, apart from the Ranger and the Sorcerer, and were struggling against an ancient (and cyclic) reawakened evil that many thought were just legends - pretty standard stuff really, but menacing tribal warriors with CTHULHU BEASTS was fun.

The other is an extended campaign that I see as a mix of Planescape and Points of Light. Basically, the characters exist in a heavily magic-saturated world made up of a series of linked Planes, and are contracted to explore and catalogue newly discovered Planes reached by recently repaired and re-opened portals. These planes, as a whole, were created hundreds of years ago by especially powerful ritualists, mostly as places for them to live and rule, that grew into a huge interconnected web as time came by. Then Something Bad(TM) happened, and most of the portals were broken. So it's kind of post-apocalyptic, high-magic fantasy with a strong drive towards exploration and discovery. Kinda like D&D meets Star Trek, I guess?

Either way, I've been having a lot of fun with these homebrew settings, but I also have a lot of respect for established ones. I have to admit to preferring ones that are a little more open, and easy to mould into your own thing, than something with volumes and volumes of established crunch that people tantrum over if something deviates from That Which Is Written.

Steelhawk

I loved Dragonlance. Up until they stole the whole freaking planet and dumped it somewhere else. Then it got lame. Really lame. But everything up until that point? Great. As someone mentioned, the crushing approach of darkness aspect was very appealing. Riding Dragon's is awesome, especially when you have a big pointy stick mounted on one of them.

I think you can also thank Dragonlance for the 3.5 and 4e Dragonborn/Dragonspawn. They took the fantastic Draconian idea and made it work across all settings. You can also thank(hate?) Dragonlance for the shift that Halflings took in D&D away from Bilbo Baggins and more towards Tasslehoff Burrfoot.

I'll admit that it was hard to play a game in though. I think I'd I were to go back and play a game in Dragonlance now, with that many more years of experience under my belt, it would be alright. But at the time, we couldn't get it right.

Mojo_Jojo

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

I've been working on a modified version of the Points of Light setting that I'm calling Godswinter. Here's an overview of the setting:

The War of Winter has ended. Khala, the goddess of winter, has emerged victorious. She and her allies are known collectively as the Pantheon of the Unending Winter, and together they reign over the struggling mortals of the frozen world. The Pantheon of the Lost Seasons, a group made-up of Pelor and the other enemies of Khala, has largely been subdued, and the power of the primal spirits is rapidly fading as much of nature dies in the supernatural cold.

[snip]

I don't understand the Zehir stuff. People are sacrificed to the God in order to escape a different God from claiming their souls. I'm not sure what these people are really getting out of it. They are dying early and ending up somewhere unpleasant sounding.

The Raven Queen makes sense. Pay her clergy money and they do a ritual that means they can whip your soul out of the underdark when you die.

That said, why don't people just not live in the underdark? You say there are predators elsewhere, but the underdark is surely much worse? Earthdawn style Kaers would make more sense to me. Superfortresses beneath the earth. How does the necropolis manage when other settlements can't?

Also, what do people get out of worshipping the Winter Gods? The world is unliveable right now, surely the best bet is joining up with Team Pelor and hoping he sorts shit out.

What do people eat? I take it there are mushroom farms and the like? You need to bear that in mind as it will dramatically change a wide range of background details.

It's a cool idea though. I like it a lot.

Hexmage-PA

Mojo_Jojo wrote:

I don't understand the Zehir stuff. People are sacrificed to the God in order to escape a different God from claiming their souls. I'm not sure what these people are really getting out of it. They are dying early and ending up somewhere unpleasant sounding.

Actually, souls eaten by Zehir cease to exist. Having your soul eaten is still a supremely unpleasant experience, but getting taken by Torog is even worse in that the suffering last much, much longer. In fact, Torog is poised to usurp Asmodeus and the Nine Hells in terms of how much suffering is inflicted on mortal souls.

Mojo_Jojo wrote:

That said, why don't people just not live in the underdark? You say there are predators elsewhere, but the underdark is surely much worse? Earthdawn style Kaers would make more sense to me. Superfortresses beneath the earth. How does the necropolis manage when other settlements can't?

The necropolis is a joint venture maintained by several different underground city-states. Most settlements located between the surface and the Underdark come under frequent attack by threats from both above and below. Also, many of the more powerful monstrous races that once lived on the surface have claimed this region for themselves.

Mojo_Jojo wrote:

Also, what do people get out of worshipping the Winter Gods? The world is unliveable right now, surely the best bet is joining up with Team Pelor and hoping he sorts shit out.

People worship the Pantheon of Unending Winter because they fear that those gods will send their forces to slaughter them if they do not.

Now that I think about it, though, I believe I've come up with a better idea (one that necessitates me to remove "Unending" from the pantheon's name). The Age of Winter is wiping away all traces of the world that existed before the War of Winter. Khala and her allies are wiping the slate clean on creation, and the creatures that worship those deities are being taught that their kind will be rewarded for service to the gods of winter. The winter will one day end, they believe, and their race will be given a position of power in the new world.

People have mostly lost faith in the Pantheon of the Lost Seasons as they suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Khala and her allies. Most of the information on my wiki goes over the gods, specifically how the outcome of the War of Winter altered them. For example, Sehanine lost control of the moon to Zehir, Moradin was captured and enslaved, and Erathis defected to join the Pantheon of the Infernal Planes, which she believes has a better chance of success.

Mojo_Jojo wrote:

It's a cool idea though. I like it a lot.

Thank you!

Mojo_Jojo

I think you need a more airtight reasons as to why people live in the Underdark. If they are losing their souls, then they need a better reason than it being marginally easier. Possibly the pervading cold makes farming impossible? The rock is entirely barren until deep into Torog's domain.

So the lower settlements have to supply the necropolis with food.

It's a problem that is hard for a community to overcome, but not so tricky for individuals (so the party can tromp through it care of create food and the like)

Mojo_Jojo

Given the recent firearm/gunslinger rules that have arrived for playtesting in Pathfinder, I was curious if anybody knew which D&D settings have included some element of gunpowder and guns.

I seem to remember my old AD&D manuals listing the arquebus as a default bit of kit. And the MM from the same edition featured gun-toting hippo men (the Giff, I think).

That said, I don't remember it ever being mentioned in any specific setting.

Arivia

Spelljammer. The FR starting with 2e/the Realms Companion, especially in association with the Lantanna as it was a gift from Gond. Mystara. Red Steel.

Mojo_Jojo

Any further details? My own digging has shown that it turned up in one of the Dragonlance ages too. The fifth, I think. It's frustratingly difficult to find decent information on such things though.

Arivia

I'm only familiar with it's place in the Realms. I can write a small essay on that though if you'd like.

Mojo_Jojo

No need for essays. I'm just curious, not marking you on your D&D knowledge.

OptimusZed

Spelljammer had the Giff, they used guns. Eberron has toyed with the idea a bit, mostly with the Artificer class. Dragonlance had Tinker Gnomes that used gunpowder analogs for a lot of things, guns included.

Red Steel was a pirate setting, complete with muskets.

Arivia

Not a need, no, but is there a want?

Thomamelas

One of the Ravenloft supplements had some rules for guns using magic gunpowder.

Mojo_Jojo

Arivia wrote: »

Not a need, no, but is there a want?

If you fancy doing it go nuts. I'd not encountered gunpowder in FR specifically, and to honest I'd just kind of ruled it out as it embodies "typical D&D" for the most part, which in my head doesn't include gunpowder. If I'm wrong, then that is very interesting.

One of the reasons I brought this up was the general argument that ninja and samurai "fit" the typical D&D picture better than firearms. Or at least this seems to be a common belief out there on the filthy roads of the internet. And it's interest as the source material that spawned D&D seemed to be the polar opposite. Not that it's a case of take one, leave one, obviously.

Thomamelas

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

Arivia wrote: »

Not a need, no, but is there a want?

If you fancy doing it go nuts. I'd not encountered gunpowder in FR specifically, and to honest I'd just kind of ruled it out as it embodies "typical D&D" for the most part, which in my head doesn't include gunpowder. If I'm wrong, then that is very interesting.

One of the reasons I brought this up was the general argument that ninja and samurai "fit" the typical D&D picture better than firearms. Or at least this seems to be a common belief out there on the filthy roads of the internet. And it's interest as the source material that spawned D&D seemed to be the polar opposite. Not that it's a case of take one, leave one, obviously.

Samurai and Ninjas were introduced in Oriental Adventures. Was made part of the FR setting if I remember correctly.

Mojo_Jojo

Oh yes, every setting seems to have the Island Of-Chinese-And-Japanese-Myth

Thomamelas

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

Oh yes, every setting seems to have the Island Of-Chinese-And-Japanese-Myth

And I can think of at least one D&D module with a laser gun.

Mojo_Jojo

Is it a Spelljammer one? Because I don't think they count.

Thomamelas

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

Is it a Spelljammer one? Because I don't think they count.

Nope. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

Amigu

Arivia wrote: »

Not a need, no, but is there a want?

I'm just going to go ahead and green light it because we all know you're itching to do it.

I have to agree that a certain type of home brew setting is extremely annoying. I hate it when annoying opinionated DMs create some kind of world based on their fan fic obsessions. It's usually a sure sign of a bad game.
The advantage of pregen settings is that if everyone has read the source material you have a common language that will provide more emerson. I imagine that settings like Dragon Lance, Star Wars or the FR would be awesome for a bunch of people who are all really into the source material.

I personally am running a game set in the Nentire Vale of the POL setting and will just homebrew things I like into it (I think that's how they want you to play POL anyway) that way I have some pre-established destinations but also have the freedom to run my own campaign and change things on the fly. I think that's a huge advantage of home brewing or at least tinkering with pregen settings: You get a great ammount of freedom and don't feel like you're messing around with a predetermined world (I have a feeling this is a particularly big problem in FR).

Also I totally endorse this thread because I can't get enough of settings. I'm also always very curious in how all the high fantasy D&D settings like FR, DL, and GH really differ.

Hexmage-PA

I, like others on this thread, am working on a Western-themed Gamma World game. I'd appreciate ideas for enemies to fill a rogues gallery with.

So far I've just got a hypercognitive gunslinger samurai assassin inspired by The Warrior's Way.

OptimusZed

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

I, like others on this thread, am working on a Western-themed Gamma World game. I'd appreciate ideas for enemies to fill a rogues gallery with.

So far I've just got a hypercognitive gunslinger samurai assassin inspired by The Warrior's Way.

How about a hangin' judge that can create his own gallows via dark matter?

Or natives that have turned to worshipping a supercomputer that got dropped on them in the convergence? Bonus points for making them partially cybernetic.

Cow Boys that are actual super-intelligent cows.

Amigu

Oh oh! And the sentient "cowboys" heard frothing naked humans into battle that run on all fours with their butts sticking into the air!

Mojo_Jojo

Amigu wrote: »

The advantage of pregen settings is that if everyone has read the source material you have a common language that will provide more emerson. I imagine that settings like Dragon Lance, Star Wars or the FR would be awesome for a bunch of people who are all really into the source material.

This is also their Achilles heel, as I know fuck all about Dragonlance and I don't want to have to read the entire back catalogue of poorly written fiction just so I can follow the setting more easily. It's an issue that grows as a setting expands.

And yet, not all of the setting guides want to include a brief setting summary. So for example, the 3e FR book didn't have a couple of pages at the start to detailing exactly what makes this setting unique. Eberron, however, did, I'm almost certain that in the first chapter it explicitly had a list of key elements to Eberron including things like "There was a huge war which has really changed the world", "Warforged have just been recognised as citizens" and "There are trains"

Amigu

Yeah I think they did it right in the Eberron setting. They make it really clear what is unique about the world and place the characters in a time period where the power balance and events could swing a whole number of different ways depending on their actions. As far as I know it isn't too bogged down by loads of fiction either.

Radical Ans

Hexmage-PA wrote: »

I, like others on this thread, am working on a Western-themed Gamma World game. I'd appreciate ideas for enemies to fill a rogues gallery with.

So far I've just got a hypercognitive gunslinger samurai assassin inspired by The Warrior's Way.

There are some western plot idea's here. They were originally intended for Deadlands, but could be adapted to a Western themed Gamma world with a minimum of effort.

Kistra

I didn't think I would enjoy FR before I played it. At the same time, our DM kept us far away from high level NPCs and it felt like we were given pretty free rein, he never outright told us we couldn't do something. And he really didn't care that two people had some knowledge of FR and the other two had none whatsoever.

I've also played a SAGA game where we weren't allowed to deviate from cannon. Except two of us at the table had no idea what cannon was. The DM fairly quickly learned not to put us in any sort of conflict at all with NPCs we weren't allowed to kill for cannon reasons.

Radical Ans

Kistra wrote: »

I didn't think I would enjoy FR before I played it. At the same time, our DM kept us far away from high level NPCs and it felt like we were given pretty free rein, he never outright told us we couldn't do something. And he really didn't care that two people had some knowledge of FR and the other two had none whatsoever.

I've also played a SAGA game where we weren't allowed to deviate from cannon. Except two of us at the table had no idea what cannon was. The DM fairly quickly learned not to put us in any sort of conflict at all with NPCs we weren't allowed to kill for cannon reasons.

That's a big problem with any setting that has cannon and/or an overarching meta-plot. If the PC's don't know said meta-plot they're going to go off and do what they want without regard to what the overall setting story is. You just gotta remember that regardless of what the setting says, it's your game and you can play it how you want.

Edcrab

Yeah, and that maybe ties back in to the earlier discussion about how some people aren't big fans of playing in homebrews. If you're railroading the players into following your "vision", whether it's original or steeped in an official storyline or whatever, then you're restricting their freedom and in a sense your own- a lot of the fun of GMing a game comes from responding and reacting to the PC's actions. If they've got a very limited range of choices, your own avenues of exploration are similarly limited!

SkyCaptain

I need a new name for my oxygen/nitrogen rich gas giant campaign. Gonna re-do it from the "ground" up with a unique cosmology and get rid of the Warcraft/Azeroth references like the Earthen!

http://heavensgate.wikidot.com/

SkyCaptain

Edcrab wrote: »

Yeah, and that maybe ties back in to the earlier discussion about how some people aren't big fans of playing in homebrews. If you're railroading the players into following your "vision", whether it's original or steeped in an official storyline or whatever, then you're restricting their freedom and in a sense your own- a lot of the fun of GMing a game comes from responding and reacting to the PC's actions. If they've got a very limited range of choices, your own avenues of exploration are similarly limited!

Do what I did. Involve the players in the creation of the campaign setting. Aegis gave me some great ideas and filled out some areas of my campaign setting based on the enemies and allies I asked each of my players to create. One of which is: Underdeep.

TomeWyrm

Yeah homebrews do tend to suffer a bit of a stigma of being overly-tainted by the DM's vision and thus the plot can be easily railroaded, making the players feel unimportant. That's always a bad thing. I should also say that I love making homebrews, and from years of tinkering with them I've learned a few things.

For my homebrews in the past I was FAR too constrained by my own ideas about the world, and fell prey to those things everyone's mentioning as disliking about them. Over time I've tried to put as much creative power in the hands of the players as possible, oftentimes providing a few key features and letting them go wild at that point (oh you're playing a goliath? yeah they're sort of like fjord-dwelling vikings. go!). Sometimes they latch onto the idea and run with it, other times there's nothing at all. I really just try to make it the group's world, not just my world.

Similarly I try to not put too much detail into the different locations in the setting, letting them sort of develop organically as the PCs explore and discover new areas. Maybe that forest has a name on the map, but hell if I know what's going on inside it until the PCs decide to go there. It requires some fast and loose DMing, but I think the results are a lot better than detailing every single little thing.

Mojo_Jojo

Yeah, we discussed that earlier SkyCaptain, the problem is that it can be tricky to motivate players to help out with such things.

All I can think of for a name for the gas giant thing is NO, and it's awful but it just keeps flapping back to me.

Arivia

Putting together the shit for smokepowder. I'd forgotten how there was a Rifts-level referencing fuckup about it.

SkyCaptain

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

Yeah, we discussed that earlier SkyCaptain, the problem is that it can be tricky to motivate players to help out with such things.

All I can think of for a name for the gas giant thing is NO, and it's awful but it just keeps flapping back to me.

Tricky? It's simple. They either do it or they don't get to play.