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DnD Settings, Basic Ideas?

   
DnD Settings, Basic Ideas?

Having only a years worth of playing Tabletop games, All the different DnD worlds I've heard about like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Dragonlance etc. seem overwhelming to understand and figure out this much history and peoples that fit in each place.

Basically, I'm not asking for anyone to tell me that. I'm just wondering if anyone could tell me what is basic difference between them are supposed to be? What would you say is the core "concept" each one has that sets them apart? I'm just curious as to how DM's decide on which one they want to use for their games,so it's not really a detailed explination I'm looking for, just an idea of what "Mood" each setting is supposed to be.

As I understand it, Greyhawk was the "original" setting in which many of the NPCs after whom spells were named actually lived, and so forth. I'm not that familiar with it myself, though.

FR is the "quintessential medieval fantasy setting", though it makes an effort to try and incorporate pretty much everything somewhere. Swords and sorcery and all that. It's also the world where all those Epic Spellcasters do actually exist. E6? Gandalf was a L5 Wizard? Screw that. PCs can get to L20+, so NPCs can too.

Eberron is more "steampunk". It's sort of magic and constructs. And aberrations. It's a bit more "imagine what industry would be like if magic existed". It wouldn't not exist, it would just be a lot different.

Dragonlance I'm not so familiar with either, but the idea I think was for bigger-scale nation stuff. Also dragons play a big part (unsurprisingly).

Ravenloft is a dark and spooky setting.

Kingdoms of Kalamar I'm also not so familiar with, but I get a bit of an "old school fantasy" feel from it. Orcs and elves, but less Elminster and Khelban than FR. More like a tribal version of The Hobbit. That might entirely be false, though.

Of course, most of these settings are big. They have "sub-settings", so to speak. Many nations within each setting are based to one degree or another on real-world nations, or maybe they're a weird mash-up of two or more.

I figured they all had sub-settings of the sort, but I was just curious as to what core "concept" or idea enveloped the world in general.

TheFred has most of it right on. I would only have a few additions:
  • Greyhawk - A very rich background with lots of depth; with the exception of maybe Forgotten Realms, the deepest campaign world. It's got a varied history with lots of "unsettled" regions or regions of the country settled by evil humanoids. The traditional modules in there pit the players against the core of the world and their actions have an impact on the shape of the world (temple of elemental evil comes to mind, City of Skulls is another, for example).
  • Forgotten Realms - It's high magic, high fantasy. This also integrated dark elves as a player race. Gygax made them evil as hell and Greenwood made them cool (IMO, of course).
  • Dark Sun - A desert world destroyed by arcane magic. A lot of evil and despair; the sorcerer kings are not nice folks. Introduced thri-keen and half-giants back in 2e...a very gritty world.
  • Ravenloft - Evil has won. Very gothic and horror-filled...it's a great change of pace game.
  • Dragonlace - I'm not familiar with the newer stuff. Back in the day, it was also very high magic with...you know...dragons...and ....um...dragonlances to kill dragons. More fantasy adventure in a world coming under the yoke of an evil god, Takhasis (Tiamat).
  • Eberron - TheFred got this one pretty well. Warforged and artificers (engineers, essentially). Based on surviving after a horrible war that decimated an entire country. Vast setting though with lots of opportunities.

What's cool about these settings are that ten games could run in them and their plot lines could never interact. The way to decide really is to find YOUR style as a DM. Do you want dark where death is very real? Or high fantasy? Do you want to free slaves? Or fight as a rebel against a corrupt city-state? All those things are possible...you just need to find the right area of the campaign world to set your adventures.

Greyhawk is more of a standard medieval setting, with Forgotten Realms being better known as High Fantasy. Now, Greyhawk has many of those elements, they just tend to be toned down more. Dragonlance seemed something in between Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, but I have limited knowledge of the game.
Don't forget Dark Sun, Birthright, Mystara, etc. You might get a better answer by wiki'ing the settings, though. Don't feel overwhelmed by a setting either, as most DM's only use a single country or smaller area to play within, rendering the other local areas into clean slates as needed. Find a part you like and ignore the extras around it as needed, until you get your feet wet.

From what I remember, that is a negative. Dark Sun is set on the world of Athas, a once-paradise that is now a sunburnt wasteland. Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are hodgepodge, stuck together as the GM Creator saw fit in his own campaigns. Unlike Dark Sun or say PlaneScape, where they began from a specific concept the world revolves around.

Maybe? Dark Sun was, basically, NUKED by arcanists 'a while' ago and has cannibal halflings was all I knew about it till a few monthes ago. But it is also one of those setting where 'If you don't include Psionics, Fan Boys are going to murder you.'.

How could I forget Dark Sun? Yeah, it's a desert world big on psionics and undead (never had chance to play it myself). Does it also have no iron or something? Anyway, that's the tone.

Planescape is, of course, Planescape. Where pretty much anything goes.

Spelljammer is like magic space pirates.

Yeah, there are loads of settings, and we're obviously not all well versed in all of them; if you want details you're best asking about a specific one. That's generally the overall tone, though.
One minor point is that FR was perhaps unusual in that it made an effort to connect with other settings. Planescape and Ravenloft kind of do that too as you could feasibly hop from other settings to those (and perhaps back) but IIRC FR has things like nods to Spelljammers and whatnot. FR exists physically as a Faerun is a continent on a planet in a Spelljammer universe, and cosmologically as a Material Plane accessible from Planescape (or theoretically any setting, if you take that sort of a "multiverse" approach), so it's weird. I think it had ties to Greyhawk, and I believe there is even an unspoken idea that some of the peoples and gods (like the Mulhorandi, was it?) came from our world (hence Set and Isis and Osiris).
Eberron came later, so it doesn't connect in so well (and has its own cosmology I believe).

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFred View Post
and I believe there is even an unspoken idea that some of the peoples and gods (like the Mulhorandi, was it?) came from our world (hence Set and Isis and Osiris).
I've been toying with the idea of integrating this concept into my up-coming FR campaign (WIP), but have to admit that I was kind of disappointed that they selected from the Egyptian Pantheon (specifically)... would have preferred a slightly more generic or open-ended reference to the gods that came through the portals, making it a little easier to customize the connection between the two settings. Currently, I'm thinking of reworking it so the Egyptian Pantheon came through the portal to aid their followers (as recorded), but they're not the only one's to do so... there were others that slipped through (perhaps unnoticed...) and directly influenced other portions of Faerun.




 

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