Favorite Non-Ravenloft Settings

The Nightmare Man · Post by **The Nightmare Man** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 2:12 am

I don't think it sat well with a lot of players and DMs Tadelin...it has always been a problem. The d20 Shadows of the Spider Moon did little to correct it, although I was hoping very much that it would...

The Nightmare Man · Post by **The Nightmare Man** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 2:14 am

jamieraleigh wrote:1. Ravenloft
2. SpellJammer
3. Oriental Adventures (Kara-Tur)
4. Dragonlance (Pre-Fifth Age)
5. Anything else

I currently DM two campaigns. The first meets weekly (though we haven't played in a few weeks, since the baby was born) and is with experienced players. This is my Ravenloft campaign. The second, which is played monthly, is with less experienced players, like my wife and two pre-teens. I try to steer away from Ravenloft for this latter game, as it has a maturity level that I don't feel that the two kids (or my wife, for that matter) can handle. For this, we use a home-brewed world.

I also am a player in a Forgotten Realms campaign that involves six people from my Sunday School class. I like the FR as a player, but I don't think that I'd like to DM there.

Jamieraleigh, you specifically chose Dragonlance (Pre-Fifth Age)...? Being a huge DL fan myself, can I ask why you chose this particular period to exclude...?

ex-ebonfold · Post by **ex-ebonfold** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 9:08 pm

1) Ravenloft ( obviously )
2) Planescape ( ah the irony of the positai dustman cleric )
3) Al-Quadim ( any game where inviting the villian to tea is considered a major confrontation is allright by me )
4) Birthright ( because every time you wish you had an army to help you take out the villain- you do )

The initial poll seemed to be about DnD settings, so I limited my list a little but I agree with the votes for 7th sea and Iron Kingdom- they rocked. I also really liked the old legend of the five rings. Before it went D20.
A lot of my friends were big dragonlance fans but I never really got into it till the fifth age game. you needed two decks of the cards to run it right and maybe add a few house rules, but otherwise it was quite enjoyable.

jamieraleigh · Post by **jamieraleigh** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:57 am

Nightmare Man,

To me, the things that made Dragonlance stand out (the way the gods worked on Krynn, the Wizards of High Sorcery, magic in general) began to get taken away in the Fifth Age. I haven't read any books since Dragons of Summer Flame, so I don't know if they have changed things back, but a time line over at the Dragonlance Nexus stated, at one point, that Palin Majere had disolved the orders of high sorcery, effectively taking away the last thing that I liked about the setting.

Maximillian · Post by **Maximillian** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 6:36 pm

All this has changed now. I can assure you as Jarreth Ivarin of the Order of the White Robes, that the Orders are back.

Whisper · Post by **Whisper** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 1:41 am

Well, it seems that the "No-Gods, No-High Sorcery" age did not work out, so, after a new trilogy called the War of Souls, the gods are back and active (though a couple got... well, just tell me if you want me to tell you) and the Orders of High Sorcery are re-organizing themselves once more (a certain dark elf is back as Head of the Black Robes and a certain daughter of Justarius is Head of the Red Robes; no Head of the White Robes yet though)...

jamieraleigh · Post by **jamieraleigh** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:12 am

Thanks Whisper! A friend offered to let me read the War of Souls trilogy just last night. I guess I'll have to take him up on the offer.

Dominique · Post by **Dominique** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 3:51 pm

Ugh, War of Souls . . . this is what happens when a pair of authors does everything they can to escape a setting and simply aren't allowed to leave. W&H did the best at digging themselves out of Summer Flame that they possibly could, but when they purposefully dug a hole that was too deep, it's impossible to come up with something that isn't really, really, REALLY contrived. This is why I also stick to 4th Age.

Whisper · Post by **Whisper** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 4:14 pm

As far as I am concerned, I really liked War of Souls and the fate of certain characters in these books. What I did not like was the Dragons of a New Age trilogy by Jean Rabe. I find that she rather confused things with the shadow dragon and a reference to its mysterious master, the Tower of Palanthas and its disappearance and so forth and so on. Not to mention a bunch of Heroes-of-the-Lance wannabes... Never did like those characters much...

Maximillian · Post by **Maximillian** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 5:56 pm

Dominique wrote:Ugh, War of Souls . . . this is what happens when a pair of authors does everything they can to escape a setting and simply aren't allowed to leave. W&H did the best at digging themselves out of Summer Flame that they possibly could, but when they purposefully dug a hole that was too deep, it's impossible to come up with something that isn't really, really, REALLY contrived. This is why I also stick to 4th Age.

IMHO if they wanted to escape they would have abandoned the setting long ago. I am under the impression that Margaret Weis along with her husband, Don Perrin own Sovereign Press. And Tracy Hickman has always had an active role in the direction of the setting. The problem was Jean "Havoc" Rabe. She did soooo much harm to the line, with useless characters and inummerable loose ends, that Weis and Hickman had to considerably stretch the believability/originality factor to desperately cover up the mess. They went out of their way to justify the unjustifiable to keep the storyline consistent. (Plus Gods coming and going has become somewhat tiresome over the long years since the Chronicles.)

Drinnik Shoehorn · Post by **Drinnik Shoehorn** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 7:11 pm

I think Jean Rabe did an admirable job, all she did was chronicle the events of the aftermath of the Second Cataclysm. She's not responsible for 5th Age, she just wrote the introductary books so people could get a feel for the new setting.

Dominique · Post by **Dominique** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 7:15 pm

Oh, I agree that Rabe's stuff was utter drek, and that War of Souls was as good as it possibly could have been. I just think that after the huge changes in Summer Flame that brought about 5A, it would have been impossible for any writer to properly undo the damage. W&H did as well as they could with War of Souls, but after everything that happened beforehand, there was just no feasible way to bring the series back in line. (The explanation for why the gods left was a particularly bad copout.)

Still, again, I'll heartily agree that Rabe was terrible. When the big villain's last line in the book is actually "This means war!", you know there's trouble.

Maximillian · Post by **Maximillian** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 2:47 pm

Terrible! That's the word!

Sunstar · Post by **Sunstar** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:32 am

In order of preferance:

1: Ravenloft
2: Dark Sun
3: Dragon Lords of Melnibone
4: Forgotten Realms
5: d20 Modern
6: Dragonlance
7: Planescape
8 and on: all the rest... (at least those I'm aware of)

Jander Sunstar

JinnTolser · Post by **JinnTolser** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 12:29 pm

Forgotten Realms gets my vote by default, being the only other campaign setting I've played in.

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Favorite Non-Ravenloft Settings

What is your favorite non-Ravenloft setting?