# Little Changes with Big Flavor



## mmadsen

[I posted this awhile back on the old boards, but I’m always interested in new feedback.]

D&D makes a lot of tacit assumptions about how the game world works, and most campaigns naturally follow along.  If you'd like a very different flavor, it might require only some tiny changes.  Give a few of these a try: 
 Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring.
 Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families).
 Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something.
 Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins _or_ kobolds _or_ orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.
 Base your goblins and elves on folklore, not modern fantasy.  Have them rely on magical deception (not studded leather and a morningstar) to get the job done.
 Have the monsters be something that can be dealt with by wits, such as with riddles or tricks.  In folklore, magic is often just knowing the strengths and weaknesses of various beasts, knowing what they like and dislike, knowing how to talk to them, etc. The key to killing the dragon isn't having a stronger sword arm; it's knowing that the dragon has a soft underbelly, and if you dig a ditch, he'll crawl over you and expose it.
 Don't forget animals.  Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.)
 Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
 Drop the "flavored" classes.  Ranger, Paladins, Monks, Bards, Clerics, and Druids all bring a distinct "D&D" flavor to the game. Optionally, make their class abilities feats that other classes might take.  Let Fighters take Rage and Favored Enemy as feats.
 Implement priests as Sorcerers or Wizards (with the Cleric spell list) so that they're wise men, not warriors.  Same with Druids.  Make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell, and have Druids cast Polymorph Self to shapeshift.
 Let Clerics turn any and all supernatural creatures not just the undead.  In folklore, goblins and trolls can't stand the sound of church bells.
 Make the spellcasting classes prestige classes with prerequisites. After all, isn't it odd that a Bard with four skill ranks in Perform is good enough to enchant people with his music?  And that a Druid that barely knows his way around the woods knows enough of nature's secrets to command it?  Should every religious figure wield powerful magic?  On a daily basis?  0-level Druid spells could all require, say, 8 skill ranks in Wilderness Lore and Knowledge (Nature). A 5th-level Expert on those topics could then take one level of Sorcerer and take only nature spells onto his spell list. Similarly, 0-level healing spells might require 8 ranks in Healing and Knowledge (Nature), and a high-level Ranger might take a few levels of Sorceror with a few healing spells (requiring rare herbs, naturally).
 Don't give back spellcasters their full power after one night's rest and some study/prayer time.  Make recharging require rare magical ingredients, or blood sacrifice, or a selfless act of piety.  Or simply make it take longer.  That way spellcasters won't toss spells left and right, but they'll have them for when they need them.
 Try a different set of combat rules, like Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules or any variant that doesn't keep giving extra hit dice ad infinitum.  Instead of increasing hit points, you can increase armor class.  This makes magical healing less necessary, even if you keep the heroes at roughly the same power level.
 Remove spellcasting entirely.  Have all magic through magic items.
 Make spellcasting always take a full round or more.  Suddenly spellcasters aren't video game characters.
 Have magic transform its user.  Over time, necromancers grow pale and withered.  Fire mages start giving off sparks when angry; eventually their hair turns to living fire.  Shapeshifters take on the traits of the animals they become.
 Limit all sorcerers to a strongly themed spell list.  For instance, a "fey" list of just: daze, dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation, obscuring mist, charm person, hypnotism, sleep, change self, ..., polymorph.  Or a summoner list of just the Summon Monster spells.  You can make an entire magics system out of just summoning (e.g. Elric).
 Eliminate all directly-damaging spells.  It's not like wizards can't do any harm without magic missile and fireball, and they're certainly more interesting that way.  Or just make all those spells more difficult.  Besides, isn't a wizard supposed to turn you into a frog?
 Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies.
 Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
 Have magic items be gifts from powerful allies, not loot from enemies (who have an odd penchant for leaving magic cloaks in the closet).
 Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc.
 Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
 Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.

For a whole 'nuther kettle of fish, realize that your fantasy world doesn't have to resemble the late Middle Ages.  You can try: 
 Renaissance Europe -- gunpowder, pikemen, halberdiers, lots of breastplates, but few full suits of armor
 Ancient Rome -- iron age, few long swords, lots of spears and short swords, soldiers in chain mail or breast plate (actually lorica segmentata)
 Ancient Greece -- bronze age; if everyone's using bronze, you might not need any special rules for it
 Dark Ages -- for most of the middle ages, plate armor was not available, and neither were the various reinforced forms of mail (splint, banded), bastard swords and great swords weren't around, many polearms weren't common; a soldier in a full hauberk of mail was a serious threat
 Early Bronze Age -- read some Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan) for some good stories of primitive heroes; imagine combat with spears, bows, hides for armor, etc.
 Napoleonic -- Castle Falkenstein (the original or the GURPS version) might be a better option for this
 Age of Sail -- pirates, 'nuff said
 Age of Conquest -- it's eerie just how similar the Conquistadors were to D&D adventurers, going from place to place, killing (with "magic" weapons and armor) and looting, making some allies, then leading a big attack on the supervillain's castle (Mexico city, a metropolis of stone pyramids built on a lake in an extinct volcano).
 Age of Steam -- everyone loves intricate brass clockwork
 Modern -- D&D doesn't seem to handle this too well, but you can try it


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## Rune

This gets better every time I read it.


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## Crothian

Those are some really good ideas.  I'm happy to say I've done the following:

"Stick to just a handful of monsters. Choose either goblins or kobolds or orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them. "

"Don't forget animals. Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.) "

"Have an enemy. Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D. "

Granted, only 3 out of that list isn't much.  I'dd add in:

--Place the characters in situations that require them to make moral decisions.


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## SHARK

Greetings!

Indeed, mmadsen, I love all of your suggestions! As you know, I have integrated several such ideas into my own campaign. I love variety, and departing from the standard 14th century European model. Having said that, I also like the 14th century European model, too, but variety is cool.

Let's see...How about 

*The Ancient World* 
_______________________

The ancient world, as in ancient Egypt, with Pharoahs, hordes of slaves, mountains of gold, and massive cities, monuments, and great Pyramids!

Also, there is Babylon, the first mighty empire. The Bible describes the walls of Babylon as being three hundred feet high, and broad enough for four chariots to ride abreast at the top of the parapets! Clearly, an epic fortress! Also, the land of the God-Kings, vast tribute, and distant trade routes. This would also see some iron chain-hauberks, helmets, shields, and the use of different swords, spears, bows, and javelins. War chariots are also popular. 

On a social level, there are huge cities, with strange peoples and tongues all mingling in the square. Exotic goods from distant lands, with temples full of voluptuous temple-prostitutes, wise Oracles, and shrewd priests and priestesses. There is also great feats, and mighty wars of conquest, and absolute domination. The development of sophisticated siege warfare is growing, and slavery on a mass scale by the state, as well as by individuals, is rampant, and a matter of course.

The Hittite Empire: This great empire were a race of conquering Indo-European tribes that were ruled by the Hati, and were characterized by distinctive cloaks, helmets, and the use of iron weaponry. They frequently built cities high in the mountains, and had some of the most impressive fortifications.

The Celts: The arrival of the Celts into Europe changed the face of Europe forever. The previous indiginous tribes of Europe, were absorbed. The Celts spread out, from central Europe, to Galatia in Turkey, Spain, northern Italy, France, Belgium, parts of Germany, and of course, the British Isles, and Ireland. The Celts made significant strides in metalworking, especially in gold and bronze-work. The Celts had some very wide-ranging and sophisticated trade networks, which brought trade goods and technology from other lands, as well as sending Celtic goods and workmanship into other lands.

The Minoans: The Minoans developed a sophisticated island culture, based on sea-trade, and a seemingly egalitarian religion. It also can be seen that the Minoans were master artists and craftsmen, and developed fine pottery, art, clothing, instruments, and so on. The Minoans can also be seen as culturally sophisticated to develop a complex diplomatic capacity and relationships with a broad range of nations and peoples.

Just some ideas!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## MancerBear

These are all excellent ideas.

A few ideas that have been part of my campaign since the beginning (late 2000)

Many humanoids (elves, gnomes, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, trolls, ogres, merfolk, hags, etc) are fey.

All fey are outsiders, from "Beyond the Veil"  They use the oustsider template, not the fey template, and all have at least a little magic.  They are more like our faeries than D&D creatures.

Fey dislike church bells, can be held back with a true holy symbol, take extra damage from cold steel, and kidnap human babies to input new blood into their failing genepool.

There are no female dwarves, centaurs, minotaurs, or satyres.  

There are no male merfolk (they're called merrows, and are ugly, feral and mean)

There is only one "true" god who has real clerics with granted spells.  All other "gods" are powerful outsiders and their priests are sorcerers with unique (to a point) spell list.  The sorcerers gain 2 domains, but must learn the domain spells first, before any others.

Monsters and animals are restricted to certain geological areas that makes internal sense.  You won't find centaurs in a land mass like England for example.

I think that's it..therre may be more, but it's early and I'm not thinking clearly


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## Rune

If anyone is interested in some significant changes to flavor from the norm, I could point you in the direction of the first couple of posts of my storyhour (it's linked in my sig).  Another that you may want to check out might be The Sunderer's "Sundered Sky" campaign (which I'm stealing for my next campaign).


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## mmadsen

> This gets better every time I read it.




Thank you very much, Rune.



> If anyone is interested in some significant changes to flavor from the norm, I could point you in the direction of the first couple of posts of my storyhour (it's linked in my sig).




I remember first reading your Story Hour awhile back as an example of a foreign-flavored "oriental" campaign.  I'm still recovering from that first brief perusal.  "Significant changes to flavor from the norm" is a serious understatement.



> Another that you may want to check out might include The Sunderer's "Sundered Sky" campaign (which I'm stealing for my next campaign).




And the Sundered Sky campaign forced that last Sanity Check that landed me in Arkham.  

More seriously, those are both wildly inventive campaign settings.  Kudos to you and The Sunderer.


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## mmadsen

> Those are some really good ideas.




Thanks, Crothian.



> Granted, only 3 out of that list isn't much.




Hey, it's not Pokemon; you don't have to collect 'em all! 



> Place the characters in situations that require them to make moral decisions.




That's always a good campaign suggestion -- and it reminds me of something I've been meaning to try: don't tell the Paladin that his Detect Evil power is just a delusion.  Let your party of righteous do-gooders terrorize the countryside until they slowly realize "you sense great evil in him" means nothing.  You should probably save that one up for a Cthulhu-esque campaign.


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## Forrester

Crothian said:
			
		

> *Those are some really good ideas.  I'm happy to say I've done the following:
> 
> "Stick to just a handful of monsters. Choose either goblins or kobolds or orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them. "
> 
> "Don't forget animals. Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.) "
> 
> "Have an enemy. Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D. "
> 
> Granted, only 3 out of that list isn't much.  I'dd add in:
> 
> --Place the characters in situations that require them to make moral decisions. *




I've only done the first and third in your list, but I'd also add:

"Allow the enemy to have more resources than the party." 

Too many games I've been in are like Robotron, where the party is the little guy with the blaster and the monsters are slow-shuffling buffoons that are little more than walking experience points. 

In my current ("Against the Elves") campaign, the elves outnumber the party, outmagic the party, and outresource the party. And the party started at a lousy 1st level -- they've had to act like guerillas (the elves would say "terrorists") since Day 1. No cushy inns to stay in, or magic shops to buy potions or weapons in -- nope. 

Hell, the party has had to brew potions from *scratch*, and that's included potion-ingredient hunting. Because sometimes, you can't go to the Local Magick Shoppe and buy a generic 150gp worth of ingredients for your 300gp potion. Sorry.

It's added a nice layer of grit and, yes, fear to the PC's lives. A month ago they had their strongest ally (a clan of 60 orcs) wiped out because the elves cast Speak with Dead on a pair of dead orcish lackeys the party had left behind. One small mistake, barely an overthought . . . and bye-bye buddies. (I suppose you could blame the party's cleric for not warning them about the possibility, but he can't even cast the spell yet.)

But what this is going to do is make any victory over the damn daisy-eaters that much _sweeter_ . . . so stop spoiling your parties! They'll thank you for it .


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## mmadsen

> Indeed, mmadsen, I love all of your suggestions!




Thank you, SHARK; I love your work too!



> As you know, I have integrated several such ideas into my own campaign.




Great minds... 



> The ancient world, as in ancient Egypt, with Pharoahs, hordes of slaves, mountains of gold, and massive cities, monuments, and great Pyramids!
> 
> Also, there is Babylon, the first mighty empire. The Bible describes the walls of Babylon as being three hundred feet high, and broad enough for four chariots to ride abreast at the top of the parapets! Clearly, an epic fortress!




That just screams "SHARK!" (and that's a good thing).  I also just realized how much it reminds me of Conan -- and not Tolkien!  Ancient Middle East vs. Dark Age Britain.


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## mmadsen

> These are all excellent ideas.




Thanks, MancerBear.



> Many humanoids...are fey.  All fey are outsiders, from "Beyond the Veil"...They are more like our faeries than D&D creatures.  Fey dislike church bells, can be held back with a true holy symbol, take extra damage from cold steel, and kidnap human babies to input new blood into their failing genepool.




I wonder why we don't see more of that style of play.  I'm not opposed to "studded leather and a morningstar" -- the Tolkien Orc is certainly one way to go -- but it's odd that the fey of folklore play such a small role in D&D.



> There are no female dwarves, centaurs, minotaurs, or satyres.




The notion of a female minotaur is udderly ridiculous!


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## Psion

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *[I posted this awhile back on the old boards, but I’m always interested in new feedback.]*




I remember this thread. Added anything from the old thread to this?

_Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring._

We've done this. Way back when the Cavalier class came out in a dragon in 1e, we made a troupe of knights. The whole thing was very Excalibur in feel.

I've often thought it would be fun to play an academy of wizards.

_Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families)._

A good way to explain a party, but doesn't work too well if the party is of different races, obviously. Sometimes you can explain in friends of the family if you only have 1 or 2.

_Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something._

Unfortunately, since 2e didn't handle monsters as well as 3e does, that describes my whole 2e gaming experience.  I always ran humans or races that could be classes like Drow.

_Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D._

Major villains that last only an adventure or two? Preposterous! 

_Don't give back spellcasters their full power after one night's rest and some study/prayer time.  Make recharging require rare magical ingredients, or blood sacrifice, or a selfless act of piety.  Or simply make it take longer.  That way spellcasters won't toss spells left and right, but they'll have them for when they need them._

See the Twin Crowns campaign setting for an interesting spin on this. Spellcasters have to occasionally refresh their powers at specific sites.
_Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies._

Auran's modules take this approach with divine spellcasters.

_Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc._

I was at one time working on a system to give players tidbits. Basically, each character with knowledge would receive on index card with an important fact on it per knowledge rank.


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## mmadsen

*Suggestions from the Old Thread*



> Added anything from the old thread to this?




I forgot to add some ideas from the old thread to my list:

Remove the Arcane Spell Failure percentage for armor. In a campaign world like Elric's Melnibone, sorcerers freely cast in full armor.
Remove the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Is there a difference between an evil sorcerer and an evil high priest?
Increase the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Have quasi-Christian priests whose only real powers are dispelling fiends' enchantments, banishing demons back to hell, etc.
Remove alignments. Or just use Good and Evil or Law and Chaos. Or divvy up the world into two sides with each considering itself Good and the other Evil.
Dark Side points for spellcasting. 
Have every spell force a Will save (DC 10 + 2 * spell level) or the caster gains a Dark Side point. Once the caster accumulates more Dark Side points than Wisdom, he goes mad with hunger for power. The Dark Side points can cause a cumulative penalty to later Will saves too -- wonderful for that downward spiral effect.
Fixed levels. Just start everyone as heroes (e.g. 7th level) and keep them there.
Runequest Magic.  Just about anyone can cast minor spells: no multiclass penalty for a level of Sorcerer.
Night of the Living Dead.  Don't disable zombies at 0 (or negative) hit points. Have them keep coming down to -10 hit points, but have each hit take off a limb. Graphically describe it, and give the zombie reduced abilities: leg, can't walk, can only crawl 5'; arm, grapple at -4; head, drops "dead" (a la Night of the Living Dead), or simply can't change what it's doing.
Base the game completely around non-combat advancement. E.g. XP for converting the "unsaved" to your religion, or for finding ancient tomes of arcane lore, etc.
Unique Monsters: one Pegasus, one Medusa (with two other gorgon sisters), one Minotaur, one Questing Beast, one Fenris Wolf, one Midgard Serpent, etc. 
Different Magic for Different Races.  Humans must learn magic as Wizards, Elves are naturally Sorcerers, etc.
Require that all Wizards specialize in one school, and they can only cast spells from that school
Use Call of Cthulhu Magic.

And a few more settings (suggested by kenjib), both largely armor-free and longsword-lite:

Mythic Africa -- the Nyambe setting should be coming out soon
Mythic Hawaii -- http://www.royalty.nu/America/Hawaii.html


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## KnowTheToe

*Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever. Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring. * 

I have always wanted to do this.  There are so many concepts that would work so much better if a group were to run this way.  But alas, I can never sell my players on it.  So they usually run a mission impossible style.  Fighter, magic user healer and rogue.  SOOOO BORING!!!

When new groups meet I try to encourage everyone to bring their character, but they, no matter who they have been are always more interested in what others peole are going to play.  Gutless peckers are too afraid to go on without a cleric or rogue or even a fighter.  Don't they realize the DM will adapt the encounters to fit the group.


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## mmadsen

> Allow the enemy to have more resources than the party.




C'mon, Forrester, the enemy always has more resources; he just keeps them all locked in a chest.  



> In my current ("Against the Elves") campaign, the elves outnumber the party, outmagic the party, and outresource the party. And the party started at a lousy 1st level -- they've had to act like guerillas (the elves would say "terrorists") since Day 1. No cushy inns to stay in, or magic shops to buy potions or weapons in -- nope.




Ah, the city's no safe haven.  Very "Robin Hood".



> Hell, the party has had to brew potions from *scratch*, and that's included potion-ingredient hunting. Because sometimes, you can't go to the Local Magick Shoppe and buy a generic 150gp worth of ingredients for your 300gp potion. Sorry.




Yes, that's another idea: don't assume _N_ gold pieces will get you _N_ gp worth of stuff.  No one said you were in an efficient market economy.



> A month ago they had their strongest ally (a clan of 60 orcs) wiped out...




Nice twist.



> ...because the elves cast Speak with Dead on a pair of dead orcish lackeys the party had left behind.




Also nice.  Smart enemies are more fun -- once you're done cursing the bastards.


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## Forrester

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Also nice.  Smart enemies are more fun -- once you're done cursing the bastards. *




Certainly more fun for *me* . . . and I think the players are enjoying it. One of them has developed an ulcer, and two more have the shakes, but it's all in good fun. 

By the way -- there *is* no city they can go to. They are playing humanoids whose land has been encroached upon by a rather large group of elves (500+). The closest thing they have to a "city" is a refugee camp of about 150 goblins and kobolds (most of them noncombatants/women & children). 

A couple sessions ago the PCs decided to try to ambush a patrol of 20 elves that they suspected was trying to hunt *them* down. The Alarm spells gave them away, though, and they ended up running away like kobolds. Lost one party member to a Sleep spell. Elves didn't capture him, so that he could sneak away later, or be rescued. Nope. Orcs don't torture well . . . coup de grace time. 

Even if the party had had surprise, I don't know if they would have won; the elves knew that the party had successfully managed to bring down a 30-elf caravan two weeks previous, and was damn well prepared. Of course, when the party brought the caravan down, they had the help of eight other NPCs. 

The elves didn't know that though . I told the players after the patrol debacle that if they had been nice enough to let the elves know that there were now only _five of them_, the patrol could have been nice enough to make sure that its ECL was low enough to "challenge the party, but not kill them". 

Yeah, right! 

Which brings me to *MY* biggest rule: Make things as "realistic" as possible. Things should make logical sense -- as much as they can in a fantasy world. 

If the bad guys' patrols get attacked, they'll send out bigger patrols, and try to get reinforcements. 

If they have spells/items that are useful, they'll use them (and not keep them locked up in chests or stuck in the eyes of stuffed bears!) 

If they can bring overwhelming force to bear, they'll do it. If they can flee to fight another day, they'll do it. 

Cause and effect . . . cause and effect . . . it's what makes a good story, and I think it's what makes a good campaign.


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## Rune

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *
> I remember first reading your Story Hour awhile back as an example of a foreign-flavored "oriental" campaign. I'm still recovering from that first brief perusal. "Significant changes to flavor from the norm" is a serious understatement.
> *




Er...sorry about that.  I didn't mean to traumatize you!



> *
> And the Sundered Sky campaign forced that last Sanity Check that landed me in Arkham.
> 
> More seriously, those are both wildly inventive campaign settings. Kudos to you and The Sunderer. *




Thanks!  Here's a link to the Sundered Sky Story Hour for those interested.


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## Rune

Damn, Forrester!  I want to play in your campaign!


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## Frostmarrow

About the unified party idea. We did this once, and with two DM's to boot. We played a local militia group on a quest far away. It was very nice. I played the old man whose job was to support the leader in all things. Sort of like an American sergeant I guess. The only trouble was that since we went abroad (to Ravenloft in fact) we didn't know the language. However, the captain had a _helmet of tongues_ so he could talk to strangers. The rest of us couldn't. That meant that the captain player was our only link to the outside world. We had no idea what was going on. 

I still have mixed emotions about that DM-call. On one hand it was neat to be confined to ourselves alone. On the other hand it was very frustrating not being able to communicate with the world.


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## mmadsen

For those who haven't checked out Rune's Story Hour (as written by one of Rune's players), here's a taste of the introduction:



> *The world:* Ah yes, the world...
> 
> It is flat, but not really.
> 
> There is no sun; there are no stars, nor moons. Day and night do exist, however.
> 
> There is seasonal change (how could we have haiku without it?), but that change is sporadic.
> 
> Reality shifts are not uncommon, and even mortals within the world may trigger them.
> 
> And there is only one god(dess), but there are a great many interpretations of who and what (s)he is. This is, in part, because the alignment of the deity changes with some degree of regularity.
> 
> And since we speak of that deity, we shall now refer to that god(dess) by the name that all mortals know, The Dreamer; for all of existence is The Dream. And I mean that literally.
> 
> *The Physics:*
> There is land, and above land, the sky; above the sky, the ocean. On a clear day, you can see the largest ships sailing for destinations unknown (upside down, of course) far above you. More oddities in the landscape later.
> 
> Physics are more or less normal, but certain things can happen to alter the state of reality, namely the...
> 
> *Reality Shifts:*
> These are triggered at certain times within the REM cycle of The Dreamer, and, much more commonly, through the use of magicks, and psionic manifestations. Even more commonly, certain events trigger reality shifts, such as birth and death. More on this later in the campaign.




The first session starts:



> Today, it is harvest time; tomorrow, who knows? The seasons change with every new day, here. That is the way things are.


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## mmadsen

I'm enjoying your campaign description, Forrester.  Let me see if I can distill down a few "little changes with big flavor" (and some more general DM tips) from it:
Have no safe haven, no Village of Hommlet, to return to.
Invert which races are good and which are bad.  Play the Orcs, Goblins, and Kobolds against ruthless Elves.
Have the enemy play rough and play smart.  Have them use tactics and magic as PCs would.
Don't match every encounter to the PCs' abilities.  If the enemy's caught off guard, they should be vulnerable; if they know what to expect, they shouldn't be.


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## mmadsen

*What's Your Monster Palette?*

One easy way to alter your campaign dramatically without changing any rules is to just choose a limited monster "palette" and keep to a theme.  I actually started another thread to discuss this: What's Your Monster Palette?


----------



## Desdichado

So, Forrester, are you playing Orkworld by any chance?


----------



## Rune

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *For those who haven't checked out Rune's Story Hour, here's a taste of the introduction:*




Actually, I don't mean to be picky, but if you get around to it, I'd appreciate if you refered to the story hour in some other manner, as it's really not _mine_ per se.  It is true that I've done most of the work on the setting, run the games, and post the edited logs, but I'm not even the author of the logs (which is why updating takes too long ).  A minor matter, I know, but I must give credit where credit is due...



> *The world:* Ah yes, the world...
> 
> *snip for brevity*
> 
> That is the way things are. [/B]




So what are the chances that you'll be able to come up with a list of distilled "[not necessarily] little changes with big flavor" from this one?


----------



## mmadsen

*Little Changes with Big Flavor (Organized)*

[I thought I'd organize the suggestions a bit.]

D&D makes a lot of tacit assumptions about how the game world works, and most campaigns naturally follow along.  If you'd like a very different flavor, it might require only some tiny changes.  Give a few of these a try.

Your fantasy world doesn't have to resemble England in the late Middle Ages.  You can try: 
Primitive -- Imagine combat with spears, bows, hides for armor, etc.  Dire Animals make great monsters.
Ancient Greece -- Bronze age.  If everyone's using bronze, you might not need any special rules for it.
Ancient Rome -- Iron age, few long swords, lots of spears and short swords, soldiers in chain mail or breast plate (actually lorica segmentata).
Dark Ages -- For most of the middle ages, plate armor was not available, and neither were the various reinforced forms of mail (splint, banded).  Bastard swords and great swords weren't around, and many polearms weren't common.  A soldier in a full hauberk of mail was a serious threat
Arabian Nights -- You don't need the official Al Qadim setting to use rich Caliphs, desert nomads, caravans under attack from brigands, and wizards on flying carpets
Mythic India -- Even a quick peek at the Indian epics reveals a world ripe for D&D-style adventure.
Mythic Africa -- The Nyambe setting should be coming out soon.
Mythic Hawaii -- Or any group of islands.
Renaissance Europe -- Gunpowder, pikemen, halberdiers, lots of breastplates, but few full suits of armor.
Age of Conquest -- It's eerie just how similar the Conquistadors were to D&D adventurers, going from place to place, killing (with "magic" weapons and armor) and looting, making some allies, then leading a big attack on the supervillain's castle (Mexico city, a metropolis of stone pyramids built on a lake in an extinct volcano).
Age of Sail -- Pirates! 'Nuff said
Age of Steam -- Everyone loves intricate brass clockwork, ironclads, and balloons.
Modern -- D&D doesn't seem to handle this too well, but you can try any of the more modern d20 games, and you can mix in as much fantasy as you'd like.

Monsters:

Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something.
Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins _or_ kobolds _or_ orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.
Base your goblins and elves on folklore, not modern fantasy.  Have them rely on magical deception (not studded leather and a morningstar) to get the job done.
Have the monsters be something that can be dealt with by wits, such as with riddles or tricks.  In folklore, magic is often just knowing the strengths and weaknesses of various beasts, knowing what they like and dislike, knowing how to talk to them, etc. The key to killing the dragon isn't having a stronger sword arm; it's knowing that the dragon has a soft underbelly, and if you dig a ditch, he'll crawl over you and expose it.
Don't forget animals.  Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.)
Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
Night of the Living Dead.  Don't disable zombies at 0 (or negative) hit points. Have them keep coming down to -10 hit points, but have each hit take off a limb. Graphically describe it, and give the zombie reduced abilities: leg, can't walk, can only crawl 5'; arm, grapple at -4; head, drops "dead" (a la Night of the Living Dead), or simply can't change what it's doing.
Unique Monsters: one Pegasus, one Medusa (with two other gorgon sisters), one Minotaur, one Questing Beast, one Fenris Wolf, one Midgard Serpent, etc. 

Magic:

Assume a more "primitive" (or secretive) level of magical knowledge.  Have no known spells; all spells must be researched.
Implement priests as Sorcerers or Wizards (with the Cleric spell list) so that they're wise men, not warriors.  Same with Druids.  Make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell, and have Druids cast Polymorph Self to shapeshift.
Let Clerics turn any and all supernatural creatures not just the undead.  In folklore, goblins and trolls can't stand the sound of church bells.
Make the spellcasting classes prestige classes with prerequisites. After all, isn't it odd that a Bard with four skill ranks in Perform is good enough to enchant people with his music?  And that a Druid that barely knows his way around the woods knows enough of nature's secrets to command it?  Should every religious figure wield powerful magic?  On a daily basis?  0-level Druid spells could all require, say, 8 skill ranks in Wilderness Lore and Knowledge (Nature). A 5th-level Expert on those topics could then take one level of Sorcerer and take only nature spells onto his spell list. Similarly, 0-level healing spells might require 8 ranks in Healing and Knowledge (Nature), and a high-level Ranger might take a few levels of Sorceror with a few healing spells (requiring rare herbs, naturally).
Don't give back spellcasters their full power after one night's rest and some study/prayer time.  Make recharging require rare magical ingredients, or blood sacrifice, or a selfless act of piety.  Or simply make it take longer.  That way spellcasters won't toss spells left and right, but they'll have them for when they need them.
Remove spellcasting entirely.  Have all magic through magic items.
Make spellcasting always take a full round or more.  Suddenly spellcasters aren't video game characters.
Have magic transform its user.  Over time, necromancers grow pale and withered.  Fire mages start giving off sparks when angry; eventually their hair turns to living fire.  Shapeshifters take on the traits of the animals they become.
Limit all sorcerers to a strongly themed spell list.  For instance, a "fey" list of just: daze, dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation, obscuring mist, charm person, hypnotism, sleep, change self, ..., polymorph.  Or a summoner list of just the Summon Monster spells.  You can make an entire magics system out of just summoning (e.g. Elric).
Eliminate all directly-damaging spells.  It's not like wizards can't do any harm without magic missile and fireball, and they're certainly more interesting that way.  Or just make all those spells more difficult.  Besides, isn't a wizard supposed to turn you into a frog?
Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
Remove the Arcane Spell Failure percentage for armor. In a campaign world like Elric's Melnibone, sorcerers freely cast in full armor.
Remove the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Is there a difference between an evil sorcerer and an evil high priest?
Increase the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Have quasi-Christian priests whose only real powers are dispelling fiends' enchantments, banishing demons back to hell, etc.
Dark Side points for spellcasting. 
Have every spell force a Will save (DC 10 + 2 * spell level) or the caster gains a Dark Side point. Once the caster accumulates more Dark Side points than Wisdom, he goes mad with hunger for power. The Dark Side points can cause a cumulative penalty to later Will saves too -- wonderful for that downward spiral effect.
Runequest Magic.  Just about anyone can cast minor spells: no multiclass penalty for a level of Sorcerer.
Different Magic for Different Races.  Humans must learn magic as Wizards, Elves are naturally Sorcerers, etc.
Require that all Wizards specialize in one school, and they can only cast spells from that school
Use Call of Cthulhu Magic.


The Party:

Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies.
Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring.
Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families).
Invert which races are good and which are bad.  Play the Orcs, Goblins, and Kobolds against ruthless Elves.

Treasure:

Have magic items be gifts from powerful allies, not loot from enemies (who have an odd penchant for leaving magic cloaks in the closet).
Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc.
Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.

Misc. Tips:

Try a different set of combat rules, like Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules or any variant that doesn't keep giving extra hit dice ad infinitum.  Instead of increasing hit points, you can increase armor class.  This makes magical healing less necessary, even if you keep the heroes at roughly the same power level.
Remove alignments. Or just use Good and Evil or Law and Chaos. Or divvy up the world into two sides with each considering itself Good and the other Evil.
Fixed levels. Just start everyone as heroes (e.g. 7th level) and keep them there.
Base the game completely around non-combat advancement. E.g. XP for converting the "unsaved" to your religion, or for finding ancient tomes
Don't assume N gold pieces will get you N gp worth of stuff. No one said you were in an efficient market economy. 
Have no safe haven, no Village of Hommlet, to return to.
Have the enemy play rough and play smart.  Have them use tactics and magic as PCs would.
Don't match every encounter to the PCs' abilities.  If the enemy's caught off guard, they should be vulnerable; if they know what to expect, they shouldn't be.


----------



## Rune

since mmadsen opened the floodgates and set a precidence, I'm going to save everybody a little bit of link-following and post a brief excerpt from The Sunderer's Sundered Sky Story Hour.



> *What is the Sundered Sky?*
> 
> Imagine a world destroyed, a Sundering that tore the land apart. Now what remains of once proud and noble kingdoms and empires is a myriad of floating islands. Floating in a fathomless void, or maybe falling, as some academics and mages have conjectured, nobody knows. These islands orbit one another slowly, languidly.
> 
> What caused the Sundering? This is also unknown, some think that the gods punished the evil ways of an ancient and lost people, others think that a magical artefact destroyed the world and still others believe that demons ripped the land apart trying to find the heart of their defeated tyrant king. Most just accept the world as it is and just try to survive.
> 
> Skyships ply the void between the islands allowing trade and travel. They are not alone, Pirates prey upon the weakest ships and dangerous creatures roam the void. Barbarian tribes inhabit the colder altitudes, their communities clinging precariously to artificial islands constructed from captured Skyships that have been tethered together. The void is infinite (as far as any one can discern), who knows what other wonders and terrors it holds?
> 
> Resource starved islands sponsor "Scavengers", adventurers willing to risk the dangerous ruins of towers and cities that can be found on some of the more remote and smaller islands. Terrible beasts, traps and ancient undead haunt these ruins protecting the precious iron, steel and other metals.
> 
> The powerful Trade Council (see below) has banned open warfare, but this does not stop many islands waging clandestine warfare on one another, hiring small bands of mercenaries to undertake covert missions of sabotage or assassination.
> 
> Mysterious secret societies plot against one another or strive to uncover arcane mysteries hidden within the long abandoned ruins. Some are in the thrall of demonic or Celestial avatars, others (it is rumoured) seek to destroy or restore the Sundered Sky once and for all.




Also, rootbeergnome's Seas of Fire could be mentioned here, because it is very similar to the Sundered Sky setting (which is probably no coincidence, as I helped rootbeergnome hash out the setting!)

Here's the introduction to that:



> Nine hundred and ten years ago, the gates to the Elemental Empire were sealed.  In the sealing was the sundering of our world.  Now we live on the broken pillars that climb to the sky far above an endless sea of fire.
> 
> There is transportation in the form of airships, but the Guild holds an unbreakable monopoly.  No one else knows how to make the ships.  As the gnomes have control of the guild, this puts the little buggers in control of most trade—and the military fleets.  As a consequence, they have what amounts to an empire.  Locally, the gnomes have recently instituted a human council, but, of course, the Guild ambassadors hold great sway over the decisions of this ruling body.
> 
> And, of course, there is resistance to the stranglehold.  That’s where we come in.




Hope you all can find some inspiration in these mad ramblings!  Speaking of which, mmadsen, I see your point about the introduction to The Dream causing insanity, now that I'm forced to reread it!  Maybe I'll rewrite it someday!


----------



## mmadsen

*Rune's Story Hour (as written by one of Rune's players).*

Hmm...let me see what "little changes with big flavor" I can distill from Rune's Story Hour (as written by one of Rune's players):

Use evocative names.  Rune's quasi-oriental setting uses Adjective-Noun-Verb names for men and Noun-Adverb-Verb names for women.  Names like "Thorin" were evocative when they were new.  Names like "Mad Stone Tumbles" still are.
Tie the players to the world.  If family ties and honor matter, the players will start to behave with filial piety and honor, not as thugs looting from weaker thugs.
Don't be afraid to alter reality.  This is a fantasy game.  If the seasons change daily, you know you're in a fantastic realm.  If some of the seasons don't exist in our world, then you really know you're in a fantastic realm.  (In Ravenloft, for instance, the Mist can alter time and space.)
Use fantastic elements to dramatic ends.  A Black and White season has no in-game effect, but -- Wow! -- it packs a dramatic punch.  (What would your players do if it started raining blood?)

How's that for a start?


----------



## Desdichado

Hey, that Sundered campaign setting is eerily similar to something I once developed for a different game system (but never ended up running.)  I wonder if I even have those notes still on my old computer's hard drive...


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## Rune

*Re: Rune's Story Hour (as written by one of Rune's players).*



			
				mmadsen said:
			
		

> *Hmm...let me see what "little changes with big flavor" I can distill from Rune's Story Hour (as written by one of Rune's players):*




Thank you for the distinction; my conscience is at ease.



> *
> 
> Use evocative names.  Rune's quasi-oriental setting uses Adjective-Noun-Verb names for men and Noun-Adverb-Verb names for women.  Names like "Thorin" were evocative when they were new.  Names like "Mad Stone Tumbles" still are.
> Tie the players to the world.  If family ties and honor matter, the players will start to behave with filial piety and honor, not as thugs looting from weaker thugs.
> Don't be afraid to alter reality.  This is a fantasy game.  If the seasons change daily, you know you're in a fantastic realm.  If some of the seasons don't exist in our world, then you really know you're in a fantastic realm.  (In Ravenloft, for instance, the Mist can alter time and space.)
> Use fantastic elements to dramatic ends.  A Black and White season has no in-game effect, but -- Wow! -- it packs a dramatic punch.  (What would your players do if it started raining blood?)
> 
> How's that for a start? *




I like your list!  It helps to quantify something that was sort of shapeless before (like the continents, but that's a different matter altogether  )

Raining blood, by the way, would (will?) probably freak my players out, as my campaign is slowly spiraling into horror.  Thanks for the idea!


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## Rune

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> *Hey, that Sundered campaign setting is eerily similar to something I once developed for a different game system (but never ended up running.)  I wonder if I even have those notes still on my old computer's hard drive... *




There's much more background information on his setting in the story hour, if you care to follow the link.  It's worth it.  A lot of his ideas were gleaned from various works of fiction, I believe.

Also, to set the record straight, rootbeergnome had yet to discover Sundered Sky when we created the Seas of Fire setting and I wasn't really thinking of it.  But when we took our basic premise (inspired by a great deal of random rolls in the World Builder's Guide) out to it's logical conclusions, a lot of similarities between the two settings became evident to me.  I don't think that's a bad thing, however, just that both The Sunderer and the rootbeergnome/Rune team came to the same realizations.  Of course, I have no doubt that I was influenced and inspired by Sundered Sky, as well.  I am, after all, still planning on running it for my next campaign--with added peculiarities, of course.


----------



## Rune

Now that I think of it, I am reminded of another thing that I tend to do in all of my games.  Racial charactatures.  Specifically, making fun of halflings.  (My brother always plays halflings, anyway.)  In The Dream, I get to carry it even further than I normally would.  Halflings are always viewed by the other races, especially humans, as children playing at being grown up and given no credit, whatsoever.  Moreso than in typical campaigns.  In The Dream, however, it carries over into other traits as well; they have half the memory of the other races, for instance.  They are smaller humans _in every conceivable dimension!_

Next campaign it will be different.  The halflings will be the oppressors of the world (much like the gnomes are in Seas of Fire, since the campaign will be Sundered Sky).


----------



## Forrester

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> *So, Forrester, are you playing Orkworld by any chance?  *




I'm not, actually, but from what little I've seen of it, I like it a lot. The setting, not the rules system. I might pick up a copy just to help flesh out the orcish mythology; I just wish there were similar aids out there for goblins and kobolds. 

The rules I'm using are pretty straight 3E, with some changes to keep powergaming under control. (I allow few splatbook feats/PrCs, and in fact I've made Haste a 4th level spell and Improved Invisibility a 5th level spell).

It should go without saying that the "bad guys" have PC classes, not NPC classes. Warrior shmorrior.


----------



## WSmith

I had a nice post that the board ate. So here it is again without all the butt kissing I did.  

*eliminate all magic item creation feats, except for maybe scribe scroll and brew potion. 

*Have no horses, or other animals that can be used for steads. Have wagons pulled by slaves. 

*Eliminate all constructed armor, melee, or missile weapons. use only those crafted from wood, stone, bone, etc. 

* Have dragons the rulers of the human lands

*use only dinosaurs, not monsters


----------



## Decamber

Rune said:
			
		

> *This gets better every time I read it. *




Dito - nice work mmadsen!


----------



## Ace32

Speakin' of all this folklore and such, I had been doing various searches into myths and lore, to try and track down some of the various things of D&D, when I stumbled upon this post. Where do some of our fantasy staples come from?

From my searches, I've found:

Elves - Norse fey

Dark Elves/Dwarves - Borse Evil elves, lived underground, turned to stone by sunlight

Gnomes - Greek elemental spirits, miners

Kobolds - Same as Gnomes

Orc - Sea beast (greek I think)

Giants - Norse barbarians and powerful conquerers

That's all I'm gonna list here. Anybody have any more accurate info for me? Or places to look? I know some things, like Halflings, are Tolkein created, but what of all our other fantasy creatures?


----------



## mmadsen

> Where do some of our fantasy staples come from?




You should check out Victor Mordenheim's Superstitious Bunkum on the Kargatane (Ravenloft) site.


----------



## mmadsen

> I have always wanted to do this.  There are so many concepts that would work so much better if a group were to run this way.  But alas, I can never sell my players on it.  So they usually run a mission impossible style.  Fighter, magic user healer and rogue.  SOOOO BORING!!!




Perhaps you could tell them you want to run an adventure with a party of just, say, Rogues, but they're free to do whatever they want.  Then you present them with a scenario best handled by...a party of Rogues -- no way from Point A to Point B without climbing, the enemy clearly overpowers them, so they need to remain stealthy, lots of intrigue (and Bluff checks), etc.

Or tell them you want to run an adventure for Fighters, and have them lead a troupe of spear-carriers with no opportunity for stealth, no traps to spring, no magical menace to overcome, etc.

If you dislike the everpresent clerical healer, use a Defense bonus (that stacks fine with armor) but fixed hit points (e.g. equal to Con).  Characters will either get hurt or not, but they won't always be taking some damage that needs healing.


----------



## mmadsen

*Re: Re: Rune's Story Hour (as written by one of Rune's players).*



> I like your list!  It helps to quantify something that was sort of shapeless before (like the continents, but that's a different matter altogether  )




Thank you very much, Rune!



> Raining blood, by the way, would (will?) probably freak my players out, as my campaign is slowly spiraling into horror.  Thanks for the idea!




You're so very welcome!  Now I'm trying to find an excuse to use it myself.  

One of the great things about a fantastic world is that you don't have to rely on questionable coincidences like dark and stormy weather when you want a dark mood.  The world can literally react to what's happening.  The clouds can rain blood (or fire!), the trees can grow leaves of gold and copper (literally), the earth can open up with a festering wound or spring of fresh water that turns to diamonds, etc.


----------



## RangerWickett

Change how you get magic.  Don't pray for spells.  Have priests recite ancient prayers saved in huge books.  Or maybe they have to memorize them from birth, and all spells have been passed down through centuries (good explanation why sorcerers can only handle a few spells).  Maybe you have to bond with a ghost (a la my own Savannah Knights storyhour), that provides a tap to the spirit world.  

Or check out Wild Spellcraft and use some of the rules in there.  If you don't want to ban the cleric class, but want faith in the gods to be uncertain, make clerics wild spellcasters, but everyone else stable.  Or maybe have magic be sentient, so it doesn't respond well to spells that misuse it's powers.


----------



## Piratecat

I love this thread; I'll be archiving it!


----------



## mmadsen

*To recap:*

D&D makes a lot of tacit assumptions about how the game world works, and most campaigns naturally follow along.  If you'd like a very different flavor, it might require only some tiny changes.  Give a few of these a try.

Your fantasy world doesn't have to resemble England in the late Middle Ages.  You can try: 
Primitive -- Imagine combat with spears, bows, hides for armor, etc.  Dire Animals make great monsters.
Ancient Greece -- Bronze age.  If everyone's using bronze, you might not need any special rules for it.
Ancient Rome -- Iron age, few long swords, lots of spears and short swords, soldiers in chain mail or breast plate (actually lorica segmentata).
Dark Ages -- For most of the middle ages, plate armor was not available, and neither were the various reinforced forms of mail (splint, banded).  Bastard swords and great swords weren't around, and many polearms weren't common.  A soldier in a full hauberk of mail was a serious threat
Arabian Nights -- You don't need the official Al Qadim setting to use rich Caliphs, desert nomads, caravans under attack from brigands, and wizards on flying carpets
Mythic India -- Even a quick peek at the Indian epics reveals a world ripe for D&D-style adventure.
Mythic Africa -- The Nyambe setting should be coming out soon.
Mythic Hawaii -- Or any group of islands.
Renaissance Europe -- Gunpowder, pikemen, halberdiers, lots of breastplates, but few full suits of armor.
Age of Conquest -- It's eerie just how similar the Conquistadors were to D&D adventurers, going from place to place, killing (with "magic" weapons and armor) and looting, making some allies, then leading a big attack on the supervillain's castle (Mexico city, a metropolis of stone pyramids built on a lake in an extinct volcano).
Age of Sail -- Pirates! 'Nuff said
Age of Steam -- Everyone loves intricate brass clockwork, ironclads, and balloons.
Modern -- D&D doesn't seem to handle this too well, but you can try any of the more modern d20 games, and you can mix in as much fantasy as you'd like.

Monsters:

Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something.
Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins _or_ kobolds _or_ orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.  (What's Your Monster Palette?)
Base your goblins and elves on folklore, not modern fantasy.  Have them rely on magical deception (not studded leather and a morningstar) to get the job done.
Have the monsters be something that can be dealt with by wits, such as with riddles or tricks.  In folklore, magic is often just knowing the strengths and weaknesses of various beasts, knowing what they like and dislike, knowing how to talk to them, etc. The key to killing the dragon isn't having a stronger sword arm; it's knowing that the dragon has a soft underbelly, and if you dig a ditch, he'll crawl over you and expose it.
Don't forget animals.  Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.)
Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
Night of the Living Dead.  Don't disable zombies at 0 (or negative) hit points. Have them keep coming down to -10 hit points, but have each hit take off a limb. Graphically describe it, and give the zombie reduced abilities: leg, can't walk, can only crawl 5'; arm, grapple at -4; head, drops "dead" (a la Night of the Living Dead), or simply can't change what it's doing.
Unique Monsters: one Pegasus, one Medusa (with two other gorgon sisters), one Minotaur, one Questing Beast, one Fenris Wolf, one Midgard Serpent, etc. 

Magic:

Assume a more "primitive" (or secretive) level of magical knowledge.  Have no known spells; all spells must be researched.
Implement priests as Sorcerers or Wizards (with the Cleric spell list) so that they're wise men, not warriors.  Same with Druids.  Make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell, and have Druids cast Polymorph Self to shapeshift.
Let Clerics turn any and all supernatural creatures not just the undead.  In folklore, goblins and trolls can't stand the sound of church bells.
Make the spellcasting classes prestige classes with prerequisites. After all, isn't it odd that a Bard with four skill ranks in Perform is good enough to enchant people with his music?  And that a Druid that barely knows his way around the woods knows enough of nature's secrets to command it?  Should every religious figure wield powerful magic?  On a daily basis?  0-level Druid spells could all require, say, 8 skill ranks in Wilderness Lore and Knowledge (Nature). A 5th-level Expert on those topics could then take one level of Sorcerer and take only nature spells onto his spell list. Similarly, 0-level healing spells might require 8 ranks in Healing and Knowledge (Nature), and a high-level Ranger might take a few levels of Sorceror with a few healing spells (requiring rare herbs, naturally).
Don't give back spellcasters their full power after one night's rest and some study/prayer time.  Make recharging require rare magical ingredients, or blood sacrifice, or a selfless act of piety.  Or simply make it take longer.  That way spellcasters won't toss spells left and right, but they'll have them for when they need them.
Remove spellcasting entirely.  Have all magic through magic items.
Make spellcasting always take a full round or more.  Suddenly spellcasters aren't video game characters.
Have magic transform its user.  Over time, necromancers grow pale and withered.  Fire mages start giving off sparks when angry; eventually their hair turns to living fire.  Shapeshifters take on the traits of the animals they become.
Limit all sorcerers to a strongly themed spell list.  For instance, a "fey" list of just: daze, dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation, obscuring mist, charm person, hypnotism, sleep, change self, ..., polymorph.  Or a summoner list of just the Summon Monster spells.  You can make an entire magics system out of just summoning (e.g. Elric).
Eliminate all directly-damaging spells.  It's not like wizards can't do any harm without magic missile and fireball, and they're certainly more interesting that way.  Or just make all those spells more difficult.  Besides, isn't a wizard supposed to turn you into a frog?
Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
Remove the Arcane Spell Failure percentage for armor. In a campaign world like Elric's Melnibone, sorcerers freely cast in full armor.
Remove the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Is there a difference between an evil sorcerer and an evil high priest?
Increase the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Have quasi-Christian priests whose only real powers are dispelling fiends' enchantments, banishing demons back to hell, etc.
Dark Side points for spellcasting. 
Have every spell force a Will save (DC 10 + 2 * spell level) or the caster gains a Dark Side point. Once the caster accumulates more Dark Side points than Wisdom, he goes mad with hunger for power. The Dark Side points can cause a cumulative penalty to later Will saves too -- wonderful for that downward spiral effect.
Runequest Magic.  Just about anyone can cast minor spells: no multiclass penalty for a level of Sorcerer.
Different Magic for Different Races.  Humans must learn magic as Wizards, Elves are naturally Sorcerers, etc.
Require that all Wizards specialize in one school, and they can only cast spells from that school
Use Call of Cthulhu Magic.


The Party:

Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies.
Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring.
Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families).
Invert which races are good and which are bad.  Play the Orcs, Goblins, and Kobolds against ruthless Elves.

Treasure:

Have magic items be gifts from powerful allies, not loot from enemies (who have an odd penchant for leaving magic cloaks in the closet).
Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc.
Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.

Misc. Tips:

Try a different set of combat rules, like Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules or any variant that doesn't keep giving extra hit dice ad infinitum.  Instead of increasing hit points, you can increase armor class.  This makes magical healing less necessary, even if you keep the heroes at roughly the same power level.
Remove alignments. Or just use Good and Evil or Law and Chaos. Or divvy up the world into two sides with each considering itself Good and the other Evil.
Place the characters in situations that require them to make moral decisions.
Fixed levels. Just start everyone as heroes (e.g. 7th level) and keep them there.
Base the game completely around non-combat advancement. E.g. XP for converting the "unsaved" to your religion, or for finding ancient tomes
Don't assume N gold pieces will get you N gp worth of stuff. No one said you were in an efficient market economy. 
Have no safe haven, no Village of Hommlet, to return to.
Have the enemy play rough and play smart.  Have them use tactics and magic as PCs would.
Don't match every encounter to the PCs' abilities.  If the enemy's caught off guard, they should be vulnerable; if they know what to expect, they shouldn't be.
Use evocative names -- for characters, places, and magic items.  Rune's quasi-oriental setting uses Adjective-Noun-Verb names for men and Noun-Adverb-Verb names for women.  Names like "Thorin" were evocative when they were new.  Names like "Mad Stone Tumbles" still are.
Tie the players to the world.  If family ties and honor matter, the players will start to behave with filial piety and honor, not as thugs looting from weaker thugs.
Don't be afraid to alter reality.  This is a fantasy game.  In Ravenloft, for instance, the Mist can alter time and space.  If the seasons change daily, or the landscape moves when you're not looking, you're in a fantastic realm.
Use fantastic elements to dramatic ends.  A Black and White season has no in-game effect, but -- Wow! -- it packs a dramatic punch.  What would your players do if it started raining blood?  In a fantastic setting, you can go well beyond a mere dark and stormy night.


----------



## Falcon

*Great Stuff!!!! (Long Reply)*

This is a great thread!

Here is my humble input.

1) All magical weapons are not a +X this this or a Flamebrand that.  Rather, they have latent magic that will be shaped by the actions and intents of its bearer.  

For example, one PC has an ancient family rapier that has awoken as +1 (he has doled out x amount of total HPs to foes in damage with it over several levels), and it has begun to develop some special properties against undead and outsiders (the PC is intentionally seeking these out, and using his rapier to try to destroy not only his adversaries, but their items--he skewered a symobol of an evil deity on a magical pouch that held magic crystals last time--this is all based on some dreams he had while healing from some nasty magic thrown by a sorcerer thought long dead).


2) There are no wizards. The Strictures of Known Magic, because of a great wizard who perverted formal magic in becoming A'Al'An, the Eater of Magic.  From the Texts:   Lesser followers, hapless renegade human wizards and Elves, were also banished from the Aelrith, transformed into the Roamers and the Lurkers.  Known Magic and the Strictures were so perverted by A’Al’An that any formal Casting, any attempt at following Strictures of Learned and Known Magic left the Caster open to gateways beyond the existence of Aelrith, that could attract Roamers or Lurkers.  Roamers pass through the Aelrith, hungering eternally for Known Magic to sustain them. It is their hope that in finding and devouring enough Known Magic they can form themselves once again into the Plane of Aelrith.  The Lurkers are as the Roamers, but bound to the specific place where they were defeated.  The Aelrith is ancient, so many such places are no longer recognizable, and may be now under cities, in groves of trees, under water, in ruins, or perhaps exist as stonework in standing buildings, waiting for the Hunger to awake at a Casting.  
   We know that Divine power through faith and practice is beyond the reach of the Roamers and Lurkers, as are those whose ancestry grants them the Talent.  We too know that the elemental and basic forces summoned, directed, and melded by Runes do not seem to attract the Roamers or Lurkers.  Formal Wizardry is thus a risky thing, but the blood gift of Sorcery is a different matter, as it is spontaneous and forms from different principles than the Strictures, as does the elemental foundation of Runic Casting.

This has led to some interesting specializations, and NPC sorcerer combos, as arcane magic is now much more limited in breadth of possibilities (strike team of sorcerers, each with different spell specializations).  It has also led to some interesting scenarios when the PCs have stumbled across an ancient spell-book.

3) Spells are related to personality, and as such, each Caster has a unique utterance and presentation they must make, in campaign time, in order to cast the spell.  We get some very vivid and theatrical role-playing here!

4) Divine magic's potency manifests itself in different times of the day, the season, or the moon, so clerics need to consider many factors in their spell selection.

This is a really great thread.   I can't wait to read more of what everyone else does!


----------



## Desdichado

_



*Ace32:*
From my searches, I've found: 

Elves - Norse fey 

Dark Elves/Dwarves - Borse Evil elves, lived underground, turned to stone by sunlight 

Gnomes - Greek elemental spirits, miners 

Kobolds - Same as Gnomes 

Orc - Sea beast (greek I think) 

Giants - Norse barbarians and powerful conquerers 

Click to expand...


_
This isn't really what the thread is about, but I'll indulge here for just a moment (besides, it's late at night for me, and I should be in bed: cut me some slack! )

I'd reorder those as such:

Elves: just as much Celtic Sidhe as Norse Alf, although the word is very definately an English cognate of alf, and it is probably largely based on native Anglo-saxon elfin folklore.
Dwarves: again, native Germanic, not so much just Norse.  I don't recall that turning to stone was typical in any folklore I read, though.  They were often more tricksters in later folklore as well, until Tolkien tried to redefine them based largely on older mythology.
Gnomes: I don't know that they are elemental.  In folklore there is little difference between elfs and gnomes.  However, the word gnome is based on an old word meaning knowledge, so gnomes as sages of some kind is not unheard of.
Kobold: just a germanic linguistic variant of the same word as goblin.  Like the original goblins, they were trickster almost poltergeist-like creatures rather than lizards that lived underground.  Certainly not much in common with gnomes, as you suggest.
Orcs: nope, these are really invented by Tolkien in any recognizable form.  Likely the word came from a Latin demon named Orcus (sound familiar?) and Tolkien's more immediate source was the use of Orc-neas in Beowulf to indicate 'death-corpses' or some such.  Any connection to orcas is coincidental linguistics, not real useful roots searching.
Giants: I can't think of a mythology or folklore that doesn't feature them.  Norse barbarians have nothing to do with them, although jotuns did feature strongly in Norse mythology, at least.


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## Tonguez

> Have no safe haven, no Village of Hommlet, to return to.




Try the opposite of this - the party isn't a group of adventurers passing through to the next dungeon. The party is the Hommlet village militia suddenly faced with nefarious acts in their own hometown!

The Discworld 'City-Watch' series pretty much captures this style well.

Another variation is to give the PCs a fortress (and perhaps a ttile - Marquis) and then have the peasants start knocking on the door begging for protection from the marauding orcs even while the king is demanding his tax be collected and a dragon has been sited in the mountains to the north!

My alternative (ie the one I use imc) is to have the PCs as leaders of a group of settlers moving into new wilderness. 
They have to explore, build a village, fight wild monsters,  make sure the harvest comes in, ensure the settlement is protected and the population growing, and decide whether the pig Sporky belongs to Farmer Piper or Farmer Brown.




> Gnomes & Orcs



Gnomes as elementals was an idea put forward by Paracelcius (the Alchemist) - gnomes were far more like brownies and other small barnyard spirits

The Great Sea Ork is actually an old English sea monster (probably a Collusal Abberation)

Mr Gygax also claims that Orc is a word meaning Ogre 

NB Tolkien says that Orc is the Hobbitish word for Hobgoblin - so who knows...


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## omedon

Great thread guys. Lots of interesting ideas being passed around.

To me this thread is a breath of fresh air. It is very proactive, seeking to help out fellow gamers. It is a change from the usual General RPG chatter, which seems to revolve around questions.

It is nice to see a thread offering knowledge and advice rather than asking for it. 

Good work, this is definitely going into the archives.


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## Breakstone

Here's a suggestion, if it's not too late:

Instead of having the large, classic gods, use small gods that take the frm of huge beasts, terrain features, or monuments. Clerics can only cast spells if they're in a certain mile raidus of the small god.


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## WSmith

I will add a few more:


Use the barter system. Eliminate currency. This will allow for more role playing interaction and the use of CHA based skills more oftern. 
Have the player characters all be of aquatic races. This makes for a great ocean based campaign.
Do not have any land masses on a world composed entirelry of ocean. The only floating settlements are constructed by materials found ages ago when land and wood did exist. 
This one I got from my precious Necro board,  Have a tavern built on the entrance of the dungeon. Have the bartender charge admission for entering. 
Allow only all weapons of the same type, be it slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning. 
Allow that only certain genders can be spellcasters. fighters, etc., (blatantly stolen from WOT  )


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## Frostmarrow

Suggestions:

* Travel. Eliminate _teleport_, _whispering wind_ and such. The easiest way to travel from one village to the next is on horseback. Messages are delivered by the Pony Express.

* Ethereal. Make most magic connected to the ethereal plane. Invisibility won't make you invisible it merely makes you ethereal.

* Status. Introduce the Reputation statistic from Dragon Magazine. Rep=Lvl+Chr bonus+Bluff+Diplomacy+Intimidate.

* Honor. Use the Reputation statistic from above but substitute Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate for more (in your world) honorable skills. Such as Ride, Profession (Painting) and Perform (Poet).


----------



## Desdichado

In my Middle-earth campaign (and my homebrew that I'm developing) I use _Wheel of Time_ classes, and homebrew _Star Wars_ based spell-casters.  I include Vitality Points and Wound Points, and include the Star Wars and WoT style defense bonus.  Armor is restricted to "Dark Ages" stuff, so splint, banded and plate are out.  However, you _can_ get heavy armor by adding an extra scale or mail cuirass over your other armor, in a move stolen from _Oriental Adventures._  Advancement in level is not based on XP, but rather something similar to _The Wheel of Time_ in which "adventure completion" is the yardstick of advancement, rather than creatures killed.  All of these add up to a less super-heroic, darker and slightly grimmer feel.

As for non-mechanical changes, I rarely have my players fight "monsters" per se; their opponents are almost exclusively classed human(oid)s, I almost never go into dungeons, and I like to remove the paradigm that PCs are free-lance "adventurers" instead making them agents of some kind of the local lord, magistrate, church, guild, etc. with some responsibilities as well as opportunities for excitement.

I think those qualify as "little changes with big flavor."


----------



## mmadsen

I thought I'd flesh out alignment a bit more.  Consider these "little changes":

Remove alignments. 
Use Good and Evil _or_ Law and Chaos.
Divvy up the world into two sides with each considering itself Good and the other Evil.
Track alignment as carefully as hit points.  Use Pendragon-style trait pairs, but just use two: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil. 
Use all 13 Pendragon trait pairs (Chaste/Lustful through Valorous/Cowardly), and divvy them up between two mega-trait pairs: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil.
Use alignment only for Outsiders, Clerics, and Paladins.
Don't tell the players that their characters' Detect Evil powers are purely delusional.  Let them play religious fanatics who feel justified by their "divinely revealed" knowledge.  Optionally, after enough wholesale slaughter, let them know the truth.


----------



## Darklone

*Bravo!*

Really cool thread.


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## mmadsen

> Instead of having the large, classic gods, use small gods that take the frm of huge beasts, terrain features, or monuments. Clerics can only cast spells if they're in a certain mile raidus of the small god.




Little change.  Big flavor.  I like it.  I do worry about playability though.  Perhaps we can merge it with a previously mentioned idea: Clerics only "recharge" within sight of the "small god".


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## mmadsen

> Use the barter system. Eliminate currency. This will allow for more role playing interaction and the use of CHA based skills more oftern.




I actually consider that one a must -- especially for big ticket items.  It's related to "Don't assume N gold pieces will get you N gp worth of stuff."



> Have the player characters all be of aquatic races. This makes for a great ocean based campaign.




Nice.  Dolphin familiars, anyone?


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## mmadsen

> Travel. Eliminate _teleport_, _whispering wind_ and such. The easiest way to travel from one village to the next is on horseback. Messages are delivered by the Pony Express.




There are lots of great ways to tweak the spell lists.  That's a good one -- especially since it's so much easier to wrap your head around an adventure where the party has to go through Point B to get from Point A to Point C.



> Ethereal. Make most magic connected to the ethereal plane. Invisibility won't make you invisible it merely makes you ethereal.




Ah, not _in_visible, just _differently_ visible.  I like it!  Reminiscent of The One Ring too.



> Status. Introduce the Reputation statistic from Dragon Magazine. Rep=Lvl+Chr bonus+Bluff+Diplomacy+Intimidate.




Ooh, I really like this one.  Did the Dragon article give guidelines for using it?



> Honor. Use the Reputation statistic from above but substitute Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate for more (in your world) honorable skills. Such as Ride, Profession (Painting) and Perform (Poet).




This ties in quite nicely with some of the Pendragon trait discussions going round.


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## el-remmen

*"Classic" Monsters*

This may go along with the whole “monster palette” discussion, but one thing I do is tie the origins of certain “classic” monsters to the world itself.  Many monsters have their source in our own mythologies, but where do they come from in your own setting (whether it be homebrew or store-bought)?  

For example: Medusa from Greek mythology dared to compare her beauty to that of Aphrodite and was punished. – where do Medusae come from in your world?

An example from Aquerra would be manticores, who are actually. . .  wait, I can’t use that one b/c my players may see this. . .  But when they faced one they were amazed that it seemed to be able to do more than what they thought a manticore could.

Ok, drow in Aquerra are not a race unto themselves, but a template applied to any evil elf that dedicates herself to the spider goddess – this only slightly changes the origin of drow –but also adds flavor in that the PCs suddenly realize any elf can be a “drow”

The origins of certain monsters will also help create a world context, and maybe even allow PCs to figure out better ways to deal with them as they gain this knowledge, w/o actually having to change the rules all that much if at all. 

So ask yourself, where did pegasai come from?  Or unicorns?  Etc. . .


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## WSmith

Frostmarrow said:
			
		

> ** Ethereal. Make most magic connected to the ethereal plane. Invisibility won't make you invisible it merely makes you ethereal.
> *




I can't believe in 22 some odd years of gaming, I never thought of this. This is fantastic! For one, it illiminates all the quirky rules that most invisibility spells and items have, (although this was cleaned up mucho in 3e). Plus, like mmadsen said, it gives more of a One Ring of Power feeling! Using it, makes you invisible to everyone else, but puts you in the ethereal plane, with all it's dangers, (imagine doning a cloak of invisibility to avoid an encounter with Orc guards, only having instead to fight off a phase spider in the ether!) 

Another is using non-standard structures in non-standard evironments. For example, when most people think of pyramids, they right away think of the desert. How about placing them in the snowbound north? Structurally, they are perfect to allow the snow to slide off. 

Just as I was about to take a break from EN World, threads like this one keep me coming back.


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## MaxKaladin

*My Contribution*

This may have been slipped in somewhere already, but I'll continue just in case it hasn't been mentioned.

Use a different religion instead of the D&D standard pallet of many gods in a vague polytheistic arrangement.  Substitute spirits, ancestor worship, henotheism or monotheism.  

Have differences be a matter of differences of opinion about religion rather than different gods.  Make the 'evil cleric' a heretic who believes opposite of what the established church authority believes instead of a worshipper of an evil god.  

Use sects and orders to introduce diversity.  That way the cleric of the god of magic becomes a member of the Order of Saint So-and-So, who's members are reknown for their knowledge and skill when dealing with magic.  

Note that this can create a completely different atmosphere for the party cleric.  If everyone is assumed to be members of the same religion, suddenly, the cleric is no longer a person without a congregation.  It allows many more roleplaying opportunities for clerics.


----------



## Rune

WSmith said:
			
		

> *
> Another is using non-standard structures in non-standard evironments. For example, when most people think of pyramids, they right away think of the desert. How about placing them in the snowbound north? Structurally, they are perfect to allow the snow to slide off. *




Now why have I never thought of that!


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## nyrfherdr

Lot's of cool ideas.

Here are some that have been used in the past that should be familiar to many of you.

1.  Wizards are responsible for destroying much of the world.  They are still as powerful as ever and attractive to players, but they are forced to be very careful in cities or other crowded places or face vigilante justice (ala Dark Sun), which makes for a forever diminishing number of wizards.

2.  Add a twist to any race to break the mold.  Sovereign Press did a wonderful job with their Sovereign Stone books and world.  Check out the Orcs, Dwarves and Elves.  Very different feel.

A friend of mine made Ogres the mercenaries of the world.  They were physically strong, mean and excellent fighters.  They were typically encountered as cavalry (on a Rhinoceros!)  You did not mess with them.

3.  Make carrying weapons and wearing armor illegal except for soldiers, or nobles. (like in many ancient cultures).   The spellcasters and monks say... No problem, but how would the fighters and rogues react?  

4.  If you go with a low magic world... Make 'trail rations' what they really were.   Really stale bread with weavils and moldy cheese.  Make the search for food part of the adventure.

5.  In your cities, who are the day laborers.  The humans?  Try having goblins and hobgoblins be paid coppers for cleaning the streets and carrying burdens.  Where then do they live?  In a squatters warren or across the river in the goblin 'suburbs'?  Where do you find the goblin called Skinner among thousands?


Nothing earthshatteringly original, but more stuff to think about.


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## King_Stannis

great thoughts, mmadsen. many of your pieces of advice i have subscribed to for years, and some of the others are wonderful pieces of advice to any DM.


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## Desdichado

_



*MaxKaladin:*
Use a different religion instead of the D&D standard pallet of many gods in a vague polytheistic arrangement. Substitute spirits, ancestor worship, henotheism or monotheism. 

Have differences be a matter of differences of opinion about religion rather than different gods. Make the 'evil cleric' a heretic who believes opposite of what the established church authority believes instead of a worshipper of an evil god. 

Use sects and orders to introduce diversity. That way the cleric of the god of magic becomes a member of the Order of Saint So-and-So, who's members are reknown for their knowledge and skill when dealing with magic. 

Note that this can create a completely different atmosphere for the party cleric. If everyone is assumed to be members of the same religion, suddenly, the cleric is no longer a person without a congregation. It allows many more roleplaying opportunities for clerics.

Click to expand...


_
I've done a variation on this in my campaign world that I've been developing.  Although the campaign setting is polytheistic, I don't have regular clerics, so different cultures may have vastly different views on "the gods:" they are too hands-off to step in an clarify.  In addition, like in real world polytheistic societies, there are not rival churches dedicated to one god: rather, individuals pray to whichever god in the pantheon is appropriate for their situation at hand.  Farmers pray to the sky/storm god when they want rain or sunshine, but they don't do so when one of their children dies of the plague, for instance.  There, they would pray to a god of death.  On the weekend, city folks may well pray to the goddess of luck, sex or whatnot, although they wouldn't pay too much attention to her otherwise.  Priests, likewise, although they may have certain "special interests" in certain gods, nominally service the entire population and can explain doctrine, or intercede in behalf of _any_ god.


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## Rowenstin

Make all magic unexistent... until the campaign starts and sorceres, strange creatures and places of power spring everywhere.

Kill the sacred crow - make wizards able to cast healing magic, and make wizards and priests the same class. 

Do not tell the players what their items do, and/or give the party only subtle items (no flamig swords or necklaces of fireballs). _Identify_ gives a short rime or riddle. 

Describe what the components needed for making a magic item are, and make them change price and/or availability. 

Kill another sacred crow - the common tongue. Suddenly bards do _not_ suck.


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## Wolfen Priest

You know, Josh, although I've found everything on this thread to be very interesting, I think what you just said has me roused more than anything else, if in part because it's the only thing I have never thought of even once.

That is *SUCH* a good idea!  And realistic, because that is how pantheistic religions have historically worked.  I always found it kind of unrealistic that clerics would be devoted to only one god in an entire pantheon of gods.

I guess this would allow for good and evil priests to work within the same heirarchy.... probably not unlike real life!  (kidding)


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## omokage

often ignored is the origins of myths:

  The gods that people worship may not be gods, but just historical heroes long dead. The myths and folklore regarding the gods' deeds are the deeds of these heroes, or those deeds embellished to make them more heroic or godlike.

  Actual natural events caused the cataclym that reshaped the world, but the common person believes it was the retribution of the gods.

  The gods can be real, but wholly different from what most people believe them to be. Most clerics are Sorcerors whose faith inspires their spells. There may be a few "true clerics" that are regarded as madmen or heretics, or are completely unheard of.


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## Psion

Rowenstin said:
			
		

> *Kill another sacred crow - the common tongue. Suddenly bards do not suck. *




I'm surprised anyone uses it. I sort of have a common tongue, but it really is an admixture between two culture's languages and is called a Trade Tongue. But elsewhere, it is totally meaningless. (Expecially on other planes, etc.)


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## Psion

omokage said:
			
		

> *oThe gods that people worship may not be gods, but just historical heroes long dead.*




That's sort of where I am, except for they are really actually gods. They just haven't been around since the creation. Basically, gods in my game (at least most human deities) are like the _Dread Pirate Roberts_: there might have been a first one, but it has been a long time. Ever since the dawn of time, the gods have just been handing down their mantles.


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## Ace

I like the Ice Pyramids idea but I suppose I am biased as I tried the same thing IMC, only the Pyramids were ruins from a pole shift. Once  The Northern Desert  Now The The Ice Wastes.
I can only say Frozen Mummies rule.

Now as to a few of small changes that bring big flavor

First: Climate Tweaking. 
Most games assume basic "European Temperate" weather. One thing you can do is make it warmer. Not a tropic  climate but a climate like Southern California. It would have interesting changes on armour and weapons and food to boot.

Second: Get rid of Turning.
Clerics become quite different without Turn Undead and similar powers. You can gives them the ability as a spell if you like. Without Turning undead become much tougher and scarier.
A realted option is to allow minor Undead to be made as a magic item. Say  third level spell cost 5xp per HD to animate. This doesn't count against the limit. 
My world Building buddy does this with a glowing pearl in the mouth as a focus (ala the new D20 COC spell coincidently) I use a small token but the net effect is the same and it allows some big undead armies.
Combined with the no turn option can you say "Survival Horror"

Third:
Tweak spells. Lightning Bolt can become "Fire Line" with no real game balance issues. Fire Ball can become Ice Ball and so on. 
Forbiddance can be changed from "alignement restricted" to faith restricted and so on.
The FX on a spell can always be tweaked. Fly surrounds the user witha glowing aura, Leviatate produces a tiny puff of wind.


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## Kaptain_Kantrip

This thread is great! These ideas should have been covered in the DMG.


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## Desdichado

_



*Wolfen Priest:*
You know, Josh, although I've found everything on this thread to be very interesting, I think what you just said has me roused more than anything else, if in part because it's the only thing I have never thought of even once. 

That is SUCH a good idea! And realistic, because that is how pantheistic religions have historically worked. I always found it kind of unrealistic that clerics would be devoted to only one god in an entire pantheon of gods. 

Click to expand...


_
I aim to please!  
_



*Psion:*
That's sort of where I am, except for they are really actually gods. They just haven't been around since the creation. Basically, gods in my game (at least most human deities) are like the Dread Pirate Roberts: there might have been a first one, but it has been a long time. Ever since the dawn of time, the gods have just been handing down their mantles.

Click to expand...


_
Just out of curiosity, where do the old gods go, then?
_



*Ace:*
Most games assume basic "European Temperate" weather. One thing you can do is make it warmer. Not a tropic climate but a climate like Southern California. It would have interesting changes on armour and weapons and food to boot. 

Click to expand...


_
Not necessarily.  There was surprisingly little variation across the whole Eurasian Continent, from the Middle-east, to Northern Europe to China throughout most of the early Medieval period.  In fact, a lot of the really heavy armor was first developed in either the Middle-east or Central Asia.  The European knight was heavily influenced by Late Sassanian heavy cavalry.  Southern California doesn't have too different a climate than eastern Mediterranean, or Fertile Crescent (although it's drier there now than in the past.)


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## Jackcarter

Don't mean to butt into yall deep thoughts, but... 



> In fact, a lot of the really heavy armor was first developed in either the Middle-east or Central Asia. The European knight was heavily influenced by Late Sassanian heavy cavalry.




Can you explain this?  My first thought is, "huh?!?" so some elaboration would be nice.  



> I'm surprised anyone uses it. I sort of have a common tongue, but it really is an admixture between two culture's languages and is called a Trade Tongue. But elsewhere, it is totally meaningless. (Expecially on other planes, etc.)




If I recall correctly, that's not Common is FR, pidgin Chondathan that only Chondathan-influenced areas speak.  I have no idea whether or not this was present in the older FR editions, but I think it's not bad for a setting everyone loves to bag.



> Although the campaign setting is polytheistic, I don't have regular clerics, so different cultures may have vastly different views on "the gods:" they are too hands-off to step in an clarify. In addition, like in real world polytheistic societies, there are not rival churches dedicated to one god: rather, individuals pray to whichever god in the pantheon is appropriate for their situation at hand. Farmers pray to the sky/storm god when they want rain or sunshine, but they don't do so when one of their children dies of the plague, for instance




Sure, but IRL, gods didn't grant powers or cause misfortunes either.  Well, maybe they did, but we just dismiss them as natural disasters...  Back to the point, it's a bit presumptuous to imply that because religion worked in certain way in RL, then it's better that it function so in the game.  Not exactly what you mean, but can be easily juxaposed from.  Maybe, if gods did have real power, world's religions would look more than Judaism and less politheistic?  I think the Old Testament God is more relevant to how fantasy god would act in a polytheistic setting.  Just as God railed against Baal and the other phoenician gods and jealously guarded his stewardship over his people, shouldn't the fantasy gods act in the same way?

After all, one can plausibly argue, from a gamer point of view, that God was powerless to prevent the enslavement to the Egyptians backed by their gods, or prevent the Babylonian captivity as well.  Only by biding his time and through divine machinations, was God able to outflank the Egyptian and Babylonian gods and rescue his worshippers.  Sacriligeous, yes, but makes certain gamer sense.


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## mmadsen

> In my Middle-earth campaign...




Joshua, it's funny that you bring up Middle Earth, because my original train of thought that led to this thread was, what little changes can I make to D&D to get a more "Lord of the Rings" feel?

You can see the evidence of that in some of the "little changes":

Dark Ages -- For most of the middle ages, plate armor was not available, and neither were the various reinforced forms of mail (splint, banded).  Bastard swords and great swords weren't around, and many polearms weren't common.  A soldier in a full hauberk of mail was a serious threat
Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins _or_ kobolds _or_ orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.  (What's Your Monster Palette?)
Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
Remove the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Is there a difference between an evil sorcerer and an evil high priest?
Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc.
Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.
Try a different set of combat rules, like Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules or any variant that doesn't keep giving extra hit dice ad infinitum.  Instead of increasing hit points, you can increase armor class.  This makes magical healing less necessary, even if you keep the heroes at roughly the same power level.

(Let's not turn this into a Middle Earth thread though.)


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## MythandLore

Jackcarter said:
			
		

> *Can you explain this? My first thought is, "huh?!?" so some elaboration would be nice.   *



I'd assume he's talking about the Sassanid Persians use of chain and scale mails.
The Byzantine Empire, India and many others of the time used the same things though.
But I think he was talking about the 'Hot' Climate and the use of heavy armor and how people still used heavy armor in hot climates.
Like the Indian armor in below, India is hot, but the armor is still heavy.


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## mmadsen

I'm not terribly familiar with all the alternate game worlds from D&D's past (and present), but most seemed to make "little changes with big flavor":

Dark Sun
Magic destroyed the world and is now a capital crime.
Psionics everywhere.
Desolate desert terrain and climate.
Variant races and classes.

Birthright
PCs are "blooded" scions.
Low magic -- but the "blooded" can wield high (normal for D&D) magic.
Heroes don't just adventure; they rule the land.
Variant races, a bit more "classical" in feel (except for Halflings).


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## Psion

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> *Just out of curiosity, where do the old gods go, then?*




Some say they become one with the universe, or merge with the being of their footstep followers. Others say that even gods have other realms. Alas, these are great mysteries...


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## I'm A Banana

It's cool to toss around ideas about feel and style and whatnot. Leads to a lot of cool inspiration and toyin' with campaign settings.

I'm not sure if it is just me (it could be...been known to happen), but there is a fine line between suggesting cool ideas, and suggesting that those ideas are nessecarily better than other ways. 

No offense, of course. There's a lot of awesome ideas floating around here. But there's still nothin' wrong with doin' it the normal way.


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## SHARK

Greetings!

Hey Kamikaze! (SHARK chomps at the air, waving!) I don't think that anyone here is suggesting that "The Standard Way" is necessarily bad, or inferior, just that should *you* become bored with it, and desire to make something different, then here are some cool suggestions and tweaks that can add different levels of *change* to one's campaign. It just depends on what kind of changes that you would like to make, that composes the discussion. There is something here to appeal to everyone, at different times. For someone who wants to incorporate a little degree of change, a moderate degree of change, or a greater degree of change. It's all offered up, on tap!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## I'm A Banana

Yeah, it's been mostly okay. It's just a pet peeve of mine, and lines like "now bards _don't_ suck!", however innocent, could be construed as meaning: "Now they do suck, and if you don't use my solution, they will continue to."

Not that they do, just that...I'm sensitive.  

Nonetheless, they are cool ideas, and should continue to come.


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## Desdichado

_



*MythandLore:*
I'd assume he's talking about the Sassanid Persians use of chain and scale mails.  The Byzantine Empire, India and many others of the time used the same things though.  But I think he was talking about the 'Hot' Climate and the use of heavy armor and how people still used heavy armor in hot climates.  Like the Indian armor in below, India is hot, but the armor is still heavy. 

Click to expand...


_
Well, yeah.  The following quote from David Nicolle, a somewhat prolific author in medieval history said the following about Sughdian cavalry depicted on a plate in one of his books (painted by Angus McBride!):


> The directly riveted segmented helmet with a full mail aventail, the long mail hauberk, spear, dagger and large round shield as well as the horse's advanced harness would form the basis of subsequent cavalry equipment in the Middle East.  They would also be found in Byzantium, Russia and much of eastern Europe and probably lay behind the development of the heavy cavalry of medieval western Europe.  In fact, this warrior represents the advanced cavalryman of his day and the future.





> _*mmadsen:*
> Joshua, it's funny that you bring up Middle Earth, because my original train of thought that led to this thread was, what little changes can I make to D&D to get a more "Lord of the Rings" feel? _




Click on the banner in my sig file (not to toot my own horn...)  I don't have all the changes I used to make my d20 Middle-earth campaign, but I'm hoping to eventually detail them in the Story Hour file that link points to.


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## omokage

another idea (from my own campaign):

   Limit the amount of sentient races. This stresses intra-racial cultural differences more. Maybe, like our own world (?) Humans are the only sentient race. Maybe Humans (or one other race) are the only known sentients, but there is one out there, hiding.


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## Ace

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> *[/color]
> On Heavy Amor
> 
> Not necessarily.  There was surprisingly little variation across the whole Eurasian Continent, from the Middle-east, to Northern Europe to China throughout most of the early Medieval period.  In fact, a lot of the really heavy armor was first developed in either the Middle-east or Central Asia.  The European knight was heavily influenced by Late Sassanian heavy cavalry.  Southern California doesn't have too different a climate than eastern Mediterranean, or Fertile Crescent (although it's drier there now than in the past.) *



_

MMPH. Time to hit the books for me. 

I was thinking of Plate Armor and how hot it is to wear. I assume that Armor warn in hotter cultures had better ventilation. 
If I tried to fight in Plate in a California summer I am pretty sure I would keel over after a while.
I remember reading of 12th century crusaders in "International" 4 link mail passing out from the desert heat. 
I figured the the Mirrored Breast Plate and O'Yori (sp?) armors used in 14th  century in India and Japan had better ventilation than Western armor of the same period.

Even if it isn't historically correct changing the weapons and armor list is a cool way to change the feel of the campaign.

One way to do it is to limit the weapons available to a narrow selection derived from social class or culture. 
Or go Roman (No spiked chain, nunchuks etc)_


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## mmadsen

*To recap (again):*

D&D makes a lot of tacit assumptions about how the game world works, and most campaigns naturally follow along.  If you'd like a very different flavor, it might require only some tiny changes.  Give a few of these a try.

Your fantasy world doesn't have to resemble England in the late Middle Ages.  You can try: 
Primitive -- Imagine combat with spears, bows, hides for armor, etc.  Dire Animals make great monsters.
Ancient Greece -- Bronze age.  If everyone's using bronze, you might not need any special rules for it.
Ancient Rome -- Iron age, few long swords, lots of spears and short swords, soldiers in chain mail or breast plate (actually lorica segmentata).
Dark Ages -- For most of the middle ages, plate armor was not available, and neither were the various reinforced forms of mail (splint, banded).  Bastard swords and great swords weren't around, and many polearms weren't common.  A soldier in a full hauberk of mail was a serious threat
Arabian Nights -- You don't need the official Al Qadim setting to use rich Caliphs, desert nomads, caravans under attack from brigands, and wizards on flying carpets
Mythic India -- Even a quick peek at the Indian epics reveals a world ripe for D&D-style adventure.
Mythic Africa -- The Nyambe setting should be coming out soon.
Mythic Hawaii -- Or any group of islands.
Renaissance Europe -- Gunpowder, pikemen, halberdiers, lots of breastplates, but few full suits of armor.
Age of Conquest -- It's eerie just how similar the Conquistadors were to D&D adventurers, going from place to place, killing (with "magic" weapons and armor) and looting, making some allies, then leading a big attack on the supervillain's castle (Mexico city, a metropolis of stone pyramids built on a lake in an extinct volcano).
Age of Sail -- Pirates! 'Nuff said
Age of Steam -- Everyone loves intricate brass clockwork, ironclads, and balloons.
Modern -- D&D doesn't seem to handle this too well, but you can try any of the more modern d20 games, and you can mix in as much fantasy as you'd like.

Or you can modify your setting any number of ways:

Use non-standard structures in non-standard evironments. For example, when most people think of pyramids, they right away think of the desert. How about placing them in the snowbound north? Structurally, they are perfect to allow the snow to slide off. 
Tie the origins of certain “classic” monsters to the world itself.  For example: Medusa from Greek mythology dared to compare her beauty to that of Aphrodite and was punished.  Where do Medusae come from in your world?
Place the campaign under water, using aquatic races.
Have no safe haven, no Village of Hommlet, to return to.  Keep the heroes on the run.
Use evocative names -- for characters, places, and magic items.  Rune's quasi-oriental setting uses Adjective-Noun-Verb names for men and Noun-Adverb-Verb names for women.  Names like "Thorin" were evocative when they were new.  Names like "Mad Stone Tumbles" still are.
Don't be afraid to alter reality.  This is a fantasy game.  In Ravenloft, for instance, the Mist can alter time and space.  If the seasons change daily, or the landscape moves when you're not looking, you're in a fantastic realm.
No common tongue.

The Party:

Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies.
Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring.
Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families).
Invert which races are good and which are bad.  Play the Orcs, Goblins, and Kobolds against ruthless Elves.

Monsters:

Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something.
Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins _or_ kobolds _or_ orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.  (What's Your Monster Palette?)
Base your goblins and elves on folklore, not modern fantasy.  Have them rely on magical deception (not studded leather and a morningstar) to get the job done.
Have the monsters be something that can be dealt with by wits, such as with riddles or tricks.  In folklore, magic is often just knowing the strengths and weaknesses of various beasts, knowing what they like and dislike, knowing how to talk to them, etc. The key to killing the dragon isn't having a stronger sword arm; it's knowing that the dragon has a soft underbelly, and if you dig a ditch, he'll crawl over you and expose it.
Don't forget animals.  Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.)
Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
Night of the Living Dead.  Don't disable zombies at 0 (or negative) hit points. Have them keep coming down to -10 hit points, but have each hit take off a limb. Graphically describe it, and give the zombie reduced abilities: leg, can't walk, can only crawl 5'; arm, grapple at -4; head, drops "dead" (a la Night of the Living Dead), or simply can't change what it's doing.
Unique Monsters: one Pegasus, one Medusa (with two other gorgon sisters), one Minotaur, one Questing Beast, one Fenris Wolf, one Midgard Serpent, etc. 

Treasure:

Have magic items be gifts from powerful allies, not loot from enemies (who have an odd penchant for leaving magic cloaks in the closet).
Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc.
Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.

Misc. Tips:

 Drop the "flavored" classes.  Ranger, Paladins, Monks, Bards, Clerics, and Druids all bring a distinct "D&D" flavor to the game.  Optionally, make their class abilities feats that other classes might take.  Let Fighters take Rage and Favored Enemy as feats.
Try a different set of combat rules, like Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules or any variant that doesn't keep giving extra hit dice ad infinitum.  Instead of increasing hit points, you can increase armor class.  This makes magical healing less necessary, even if you keep the heroes at roughly the same power level.
Fixed levels. Just start everyone as heroes (e.g. 7th level) and keep them there.
Base the game completely around non-combat advancement. E.g. XP for converting the "unsaved" to your religion, or for finding ancient tomes
Don't assume N gold pieces will get you N gp worth of stuff. No one said you were in an efficient market economy. 
Use the barter system. Eliminate currency. This will allow for more role playing interaction and the use of CHA based skills more oftern.
Have the enemy play rough and play smart.  Have them use tactics and magic as PCs would.
Don't match every encounter to the PCs' abilities.  If the enemy's caught off guard, they should be vulnerable; if they know what to expect, they shouldn't be.
Use fantastic elements to dramatic ends.  A Black and White season has no in-game effect, but -- Wow! -- it packs a dramatic punch.  What would your players do if it started raining blood?  In a fantastic setting, you can go well beyond a mere dark and stormy night.
Tie the players to the world.  If family ties and honor matter, the players will start to behave with filial piety and honor, not as thugs looting from weaker thugs.
Status. Introduce the Reputation statistic from Dragon Magazine. Rep=Lvl+Chr bonus+Bluff+Diplomacy+Intimidate. 
Honor. Use the Reputation statistic from above but substitute more "honorable" skills for Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate.

Alignment:

Remove alignments. 
Use Good and Evil _or_ Law and Chaos.
Divvy up the world into two sides with each considering itself Good and the other Evil.
Track alignment as carefully as hit points.  Use Pendragon-style trait pairs, but just use two: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil. 
Use all 13 Pendragon trait pairs (Chaste/Lustful through Valorous/Cowardly), and divvy them up between two mega-trait pairs: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil.
Use alignment only for Outsiders, Clerics, and Paladins.
Don't tell the players that their characters' Detect Evil powers are purely delusional.  Let them play religious fanatics who feel justified by their "divinely revealed" knowledge.  Optionally, after enough wholesale slaughter, let them know the truth.
Place the characters in situations that require them to make moral decisions.  If you're tracking alignment, these moral decisions can have in-game effects.

Religion:

The gods that people worship may not be gods, but just historical heroes long dead.
As in real world polytheistic societies, have no rival churches or Clerics dedicated to a single god.  Individuals pray to whichever god in the pantheon is appropriate for their situation at hand.
Have religious differences be a matter of opinion rather than different gods. Make the 'evil cleric' a heretic who believes opposite of what the established church authority believes instead of a worshipper of an evil god. 
Use sects and orders to introduce diversity. That way the cleric of the god of magic becomes a member of the Order of Saint So-and-So, who's members are reknown for their knowledge and skill when dealing with magic. 
Instead of having the large, classic gods, use small gods that take the frm of huge beasts, terrain features, or monuments. Clerics can only cast spells (or "recharge") within range of the small god.

I'm not terribly familiar with all the alternate game worlds from D&D's past (and present), but most seemed to make "little changes with big flavor":

Dark Sun

Magic destroyed the world and is now a capital crime.
Psionics everywhere.
Desolate desert terrain and climate.
Variant races and classes.
Birthright

PCs are "blooded" scions.
Low magic -- but the "blooded" can wield high (normal for D&D) magic.
Heroes don't just adventure; they rule the land.
Variant races, a bit more "classical" in feel (except for Halflings).
Dragonlance

Magic tied to the moons and alignment, one mages' guild.
Return of gods (and clerical magic)
Monster palette: draconians, chromatic vs. metallic dragons
Race palette: kender, tinker gnomes, gully dwarves
Ravenloft

Monster palette: vampires, werewolves, ancient dead, goblyns.
Evil is tangible, and evil acts transform the evildoer.
Detection magic doesn't work flawlessly, so our heroes can be kept in the dark.

Magic:

Remove magic entirely.  Perhaps the heroes rediscover it.  Perhaps their arch-enemy does.
Remove divine magic; the gods have fled, or they simply don't hand out magic powers.
Remove arcane magic.  Evil "sorcerers" are evil priests worshipping dark gods.
Remove spellcasting entirely.  Have all magic through magic items.
Assume a more "primitive" (or secretive) level of magical knowledge.  Have no known spells; all spells must be researched.
Implement priests as Sorcerers or Wizards (with the Cleric spell list) so that they're wise men, not warriors.  Same with Druids.  Make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell, and have Druids cast Polymorph Self to shapeshift.
Let Clerics turn any and all supernatural creatures not just the undead.  In folklore, goblins and trolls can't stand the sound of church bells.
Make the spellcasting classes prestige classes with prerequisites. After all, isn't it odd that a Bard with four skill ranks in Perform is good enough to enchant people with his music?  And that a Druid who barely knows his way around the woods knows enough of Nature's secrets to command it?  Should every religious figure wield powerful magic?  On a daily basis?
Don't give back spellcasters their full power after one night's rest and some study/prayer time.  Make recharging require rare magical ingredients, or blood sacrifice, or a selfless act of piety.  Or simply make it take longer.  That way spellcasters won't toss spells left and right, but they'll have them for when they need them.
Make spellcasting always take a full round or more.  Suddenly spellcasters aren't video game characters.
Have magic transform its user.  Over time, necromancers grow pale and withered.  Fire mages start giving off sparks when angry; eventually their hair turns to living fire.  Shapeshifters take on the traits of the animals they become.
Limit all sorcerers to a strongly themed spell list.  For instance, a "fey" list of just: daze, dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation, obscuring mist, charm person, hypnotism, sleep, change self, ..., polymorph.  Or a summoner list of just the Summon Monster spells.
Make an entire magic system out of summoning (e.g. Elric).
Eliminate all directly-damaging spells.  It's not like wizards can't do any harm without magic missile and fireball, and they're certainly more interesting that way.  Or just make all those spells more difficult.  Besides, isn't a wizard supposed to turn you into a frog?
Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
Remove the Arcane Spell Failure percentage for armor. In a campaign world like Elric's Melnibone, sorcerers freely cast in full armor.
Remove the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Is there a difference between an evil sorcerer and an evil high priest?
Increase the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Have quasi-Christian priests whose only real powers are dispelling fiends' enchantments, banishing demons back to hell, etc.
Dark Side points for spellcasting. Have every spell force a Will save (DC 10 + 2 * spell level) or the caster gains a Dark Side point. Once the caster accumulates more Dark Side points than Wisdom, he goes mad with hunger for power. The Dark Side points can cause a cumulative penalty to later Will saves too -- wonderful for that downward spiral effect.
Runequest Magic.  Just about anyone can cast minor spells: no multiclass penalty for a level of Sorcerer.
Different Magic for Different Races.  Humans must learn magic as Wizards, Elves are naturally Sorcerers, etc.
Require that all Wizards specialize in one school, and they can only cast spells from that school
Tweak spells. Lightning Bolt can become "Fire Line" with no real game balance issues. Fire Ball can become Ice Ball and so on. 
Eliminate magical travel (teleport, whispering wind) so the easiest way to travel from one village to the next is still on horseback.
Invisibility doesn't make you invisible; it merely makes you ethereal. 
Use Call of Cthulhu Magic.


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## mmadsen

A few more thoughts:

Have the heroes all be animals, either in a campaign full of anthropomorphic animals (e.g. Redwall) or in a normal "human" world.
Have the heroes be children.
Have the heroes be retired has-beens, showin' the young bucks how they did in their day.
Have heroes of vastly different power levels.  Perhaps one character is the squire of the knight, or the familiar of the wizard.
Have the heroes be normal people: farmers, merchants, scribes, not knights and wizards


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## mmadsen

A lot of fantasy fiction describes a world where humans are a young race, much younger than the elves and dwarves.

Have primitive humans wielding clubs and wearing hides while already advanced elves and dwarves wield steel blades and wear steel mail.  Further, have the illiterate humans casting only the simplest of spells, if any.


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## Maldur

I always liked twisting around race preconceptions. In my FR campaign. Trolls aren't evil , they are stupid (dim-witted was the actual term). But because everyone thinks them evil and attacks on site (or send in some adventurers, they become mean and evil).

I also use a tribe of lawfull good Minotaurs (or minotaur like creatures). and the party have to find a home for them, away from danger but also away from the "civilized" world as that world thinks them evil.


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## Bran Blackbyrd

Some changes that I made in my campaign, and a few that are just interesting (some may have already been mentioned, bear with me).
----
Magic, monsters, and demihumans are all thought to be fairytales. It isn't until the PCs get out in the world and begin to explore that they find out these things are real.

Magic exists but there is a secret society that suppresses knowledge of magic and its use, by any means necessary. Any PC that can wield magic must do so carefully, lest she attract notice.

World resembles the colonial age, but without gunpowder or any other highly advanced technology.

Disposable magic items. I call them Peasant Charms. Say your fighter saves the miller's daughter and she weaves a necklace of flowers for him as a thank you. Maybe it will negate the next critical hit that is made against him and then it crumbles to dust? Maybe it will give him +1 to his saves until the flowers wither. 
The token, whatever it may be (a favorite brooch, a lock of hair, a handkerchief) is imbued with power, unintentionally, because of the emotion put into it. This is a nice way of rewarding the group's heroes, without having to worry that a new magic item will disrupt balance. Eventually the flowers die, the lock of hair loses its luster, and the brooch quits shining so brightly and the bonus goes away. The PC might never even realize that the item held power...

Just because two people worship the same god, doesn't mean they are on the same side. Perhaps two groups worship the same god, and each insists its path is the true one.
Now the PCs don't just have to be able to spot a worshiper of Mezrothe the god of death, they have to be able to tell which worshiper is from the benign Peaceful Rest sect, and which one is from the bloodthirsty Endbringer sect.

Humans can be monsters too! Most of us know this and yet a surprising number of people don't.

Killing things has consequences, and the local magistrates have laws. PCs don't get the benefit of killing without conscience and without retribution.

Bad guys don't always fight to the death, they don't always spot the PCs first (and vice versa), and they don't always show up with a name tag marked "villain". 

Resurrection? What's that?

Plantlife! Just adding new flora to a world changes the atmosphere. IMC there is a type of tree whose sap is so volatile that it will burst into flames at the slightest provocation. Not only that, but dryads never inhabit these trees. Setting one alight may release the fire elemental or mephit that resides within... It doesn't take a genius to realize that if one catches fire the whole forest will be gone in no time. The seeds require intense heat to germinate properly, and the trees grow quickly.
I hope the PCs keep an eye on the sparks from that campfire...

No major religions. Long ago the Gods were exiled from the world and only now are new gods ascending to power. Maybe they are desperate to recruit followers? Maybe they use the party to eliminate a rival god's worshipers? When the favors of fledgling deities are up for grabs the group could have it made, but they could just as easily find themselves on a powerful being's bad side.

Religion is outlawed. Secret cults and sects worship in hiding and will do anything to avoid being discovered. Whole faiths live and die depending on who kept the secret and who ratted them out.
Do the PCs say "live and let live", or do they wipe the groups out in accordance to law?

No more faceless monster races. All races have a rich history, be it a glorious one, a tragic fall from good to evil, or an age old tradition of slaughter and slavery.
The orcs have a fierce and proud ancestry, they fought along with the humans for freedom from the dark gods and now, many centuries later live in isolation from the humans in the Black Desert. Hot tempered and antisocial, but not at all evil.
The evil kobolds, masters of sorcery, scourge of the soft-spirited humans, are reduced to slavery at the hands of the goblins who keep their numbers low and manageable...
The dark-hearted gnolls, split forever from the two good ancient races which gave birth to them. One race extinct, and the other constantly at odds with the gnolls.
Much more flavor than, "Kobolds are bad. You kill them, now they are dead."

Familiars first come to the magic-user in the form of animal totems, in dreams and visions. After a rapport with the animal spirit is made, a familiar of that type joins the PC.

Animating a corpse does/doesn't disrupt the soul of the person the corpse belonged to? Maybe necromancy isn't evil. Maybe the undead are simply animated by elemental spirits or other energies. 
Perhaps the undead are used as cheap labor, or for dangerous tasks. 
Maybe it is tradition for certain clans or villages to make their historian a lich so that he or she will be around forever, recording and relating the family/local history.

Monster names change from region to region. Maybe in Northport goblins are called Hokems, but in the Fort Relentless region they are known as Dusk-Swine. Who knows!

Regional monsters. In one town, nightly raids by bugbears are a matter of course, but in the kingdom to the west bugbears are unheard of.

In a campaign where magic/religion is non-existent or very rare the effectiveness of Heal and Herbalism skills can be increased. By how much is up to you.

I'm sure there are a ton I'm forgetting, but someone else will mention them, I'm sure.
Great thread, great ideas. Keep 'em coming!

EDIT: As opposed to having no resurrection at all, maybe raising someone is ridiculously easy. Many people can bring back a dead person for a modest fee. 
In a world like this, maybe killing a foe, but leaving the body in good enough condition that he can be brought back is merely considered a warning!!!
Perhaps mutilating the corpse in a certain way prevents raising. Removing the head/heart/whatever prevents resurrection. Maybe, like in the Vlad Taltos books, there are weapons that eat the soul, and if you are killed with one your soul is lost forever.
In this kind of situation, temporarily killing someone would have only slight legal penalties. Such killings are less likely to be taken care of by the law than they are by a revenge "temporary kill" to put the original killer in his place.


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## jdfrenzel

These are great ideas. Less is more!

Here's another take on magic items. Heroes will only have one or two their whole careers. Hand them out early and at full power. That's all they will ever get, but it's their ticket to glory.

For NPCs, follow the purchase guidelines in the DMG, but reverse the item cost limitation: no item may cost _less_ than half their starting gold. This has the nice side effect of usually forcing a large percentage of gold into more mundane items.

In my current Persian-style campaign, the hero (Rog/Sor) got his _+3 defending scimitar_ at 4th level. It's the only magic item he has ever had, and while he can chew through his weaker opponents, most of the challenges are outside of combat. Great fun, no Christmas trees!

--- John


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## Desdichado

_



*Ace:*
I was thinking of Plate Armor and how hot it is to wear. I assume that Armor warn in hotter cultures had better ventilation. 
If I tried to fight in Plate in a California summer I am pretty sure I would keel over after a while. 
I remember reading of 12th century crusaders in "International" 4 link mail passing out from the desert heat. 
I figured the the Mirrored Breast Plate and O'Yori (sp?) armors used in 14th century in India and Japan had better ventilation than Western armor of the same period. 

Click to expand...


_
Well, plate armor is a different kettle of fish.  That wasn't developed until the late Middle Ages, and it _was_ a direct response to -- in part -- the tournament tradition.  Mail isn't so great against couched lances, but when it became "knightly" to charge other knights in pseudo-ritualized combat, even on the battlefield, plate armor became a necessity.

But even then, the predesescors (sic, sorry) of plate armor were the laminated and scale type armors, which were developed long ago in central Asia and the middle-east, primarily.


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## Broken Fang

Just a friendly bump to get this great list back to the front page.


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## WSmith

Another thing I thougt of, for the more younger audience, instead of having a creature die when it hits 0-(-10) HPs, and leave a bloody carcus, have it crumble into dust and blow away. Remember the _Mummy Returns_, when the Meidji fighters would strike one of the minions of Anubis? They would crumble to dust. I loved this. It may not fit all creatures, but it does have some merit.


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## apoptosis

One of the things i did in my world.

I created a Low Magic-item world.

and to balance things out.

I had sorceres not use the spells per day table but took 1+1/spell level lvl subdual damage (i use the grim'ngritty system so not many hitpoints...and you couldnt heal this damage magically). Cha was used for xtra spells known.

Wizards took 1 hour/spell level to memorize a spell (could metamagic a spell over what they could cast but was 2 hours/spell level) (limited by their spells /day table.

Clerics use their spell/day table but had only  a % chance of a spell working (gods were very finicky).

magic items were very rare (potions and scrolls more common but only % chance they would work).

made magic far more precious.  

Apoptosis


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## Rune

Bran Blackbyrd said:
			
		

> *
> Disposable magic items. I call them Peasant Charms. Say your fighter saves the miller's daughter and she weaves a necklace of flowers for him as a thank you. Maybe it will negate the next critical hit that is made against him and then it crumbles to dust? Maybe it will give him +1 to his saves until the flowers wither.
> The token, whatever it may be (a favorite brooch, a lock of hair, a handkerchief) is imbued with power, unintentionally, because of the emotion put into it. This is a nice way of rewarding the group's heroes, without having to worry that a new magic item will disrupt balance. Eventually the flowers die, the lock of hair loses it's luster, and the brooch quits shining so brightly and the bonus goes away. The PC might never even realize that the item held power...
> *




...And Rune steals another one!  *YOINK*


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## Gavin

Make history less certain.

*Make character races all have the same lifespan. No more ancient mentors who remember the beginning of time. This makes a truly ancient monster like a dragon or a liche seem...ancient.

*Reduce the amount of written history. Have most history handed down in stories, epic poems, songs. Make symbolic stories, parables, morality tales that hint at history but don't come right out and say it. Of course, over the years that history becomes stylized and ritualized and turned into myth and legend. 

*Revisionist history: "Of course those people were evil. That's why we crushed them and took their rich, fertile, evil lands"

*Have mis-quoted, mistranslated, misunderstood, or just made up stories that have become accepted as "history". And then show them the error of that belief.

The past is often poorly understood in real life. Why should a place that doesn't even have radiocarbon dating be any better.

Well, yeah, they have magic. So make magic-using archaelogists. Make discovering history as much a part of the story as discovering treasure.

Final thought: Indiana Gnome-Illusionist.


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## kenjib

Some ideas on magic items - some from other people but I don't recall who:

1.  Remove the limitation that all magic weapons and armor have at least a +1 bonus.  Also remove the limitation that bonuses are always applied to both to-hit and damage.  You could have, for example, a flaming sword (with no other bonuses), a +3 to hit sword that invokes true strike once per day as a free action, or a +2 damage keen sword.  Damage resistance is penetrated by total bonus equivalent rather than just bonus value alone.

2.  Give most magic items significant drawbacks and curses.  For example, that +2 damage keen sword must see battle once per day or it grows heavier and heavier.  The cloak of etherealness is a beacon for strange extra-dimensional predators.  Whenever true strike is invoked using the +3 to hit/true strike sword, the user becomes fatigued after striking.  Every time the staff of power is used the user must make a will saving throw DC5 +1 cumulative for each additional use.  Failure results in a permanent loss of one hit point.  The ring of protection +5 only works for one week after it is soaked in the fresh blood of an innocent stranger killed in cold blood.

3.  Have items gain magical abilities through their usage and history rather than through enchantment.  Example:  Hulgar the mighty made a heroic last stand in the mountain passes against the invading orc horde.  He died holding them back just long enough for his beloved and their unborn child to escape pursuit.  Now when the user of this sword is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, so long as he makes at least one attack with the sword per round he gains the following bonuses:  he remains conscious, he does not suffer damage from blood loss, combat reflexes, +5 to armor class, +5 to hit, and +5 to all saving throws.  If the wielder stops attacking and is still below 0 hit points he falls unconscious and continues with the standard blood loss rules.  If the wielder falls to -10 or fewer hit points he dies immediately.

4.  Don't use any magic items from the DMG.  Instead create all original items.  Alternatively, swap the item and the effect.  For example, have a crown of invisibility and a cloak of intellect.

5.  Require that the creation of an item (not including scrolls, potions, and wands) requires an item research journal.  This works just like a spell book.  The method for enchanting each item is considered to be a unique spell.  The spell level of the spell is derived from item's caster level via caster level/2 rounding up.  All casters must use such a journal to create magic items, even if they don't normally keep spell books.  The cost of researching or scribing the item creation notes are as per the rules for wizards scribing spells.  Treatises on item creation are hoarded jealously by covetous spellcasters and can be handed out in lieu of actual items.

6.  Use the levelled magic item variant from Dragon.

7.  Learning about an item's history unlocks new powers.  Using the Hulgar's sword from #3 above, the sword is a normal sword until the user discovers this part of the sword's history.  Later, the user also discovers that this sword was carried by the famous cavalry captain Tinatel at the legendary siege of Caladan.  This discovery unlocks an additional power of the sword - +2 to ride checks, attack rolls, and damage when fighting from horseback.  There can be even more secrets in the weapon's history just waiting to be unlocked.

P.S.  Regarding armor and climate - didn't the conquistadors wear brigandine because heavier armor would have been too hot and cumbersome for steamy jungle trekks?

On another note - for another campaign idea put the characters into an alien environment and center the campaign around trying to get back to the normal world:  Stranded in an alien world, shrunk down to the size of ants with no idea how to get back to normal size, trapped via a cave-in in a giant subterranean world that the surface world never knew existed (ala Journey to the Center of the Earth), sent forward in time to an alien future (Time Machine) or back to a primitive past, stranded on a deserted island, etc.  You might have to tweak or remove some spells to make some of these work.  One powerful side effect of most of these scenarios is that there is no longer any civilization - no shops, no treasure, no economy, no magic items, no replacement equipment that the player's can't craft on their own - nothing!  If you want to introduce a bit more access to resources you could always introduce a Sleestak (Land of the Lost) type race - natives that are very alien to the characters way of thinking - or a native race that is irrevocably hostile toward the characters so that they must obtain equipment and supplies through scavenging and stealing.


----------



## Dark Jezter

Conan the Barbarian for Third Edition D&D is one of the best D20 dedicated sites I've ever seen, and any D&D player who is also a fan of Robert E Howard _must_ see this site.

Aside from having stats for Conan and people he meets over the course of his adventurous life, the site also has rules for making a campaign set in the Hyborian Age.  Some of the changes include:


 Humans are the only playable race.
 Bards, Clerics, and Paladins are eliminated as playable classes.  Druids are very rare, but acceptable.
 Rangers can no longer cast spells.  To compensate for this, they get a bonus feat every 5 levels.
 Spellcasting for wizards and sorcerors has been completely overhauled.  If an arcane spellcaster wants to memorize a spell, they must enter a comatose state where they send their consciousness outside normal time/space to learn dark secrets that man was not meant to know.  If they fail, they run the risk of going insane or even bringinging back an evil outsider with them.
 After casting a spell, a spellcaster is fatigued for an hour.
 In many countries, magic is outlawed and reviled.  If a player openly identifies themselves as a mage, they could be hunted and killed as a witch.
 Some more that I will not list now.

Some of these changes are very interesting, and suitable for a Hyborian Age campaign.


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## Bran Blackbyrd

Rune said:
			
		

> *
> 
> ...And Rune steals another one!  *YOINK* *




Yeah, that's probably one of my best, I'm glad you like it!

They work like a charm (no pun intended) in low-magic campaigns because they don't ruin the illusion that magic is rare. They can be "created" by people who supposedly have no magic abilities, and they expire quickly which actually reinforces how special they are, and how hard magic is to truly capture.

In my campaign magic is everywhere, but it isn't being used. Magic users were hunted to virtual extinction and the fact that magic exists has been repressed, so the air practically crackles with unused power. The Peasant Charms are an example of how one powerful emotion, one defining moment, can capture that energy and put it to use, if only for a moment. Intent shapes power.

This is a nice companion to boosting the effectiveness of Healing and Herbalism. This has a pretty decent suspension of disbelief too. You'd be surprised how many people never question that the village wise woman's homemade treebark tonic heals as many HP as a Cure Light Wounds potion, just because she rolled a great skill check. They just say, "Oh ok, I guess she brews a great homemade cure-all."

Note: Oy, I can't type anything correctly anymore.


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## mmadsen

> Magic, monsters, and demihumans are all thought to be fairytales. It isn't until the PCs get out in the world and begin to explore that they find out these things are real.




A common, but good, idea.  Really though, whose players have ever believed that they were playing in a magic-free world?  It's hard enough to surprise them with Cthulhu-esque horror when you set it up as a modern spy game; who's going to believe you're playing D&D without magic? 



> Magic exists but there is a secret society that suppresses knowledge of magic and it's use, by any means necessary. Any PC that can wield magic must do so carefully, lest she attract notice.




Why are they suppressing magic?  (That's a story in itself.)



> World resembles the colonial age, but without gunpowder or any other highly advanced technology.




How does it resemble the colonial age if the technology of that era doesn't exist?  Tricorner hats?  Tea and tobacco?  Can they transport cash crops without advanced sailing ships and navigation?



> Disposable magic items. I call them Peasant Charms. Say your fighter saves the miller's daughter and she weaves a necklace of flowers for him as a thank you. Maybe it will negate the next critical hit that is made against him and then it crumbles to dust? Maybe it will give him +1 to his saves until the flowers wither.
> 
> The token, whatever it may be (a favorite brooch, a lock of hair, a handkerchief) is imbued with power, unintentionally, because of the emotion put into it. This is a nice way of rewarding the group's heroes, without having to worry that a new magic item will disrupt balance. Eventually the flowers die, the lock of hair loses it's luster, and the brooch quits shining so brightly and the bonus goes away. The PC might never even realize that the item held power...




Sweet.   I'm with Rune; consider that idea stolen.

It reminds me of another "little change" that I forgot to mention:

Replace scrolls with talismans (from Oriental Adventures).
Remove one-shot scrolls.  Scrolls are no different from pages out of a spellbook.  You can learn a spell from them, but they don't store any magic energy allowing you to cast from them.
Allow casters to cast directly out of a spellbook (or from a scroll) -- slowly, with a chance of error.
Remove charge-em-up wands, rods, and staves.
Have "preparing" a spell mean storing it in a wand/rod/staff or talisman instead of "hanging" it in memory.  Taking a Wizard's staff away or breaking it means disarming him of his prepared spells (or most of them).



> Bad guys don't always fight to the death, they don't always spot the PCs first (and vice versa), and they don't always show up with a name tag marked "villain".




One oddity of RPGs in general is that monsters and animals casually fight to the death.  I guess part of that is a result of another RPG oddity: monsters tend to get assaulted out of nowhere while in a tiny locked room.



> Resurrection? What's that?




That's one of the great things about Pendragon: the campaign is supposed to last for decades, with just one adventure per year (in the summer, when the weather's good), and your character raises a family.  You expect to die, if only of old age, so passing the mantle to your son comes naturally.  Who needs resurrection?  It's all in the family.



> Plantlife! Just adding new flora to a world changes the atmosphere. IMC there is a type of tree whose sap is so volitile that it will burst into flames at the slightest provocation. Not only that, but dryads never inhabit these trees. Setting one alight may release the fire elemental or mephit that resides within... It doesn't take a genius to realize that if one catches fire the whole forest will be gone in no time. The seeds require intense heat to germinate properly, and the trees grow quickly.
> I hope the PCs keep an eye on the sparks from that campfire...




Good point.  People do tend to overlook flora.  And there's more to exotic plantlife than carniverous plants.



> Familiars first come to the magic-user in the form of animal totems, in dreams and visions. After a rapport with the animal spirit is made, a familiar of that type joins the PC.




That's a nice bit of flavor.



> Animating a corpse does/doesn't disrupt the soul of the person the corpse belonged to? Maybe necromancy isn't evil. Maybe the undead are simply animated by elemental spirits or other energies.  Perhaps the undead are used as cheap labor, or for dangerous tasks.  Maybe it is tradition for certain clans or villages to make their historian a lich so that he or she will be around forever, recording and relating the family/local history.




"Friendly" undead are certainly unusual.  Nice twist.



> Monster names change from region to region. Maybe in Northport goblins are called Hokems, but in the Fort Relentless region they are known as Dusk-Swine. Who knows!




One of the strength of Kalamar, from what I've heard, is that the gods have different names in different cultures.  Perfectly naturaly, yet no one had done it before.



> In a campaign where magic/religion is non-existant or very rare the effectiveness of Heal and Herbalism skills can be increased. By how much is up to you.




I strongly endorse non-miracle healing.


----------



## mmadsen

> These are great ideas. Less is more!




That's certainly the idea behind the "monster palette" thread -- and behind many of the ideas here too.  There are so many D&D supplements with so many options, but they don't all fit in one campaign.  Less is more!



> Here's another take on magic items. Heroes will only have one or two their whole careers. Hand them out early and at full power. That's all they will ever get, but it's their ticket to glory.




Great idea, jdfrenzel!  A lot of people who want a "low magic" campaign decide to be stingy with magic treasure.  In my opinion, they confuse ubiquity of magic and power of magic.  If you want magic to retain it's mystery, certainly you don't want it everywhere -- but you do want it to seem magical when it does show up!  One +5 sword is fine; it's rare and powerful.  Five +1 swords isn't fine; they're everywhere and no big whup.


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## Bran Blackbyrd

> A common, but good, idea. Really though, whose players have ever believed that they were playing in a magic-free world? It's hard enough to surprise them with Cthulhu-esque horror when you set it up as a modern spy game; who's going to believe you're playing D&D without magic?




Well, in my case, the group has been informed ahead of time about a lot of the background (and which parts the PCs do and do not know). It isn't so much about tricking them into thinking there isn't any magic, or making them believe, as much as it's about flavor. It also provides them with advance warnings regarding not using showy spells near populated areas...
The group will only have one arcane magic user, for the first few levels anyway, and I'm trying to come up with a way to nerf his abilities at first level that isn't totally annoying. The player knows where I'm going with this and says he's okay with whatever I come up with. It's a lame DM trick, but it's only for a little while, and will help drive the setting home a little.



> Why are they suppressing magic? (That's a story in itself.)




Yes, it's a long story and I didn't want to take up space in this thread with it. It's also sort of a rough draft. The campaign this is being used in hasn't started yet. (Chatroom-goers can probably quote that last sentence by heart)

The Cliff's Notes version: Magic users became too powerful and oppressive and they were destroyed. Through clever propaganda and the elimination of records, most people no longer remember magic ever existed. Those that would have died of old age long ago. There are groups whose sole purpose is to make sure magic isn't rediscovered, lest history repeat itself.



> How does it resemble the colonial age if the technology of that era doesn't exist? Tricorner hats? Tea and tobacco? Can they transport cash crops without advanced sailing ships and navigation?




Let's just say I chose my words poorly.  Lack of sleep and all...
There's no gunpowder. Navigation by stars is possible, but no one's building telescopes to view other planets (maybe one guy at the most). Shipbuilding is up to speed, but except for a few islands and a small continent or two, nothing has been discovered outside the main continent (in no small part due to the fact I haven't created them yet). Most people have decent shelter, you find anyone but the poorest people living in huts, unless their region is in turmoil. Clothing can be anything from medieval in style, to colonial. 
As far as government goes, most regions are ruled by kings who collect taxes, a handful are run by a strong council of elders. Karsa's monarchy failed and the entire kingdom has dissolved into anarchy. There it more closely resembles a medieval setting, with people living in huts and hovels. The fact that the weather there is like Seattle only colder and with more precipitation doesn't help matters... 
Actually, the Wheel of Time's technology level is probably right in line with this except, once again, no fireworks or gunpowder.



> Sweet.  I'm with Rune; consider that idea stolen.




One of my cockeyed notions that is actually worth something. I may have to pat myself on the back for this one.



> Good point. People do tend to overlook flora. And there's more to exotic plantlife than carniverous plants.




Oh, there are some of those too.  Adding plenty of plants with medicinal/magical uses is another thing that works well with the Heal and Herbalism skills.



> That's a nice bit of flavor.




I know _I_ sure like it.



> One of the strength of Kalamar, from what I've heard, is that the gods have different names in different cultures. Perfectly naturaly, yet no one had done it before.




Changing the way things are named or viewed from region to region is another nice way to enhance the illusion that you are in a living, breathing world.



> I strongly endorse non-miracle healing.




It's a rather large boon when there are no (well known) gods and worshipping a religion is forbidden (mainly for the same reason magic is forbidden).

Sorry this was so long, hopefully I kept the mistakes at a minimum. I am officially off this tangent, but if I come up with any more good ideas (pfft) I'll post them.


----------



## Voneth

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *a few of these a try:
> Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring.
> Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families).
> Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something.
> Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins or kobolds or orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.
> Base your goblins and elves on folklore, not modern fantasy.  Have them rely on magical deception (not studded leather and a morningstar) to get the job done.
> Have the monsters be something that can be dealt with by wits, such as with riddles or tricks.  In folklore, magic is often just knowing the strengths and weaknesses of various beasts, knowing what they like and dislike, knowing how to talk to them, etc. The key to killing the dragon isn't having a stronger sword arm; it's knowing that the dragon has a soft underbelly, and if you dig a ditch, he'll crawl over you and expose it.
> Don't forget animals.  Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.)
> Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
> Implement priests as Sorcerers or Wizards (with the Cleric spell list) so that they're wise men, not warriors.  Same with Druids.  Make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell, and have Druids cast Polymorph Self to shapeshift.
> 
> Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies.
> Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
> Have magic items be gifts from powerful allies, not loot from enemies (who have an odd penchant for leaving magic cloaks in the closet).
> Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
> Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.
> 
> For a whole 'nuther kettle of fish, realize that your fantasy world doesn't have to resemble the late Middle Ages.  You can try:
> Renaissance Europe -- gunpowder, pikemen, halberdiers, lots of breastplates, but few full suits of armor
> Age of Steam -- everyone loves intricate brass clockwork
> Modern -- D&D doesn't seem to handle this too well, but you can try it
> *




It's nice to know there are other out there who are willing to see the strength that make d20 a good comprimise system between those who won't leave the DND security blanket and those of us who want something different.

Some ideas of mine:

 Use unique PC classes to create interesting monster NPC. I've create a whole honorable Mongolia clan of Orcs using Oriental Adventure classes. A samurai class Orc leads them as his sword grows in power. The Shenja are a great "generic" class to replace dedicated spell casters.

 there are now some interesting takes on d20 powers in Fading Suns, Deadlands, Codes Mysterium.

 Give races a strong new theme. Give elves a DR 2 from Cold attacks and a +2 damage from fire attacks and you have Winter Elves with icy weapons

 Start off the Party at something than 1st power level -- opps I mean character level. The key to starting a game at 4th, 8th, or 10th level is to craft a background and a world around that level. Higher level characters need to have more obligations, worries and aspirations. A high-powered team that is just set down in the middle of a world is like cotton candy. It taste great for a second and then it's gone.
*


----------



## Painfully

I've got one idea that doesn't seem to be mentioned yet.  In the magic category:

Have wizards (and possibly sorcerers) learn their spells from their familiars.  The familiars contain the intelligent consciousness of an outsider spirit that was sent back in animal form as a kind of punishment, and sometimes they find it more beneficial to teach their secrets to those who they deem worthy and of like mind (or who can be easily manipulated).  These outsider spirits sometimes can recognize each other and might be making it their agenda to seek revenge on another of their own kind.

So, in effect, the familiars are training their wizards to fight their battles for them.  An obvious scenario being to seek out a rival or enemy familiar and to kill him and his "servant" wizard.

Makes it very tough if your wizard loses their familiar though.  Perhaps a resurrection spell alone wouldn't be enough--might need an additional spell to bring them back.

*edit*
Actually, I think reincarnation into a different animal form would be quite fun, as your familiar would speak out with compliments and complaints about the differences in forms, and nag about why they didn't choose a better one.


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## Arthur Tealeaf

mmadsen, I've been observing this thread, and if this keeps growing as it does, you should make a netbook or something.  This is just that good a thread!

Now...



Wizards can only be specialist wizards and can only cast spells from their schools (+ universal spells).  Ofcourse you can multiclass into other specialist wizards (eg. level 10 diviner, level 4 evoker).  This makes the different types of wizard more distinct, and now necromancers really are the masters of necromancy!

Have a campaign where orcs or kobolds or some of the other "lowly" races rule over the other races, to create an interesting new form of respect towards these races.  For example, killing a single kobold (done alot in 3e...) will impose a death penalty, which is hard to escape, as the kobolds are _everywhere_ .

Armor absorbs damage (as in the Grim-n-Gritty system), but can only take that much damage before it breaks!  Magic armor can ocourse only by damaged by weapons of an equal bonus.  Alternatively, you can make it so that they only take the damage if it is above a certain number.  For example, a full plate doesn't take any damage from strikes that do only 1-5 damage, but takes all damage above that.

 EVERY mythical or unnatural monster has a special weakness...  just like vampires who can't stand sunlight or running water and norwegian trolls "pop" in the sunlight.  The raksasha can't take blessed crossbow bolts, so maybe a balor demon dies if it gets pure silver in it's eyes; Beholders take great damage from salt in its central eye; Black unicorns can't take the dust from the crushed horn of a unicorn;  Maybe evil fey can't stand the ring of pure silver bells.  
  With "ordinary" monsters such as orcs and kobolds, this should probably be avoided, as its easy to exploit when you face the monsters frequently.

"Every monster has a purpose:  No "natural" monsters.  Orcs exist to kill good creatures; the "Black Knights" all exist to combat a specific god; Basilisks are created by the god of stone to punish those who doesn't appreciate stone by turning them into it; and so on...
  This might also be combined with the "every monster has a weakness with good effect.  For example, the "Black Knights" can't stand the name of the god they combat spoken out loud.

Eliminate monsters, and have the planet itself be the enemy.  Safe areas exist, and this is where good races stay.  When moving on evil ground, the planet itself attacks, by manipulating and controlling every aspect of nature.  Maybe the whole campaign could be centered around stopping this curse?

Let the characters play the villains, plotting to take over the world and controlling their evil armies.  Let them fight of bands of adventurers trying to stop their reign of terror.
  Afterwards, let them play adventurers taking on the villains they played earlier.


That's what I can get from the top of my head...

More later.


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## darklight

Once again, a great thread, mmadsen!
A whole bunch of great suggestion, that I will certainly steal for my own campaign 



> mmadsen said: One of the strength of Kalamar, from what I've heard, is that the gods have different names in different cultures. Perfectly naturaly, yet no one had done it before.




It is not entirely correct that it hasn't been done before. In the old D&D Known World setting (aka. Mystara) that was also the case. Another thing is that there were IMO way too many gods (immortals), AFAIK more than 130, not including the different identities. One thing I do like about this pantheon, is the fact that many of the 'gods' are infact mortals who have ascended to become gods. (I think someone mentioned a similar idea earlier in this thread). This means that it is possible for the PC's to become gods themselves, which might be a cool conclusion of a campaign. 

In my (otherwise rather standard) campaign, set in Mystara, many of the atrocities thought to have been done by orcs/goblins were in fact done by elves, who deliberately made it look like it was done by orcs. The elves aren't evil just for the sake of it, but are very ruthless and singleminded in their quest to ensure the survival of their race. Their numbers have been dwindling, and they really feel the pressure from the younger, more prolific races (humans and orcs mainly). They are therefore trying to create a mindlink between every elf, essentially creating One Mind, thus giving them an advantage over the other races.  The focus of the campaign is discovering this grand scheme of the elves, and eventually the party (specifically the dwarf) will get to decide whether to let the elves succeed, or have them be destroyed by the Shadow Elves, who are an unknown factor. 

Keep the good stuff coming 

darklight


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## mmadsen

> Another thing I thougt of, for the more younger audience, instead of having a creature die when it hits 0-(-10) HPs, and leave a bloody carcus, have it crumble into dust and blow away.




Or have it turn to stone...  (That's what the Dragonlance Draconians do, right?)

Since you mentioned a younger audience, I thought I'd mention that certain "little changes" make perfect sense for kids: the heroes are animals or children, their allies are animals, the monsters can be defeated through wits, fewer "boom" spells and more cursing or polymorphing, magic items as gifts, no distinction between arcane and divine magic, no Law or Chaos,  and lots of other simplifications.


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## Ace

Another neat trick is to raise the magic level. Yes i said raise it.

What I suggest is increasing the "dice" used to randomly generate wizards (in the DMG) to 1d8. Thus your average metropolis will have 3 wizards of 16th level plus.

To make minor magic  moreavailable use a "Spellforge" feat. prerequisisite something like 10+ skill so experts can make +1 items or so.

Also using power components is a nice change.  Make the players write them out. Want to make a healing potion? No problem. Write out whats in the list. You might be able to buy the stuff for a cure light potion but it will require more effort to get the stuff for higher level potions or elixers

A good list can be had in Hackmaster or the Chivalry and Sorcery Beastiary 

Another option is too have a limited list of Mana components. To make say a +1 weapon you need StarMetal. There is no Adamantium Mithril whatever, just one magic metal. 
+1 Shield, You need Livewood.

Supplies of Power Material thus become stategic resources and a source of potential adventures


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## Ace

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Or have it turn to stone...  (That's what the Dragonlance Draconians do, right?)
> 
> Since you mentioned a younger audience, I thought I'd mention that certain "little changes" make perfect sense for kids: the heroes are animals or children, their allies are animals, the monsters can be defeated through wits, fewer "boom" spells and more cursing or polymorphing, magic items as gifts, no distinction between arcane and divine magic, no Law or Chaos,  and lots of other simplifications. *




Shoot i'd use those in my game. Simple can be better for Adults too.


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## mmadsen

> Some ideas on magic items - some from other people but I don't recall who:...




Great suggestions, kenjib.  I know I've seen some of them before too, but they're good -- and they belong in this thread!



> Remove the limitation that all magic weapons and armor have at least a +1 bonus.  Also remove the limitation that bonuses are always applied to both to-hit and damage.  You could have, for example, a flaming sword (with no other bonuses), a +3 to hit sword that invokes true strike once per day as a free action, or a +2 damage keen sword.  Damage resistance is penetrated by total bonus equivalent rather than just bonus value alone.




I agree with this one very strongly!  Numerical bonuses lack flavor, and I'd rather see all the magic go into effects that seem magical.  

I also like divorcing to-hit and damage; it makes even more sense once you're using armor-as-DR, etc.

You mention magical Damage Resistance.  Arthur Tealeaf beat me to the punch in recommending a special weakness for each monster.  I much prefer DR with a weakness of silver, or mistletoe, or salt, or whatever to "+3 or better magical weapons".



> Give most magic items significant drawbacks and curses.  For example, that +2 damage keen sword must see battle once per day or it grows heavier and heavier.  The cloak of etherealness is a beacon for strange extra-dimensional predators.  Whenever true strike is invoked using the +3 to hit/true strike sword, the user becomes fatigued after striking.  Every time the staff of power is used the user must make a will saving throw DC5 +1 cumulative for each additional use.  Failure results in a permanent loss of one hit point.  The ring of protection +5 only works for one week after it is soaked in the fresh blood of an innocent stranger killed in cold blood.




All good suggestions.  Magic items in D&D are even less costly to use than spells; many work all the time with no negative side effects.



> Have items gain magical abilities through their usage and history rather than through enchantment.




Another favorite.



> Don't use any magic items from the DMG.  Instead create all original items.  Alternatively, swap the item and the effect.  For example, have a crown of invisibility and a cloak of intellect.




Quite useful with meta-gaming players.  Analogous to switching around monster descriptions but keeping the old stats.



> Require that the creation of an item (not including scrolls, potions, and wands) requires an item research journal.  This works just like a spell book.  The method for enchanting each item is considered to be a unique spell.




This one seems like a natural.



> Use the levelled magic item variant from Dragon.




Anyone have those rules sitting around?



> Learning about an item's history unlocks new powers.




Actually, the characters probably don't have to learn about the item's history to unlock the powers; they simply won't know to use them until they learn the history.  Maybe the brave Fighter goes to hold off an Orc horde in a mountain pass, and his Masterwork Longsword just keeps scoring criticals...



> On another note - for another campaign idea put the characters into an alien environment and center the campaign around trying to get back to the normal world:  Stranded in an alien world, shrunk down to the size of ants with no idea how to get back to normal size, trapped via a cave-in in a giant subterranean world that the surface world never knew existed (ala Journey to the Center of the Earth), sent forward in time to an alien future (Time Machine) or back to a primitive past, stranded on a deserted island, etc.




Wonderful suggestion.  It's such a literary staple, but it gets overlooked in gaming.



> One powerful side effect of most of these scenarios is that there is no longer any civilization - no shops, no treasure, no economy, no magic items, no replacement equipment that the player's can't craft on their own - nothing!  If you want to introduce a bit more access to resources you could always introduce a Sleestak (Land of the Lost) type race - natives that are very alien to the characters way of thinking - or a native race that is irrevocably hostile toward the characters so that they must obtain equipment and supplies through scavenging and stealing.




Bringing us back to the earlier "little change" to have no "Village of Hommlet" to return to.


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## mmadsen

> Conan the Barbarian for Third Edition D&D is one of the best D20 dedicated sites I've ever seen, and any D&D player who is also a fan of Robert E Howard _must_ see this site.




Yes, it is a well-done.  With the new d20 Call of Cthulhu out, I'm planning on mixing the magic system in for some Conan-esque action: Humans only; variant Fighters, Rogues, and Experts only; Cthulhu-style magic; exotic cultures, exotic locales, a Conan-esque monster palette, etc.


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## Soltares

>In The Dream, however, it carries over into other traits as well; >they have half the memory of the other races, for instance. They >are smaller humans in every conceivable dimension!

Hmm, so if a Halfling is only 'half' a man, one is left to wonder what his other half is, the half that you can't see...  Something fey, something spiritual, something dark and dangerous, just as the visible half is 'cute' and harmless?  Hmm, I see an Eloi / Morlock possibility.  In the day-time they are Halflings, but at night they transform to Goblyns...  Alternately, each Halfling (or Goblyn) birth is a twin birth, with each Halfling having a Goblyn soul-brother, and while one race lives in the open and seems harmless, their evil other halves live in tunnels beneath their cozy homes and raid surrounding communities.  If one dies, the other grows ill and dies as well, and if a happy-go-lucky Halfling joins an adventuring party, be assured that his 'evil twin' whom he loves like the brother it is, lurks behind in the shadows...

Great thread!

I have used the idea of unique monsters, in my case Dragons.  There is only one Green Dragon, only one Black Dragon, only one White Dragon, only one Red Dragon and only one Blue Dragon.  Each owns their own domain and servitor tribes of humanoids, etc.  The Red Dragon controls a mountain range, and has a volcanic lair, from which his half-dragon children lord it over local ogre and orc tribes.  The Green Dragon has a strange alliance with groups of feral wild elves and goblinoid tribes, whom she pits against each other for her own amusement, from within the forest she rules.  The Black Dragon lords it over an oceanside marsh, and his lizard men servants have a culture of their own with rotting aztec and mayan style architecture and religious practices.  The White Dragon lacks the clear domain of the others, and does not have a servitor race, but travels the great glacier, warring off and on with local frost giant tribes.  The Blue Dragon also doesn't have an obvious servitor race, but the nomadic kobold tribes of the deep desert revere him as their creator and protector, and they keep the desert free of organized groups of other races, as their 'Sky-father' prefers.  Assuming any of the Dragons were to breed with another of their kind, their child would be equally unique, a Yellow, or Purple, or Brown, or Orange dragon.  Dozens of Dragon types are available in a half-dozen or more sources, even for 3E, so there is no shortage of possible 'unknown' full dragon children, as well as the assorted half-dragon template creatures that serve the draconic overlords.

I also used variant Elves, making them more chaotic and less good.  They became more Fey and dangerous, becoming jaded over the centuries of life and caring not a whit for the shorter-lived races.  They seem bored and almost asleep most of the time, but when they do feel something they feel it with an intensity that no human could match.  When they rage, they do so with a pure hatred that takes no quarter and will slay friend or lover as quickly as foe.  When they love, their love becomes an obsession, a part of every breath and thought, and if that intense focus is on a human, he/she will be swept away, and quite likely harmed by the intensity of the affair.  Just as suddenly, the Elf can 'lose' this fiery passion, and simply walk away from a befuddled human mate, or someone who thought the Elf was going to destroy his entire village over some unknown slight.  Basically, I made them like sharks, they glide placidly along, and then explode into violence.  Literally, chaos in form, focussed into intense moments of *living* in an eternal ennui of mere existence.

Ideas I haven't used yet,

Completely remove the Cleric class as written from the game.  Add healing spells to Wizards, and create a new Priest class based entirely on channeling positive (or negative, or elemental?) energy in a manner similar to Turning Undead.  They would have many more 'Turning' attempts / day as their level increased and their reservoir of sacred (or profane) 'faith' increased.  At the time they would also learn how to apply the energy channeled in an assortment of priestly ways, such as healing, blessing / cursing, bolstering / encourage allies, repelling opposing creatures, cleansing a body or an area of intrusions, toxins, hostile magics, etc, warding an area or even damaging or dispelling an opposing force or creature.  Turning Undead would only be one of many uses for the channeled positive (or whatever) force, and others, such as healing or warding, would actually be the core functions of the energy, with 'undead turning' being a later development, added through specific class abilities similar to the Feats that a Paladin or Cleric currently can use to modify their Turning abilities in DotF.  They wouldn't have a single 'spell.'  Just a certain amount of 'feats of faith' / day and a dozen ways to use them.

Change the Sorcerer completely from a tiny variant of the Wizard to a more Fey / Draconic / Outsider touched person, able to channel and tap into the blood of his heritage.  He would only gain a few spells compared to the Sorcerer, but they would be spell-like abilities, not cast spells (using the Monster Manual guidelines) and require no material components.  Every level he would gain the ability to unlock another power from his blood, or to increase the per day usage of a previous power, based on his Constitution modifier in spell levels (as it is the 'strength of his blood,' not the force of his personality that determines his strength as a Sorcerer).  As a less spellcastery force, he might have slightly better armor, weapon and hit point options than a true Wizard, to compensate for his significantly smaller spell list.

A variant Wizard could create talismans or foci of various spells, based on some craft or art skill, instead of casting spells directly.  A 'Geomancer' would shape semi-precious stones to unleash their inner magic, drawing them later from a pouch and triggering the magic he has prepared within them.  A 'Scribe' would carefully pen a spell down on vellum, to read and activate it later.  An 'Alchemist' would brew that same magic into an elixir that she could later drink, to recieve the effects of the spell she has 'cast.'  Literally dozens of options exist here, from a Necromancer who harvests the organs and body parts of creatures to trap their inner magic and unleash their stored qualities as spell effects, to an Artificer who creates intricate clockwork mechanisms that produce the arcane effects, or a Woodcarver who makes tiny totems that transform into the desired conjuration, or a Weaver of spells who creates intricate tapestries depicting the effects she seeks to make real, or a Painter who does the same, depicting the scene he wishes to create, much like Alter Reality, or a
Paperfolder who spends time in the midst of combat to fold intricate origami constructions that then take shape into the desired effect.  Even a performance art, such as dance or song can be used to trigger a magical effect, although in this case, the 'spell' would be cast during the performance instead of 'constructed' earlier and stored in a bag.

A variant Psion, the Mentalist would become more powerful, but more limited, having less access to powers, but stronger ones individually.  So a Mentalist might only focus on Telekinetic manifestations, and would just have the ONE power, Telekinesis, which he could manifest in several ways.  While the Wizard is learning to throw that Fireball, he isn't just getting some crap 3d6 Force Blast, he is learning to chuck people through the air and slowly lift warhorses with his mind or animate weaponry to attack...  Psi abilities would have an effect chart for the ever increasing singular base power, rather than a laundry-list of specific 'spells' or 'abilities / level' with the chart scaling up as their level increased (assuming they spent it all in one area, if a 7th level Mentalist decides to spend that levels training on Telepathic skills, he'd be a weak Telepath (+1) and a strong Telekinetic (+6) on the chart (modified by whichever stat is relevant to them, probably Wisdom).  Such a system could be detailed in probably 4 to 7 pages tops, instead of the list of almost identical spell duplications that they currently have.  It would be more like GURPS or Trinity (freeform) Psionics.  I'd also stick to themes that were more common in Psi lore, Clairsentience / ESP / Past-viewing / Precognition, Telepathy / Mind Control / Empathy, Telekinesis, Apportation, Aura Reading, Spiritualism, etc.  The outre stuff like shapeshifting or 'metacreativity' would be rarer, perhaps representing special side-abilities nabbable at higher levels with special Feats.  (I really can't say if the 3E Psionics are worse than the 2E Psionics, since I didn't/don't like either, although the Will and the Way supplement came a long way to improving 2E Psionics.)


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## Ace

Another trick is to file off the name and serial numbers of spells. You do not have to change the effects at all.

An example Tenser Transformation feel very different if it is called Bind War Spirit and when the spell is cast a spirit enters the casters body and effects the spell

Imagine if Teleport had a nimbus of light surround the caster, whisk him through the astral plane and rematerialize him at the destination. Same spell different flavor....

Also I really like to require casters to shout out the spell being cast

Kord grant me Your strength in my time of need to initialize a strength spell.

One of my co-players likes to say things like "I command you back,  back into the darkness" when turning undead. IMO this makes a huge difference in the campaign. It makes bah "I'm casting magic missle" into something exciting.

Also while this has been said before let me reiterate "Always detail your magic items." Anything stronger than say a +1 weapon or armor or disposable items ought to have history behind it.

A +2 sword "Pigslayer" used in the Orc Wars is exciting.
 A plain Jane +2 weapon is not.

and a final bit of reition. Scalable magic items rock. Make that +1 Sword a +1 icey burst in a couple of levels. Increase the powers as the character  gains levels and learnd secrets about the weapon.

Players become very motivated if they here something like "You have a Jurai Rune Mace, Its not better than spell forged (+1) now but as you grow and learn her ways. Aye now, she'll grow too.


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## mmadsen

*Re: Re: Little Changes with Big Flavor*



> Use unique PC classes to create interesting monster NPC. I've create a whole honorable Mongolia clan of Orcs using Oriental Adventure classes. A samurai class Orc leads them as his sword grows in power. The Shenja are a great "generic" class to replace dedicated spell casters.




Nice touch.  Third Edition is such a boon in that respect; you can customize monsters so much with Classes, Skills, and Feats.  Orc Barbarians with Rage and Goblin Rogues with Sneak Attack are quite common; Orc Samurai a just a little bit different.  (I'm not sure the PCs will notice the game mechanics before the cannon fodder are dead, but...  )

Your example points to another "little change":

Most of us realize you can use Oriental Adventures to give an exotic flavor to foreign cultures (human or monster) -- but you can also strip the oriental names off most of it for decidely occidental cultures too.  Samurai as Knights, Shamans (replacing the martial-arts Feats) in place of Clerics or Druids, arcane Shugenja as elementalist Wizards, Wu Jen as Wizards, Bear Warriors for Tolkien-esque Beornings, elven Blade Dancers, Eunuch Warlock as a non-eunuch specialist Wizard, Kishi Charger as Cavalier, Ninja Spy as mystic assassin, etc.



> Give races a strong new theme. Give elves a DR 2 from Cold attacks and a +2 damage from fire attacks and you have Winter Elves with icy weapons.




Cute.  It's done all the time for monsters, but not nearly as often for character races.  Nice touch.  

And, to tie it in with the Compelling Encounters! thread, Winter Elves could be immune to snow and ice penalties.  While everyone else is slogging along through three-foot snow -- with no Dex bonus to AC -- the elf can be nimbly dancing across the top of it.



> Start off the Party at something than 1st power level -- opps I mean character level. The key to starting a game at 4th, 8th, or 10th level is to craft a background and a world around that level. Higher level characters need to have more obligations, worries and aspirations.




Pendragon does a wonderful job of this, expecting the heroes to build up their lands, look after their people, start a family, etc.  I assume Birthright also does a good job of it.


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## mmadsen

> Have wizards (and possibly sorcerers) learn their spells from their familiars.  The familiars contain the intelligent consciousness of an outsider spirit that was sent back in animal form as a kind of punishment, and sometimes they find it more beneficial to teach their secrets to those who they deem worthy and of like mind (or who can be easily manipulated)....So, in effect, the familiars are training their wizards to fight their battles for them.




I like it.  It might be fun to introduce it in a "low magic" campaign first, where none of the PCs have familiars.  Then they slowly start realizing that every evil wizard they kill has a black cat.  The same black cat?



> Actually, I think reincarnation into a different animal form would be quite fun, as your familiar would speak out with compliments and complaints about the differences in forms, and nag about why they didn't choose a better one.




Fun!


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## Voneth

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *Nice Touch. *




Thanks.

Dragonstar has a little change in the Magic creation rules that I like and may dovetail into the great "make magic items more story based" concept.

In Dragonstar, when a wizard makes a magical implant (something like a magic tattoo), it is the user -- not the maker -- who pays the xp cost. That makes much more sense to me. 

In standard DND, a wizard would have to be very loyal to someone to give up his life essence into a sword he could never use. With the Dragonstar rule applied to standard magic items, a wizard would be much more willing to favor a friend or even a minion with an item. Now take this down the road a bit.

Such magic items are now more cherished and should have more of a history attached to them, becasue someone commissioned them. This also opens up the idea that to "attune" to a magic item before it can be used, one has to spend xp to activate all or some of its powers. With a "little change" to this little change, one can affect the power level of the game by determining a couple of things. 

1.) Will the GM as for a full xp cost, or a fraction? In a low magic game, a full xp cost means that the players may want to think hard before commitment to an expensive item. Such items may also have a negative effect as well (mini-artifacts I suppose). A partial cost at half or a tenth makes PC much more willing to make a collection of items.

2.) Letting one buy the powers piecemeal vs. the whole package can open up the opportunity for the GM to provide adventures where one has to do uncover the secrets of the item to find out what the powers are in the first place! 

Boy, this starting to sound as if finding a magic item is a big deal and possible start of new adventures surrounding the magical discovery.

 What a concept


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## mmadsen

> mmadsen, I've been observing this thread, and if this keeps growing as it does, you should make a netbook or something.  This is just that good a thread!




Thanks for the kind words, Arthur Tealeaf!



> Wizards can only be specialist wizards and can only cast spells from their schools (+ universal spells).  Ofcourse you can multiclass into other specialist wizards (eg. level 10 diviner, level 4 evoker).  This makes the different types of wizard more distinct, and now necromancers really are the masters of necromancy!




An excellent suggestion...that's already on the list.    Yeah, I know, the list is getting a little unwieldly!



> Have a campaign where orcs or kobolds or some of the other "lowly" races rule over the other races...




Good.  I think Rune mentioned finally having a campaign where he takes Halflings seriously; they rule the skies -- and thus a large mercantile empire -- from their airships.



> EVERY mythical or unnatural monster has a special weakness...  just like vampires who can't stand sunlight or running water and norwegian trolls "pop" in the sunlight.  The raksasha can't take blessed crossbow bolts, so maybe a balor demon dies if it gets pure silver in it's eyes; Beholders take great damage from salt in its central eye; Black unicorns can't take the dust from the crushed horn of a unicorn;  Maybe evil fey can't stand the ring of pure silver bells.




I strongly endorse this one.  As I said before, I much prefer DR with a weakness of silver, or mistletoe, or salt, or whatever to "+3 or better magical weapons". 

Another option is to grant Improved Critical to anyone who knows the monster's weakness.  "The dragon has a weak spot in his soft underbelly, to the right..."



> "Every monster has a purpose:  No "natural" monsters.  Orcs exist to kill good creatures; the "Black Knights" all exist to combat a specific god; Basilisks are created by the god of stone to punish those who doesn't appreciate stone by turning them into it; and so on...
> 
> This might also be combined with the "every monster has a weakness with good effect.  For example, the "Black Knights" can't stand the name of the god they combat spoken out loud.




I like this.  It flies in the face of the not-at-all-fantasy style of most modern games, where every race just sort of sprang up along the way.



> Eliminate monsters, and have the planet itself be the enemy.  Safe areas exist, and this is where good races stay.  When moving on evil ground, the planet itself attacks, by manipulating and controlling every aspect of nature.  Maybe the whole campaign could be centered around stopping this curse?




This reminds me of a different idea, one that's neglected in most games even though it's at the heart of much fantasy fiction.  In games, sorcerers generally cast spells that a powerful in some ways but very limited in scope.  In literature, the Dark Lord turns his kingdom black under perpetual night, the White Witch blankets the land in perpetual winter, etc.  Allow meta-magic (or some other mechanic) to vastly increase the size and duration of thematic spells.

(Someone once mentioned a Dark Sun supplement, Dragon Kings, that had 10th-level spells that enchanted an entire army's weapons, etc.  That's what we're going for.)



> Let the characters play the villains, plotting to take over the world and controlling their evil armies.  Let them fight of bands of adventurers trying to stop their reign of terror.  Afterwards, let them play adventurers taking on the villains they played earlier.




An old standby, but I like it -- and it belongs on the list.


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## Voneth

> *Have a campaign where orcs or kobolds or some of the other "lowly" races rule over the other races... *




Have you ever seen the "Blues" in the PsiHB? The pic of these psionic goblins has the monster in a very Planet of the Apes type costume. Which inspired a whole set up for me.

The Blues psionicly dominate a society of "green skins" and have created a whole civilzation. This does borrow from some of the set up in PotA: Blues=Orangutans/Aristorcats, Orcs=Gorllia/warriors, goblins=chimps/clerks and gophers.

But the setting could change dramaticly as one takes in the effect of the Blues psionic powers and the effects of a civilazation. At the very least it would be PotA meets Klingons with some Dark Sun throw in. And humanity is at the bottom of the food chain.

So would this be an example of how a small change in DND assumptions and rules can spin into a whole new beast?


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## Rune

> _Originally posted by mmadsen_
> *Good. I think Rune mentioned finally having a campaign where he takes Halflings seriously; they rule the skies -- and thus a large mercantile empire -- from their airships.
> *




Actually, this isn't preciselythe idea in my next campaign, although it's very similar to the game I'm currently playing in (and helped to design).  In this game, it's as you say, but with gnomes.  In my next game, halflings won't rule the skies; they will rule _everything_!  They will be the oppressors, the empire, the Man, as it were!  If you're wondering how that happened, wonder on.  I can't reveal it yet 

By the way, here's another one:

In my games, the alignment of dragons is _never_ tied to the type of dragon.  Ever.  Intelligent creatures should never be burdened with a single alignment because of their type, but dragons, especially, should be varied.  It keeps the players on their toes, if they ever encounter a dragon.


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## mmadsen

> Another neat trick is to raise the magic level. Yes i said raise it.




Good Pelor, no!  



> Also using power components is a nice change....A good list can be had in Hackmaster or the Chivalry and Sorcery Beastiary




This can add a lot of flavor, and it can lead quite naturally to plenty of quests (assuming you don't let wizards buy dragon's blood at the Quik-E-Mart).



> Another option is too have a limited list of Mana components. To make say a +1 weapon you need StarMetal. There is no Adamantium Mithril whatever, just one magic metal.
> +1 Shield, You need Livewood.




Or you can ignore D&D's definitions of admantine and mithril, and have all magic armor made from those materials.  That works quite seemlessly in a Middle Earth campaign, of course.



> Supplies of Power Material thus become stategic resources and a source of potential adventures




A mithril mail shirt might be worth a king's ransom...


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## Ace

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another neat trick is to raise the magic level. Yes i said raise it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Good Pelor, no!  

I am fond of Pelor too but...

Raising the magic level leads to very interesting campaigns with a very different flavor. 

The world becomes a lot more "Jehereg" and less "Conan"

My age of power varient included Escaflowne style mechs (not statted sorry) ground vehicles and aircraft (powered by magic crystals)and twice the number of mages and spell caster suggested in the DMG. 

Flavor change, Oh yeah when every group of encountered bad guys has a spell caster and magic items it leads to very wild and over the top games

Those orcs you thought you could easily take, well sorry they just summoned Fiend wolves. 

People being healed and raised all the time. The flavor is very different then your standard 4 campaign types 

Low magic  (Conan type Games)
Low medium (A little less than DMG, most games I have played in)
Medium Magic (DMG assumptions)
High magic (Forgotten realms)

With very high magic all of the magic tends to cancel out. If every 2nd and 3rd level warrior has magic armor and weapons they tend to be equal 

Granted the game lacks a "sense of wonder element" but its fun for the power gamer in all of us.  It also the last thing anyone would expect and that is always a good thing.


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## mmadsen

> ...create a new Priest class based entirely on channeling positive (or negative, or elemental?) energy in a manner similar to Turning Undead. They would have many more 'Turning' attempts / day as their level increased and their reservoir of sacred (or profane) 'faith' increased. At the time they would also learn how to apply the energy channeled in an assortment of priestly ways, such as healing, blessing / cursing, bolstering / encourage allies, repelling opposing creatures, cleansing a body or an area of intrusions, toxins, hostile magics, etc, warding an area or even damaging or dispelling an opposing force or creature.




How is a Priest who uses slots labelled "Channel Energy" to heal, bless, and aid allies (i.e. cast Cleric spells) any different from a Cleric who uses slots labelled "Spells" to heal, bless, and aid allies (i.e. cast Cleric spells)?  Wouldn't it be easier to make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell if we wanted turning and spells to share a common pool?


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## mmadsen

*D&D for a Younger Audience*

I just created another thread, D&D for a Younger Audience, to discuss "little changes" for playing D&D with kids, like having "killed" monsters turn to dust and blow away, etc.  

Hope to see you there!


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## mmadsen

I mentioned using Call of Cthulhu magic, but I forgot some other obvious alternative, so here's a more complete list:
Use Call of Cthulhu magic.
Use Star Wars Force rules for magic.
Use Psionics for magic.


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## mmadsen

D&D makes a lot of tacit assumptions about how the game world works, and most campaigns naturally follow along.  If you'd like a very different flavor, it might require only some tiny changes.  Give a few of these a try.

Your fantasy world doesn't have to resemble England in the late Middle Ages.  It can resemble any number of historical settings:
Primitive -- Imagine combat with spears, bows, hides for armor, etc.  Dire Animals make great monsters.
Ancient Greece -- Bronze age.  If everyone's using bronze, you might not need any special rules for it.
Ancient Rome -- Iron age, few long swords, lots of spears and short swords, soldiers in chain mail or breast plate (actually _lorica segmentata_).
Dark Ages -- For most of the middle ages, plate armor was not available, and neither were the various reinforced forms of mail (splint, banded).  Bastard swords and great swords weren't around, and many polearms weren't common.  A soldier in a full hauberk of mail was a serious threat
Arabian Nights -- You don't need the official Al Qadim setting to use rich Caliphs, desert nomads, caravans under attack from brigands, and wizards on flying carpets
Mythic India -- Even a quick peek at the Indian epics reveals a world ripe for D&D-style adventure.
Mythic Africa -- The Nyambe setting should be coming out soon.
Mythic Hawaii -- Or any group of islands.
Renaissance Europe -- Gunpowder, pikemen, halberdiers, lots of breastplates, but few full suits of armor.
Age of Conquest -- It's eerie just how similar the Conquistadors were to D&D adventurers, going from place to place, killing (with "magic" weapons and armor) and looting, making some allies, then leading a big attack on the supervillain's castle (Mexico city, a metropolis of stone pyramids built on a lake in an extinct volcano).
Age of Sail -- Pirates! 'Nuff said
Age of Steam -- Everyone loves intricate brass clockwork, ironclads, and balloons.
Modern -- D&D doesn't seem to handle this too well, but you can try any of the more modern d20 games, and you can mix in as much fantasy as you'd like.

Or you can modify your setting any number of ways:
Put the characters into an alien environment and center the campaign around trying to get back to the normal world: Stranded in an alien world, shrunk down to the size of ants with no idea how to get back to normal size, trapped via a cave-in in a giant subterranean world that the surface world never knew existed (ala Journey to the Center of the Earth), sent forward in time to an alien future (Time Machine) or back to a primitive past, stranded on a deserted island, etc.
Use non-standard structures in non-standard evironments. For example, when most people think of pyramids, they right away think of the desert. How about placing them in the snowbound north? 
Place the campaign under water, using aquatic races.
Have no safe haven, no Village of Hommlet, to return to.  Keep the heroes on the run.
Use evocative names -- for characters, places, and magic items.  Rune's quasi-oriental setting uses Adjective-Noun-Verb names for men and Noun-Adverb-Verb names for women.  Names like "Thorin" were evocative when they were new.  Names like "Mad Stone Tumbles" still are.
Don't be afraid to alter reality.  This is a fantasy game.  In Ravenloft, for instance, the Mist can alter time and space.  If the seasons change daily, or the landscape moves when you're not looking, you're in a fantastic realm.
No common tongue.
A lot of fantasy fiction describes a world where humans are a young race, much younger than the elves and dwarves. Have primitive humans wielding clubs and wearing hides while already advanced elves and dwarves wield steel blades and wear steel mail. Further, have the illiterate humans casting only the simplest of spells, if any.
Magic, monsters, and demihumans are all thought to be fairytales. It isn't until the PCs get out in the world and begin to explore that they find out these things are real.
Magic exists but there is a secret society that suppresses knowledge of magic and it's use, by any means necessary.

The Party:
Have the heroes be the only spellcasters in the world -- or the only good spellcasters in the world, hiding their powers from their evil enemies.
Have all the players run characters of the same race and class: a troop of mercenaries, a band of outlaws, an order of knights, whatever.  Not every party has to be the fellowship of the ring.
Have the characters either be a family or have families (or start families).
Invert which races are good and which are bad.  Play the Orcs, Goblins, and Kobolds against ruthless Elves.
Let the characters play the villains, plotting to take over the world and controlling their evil armies. Let them fight of bands of adventurers trying to stop their reign of terror. Afterwards, let them play adventurers taking on the villains they played earlier.
Have the heroes all be animals, either in a campaign full of anthropomorphic animals (e.g. Redwall) or in a normal "human" world.
Have the heroes be children.
Have the heroes be retired has-beens, showin' the young bucks how they did in their day.
Have heroes of vastly different power levels.  Perhaps one character is the squire of the knight, or the familiar of the wizard.
Have the heroes be normal people: farmers, merchants, scribes, not knights and wizards.

Monsters:
Eliminate monsters.  Or keep them in the background awhile. Fighting human enemies should be plenty exciting, and when the evil sorcerer finally summons his demonic allies, it means something.
Stick to just a handful of monsters.  Choose either goblins _or_ kobolds _or_ orcs as your cannon fodder, and rely on class levels or different equipment to differentiate them.  (What's Your Monster Palette?)
Base your goblins and elves on folklore, not modern fantasy.  Have them rely on magical deception (not studded leather and a morningstar) to get the job done.
Have the monsters be something that can be dealt with by wits, such as with riddles or tricks.  In folklore, magic is often just knowing the strengths and weaknesses of various beasts, knowing what they like and dislike, knowing how to talk to them, etc. The key to killing the dragon isn't having a stronger sword arm; it's knowing that the dragon has a soft underbelly, and if you dig a ditch, he'll crawl over you and expose it.
Give _every_ monster a special weakness -- just like vampires who can't stand sunlight or cross running water and Middle Earth trolls that turn to stone in sunlight. The Raksasha can't take blessed crossbow bolts; maybe a Balor demon dies if it gets pure silver in it's eyes; a Beholder take great damage from salt in its central eye; Black Unicorns can't take the dust from the crushed horn of a White Unicorn; evil Fey can't stand the ring of pure silver bells.
Don't forget animals.  Talking animals are a staple of fairy tales and fantasy, and some animals are natural predators of monsters the heroes might face (e.g. mongoose or weasel vs. basilisk or poisonous snake, giant owl vs. dire rats or were-rats, tiny mouse vs. elephant, etc.)
Have an enemy.  Despite all the dark overlords in fantasy fiction, few of them last past an adventure or two in D&D.
Night of the Living Dead.  Don't disable zombies at 0 (or negative) hit points. Have them keep coming down to -10 hit points, but have each hit take off a limb. Graphically describe it, and give the zombie reduced abilities: leg, can't walk, can only crawl 5'; arm, grapple at -4; head, drops "dead" (a la Night of the Living Dead), or simply can't change what it's doing.
Unique Monsters: one Pegasus, one Medusa (with two other gorgon sisters), one Minotaur, one Questing Beast, one Fenris Wolf, one Midgard Serpent, etc. 
Tie the origins of certain “classic” monsters to the world itself.  For example: Medusa from Greek mythology dared to compare her beauty to that of Aphrodite and was punished.  Where do Medusae come from in your world?
Every monster has a purpose: No "natural" monsters.  The Dark Lord created Orcs to fight his enemies; they're not just another race.
Use unusual classes to create interesting monsters, e.g. Samurai Orcs.
Give races a new theme, e.g. Frost Elves, or Bugbears as northern Ice Goblins.
Switch around monster descriptions but keep the old stats.
Have Orcs or Kobolds or some other "lowly" races rule over the other races.
Maybe Necromancy isn't evil at all, and Zombies and Skeletons make good laborers.
Add new flora; don't dwell so much on animals.

Treasure and Magic Items:
Have magic items be gifts from powerful allies, not loot from enemies (who have an odd penchant for leaving magic cloaks in the closet).
Have Knowledge (History) provide characters with the names of weapons, their powers, any magic words they need to activate them, etc. That way the wise wizard (who really should have plenty of knowledge skills) doesn't cast a spell to uncover an item's powers; he looks it over, mumbles to himself, then announces that this must be the long, lost whatever, used in the great wars against whomever's army, etc.
Have magic items' powers reveal themselves to the characters gradually, based on their actions and what they learn about them. Rather than having a Fighter find a +2 sword and ditch his "worthless" +1 sword, he can discover new powers in his original sword with the help of the wizard (or ancient elf, or crotchety dwarf, or talking animal) he rescued.
Provide treasure with a place in the world: armor once worn by the current king in his youth, works of art by a now-mad mage, historical documents, etc.
Heroes will only have one or two magic items their whole careers. Hand them out early and at full power. That's all they will ever get, but it's their ticket to glory.
Remove the limitation that all magic weapons and armor have at least a +1 bonus. Also remove the limitation that bonuses are always applied to both to-hit and damage. 
Give most magic items significant drawbacks and curses.
Have items gain magical abilities through their usage and history rather than through enchantment.
Don't use any magic items from the DMG. Instead create all original items. Alternatively, swap the item and the effect. For example, have a crown of invisibility and a cloak of intellect.
Ignore D&D's definitions of admantine and mithril, and have all magic armor made from those materials. (That works quite seemlessly in a Middle Earth campaign, of course.)
Disposable magic items. The token, whatever it may be (a favorite brooch, a lock of hair, a handkerchief) is imbued with power, unintentionally, because of the emotion put into it. Say your fighter saves the miller's daughter and she weaves a necklace of flowers for him as a thank you. Maybe it will negate the next critical hit that is made against him and then it crumbles to dust? Maybe it will give him +1 to his saves until the flowers wither.
Replace scrolls with talismans (from Oriental Adventures). 
Remove one-shot scrolls. Scrolls are no different from pages out of a spellbook. You can learn a spell from them, but they don't store any magic energy allowing you to cast from them. 
Allow casters to cast directly out of a spellbook (or from a scroll) -- slowly, with a chance of error. 
Remove charge-em-up wands, rods, and staves.

Misc. Tips:
 Drop the "flavored" classes.  Ranger, Paladins, Monks, Bards, Clerics, and Druids all bring a distinct "D&D" flavor to the game.  Optionally, make their class abilities feats that other classes might take.  Let Fighters take Rage and Favored Enemy as feats.
Try a different set of combat rules, like Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules or any variant that doesn't keep giving extra hit dice ad infinitum.  Instead of increasing hit points, you can increase armor class.  This makes magical healing less necessary, even if you keep the heroes at roughly the same power level.
Start off the Party at something than 1st level.  Higher level characters need more obligations, worries and aspirations.
Fixed levels. Just start everyone as heroes (e.g. 7th level) and keep them there.
Base the game completely around non-combat advancement. E.g. XP for converting the "unsaved" to your religion, or for finding ancient tomes
Don't assume _N_ gold pieces will get you _N_ gp worth of stuff. No one said you were in an efficient market economy. 
Use the barter system. Eliminate currency. This will allow for more role playing interaction and the use of CHA based skills more oftern.
Have the enemy play rough and play smart.  Have them use tactics and magic as PCs would.
Don't match every encounter to the PCs' abilities.  If the enemy's caught off guard, they should be vulnerable; if they know what to expect, they shouldn't be.
Use fantastic elements to dramatic ends.  A Black and White season has no in-game effect, but -- Wow! -- it packs a dramatic punch.  What would your players do if it started raining blood?  In a fantastic setting, you can go well beyond a mere dark and stormy night.
Tie the players to the world.  If family ties and honor matter, the players will start to behave with filial piety and honor, not as thugs looting from weaker thugs.
Status. Introduce the Reputation statistic from Dragon Magazine. Rep=Lvl+Chr bonus+Bluff+Diplomacy+Intimidate. 
Honor. Use the Reputation statistic from above but substitute more "honorable" skills for Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate.
Change the way things are named or viewed from region to region.  In one country, the All-Father is Wotan; in another, he's Odin.
Most of us realize you can use Oriental Adventures to give an exotic flavor to foreign cultures (human or monster) -- but you can also strip the oriental names off most of it for decidely occidental cultures too. Samurai as Knights, Shamans (replacing the martial-arts Feats) in place of Clerics or Druids, arcane Shugenja as elementalist Wizards, Wu Jen as Wizards, Bear Warriors for Tolkien-esque Beornings, elven Blade Dancers, Eunuch Warlock as a non-eunuch specialist Wizard, Kishi Charger as Cavalier, Ninja Spy as mystic assassin, etc. 
Have an explicit "Winter Phase" or "off season" between adventures, where the heroes handle crises at home, start romances, raise families, craft magic items, etc.

Alignment:
Remove alignments. 
Use Good and Evil _or_ Law and Chaos.
Divvy up the world into two sides with each considering itself Good and the other Evil.
Track alignment as carefully as hit points.  Use Pendragon-style trait pairs, but just use two: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil. 
Use all 13 Pendragon trait pairs (Chaste/Lustful through Valorous/Cowardly), and divvy them up between two mega-trait pairs: Lawful/Chaotic and Good/Evil.
Use alignment only for Outsiders, Clerics, and Paladins.
Don't tell the players that their characters' Detect Evil powers are purely delusional.  Let them play religious fanatics who feel justified by their "divinely revealed" knowledge.  Optionally, after enough wholesale slaughter, let them know the truth.
Place the characters in situations that require them to make moral decisions.  If you're tracking alignment, these moral decisions can have in-game effects.

Religion:
The gods that people worship may not be gods, but just historical heroes long dead.
As in real world polytheistic societies, have no rival churches or Clerics dedicated to a single god.  Individuals pray to whichever god in the pantheon is appropriate for their situation at hand.
Have religious differences be a matter of opinion rather than different gods. Make the 'evil cleric' a heretic who believes opposite of what the established church authority believes instead of a worshipper of an evil god. 
Use sects and orders to introduce diversity. That way the cleric of the god of magic becomes a member of the Order of Saint So-and-So, who's members are reknown for their knowledge and skill when dealing with magic. 
Instead of having the large, classic gods, use small gods that take the frm of huge beasts, terrain features, or monuments. Clerics can only cast spells (or "recharge") within range of the small god.

I'm not terribly familiar with all the alternate game worlds from D&D's past (and present), but most seemed to make "little changes with big flavor":

Dark Sun
Magic destroyed the world and is now a capital crime.
Psionics everywhere.
Desolate desert terrain and climate.
Variant races and classes.
Birthright
PCs are "blooded" scions.
Low magic -- but the "blooded" can wield high (normal for D&D) magic.
Heroes don't just adventure; they rule the land.
Variant races, a bit more "classical" in feel (except for Halflings).
Dragonlance
Magic tied to the moons and alignment, one mages' guild.
Return of gods (and clerical magic)
Monster palette: draconians, chromatic vs. metallic dragons
Race palette: kender, tinker gnomes, gully dwarves
Ravenloft
Monster palette: vampires, werewolves, ancient dead, goblyns.
Evil is tangible, and evil acts transform the evildoer.
Detection magic doesn't work flawlessly, so our heroes can be kept in the dark.

Magic.  There are so many ways to tweak magic:
Raise the magic level!
Remove magic entirely.  Perhaps the heroes rediscover it.  Perhaps their arch-enemy does.  Or maybe there just isn't any magic for once!
Remove divine magic; the gods have fled, or they simply don't hand out magic powers.
Remove arcane magic.  Evil "sorcerers" are evil priests worshipping dark gods.
Remove spellcasting entirely.  Have all magic through magic items.
Assume a more "primitive" (or secretive) level of magical knowledge.  Have no known spells; all spells must be researched.
Implement priests as Sorcerers or Wizards (with the Cleric spell list) so that they're wise men, not warriors.  Same with Druids.  Make Turn Undead a 1st-level Cleric spell, and have Druids cast Polymorph Self to shapeshift.
Let Clerics turn any and all supernatural creatures not just the undead.  In folklore, goblins and trolls can't stand the sound of church bells.
Make the spellcasting classes prestige classes with prerequisites. After all, isn't it odd that a Bard with four skill ranks in Perform is good enough to enchant people with his music?  And that a Druid who barely knows his way around the woods knows enough of Nature's secrets to command it?  Should every religious figure wield powerful magic?  On a daily basis?
Don't give back spellcasters their full power after one night's rest and some study/prayer time.  Make recharging require rare magical ingredients, or blood sacrifice, or a selfless act of piety.  Or simply make it take longer.  That way spellcasters won't toss spells left and right, but they'll have them for when they need them.
Make spellcasting always take a full round or more.  Suddenly spellcasters aren't video game characters.
Have magic transform its user.  Over time, necromancers grow pale and withered.  Fire mages start giving off sparks when angry; eventually their hair turns to living fire.  Shapeshifters take on the traits of the animals they become.
Limit all sorcerers to a strongly themed spell list.  For instance, a "fey" list of just: daze, dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation, obscuring mist, charm person, hypnotism, sleep, change self, ..., polymorph.  Or a summoner list of just the Summon Monster spells.
Make an entire magic system out of summoning (e.g. Elric).
Eliminate all directly-damaging spells.  It's not like wizards can't do any harm without magic missile and fireball, and they're certainly more interesting that way.  Or just make all those spells more difficult.  Besides, isn't a wizard supposed to turn you into a frog?
Make all magic easy to "track" with Detect Magic, so covert spellcasters won't want to cast indiscriminately.  Make flashy evocations (e.g. Fireball) particularly easy to track.
Remove the Arcane Spell Failure percentage for armor. In a campaign world like Elric's Melnibone, sorcerers freely cast in full armor.
Remove the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Is there a difference between an evil sorcerer and an evil high priest?
Increase the distinction between Arcane and Divine magic. Have quasi-Christian priests whose only real powers are dispelling fiends' enchantments, banishing demons back to hell, etc.
Dark Side points for spellcasting. Have every spell force a Will save (DC 10 + 2 * spell level) or the caster gains a Dark Side point. Once the caster accumulates more Dark Side points than Wisdom, he goes mad with hunger for power. The Dark Side points can cause a cumulative penalty to later Will saves too -- wonderful for that downward spiral effect.
Runequest Magic.  Just about anyone can cast minor spells: no multiclass penalty for a level of Sorcerer.
Different Magic for Different Races.  Humans must learn magic as Wizards, Elves are naturally Sorcerers, etc.
Require that all Wizards specialize in one school, and they can only cast spells from that school
Tweak spells. Lightning Bolt can become "Fire Line" with no real game balance issues. Fire Ball can become Ice Ball and so on. 
Eliminate magical travel (teleport, whispering wind) so the easiest way to travel from one village to the next is still on horseback.
Invisibility doesn't make you invisible; it merely makes you ethereal. 
Have Wizards learn their spells from their familiars -- who are the ones in charge.  The familiars are training their wizards to fight their battles for them.
Allow meta-magic (or some other mechanic) to vastly increase the size and duration of thematic spells so the Dark Lord can blanket his kingdom in perpetural darkness, and the White Witch can blanket her kingdom in perpetual snowy winter.
Require rare material components, e.g. a chicken egg hatched by a toad at midnight of midsummer's day, a lock of a lover's hair, etc.
Have "preparing" a spell mean storing it in a wand/rod/staff or talisman instead of "hanging" it in memory. Taking a Wizard's staff away or breaking it means disarming him of his prepared spells (or most of them). 
Use Call of Cthulhu magic.
Use Star Wars Force rules for magic.
Use Psionics for magic.


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## Reprisal

You're so awesome for compiling them into one post, mmadsen. 

   Thanks and Good Job!


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## kenjib

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *I mentioned using Call of Cthulhu magic, but I forgot some other obvious alternative, so here's a more complete list:
> Use Call of Cthulhu magic.
> Use Star Wars Force rules for magic.
> Use Psionics for magic.
> *




Here are some more:

Wheel of Time
Sovereign Stone
Wild Magic
Chaos Magic


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## Darklone

Reprisal said:
			
		

> *You're so awesome for compiling them into one post, mmadsen.
> 
> Thanks and Good Job!    *




I can but agree!

Thanks Mmadsen


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## Noah Kolman

*Want to publish this?*

Hey mmadsen,

I will agree with the others here that your suggestions are very good.  This would make a great article for *Knights of the Dinner Table*.  If you are interested, email me at noah@kenzerco.com, I can give you the details.


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## Voneth

Hey MM,
I am flattered that you included my suggestions, but I think you missed the post about having the user of the magic item pay the xp cost instead of the spell caster. I think it was on page 8


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## mmadsen

> I am flattered that you included my suggestions, but I think you missed the post about having the user of the magic item pay the xp cost instead of the spell caster.




Sorry, Voneth.  I think I thought I already had that on the list, tucked away somewhere, but looking at it now, I think it does need spelling out.  Here's what I had:  "Have items gain magical abilities through their usage and history rather than through enchantment."


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## mmadsen

*Which are your favorites?*

Now that we have quite an extensive list of "little changes", which ones are your favorites?  And which ones do you think would work especially well together?


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## Voneth

mmadsen said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Sorry, Voneth.  I think I thought I already had that on the list, tucked away somewhere, but looking at it now, I think it does need spelling out.  Here's what I had:  "Have items gain magical abilities through their usage and history rather than through enchantment." *




Yeah, the mechanics could be used for that. I summed up the rest here, cut as you see fit.

With the Dragonstar rule applied to standard magic items where the wielder -- not the maker pays the xp. A wizard would be much more willing to favor a friend or even a minion with an item.

Paying a fraction of the cost for second hand owners promotes a higher level magic game and parceling out the powers of an item for exp can be a source of adventure.


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## MythandLore

bump...


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## Reprisal

Can anyone point me in the direction of a full description of the _Pendragon Trait Pairs_?  They sound very interesting.


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## mmadsen

Reprisal said:
			
		

> *Can anyone point me in the direction of a full description of the Pendragon Trait Pairs?  They sound very interesting. *




Certainly, Reprisal.  Check out Tracking Alignment in the House Rules forum.  Or read the Pendragon thread from last week for more background info.


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## WSmith

Which is my favorite? Are you kidding? What is this Sophie's Choice?  

Really there are so many ideas I just can't pick one out.


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## tsadkiel

*Something I've always meant to try . . .*

Replace the "natural" ecology of the world with a different ecology.  Dinosaurs as natural beasts of burden would be interesting; Pleistocene megafauna might be even cooler.  For a really strange world, perhaps the PC races are the only vertabrates on the campaign world (descended from a lost planetary colony, perhaps?)  magically enlarged and shaped vermin fill the gaps; enormous centipedes serve as a public transportation device, children keep cat-sized beetles as pets, and knights mounted on giant ants clash in the shadow of colossal war spiders.


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## omokage

in a campaign world I made a long time ago, the "beasts of burden" were actually a sentient race. They had their own culture and society, but chose to serve humans as mounts and the burdened.


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## WSmith

bump


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## mmadsen

*Re: Something I've always meant to try . . .*



> Replace the "natural" ecology of the world with a different ecology.  Dinosaurs as natural beasts of burden would be interesting; Pleistocene megafauna might be even cooler.  For a really strange world, perhaps the PC races are the only vertabrates on the campaign world (descended from a lost planetary colony, perhaps?)  magically enlarged and shaped vermin fill the gaps; enormous centipedes serve as a public transportation device, children keep cat-sized beetles as pets, and knights mounted on giant ants clash in the shadow of colossal war spiders.




Wonderful suggestion, tsadkiel, and a staple of pulp fantasy/sci-fi literature, from John Carter of Mars through Star Wars.  The heroes don't just fight inhuman monsters, they find a land filled with eight-legged-lizard beasts of burden, flowers that can be milked, herds of nerfs (whatever a "nerf" might be), etc.


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## Arthur Tealeaf

B-U-M-P


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## Arthur Tealeaf

B
--U
----M
------P
-------B
--------U
---------M
----------P
-----------B
------------U
-------------M
--------------P


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## darklight

tsadkiel said:







> Replace the "natural" ecology of the world with a different ecology. Dinosaurs as natural beasts of burden would be interesting; Pleistocene megafauna might be even cooler. For a really strange world, perhaps the PC races are the only vertabrates on the campaign world (descended from a lost planetary colony, perhaps?) magically enlarged and shaped vermin fill the gaps; enormous centipedes serve as a public transportation device, children keep cat-sized beetles as pets, and knights mounted on giant ants clash in the shadow of colossal war spiders.




Yeah, I once had a dream where the beasts of burden were horse-sized beetles. Unfortunately the beetles were hard to control, and very strong, so they could wreak a lot of havoc. Someone came up with a solution for this: He killed the beetle, and then implanted some sort of computer-like device in its nervesystem, replacing the brain. This way he could control the beetle, although it moved a little erratically and a bit slower. (I guess you could call it technological undead ) In my dream, the beetles somehow retained sentience after death, and eventually revolted, causing major mayhem  

Funny, the things your brain can think up when you're sleeping 

darklight


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## Arthur Tealeaf

whoops.

I seem to have posted in the wrong thread.

oh my god.


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## RangerWickett

Subtle one there, Arthur.  

Hey, y'know what?  These ideas would make a great book!  I wonder who'd be interested in writing it, and who they'd want to contact, if they decided to.


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## Rune

I'd buy it!


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## Arthur Tealeaf

Rune said:
			
		

> *I'd buy it! *




Me too!

But if someone does offer to write it soon I'll go (m)mad(sen...)!


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## Rune

Well, mmadsen, it looks like you've got two people competing for your work.
What to do?  What to do?


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