# 11 Campaign Settings



## TerraDave (Sep 2, 2013)

Underwater city....I have always wanted to do that.

You could also add "planar" as an amped up version of the others. All of which I have included (well, except underwater city, and subbing sci fi for space) in my current campaing.


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## DrunkonDuty (Sep 5, 2013)

Nice article. Got a few god chuckles. Plus of course it reminds me that there are a few types of campaign I haven't run yet.


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## DancingSatyr (Sep 5, 2013)

Somewhere, someone is playing their first fews games in a simple dungeon, near a town in the middle of nowhere....and they are having the time of their lives. Cliche' only happens when you stop having fun.


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## LWDLiz (Sep 5, 2013)

These are great starting points! My first game was a mix of number 1 and I loved it.


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## doghead (Sep 6, 2013)

I often build my games around the kingdom at war scenario. However, the war is often not yet declared, and the characters are rarely at a castle. They are not at the centre of events in the sense of close to those in power making the decisions. Rather, they are, initially, at the fringe, drawn in by unfolding events. That been said, they are in at a time and place of great potential leverage over the what happens, and as such, can be considered at the centre of events in a way.

The village and dungeon is often a starting point, although I tend to use a 'problem' rather than actual dungeons. The village is often in the hills, and surrounded by forest, with all the 'blooding' opportunities this offers for new characters. Healing temples are rare though.

thotd


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## Challenger RPG (Sep 9, 2013)

@_*TerraDave*_ : Great suggestion! I hope you don't mind that I stole your idea (if you do, I'll remove it). It's a sweet campaign suggestion. I can't say I ever started a planar campaign at first level, but many of my existing campaigns morphed into planar games over the years. It's a unique challenge to tackle the broad scope of such settings. I've always found that combining 'the basics' with such worlds works well. A dungeon can still be a dungeon even if it's on Mecanus.

  @_*DrunkonDuty*_ : Thanks. It's never too late to throw a new campaign at your players.  Sometimes I'll even just run a 'one-shot' to see if I like something enough to make it into a campaign.

  @_*DancingSatyr*_ : Well said. One quote which sticks out in my memory is, "Cliches are cliches because they were once so popular that everyone used them." I listed the village and the dungeon first for a reason. Tried, tested, and true. No matter how many games I run, I always eventually get a hankering to play a 'classic' style game.

I hope I didn't come across as saying that dungeons and villages are no good. I do tend to make fun of anything I can get my hands on, but that's usually because I really enjoy the thing.

  @_*LWDLiz*_ : Thank you! It's good to know that I'm not the only one that started out using #1 

  @_*doghead*_ : Sounds pretty darn cool. I'm sure your players love having such a rich world to adventure in. I think some of the most enjoyable campaigns are those where the players feel their characters have a real impact on the world.

Also, your game obviously doesn't follow the types 'exactly' which is always a good thing. The more unique a game is, the better.

I also really like your idea of having a 'problem' as a starting point. The potential for 'problems' is similar to the potential for 'conflicts' and I think that's one of the best basic building blocks for a great story. Kudos!

***

Thanks for the great comments, everyone. Some really great ideas in there.


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## TerraDave (Sep 11, 2013)

Bonus setting.


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## gamerprinter (Sep 13, 2013)

The Space campaign we ran was great. Did the PCs hijack a military space vessel? Of course they did, but that was the plan in the first place. What you seem to consider the negative aspects of a space campaign were the goals of the GM and players in playing it. And yes they got access to "hyper drives" but then space is so immense, it's like fast walking across Asia, the scale of distance meant the "hyper" in hyper drive was almost meaningless.

Well my primary homebrew became my published setting: *Kaidan, the setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG)*. You didn't mention the oriental setting (being somewhat exotic and nothing like most Euro-centric settings.)

It's my attempt at horror using Japanese horror tropes rather than western horror tropes. In my horror setting while you certainly can fight horrible monsters, the horror aspect isn't so much the monsters (well there are a lot of yurei ghosts), but the curse of being tainted by the horror and of death - due to Kaidan's perverse and twisted reincarnation mechanic. It's not the fear of fighting monsters, it's the fear of failing, dying, and being reborn into something bad.

Also, Kaidan has an underwater city, inhabited by an oriental sea dragon, merfolk, samebito (shark men), and some lesser denizens. Here's a look at that city, Ryukyu (literally "sea dragon city"):

View attachment 58944


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