What Campaign Setting for your Module?

[Uatu]

Wondering what campaign setting you guys are going to place your respective game modules in

1. Forgotten Realms - works well as it is a "standard" AD&D world; quite a popular one, and the most obvious choice (as that is what the old Gold Box games used, too)
2. Greyhawk - the orthodox "standard" AD&D world, works just as easily as #1.
3. Blackmoor - the oldest RPG campaign world, quite standard as well. Somewhat lacking in supplements, though (just a few for the basic D&D of yore)
4. Dragonlance - quite popular in its own way, and there were a few Gold Box games in this world as well; however, it is quite hard to do well in DC (or FRUA) still, with different classes and races.
5. Oriental Adventures - this would require a lot of work on classes and races as well, but it would still be easier to do than #4 (not a huge amount of material).
6. Al-Kadim - same as #5 (not a huge amount of material).
7. Maztica - same as #5 (not a huge amount of material).
8. Spelljammer - whoa! Would be interesting to try...
9. Own World - the easiest in many ways to do
10. Non-standard AD&D proprietary world
11. Ravenloft
12. Planescape
13. Dark Sun
14. Lankhmar (not a huge amount of material)
15. Specific Historical (Vikings, Charlemagne, India, Arthurian, etc.) (little to very little material)
16. Specific Literary (Cthulhu, Melnibonian) (very little material)
17. Savage Coast
18. Birthright
19. Age of Wyrms
20. Mystara
21. Arcane Age

I am currently thinking of doing #2 (Greyhawk), but I am not sure... (#8 sounds nice and easy as well)...

How about you guys?

[manikus]

You're working on or thinking about working on a Spelljammer mod? That sounds cool.

I would like to offer up #10: a proprietary world that is not a standard Advanced Dungeons & Dragons setting. Do we need a #11 for Ravenloft?

I'm working mostly in the Realms (#1) with modules set there reaching into #5, #6 and the Outer and Inner Planes. I have one, that's way on the backburner, that is set in #2. All of the rest, which is the majority of projects falling under #9 or #10 - these are most of my backburner projects.
Let me be a little more concrete:
Mod 1- #1 & Outer Planes
Mod 2- #1 & Inner and Outer Planes
Mod 3- #1
Mod 4- #1
Mod 5- #1 & #6
Mod 6- #9

All the rest are backburner. Mod 6 is going to be fantasy, but a completely new world, with new creatures, new races, new spells, new classes and new items (not to mention the obvious, which will be all of the new art) It's still the 1e/2e hybrid that is DC. This is the setting I'm making for pen and paper and DC. A little ambitious? Probably, but if I get it done...

[Uatu]

Doh - forgot about Ravenloft, Planescape, Dark Sun, and others

Cool - lots of mods going there! A home-baked world is always nice, of course - lots of freedom there, if anything (plus, DC is a way to get people interested in your homebaked world )

As for Spelljammer - well, it is impossible now, since my Spelljammer boxed set is on the other side of the world in NJ right now (can't find an online copy). Might be implausible anyway, once I go and read over the boxed set again...

[manikus]

My world is coming along quite nicely. I'm trying a different workflow for it, and not doing any art at the beginning, but all of the databases (.dat and .txt files) first. There are four main races and two hybrid available for the PC/NPC. All of the multi-classes have names, i.e. instead fighter/magicuser/thief, they're called bards. Instead of paladins, there are knights, including two special orders that aren't functioning properly b/c DC will currently not let me multi-class paladins. There are other, less straight-forward changes (rangers are now the name of a multi-class).
I've been toying with the idea making all major types of monsters into races, that way during the game, it would say "wyrm" instead of monster for the dragon-like creatures, for example. I think this would also allow me to do some specific magic and specific abilities for weapons, which is aimed at particular races of creatures. There is definitely a bit of code tweaking that needs to happen. I'm in a bit of thicket about which way to go- I think I can figure out how to allow paladin multi-classing for example, but if I change the source code, I have to make those changes available to all, and as I would be adding hard-wired multi-classes I'm not sure that I want to do this. The other option is that I hack the .exe and provide my hack, free for all to use. This is more difficult (though it does take me back to my FRUA days) and a bit harder to explain to others how to use.

Spelljamming would be cool. I think the only thing I have in electronic format is the 'Realmspace' book. I don't know that I've seen the boxed set, course, I haven't been looking either.

I don't know if Steve McDonald is around, I know he still gets the mailing list, but his modules that he was working on were Dragonlance and Greyhawk, if I'm not mistaken.

I've just been doing DC today, no school work. I've gotten a lot of stuff done, but nothing finished. It's been a nice break, that's for sure.

[Uatu]

Hmm - your game world sounds pretty interesting

My own world is basically nothing right now - time to get something started, methinks... (I was thinking of stuff for the Lejendary Adventure (pen and paper) game - maybe I will continue with that...)

[manikus]

I really like world building. I've been putting a fair bit of effort into a new pantheon and the specialty priests, elite druids and different orders of knights that serve them and why.

The hard part has been redoing the magic. It's a lot of work. I'm trying to simulate elemental magic. I'll have to do this very carefully, not allowing PC magic users is a big step in that direction, with various mages having only the general spells and spells of their element...

I want to make this an AD&D world, so it can be accessible by the various inner and outer planes, because I want to use the Elemental planes in the backstory/history of the world. I've been rationalizing that since the gods control the nature of magic, both clerical magic userish, that I can have whatever spell system that I want, as long as I keep it balanced and roughly at the same power level as the AD&D canon. Perhaps I will write a treatise on the nature of magic in the multi-verse (or at least one of my sages will). Related to this, as an exercise in brainstorming on the world's backstory/history, I tried to imagine the names and/or topics of all the must have books for the sages and intellectuals, allowing that some books have had a limited print run, while others are unique or have only one or two copies of the original.

[Uatu]

A new pantheon sounds nice... Kind of hard to implement anything about a pantheon in DC right now, though (unless you sacrifice the cleric and druid to make two slots for a pseudo-specialty priest)...

Having more class slots would make this a bit easier in the future, I guess (but first things first, i.e. making healing spells work outside of combat, and then making enemies able to flee normally, and then making enemies able to use magic/abilities).

Oops - forgot a few other campaign worlds: Lankhmar, specific historical culture (Vikings, India, etc.), etc... Will update the list above

One of the better historical campaigns was the Viking Campaign; using the 2e sourcebook, a few Dragon magazine articles (detailing beasts such as the linnorms), and the Legends & Lore deities, and you have a very viable, interesting campaign! Unfortunately, 2 of the 3 sources mentioned here are in my oft-mentioned stash in NJ... Alas...

Lankhmar was a pretty interesting campaign as well, although not as supported as the more "main" campaign settings like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Dragonlance... They have their own magic systems, too...

[manikus]

With the new/updated list, about half of my #9s are #16s (J.R.R. Tolkein, George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan)

I think you can do a lot with specialty priests in the role playing (non-combat events) of DC. If you associate a specific quest with a specific specialty priest class, you can do all kinds of things. This will work, to some extent, for specialty mages as well.
I'm also using the multi-classes as specialty classes- an evil specialty priesthood are really cleric/theives.
Sometime in the last couple of days, I decided that any adventures that come out of this project will use pregenerated characters and/or one PC and the rest NPCs.

I've always been fascinated by the Viking setting (the 2e book is great) and happened to marry a nice Norwegian speaking girl. My wife's dad emigrated to the U.S. in his early 20's and for a while when she was a kid, they moved back to Norway for a couple of years. The people in Norway are great, and have a real snese of the history of their nation and will quickly, but politely dispel any Viking myths which you may have. They blame all the bad stuff on the Swedes and Danes. Just kidding.
Anyways, I'd love to play a viking module.

[Uatu]

Well, #16 is that which already has (some) published AD&D stats... (Tolkien is sort of default, though.)

But yeah, I think a lot of class abilities will mostly be implemented with events (so far)...

Wow, your wife is a Viking then! Does she have long pigtails or a helmet with cow horns on it (yeah, I know it's fake, but... ). They've got nice cheese and such over there... But everyone is so TALL (including the women)...

Anyway, I'd love to make a Viking module, too (need to make linnorm, trollkin, etc. icons then), but my book is in the States as I mentioned... Ah, well

[manikus]

My wife is only 5'7", so not tall by U.S./Norwegian standards. When I was there, as long as I didn't do anything more than nod and say please and thank you, I was mistaken for a Norwegian. I'm 6'2" so I was taller than most of the Norwegian men, though, there were a larger percentage of men taller than me than here in the Western U.S. (which I think is slightly taller than the Eastern U.S.). One of the men was my wife's uncle who was 6'9" and ran his own farm. I had the firmest handshake of anyone I've ever met.
We were at a viking ship museum in Oslo, in the gift shop when we overheard some Americans asking about the horned helmets and where they could buy one or at least borrow it for pictures. The elderly lady working in the gift shop calmly explained to them in perfect English that no self-respecting Viking would ever wear such a helmet, as the horns would help guide blows from above into their head.
At that moment, I was rather embarassed to be an American. Fortunately, my wife and I are were both wearing sensible shoes (tennis shoes are a dead give away for Americans) and dressier clothes (shirt with a collar, as t-shirts are give-aways for Americans and Brits) and my wife picked that moment to start a conversation in her perfect Norwegian with a lady standing near us. I think we pulled it off.