Recent searches

No recent searches

Search options

Not available on dice.camp.
dice.camp is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A Mastodon server for RPG folks to hang out and talk. Not owned by a billionaire.

Administered by:

Server stats:

1.6K
active users

dice.camp: AboutProfiles directoryPrivacy policy

Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.4.3

Peter aka spezbaby

What are your Top 4 favourite tabletop RPG settings that were designed specifically for (so no Warhammer, Star Wars, Conan, etc.)?

Here are mine

Hyperborea - Clark Ashton Smith, REH and HPL inspired weird fantasy.

2300AD - 300 years post Twilight War the nations of earth colonize the stars and find some things very unexpected.

Aeon Trinity - psychics battling mutated supers while making Earth a better place.

Gamma World - Gonzo post apoc

#hyperborea#GammaWorld#2300AD
··Web
2boosts·5favorites
Colin Speirs

@spezbaby technically that would cut out Glorantha and Tekumel (*), my C&S Campaigns, mostly, being historical, apart from my first, even Traveller's Imperium has stuff in from other works

Thrankhuria - my first C&S campaign, a mix of Conan and Elric

Saurians - C&S 1 intelligent Dino setting

Ravenloft - reworked a fair bit into my games

Middle World - my current Essence campaign, based on 600BCE Western Asia

(*) Tarnished as it may be

Landa :graz:

@spezbaby

Spelljammer - What if Newton was completely wrong and Space is full of swashbuckling adventure, tinker gnomes and insufferable elves?

Shadowrun - cyberpunk/magic fusion with local sourcebooks, often written by actual Shadowrun fans from that country/area

Planescape - weird fantasy setting fleshing out the wheel-cosmology proposed by TSR earlier.

Forgotten Realms - high fantasy, might seem vanilla nowadays but it’s the first I ever played and we had years of fun there.

Wandering Star

@spezbaby Talislanta
Aberrant
Vampire: The Requiem
Rifts

KeroZelvin

@spezbaby

Duskvol, Glorantha, Night City, Shadowrun

qeqar

@spezbaby@dice.camp oh I still have Version of Aeon wenn it was called trinity 😀

But unfortunately never played it. 🙁

*
Peter aka spezbaby

@qeqar Trinity came second. Aeon was the first name until MTV (I believe) got involved.

We played a bunch for a while in the 90s.

I remember it, the setting and the spaceships fondly.

qeqar

@spezbaby@dice.camp ok too long ago. Then I have the Aeon version too 😁

I only remember that I have the first version and that the setting has PSY power.

Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

@spezbaby

Empire of the Petal Throne
Metamorphosis Alpha
Runequest
Shadowrun

Colin Speirs

@nyrath @spezbaby I thought of Tekumel and Glorantha

But both had existences before the games

But they are about the best

*
Peter Kisner ≈

@spezbaby
The following i always thought were interestingly thought out:

Dark Sun - Especially early 1st edition presented a D&D-type setting ravaged by misuse of magic.

Gamma World - Especially 4th and 7th editions, even though they present essentially different settings.

Dragonstar - Probably my favorite take on D&D + space travel

Classic World of Darkness - Especially Changeling and Mage

Cover from the 1st Ed. Dark Sun boxed set.
Cover from the 4th Edition Gamma World core book. A human in body armor (partly constructed from a speed limit sign) uses his righr hand to assist a humanoid with the head of a wolf up a hill. The human's left hand points a futuristic gun at a bear-sized flying monster. The monster has one eye, wings like a bat, horns, a long tail ending in a spike, and two legs, each of which has a single long talon at the end. The background is barren except for a high tech looking structure in the distance which eminates dark smoke.
Art from the Dragonstar roleplaying game. Depicts three fantasy figures wielding futuristic weapons, facing off against a dragon-like creature with several eyes and a glowing mouth. In the background is a circular opening, as if to a spaceship docking bay, and beyond that apace and planets.
Art from the Mage: the Ascension supplement: Guide to the Technocracy. It depicts a row of run down apartment buildings. Sandwiched between two of the apartments is an amorphous building-sized creature, a jumble of mouths and arms and eyes. Four figures in trench coats stand in the street in front of it: * One with a gun pointed at the creature. * The next figure has a more futuristic gun held aloft and gestues for the first figure to not fire. * The third figure stands stands as if uncertain or in awe. * The fourth figure faces away from the creature and types on a laptop sitting on the hood of a car.
#GammaWorld#DarkSun#TTRPG
dulsi

@spezbaby
Gamma World would be one of them.

Spelljammer - D&D in space

Dragonstar - D&D in the future with spaceships

Dragonmech - D&D with mechs

I guess futuristic D&D is my preference. #GammaWorld #Spelljammer #Dragonstar #Dragonmech

Hawkwinter :firefish:

@spezbaby@dice.camp

Does Forgotten Realms count? It started as Greenwood's unpublished short stories in the early '60s, then stuff he published in Dragon Magazine, and all the published fiction came after it was an official D&D setting.

That's my favorite if it counts.

Hawkwinter :firefish:

@spezbaby@dice.camp

Then, [Pre-4e/1385DR] Forgotten Realms it is. It's so developed; I love the novels; I grew up with the AD&D comic books about Kyriani Agrivar in the early '90s; I love the fiction tying back into the gamebooks.

The 2e gamebooks are more thorough, but some of the 3e ones are good compilations. The 3e FRCS is great for that.

I thought the 3e FaP 🤣 religion book was a bad compilation of the four 2e religion books though - overly focused on the personalities and statblocks of the gods themselves and not focused enough on the churches.

Grand History is a fun book for the shelf, but I don't think I've ever used it for an actual game rather than the sources it draws most of its information from.

But the 3e FRCS was /solid/.

Peter Kisner ≈

@Hawkwinter @spezbaby
While I would never begrudge or belittle anyone their love of the setting, I have very mixed feelings about the Forgotten Realms.

On one hand:

With a name like "Forgotten Realms", as a kid, I though it would largely involve exploring mysterious, previously lost areas. But is almost entirely NOT about that. In fact most regions are almost OVERdefined.
1/x

Peter Kisner ≈

@Hawkwinter @spezbaby
The setting seemed to suffer from "everything and the kitchen sink" content bloat. Like so full of crazy things, each more powerful than the last, every shenanigan wilder than the one before, its hard for me to imagine any kind of normal life existing there in contrast.

I've liked little of the fiction i read. Most seemed rambling and involved characters I don't really connect with. Even things people point out as "the good stuff" left me indifferent.
2/x

Peter Kisner ≈

@Hawkwinter @spezbaby
But, on the other hand, after hearing the podcast linked below, I had to admire:

The history of how the Forgotten Realms came about, how Ed gradually expanded on it over time beginning from childhood interest in stories.

Also, Greenwood's efforts to make the setting accessible to fans have gone above and beyond.

plotpoints.libsyn.com/ed-green

3/3

plotpoints.libsyn.comPlot Points: Ed Greenwood Sold the Forgotten Realms for $5,000- Ep. 174Ben Riggs interviews Ed Greenwood, father of the Forgotten Realms, about his 1987 agreement with TSR wherein he sold the rights to the Realms for $5,000. They also discuss the origin and publication of the Realms, and Ben is able to tell Ed, officially, how many units his game work sold decades after the fact. (You can check out the numbers below!) In January, an episode of Appendix N University will cover Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson if you want to read it for the episode.  Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG.  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now.
Hawkwinter :firefish:

@PTR_K@dice.camp @spezbaby@dice.camp

I though it would largely involve exploring mysterious, previously lost areas. But is almost entirely NOT about that
Yeah, the 'forgotten' is that it's an alternate world connected to earth, and we earth-humans forgot about it.
In fact most regions are almost OVERdefined.
Hmm. I suspect that's a matter of taste. For me OVERdefined would be "has more information than Wikipedia + local government sites + google maps has about the real world."

I appreciate the consistency that comes with being able to look up how the world works rather than needing to make it all up myself (when I make it up myself I tend to be filling in an encyclopedia of stuff that seems relevant as I'm prepping between sessions as I go anyways, and eventually would end up with a similarly large document if I stuck with the same setting rather than switching genres and systems frequently. Being able to look stuff up between sessions just saves me a lot of time.)
The setting seemed to suffer from "everything and the kitchen sink" content bloat. Like so full of crazy things, each more powerful than the last, every shenanigan wilder than the one before, its hard for me to imagine any kind of normal life existing there in contrast.
It's definitely not "medieval or renaissance europe with a few changes" - I think it's closest analogue is a renaissance magic-based Marvel Earth 616 full of Mutants and wizards and Monsters. There's pretty frequent mentions of regular citizens having wondrous items like Mickey mouse's house-cleaning broom, 'elfgates' spelljammers, etc. I think it's a renaisance magic-fantasy superhero setting. But I can appreciate not everyon is into that. Sometimes it's not what I'm in the mood for either, and I want something closer to GURPS low tech + GURPS fantasy, or one of the d100 /BRP / Runequest mythic earth settings.
I've liked little of the fiction i read. Most seemed rambling and involved characters I don't really connect with. Even things people point out as "the good stuff" left me indifferent.
That's unfortunate, but fair enough. I fail to connect with lots of more popular things. I could not at all, ever get into Warhammer 30k / 40k, for instance. The more I hear about the setting, the more I hate it.
But, on the other hand, after hearing the podcast linked below, I had to admire: The history of how the Forgotten Realms came about, how Ed gradually expanded on it over time beginning from childhood interest in stories.
It's impressive the amount of care that went into how he curated the thing, often in spite of corporate meddling.
Also, Greenwood's efforts to make the setting accessible to fans have gone above and beyond.
http://plotpoints.libsyn.com/ed-greenwood-sold-the-forgotten-realms-for-5000-ep-174
I've been really liking his Youtube interview show, and when my finances are a bit better I want to back his Patreon to see the extended interviews and whatever else he puts up there.

plotpoints.libsyn.comPlot Points: Ed Greenwood Sold the Forgotten Realms for $5,000- Ep. 174Ben Riggs interviews Ed Greenwood, father of the Forgotten Realms, about his 1987 agreement with TSR wherein he sold the rights to the Realms for $5,000. They also discuss the origin and publication of the Realms, and Ben is able to tell Ed, officially, how many units his game work sold decades after the fact. (You can check out the numbers below!) In January, an episode of Appendix N University will cover Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson if you want to read it for the episode.  Ben’s book on RPG adventure design, Encounter Theory, is on DriveThruRPG.  to pick up this essential volume! Like Plot Points? Support it on  at the $2 level, and you’ll get a sneak peek into Ben’s book about the sale of TSR to Wizards of the Coast! This chapter concerns TSR West, an effort by TSR to open an LA office devoted to producing comic books, an effort that failed rather impressively. It is the product of a dozen interviews with professionals from comics, gaming, and Hollywood, and as far as I can reckon, it is a tale entirely untold until now.
TrendingLive feeds
About