Go on, I'm listening.
It’s occurred to me that I’ve not had a chance to run a truly full-length fantasy campaign. My forte seems to be grounded in the realm of Horror with the World of Darkness. Sure I’ve had a chance to run Exalted once in a while, but I’ve yet to complete a full campaign of anything remotely Fantasy-ish that doesn’t involve Samurai in some shape or form.
So… it’s time to address this moral failing.
I’m looking for a good fantasy game, and I’m relying on you guys to sell me on one. I’ve already got a few PDFs to work with, including Fantasy Craft, and I also have the corebooks of D&D 4e, but what I need are ideas. What are the most memorable Fantasy campaigns that you guys have played, and why? Were there specific elements that made it awesome, or was it just something your characters did (or were allowed to do?)
If you guys are the GMs tell me about the System, the Campaign conceits, the little tweaks you made to make a campaign awesome. Was it the “Our Elves are not Elves as you know it” angle? Or maybe your Dwarves are actually cannibalistic, cave-dwelling evolutionary offshoots of mankind? Maybe the game revolved around playing traditional “monster” races, fighting for survival against the racial purge led by the races of Man, Elf and Dwarf?
Tell me of your genres and time periods. Was it a story of cavemen vs dinosaurs? Brave renaissance-era explorers trapped in an Aztec-inspired locale populated by Kobolds and Lizardmen that are all too eager to sacrifice your hearts in a fire to their unspeakable gods? Or was it an anime-inspired campaign roughly cribbed from Lodoss War and Slayers?
Time to go all out and sell me on your ideas. I’m a man hungry for inspiration, and you’ve got the apron around your waist and a spatula in your hand. Feed me.
What happened to:
Russian Giants
French Dwarves
English Elves
Though I prefer the Elves to be Oriental. lol.
Italian Dwarves actually.
I still have that project cooking in the backburner.
If you like the horror genre I’d recommend to take a look at “Midnight”, from Fantasy Flight Games. It’s a fantasy world where the bad guys have already won (a hundred years ago, in fact).
It’s a hard world, very different from high fantasy settings like Forgotten Realms or Eberron.
For most games setting and system seem like they could be separate. I’m currently running a Fantasy game using a modified version of the L5R Roll and Keep system that AEG puts out. The game has worked out fairly well so far.
The world is custom, a High Fantasy setting with some changes (there are elves and dwarves, but they are not Tolkien elves/dwarves even while still holding enough similarities that you’d go “yeah that is an elf”). The game itself is a bit of an experiment, as the play group is trying for the feel of a novel instead of a normal game.
Fanta-si! Fanta-no!
I recommend checking out: (1) RuneQuest / Glorantha; (2) Earthdawn; (3) some OSR stuff like Stone Hell Dungeon, the Grinding Gear, The Dungeon Alphabet, and Death Frost Doom; (4) anything Arduin by Hargrave; (5) classic dungeons from TSR’s glory years and reviews of said dungeons / adventures on what made them classics.
What’s the point.
Franzetta is dead.
;_;
Really? You haven’t run a truly dedicated Fantasy setting? Forgive my confusion but what about that DnD 4E campaign you once GMed?
As for inspiration for fantasy settings, if you can get a hold of John Wick’s Wicked Fantasy Articles from Kobold Magazines (the spiritual successor to Dragon mag) that’d be a good place to start. Other sources of inspiration are as others have mentioned here already.
Hi Dirty Yasuki
I’ve run D&D 4e, yes, but not for a truly appreciable amount of time. The 4e game ran only for a few sessions, and didn’t really go anywhere in terms of plot, so I don’t qualify that as a full campaign as of yet.
RETURN OUR DND 4E CAMPAIGN!!! PLEASE!! EHEHEHEHE