Your preferred fantasy

[NezMaster]

[Often, when I run established worlds like these, I will change a few things to put the player's back into uncertain waters.  I ran one adventure, and I have a campaign sitting in the wings, for Star Wars.

Your game sounds great and kind of makes my point for me. It's apparent your game is not cannon, and therefore not truly 'in the star wars universe.' Alternate universes are cool, but most people who want to play in 'x' universe, balk when you start mucking with it. So I generally write my own universes. It's more fun anyway.

[Bill Whitmore]

[Often, when I run established worlds like these, I will change a few things to put the player's back into uncertain waters.  I ran one adventure, and I have a campaign sitting in the wings, for Star Wars.

Your game sounds great and kind of makes my point for me. It's apparent your game is not cannon, and therefore not truly 'in the star wars universe.' Alternate universes are cool, but most people who want to play in 'x' universe, balk when you start mucking with it. So I generally write my own universes. It's more fun anyway.

Yea, I was in total agreement with you.  This came up when I ran a Star Wars games for a group that included a player who had read ALL the books and liked to tell me what Wedge was REALLY doing instead of helping the PCs at any given point in time.  *blech*  So when the time came to run the world again, I kinda changed things.

It's impossible to run a pure-canon game in a world that includes the PCs.  By the very definition of canon, the presence of PCs make it non-canon (unless you are the author and have controlling interest in the setting.  The Matrix Online was declared canon material so that if anyone managed to kill, say, Morpheus, then it would become part of the actual Matrix Storyline)

[Alphastream]

Spelljammer is my absolute favorite "fantasy" setting.
You can throw anything in, and if it doesn't work you can drop it without problem.
Had the longest running campaign in it and it spawned the most memorable villain of all our campaigs.

I loved Spelljammer when I was in a D&D rut. It really was like being able to do whatever you wanted as a GM, and it always fit.

My other favorite for a bit of departure was Dark Sun. Dark and gritty world where survival was never certain. Just truly horrible stuff out there, and no safe zones. So deadly they suggested having a character tree that advanced, so that when you die, you play another in the tree. Awesome.

Teos

[Desertpuma]

I do love to have players alter the scope of the world, and not just in a fantasy setting.

Religious wars, hell, religion being a focus and not "what kind of healing can my god grant me now?" theory. How about gods who do not have access to healing domains or spells? ... What happens if a god denies someone or even his own priest the right or ability to heal someone? As an extension of that, how about people who choose not to believe in the gods receiving any magical healing?... What about excommunication, heresy, faith vs structure and interdiction? ... I ran a campaign for a short while where religion was so paramount two warring lords had their armies lay down arms for an entire day out of respect for a religious holiday because they were worried about the god in question stepping on them for not showing fealty.

Active thief guilds... leave something somewhere and you think it is hidden only to have it jacked ... and yes, this is a Cyberpunk mentality. If they rest in a bad part of town, jump them. If they hide it, steal it. If they have openly displayed valuables, rob them. If they threaten the Guild, beat them down when they don't expect it. If they can't take it, they'll leave. ... I once had a bard who sang a song bad-mouthing the local thieves guild of halfings get kidnapped, tied up, and gang-raped by the guild. She never sang about them again nor venture into their terroritory. Come to think of it, she refused to return to the town and stayed with the ranger & druid outside the walls. 

I like the Richelieu over Voldemort at times too. The relatively untouchable villain who can make life miserable for the players is good, especially if they do not know it is him until near the end of a long series of sessions. .... Double this if he has been acting as their best friend the whole time.

I love complex storylines with their fair share of cultures being blended.

I want the players to realize in their haste to get to the bad guys they are seriously outmatched and need to do some serious regrouping before trying again ... in several levels.

I love the idea of a small band of heroes affecting an enormous strategic battle by doing daring raids to disrupt supply lines, rescue an important NPC, quietly destroying a fortification, and so on.
===================

I hate overused character concepts.
I hate Velveeta cheesy crap (everything is so processed).
I hate "I have my statblocks" over having an interesting background.
I hate multiclassing to just get the cheesy 1st level ability because "it is outside of my character concept but is too cool to not have".
I hate min/maxing, not just for characters but for systems because if you don't, you're dead.

I'll think up more on the way.

[Gentry]

How does everyone feel about non-human races, other than "they should be hawt!"?   

Did Tolkien do it best, or if you have to endure another campaign next to a green-clad elf archer are you going to go suck on your exhaust pipe?

[Desertpuma]

I have no problem with non-human races but make them legit and not necessarily humanity's stepping stool. ... stool ... Anyway, make them count. Players should worry about having their human characters walking into a non-human village or town or city that hangs them in effigy. Players are getting to used to everyone getting along and humans having the right to trample everyone's race. Examine my post above the halfing thieves guild for more clarification.... the bard was lucky she didn't birth a three-quarterling.

Stating "Elf the other white meat" within earshot of an Elven guard post at an Elven city deserves an arrow to the knee or groin or earhole or throat. Joking about a dwarven height means they should get tossed off the top of the dwarven fortress located up the side of the mile high plateau.

[Agent 333]

Hey, half the time I am the green clad elven archer. Though the elves I play are often far removed from Tolkien's holier-than-thou elves. Tolkien elves aren't any more 'in tune' with nature than Tolkien's humans, they just build their buildings into the trees instead of out of them.

[TheAuldGrump]

I do love to have players alter the scope of the world, and not just in a fantasy setting.

Religious wars, hell, religion being a focus and not "what kind of healing can my god grant me now?" theory. How about gods who do not have access to healing domains or spells? ... What happens if a god denies someone or even his own priest the right or ability to heal someone? As an extension of that, how about people who choose not to believe in the gods receiving any magical healing?... What about excommunication, heresy, faith vs structure and interdiction? ... I ran a campaign for a short while where religion was so paramount two warring lords had their armies lay down arms for an entire day out of respect for a religious holiday because they were worried about the god in question stepping on them for not showing fealty.

Active thief guilds... leave something somewhere and you think it is hidden only to have it jacked ... and yes, this is a Cyberpunk mentality. If they rest in a bad part of town, jump them. If they hide it, steal it. If they have openly displayed valuables, rob them. If they threaten the Guild, beat them down when they don't expect it. If they can't take it, they'll leave. ... I once had a bard who sang a song bad-mouthing the local thieves guild of halfings get kidnapped, tied up, and gang-raped by the guild. She never sang about them again nor venture into their terroritory. Come to think of it, she refused to return to the town and stayed with the ranger & druid outside the walls. 

I like the Richelieu over Voldemort at times too. The relatively untouchable villain who can make life miserable for the players is good, especially if they do not know it is him until near the end of a long series of sessions. .... Double this if he has been acting as their best friend the whole time.

I love complex storylines with their fair share of cultures being blended.

I want the players to realize in their haste to get to the bad guys they are seriously outmatched and need to do some serious regrouping before trying again ... in several levels.

I love the idea of a small band of heroes affecting an enormous strategic battle by doing daring raids to disrupt supply lines, rescue an important NPC, quietly destroying a fortification, and so on.

Hmmm, to combine this with a bit of Favorite Fantasy Races... from my homebrew 1600s D&D game - For a millennium and a half the world has been shielded from magic by a single, monotheistic faith that was followed, with variations, through most of the 'civilized' world.

The world is in the midst of the Wars of Religion - about 1630 or so. Gunpowder, the printing press, and the telescope have all appeared - in a few years time the microscope will be invented.

Divine magic has always been strong. There are now those who fear that God is now turning his back on the world, or that the end times are drawing near. They are not entirely incorrect. What they do not know is that someone has planned this war, to bring the walls of faith crashing down.

The faith is now fracturing in a huge, slow, and incredibly murderous war, with the failure of the faith comes the return of magic. Sorcerous bloodlines, long gone quiet, have reawakened, studied magics, weak before, have now grown strong.

Goblins are dark fey, mostly native to old growth forests in the Old World. While the New World has similar creatures they are by no means identical. Goblins have only started reappearing in the Old World over the last thirty years. Their re-emergence is one of the first signs of how much the walls of faith have fractured.

In one year, game time, the first dragon spawning in 1631 years occurs - a river runs with strange lizard like fish, fish which can breathe flames.

Dwarfs, men, ogres, halflings, and gnomes have always been in the world, now others are returning, angered by their long exile....

Elfs are only now returning to the world, their Western Isles visible through ever churning fog off of the coast of Agravangia. It has been two thousand years since last their islands were visible, ancient magics are failing.... Unlike ogres, dwarfs, halflings, and gnomes the elfs were driven out. Many are driven by the desire for revenge - in the years before their exile fully a half of the elfs were slain.

Dark elfs are elfs found in southern and central regions of the New World, dark skin and a truly vicious culture - think a combination of Melnibone and Aztec cultures. When they left the old world they took slaves with them. Those slaves now outnumber them fifty to one, but have been so subjugated that there has not been a slave revolt in a thousand years.

Orcs are a bit different - able to breed with humans and create fertile hybrids, the orcs are a race of man, not a separate species. Found on the northern continent of the New World, many are nomadic hunter-gatherers, others have the beginnings of an agricultural society.

Ogres and dwarfs are interfertile, and could produce sterile hybrids - but in the entire history of the world this has never happened. (Making this the most useless piece of trivia about my world....) Ogres and dwarfs get along rather well, both being honorable races of lawful bent.

Ogres are slow thinkers, but not entirely stupid - though they get a -4 Intelligence modifier they can 'take 25' on Intelligence based tests, some of the great astronomers and mathematicians are ogres. Ogre spellcasters always take a full round when casting spells, rather than a standard action. (Which works out well for the few ogre sorcerers - meta-magic feats do not add to the time taken for spellcasting. But with a -4 Charisma penalty ogre sorcerers are few and far between.)

Dwarfs and gnomes, like humans and orcs, are the same species, unlike orcs and humans the differences are cultural and dietary, a dwarf infant raised by gnomes grows up to be a gnome.

Halfings come in two societies - nomadic and settled. Nomadic (Remeric) halflings are often viewed as thieves, and are very clannish, having an 'us against them' point of view. Settled  (Halmadic) halfings are equally clannish, form their own communities in the shelter of larger races, and follow both their own laws and the laws of the local society. They are also distrusted by their neighbors, who suspect them of vague conspiracies.

Halflings breeding with humans produce human offspring. Two half-halflings (humans of halfling descent) or a halfling and a half-halfling have a 25% chance of producing a halfling child.

The Auld Grump

[foproy]

while i have to agree with the front heavy classes argument, i do have to say that one of my favorite classes is also the most front heavy, which is the cleric. all of the special abilities they get are at 1sty level, and they just improve for the most part from that point

[Morgenstern]

I wanted to take a moment to explain how return to life spells worked in my most recent campaign (with will likely influence my setting in Fantasycraft).

Why we don't raise dead people~
Only the coalition of shiney-happy good Gods have the power to raise the dead unprovoked. However, every time they do, the cosmic balance resetles and the dark and nasty horde of evil Gods are then also allowed to raise the dead. Once. And they have a list of their top candidates all drawn up just waiting for their chance - the mightiest badasses of evil ever make the list, not shlubs of sorta-maybe-darkness.

Naturally, the gods of good are reluctant to do so except in the most outstanding cases because every time they do, evil puts one of their greatest hits back on the table too. Evil at least has a sense of humor about it - they often put a complimentary baddie back into play, so that if you ressurect a great paladin, his greatest nemesis comes back too. But if you resurect some modestly sucessful do-gooder,  It could mean the Black King of the West comes out of retirement to lay the smack down on the whole world.  Not exactly an even trade.

In otherwords, the ability is there -in theory- but you had really, really, REALLY better be worth it because there's gonna be hell to pay, literally.

[Forcegypsy]

O.M.G. That is, as they say, fracking brilliant. You've taken your 'penalties are what makes the real difference' attitude to a fantastic endpoint. I started laughing in total fantastic agreement once I saw where you were going with this. Wonderful idea.

[Desertpuma]

That is damn outstanding Scotty!

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, back in 2e AD&D I had a lot of fun with the house rule that 'Raise Dead has a duration' - one day per caster level, then you die, and nothing can bring you back. The spell allows you to tie up loose ends, finish a quest, eat a really good meal, and borrow lots of money before shuffling off this mortal coil and joining the choir invisible. Higher level resurrection magic did not exist.

The Auld Grump

[Scarecrow]

I havent played or GM'ed alot of Fantasy really, but with my group, the only thing they tend to want to ever do is blow crap up or kill things.  As a result any games i run tend to be fairly combat orientated, which in my opinion can get rather boring, coz its effectively playing Hero's Quest (the board game)....

In terms of settings though, i would like to try and run a setting like the movie 300, in that era.

[Agent 333]

Raising the dead gets very Deus Ex very quickly. I hate it. Despite not actually banning res magic in any game I've run, most of my players and I would prefer to just make a new character if the old one dies.