After several years of running D&D in pre-packaged campaign settings and a failed attempt to make a dynamic and exciting world of my own in college, I’ve been toying with the idea of making my own “perfect” fantasy campaign setting for a while now. The challenge here is coming up with a unique setting that is still grounded in the basics of D&D.

Now you might be asking, why bother going through all the effort of creating a world when there are plenty of accessible campaign settings already produced by numerous companies? For me, it’s the satisfaction of creating something that no one else has experienced in any other campaign and the joy of seeing something you create take on a life of its own. I had some success with my Thuin world project, but not to the extent that I wanted. In the end, the very rule structure and race/class choices force you down a path that requires several types of established D&D conventions. For example, the inclusion of monks in a campaign necessitates the inclusion of martial arts and monasteries into the campaign; paladins assume that there is a divine Lawful Good being that cares enough to send minions into the world to do its work; etc. Adopting the D&D spell and magic item listings provides assumptions on how extraplanar creatures behave, how curses work, and the nature of magic itself. D&D monsters are arranged into types and established cultures and alignments.

So how do you break the mold and make something completely unique? Well, that’s the trick now, isn’t it? TSR tried to break from traditional fantasy in the 1990s with the creation of several non-traditional settings. These included Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer, each of which ended pretty dismally except for the few stragglers who clung to the concepts. It has been proven that taking the fantasy out of D&D pretty much kills it. Sure, you can use the system for other games, but D&D has those established concepts that can’t be toyed with too much without destroying the mood and essence of the whole game. You may as well be playing another game by that point – which is what many people did! Games like Shadowrun, Paranoia, and even Traveller owe their existences to dissatisfaction with D&D and the way the game was run. After the D&D boom of the 1980s, other companies wanted to make anti-D&D games to provide alternatives to straight fantasy role-play. A few even surpassed sales of TSR games in later years (White Wolf Games’ Vampire the Masquerade being one of the more popular ones).

So what is the “essence” of D&D? That’s harder to define. For many it’s the interplay between the races and classes, for some it’s the magic system, and for others its the entire package. Changing elves to something other than how they’ve been defined over the past 30 years, for example, forces the players to adopt completely new ideals and concepts. Making a kobold into a vicious, psychopathic monster that would be a danger even for 3rd level characters also causes the players to step back and may even cause confusion. I find that there are givens in the game – concepts that others find comfortable and acceptable. You can’t just change the basics of the fantasy environment and call it D&D. For example, toning down magic is detrimental to D&D 3.5 in many ways. Removing the demi-humans from the equation is also limiting, because so many players like to play something other than “ho-hum” humans (despite all the modifications in D&D 3.X that make them more attractive to play). So how can you make something unique when removing elements changes the game?

Well, we can ADD elements and options to make it different. But that’s also disrupting to the balance already established in the Core Rules. As anyone who has added in most of the supplemental material can attest, the classes, feats, and spells of later sourcebooks are not as rigorously tested as the Core material and some gamebreakers exist. There’s also that tendency for everyone to select non-Core material (regardless of whether it works or not) simply because it’s new and different. You can always add new material to a campaign, but then it’s harder to remove it once you realize it doesn’t work. For example, we added in the “witch” class from the original Dungeon Master’s Guide and learned almost immediately that it was seriously underpowered with regards to the other classes. The Bard tends to suffer a similar fate, as does multiclassing beyond the 1st level.

So, if removing AND adding elements is detrimental, what about rearranging the structure in-game of a few of the classic elements that already exist? You really have to understand the mechanics of the game before you start fiddling too much with the basic structure. Just randomly applying abilities to different creatures to make them “different and unique” can destroy the feel of the fantasy atmosphere just as quickly. For example, the classic module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, featured Sci-Fi elements in the classic exploration and discovery campaign of Greyhawk. Now, most of the hi-tech items found in that adventure either had no function away from the adventure locale or contained very limited “charges.” The adventure changed the basic premises of the game within the adventure, but the campaign itself remained unaffected on the whole. It also allowed the players to experience something new without changing the premises and assumptions of the game itself. The classic module D1-2: Descent into the Depths of the Earth similiarly tweaked the in-game scenario by making a race of humanoids that could withstand several assaults by high-level characters by possessing items and abilities that would never work in an aboveground setting for Player Characters. Again, the change was made on a module (or location) specific level rather than complete alteration of the campaign world to suit the adventure.

So what, if anything, can be done to make a unique world setting? Well, you can alter a few things, but I suggest leaving the majority of the D&D assumptions and premises in place. For example, I have been toying with altering the way certain demi-humans are defined. I would like to run a campaign where elves are evolved from tree spirits who have taken human form – a more mobile dryad, if you will. Such elves could be tied to a specific location, likely a forest, where their “heart tree” thrives under the care of elven druids. Destruction of the Heartwood of the tree would likely kill the elf tied to that tree. New elves are born when new trees take seed and always within the same family, thus binding forest and clan to a specific location. Perhaps elves removed too far from their heart tree would suffer penalties and become moody and morose. Elves kept from the life-giving light may be altered to fit their environment, thus better defining elves as a spirit in flesh form rather than a being with a soul. Sea elves would resemble their environment more by adapting to become more fish-like, etc. The long life of the elf is tied to the life of his tree. This limits the popularity of  elven characters, but would also change the favored class from Wizard to Druid (as I think it should be, for sylvan elves at least). Perhaps, those elves who have turned to magic have freed themselves from the need for trees to sustain them. Another alteration – the skin tone of the elf in question changes to reflect the source of their life force. Those that favor magic and feed off its power may be like the gray elves (or fay elves) and have pale white or glimmering skin, sylvan elves who favor natural power have greenish skin, sea elves would have blue skin since they derive their spiritual essence from the sea, and dark elves might be dark brown to black, owing their existence to the depths of the earth. Elves, in essence, become like elemental creatures. As a campaign specific tweak, they may be given a subtype reflecting their source. Taking this another step, you could say that elves have no need to eat so long as they are surrounded by the element that grants them their power (magic for gray elves, sunlight for sylvan elves, darkness underground for dark elves, sea water for aquatic elves, etc.). Such an alteration has long-reaching consequences for a campaign, but in the end, the look and feel of elves has changed very little. They might be a bit less enticing to play, but they have been given new avenues for role-playing beyond the haughty, condescending, magic-wielding, slightly smaller demi-humans that most players play them as.

The world itself has to be designed in such as way that it can encompass the grandeur that is D&D. This isn’t easy, since many players like the various Earth-cultures already written into the game. Coming up with a unique, non-Earth related culture for a human species is not easy, although many have tried. Altering the base human cultures too much ends up making them resemble demi-humans – perhaps a by-product of a human DM trying too hard to differentiate his own cultural beliefs from those of the humans in his world. In the end, whatever seems to work best for all involved is the way to go. Don’t try and alienate the players from the campaign by adding in only elements that you, as DM, may find pleasing and appropriate. Everyone has their favorite fantasy elements – the trick is to put them all together and make them work. Taking Metaljim’s suggestion that the world I had been building for this blog was a bit bland, I’m working on developing some new ideas to maybe spice things up a bit. Even so, the town I was developing was only one on a small island in an insignificant portion of the world anyway. Fantasy doesn’t have to smack you in the face each and every time you play. Still, there are so many fantastic elements that I could weave into the game that it would seem perhaps too fantastic for such an out-of-the-way place. Balance, it seems, is the key to all things….