By: John Henry of Hammered Out Homebrew
Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), like Dungeons & Dragons (DnD), can be played in a variety of settings, each offering a unique and immersive experience. The primary settings for TTRPGs are typically defined by the game system you choose to play, as many TTRPGs have their own distinct settings. But there is no law stating you have to use a particular setting in its original system. For example, I know of a few groups that use the Forgotten Realms setting in their Pathfinder games.
The setting of your game is important as it helps set the tone and flavor of your game. Published settings can be a good way to ease the burden of the game master if they do not feel like coming up with an entire world. It can also give them a resource to draw on for everything from locations to non-player characters to plot points. In part one of this post,I will be going over a few different published settings and the upsides to them. Part two will cover using a published setting to its fullest.
Thirteen Useful Published Settings
Athas from Dark Sun
Dark Sun is set on the desert world of Athas, a once-vibrant world now devastated by magical cataclysms. The abuse of arcane magic has turned the land into a desolate wasteland where cities are crumbling ruins, and life is a constant struggle for survival. Life is harsh and cruel. Magic here has the potential to draw too much energy from the land. City states are ruled by despotic sorcerer-kingsThe scarcity of metal has made actual metal weapons and armor incredibly rare and sought after. This unique world encourages morally complex characters and survival gameplay.
Call of Cthulhu
Based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, this setting focuses on cosmic horror and investigation in a world filled with eldritch horrors. There is some flexibility in the setting, but it is primarily based around the 1920’s to the 1930’s USA. This setting offers a horror feel for your players. Their characters are not seasoned adventurers and might be easily killed by eldritch abominations or driven mad by the things they witness.
Dragonlance – The World of Krynn
Dragonlance is known for its epic dragon-centric stories and rich lore. There are novels published to detail this world and events within them. The world is ruled by powerful dragon lords and has its gods playing an active role in mortal events. This setting is a wonderful place for grand heroic narratives.
Dungeons and Dragons – Eberron
A magical technology infused world with a rich history and unique themes, Eberron is set after a cataclysm that ended the Great War, one hundred years ago. This setting is perfect for those that want to scratch that steampunk itch. Your characters could delve into the demon wastes or prowl the streets of Sharn, a massive city of towers. The characters could solve a murder on the lightning rail trains, deal with political intrigue between the dragonmarked houses or delve into the mystery behind the war-ending cataclysm.
Forgotten Realms
One of the most popular and widely used D&D settings, known for its high-fantasy, epic adventures. This setting offers what many consider the standard fantasy setting and has decades of books to support any stories that you might craft. This is also where many people will initially draw from since its version of certain people and monsters have made their way into pop culture. This is where the DnD movie was based. A good first start for any group.
Golarion
The default setting for the Pathfinder RPG, featuring a diverse range of cultures, nations, and magical elements. It is continually supported by Paizo with adventure books and their mainline RPG books.
Greyhawk
One of the original D&D settings, offering a classic fantasy world. Many of the base ideas about fantasy were laid down here. The setting provides plenty of political pieces for you to move around but is just vague enough for improv. If you wish, there is information out there dating back to 1976!
The Hollowed Isle
This setting was published by Hammered Out Homebrew (the author of this article). This large island is like an iceberg, 90% of it is below the water. The extensive caverns and tunnels house many villages and larger clans. The magical forces of the Radiant, Void and the planes of existence offer unique places for high fantasy adventure. The advantage of this setting is that it is relatively small compared to the others and is designed to be put into the other settings. The island hops into other worlds every few decades. This can allow you to start small and expand, or just use it to modify your favorite setting even further.
Midgard
The slightly grittier setting published by Kobold Press. It is based on Norse mythology but has plenty of its own unique spins on things. It has extensive book support with each of their monster and adventure books based in the world. This has given its cultures a unique level of depth. Particular attention has been given to the Shadow Fey that run things in the more magical and nature based elements of the world. It is mostly traditional fantasy but has incorporated clockwork technology.
Ravenloft
A gothic horror setting filled with dark and supernatural elements. It is ruled over by a dark vampire lord and brings in people through mysterious mists, allowing for a degree of unpredictability. There are also other domains of dread attached which could allow you to set a different genre of horror if you want.
Shadowrun
Shadowrun is a science fantasy setting that blends cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and dystopian elements. Set in the near-future, Shadowrun combines high-tech, computer hacking, and corporate intrigue with magic, mythical creatures, and a gritty, urban underworld.
Starfinder
A futuristic space opera setting for science fantasy adventures.This setting actually shares continuity with Galorian. Making the jump from fantasy to either pure scifi or space fantasy (ala star wars is easy with this setting).
The World of Darkness
A series of settings including Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and others, with a focus on supernatural creatures and their struggles in modern or historical settings.
Using the Settings
Now that you know of some useful published settings you can move forward with how you want to use a them. Do you want to run a published adventure or make your own? Do you want to run these settings as they are or make some adjustments to fit your story?
Consider a couple things. First, how much time do you have to prepare? The primary advantage of using an established setting is the time saved. You don’t have to create the kingdoms or pantheons in a published setting, someone else spent hours of time and effort doing so. Do keep in mind, reading still takes time. This is especially true with published adventures. You have to read ahead to make sure you’re not missing crucial aspects of the story. But, if you have free time, you may also be able to adjust the setting to fit what you have in mind for your specific campaign. For instance , I used the Greyhawk setting but swapped out d another preestablished fey court with my own twist since i was more familiar with them and their themes fit better to the story the campaign was building to.
Secondly, what do you and your players want from your game? This question is in regards to both the tone and mechanics you want. Ironically, in the TTRPGs I have played, when the mechanics are looser (like SAGAS or Call of Cthulu) players have time to dive into more of the politics and people of the setting. If your group primarily wants to dive into the fighting, then they won’t get the most out of a politically motivated world. The same could be said for the reverse, there is no point in putting a group in the Forgotten Realms with a massive orc army descending upon it if the group primarily wants to do drama roleplay. There are ways to make that work of course, but why make it harder on yourself and your players?
Once you have decided the tone, mechanics and how much time you can donate to this game, the next step is finally picking the setting. There are plenty of ways to find the info about these and other settings online. Many have the base setting available for free, with expansions for your specific needs. I would also seek out others who have played in the setting. Reddit and Discord are good places to find people talking about many different settings. Greyhawk and Eberron, among others, have their own dedicated subreddits
Next is modifying the world to fit your game. Take what characters players give you, and find the best spot for them in this world and marry the two. This part should be open between you and the players. It can be easy for most players to fit a character into a world but if they have an idea they cannot get let go, you can either shift some stuff to make things work or give them the bad news. Sometimes it must be done. With characters and setting decided, its time to mess up the canon of this world and truly make it your own!
An Example In Action
My own setting, The Hollowed Isle, is designed to take advantage of the concept of utilizing published/ established worlds. It is a mini-setting designed to be inserted into other worlds. This allows a DM to pull from a backdrop of lore to create their own setting without starting from scratch. The Below was my process for picking the setting for the third campaign I had set in the mini-setting of Hollow.
I gave my players the general idea of Hollow and that I wanted to shoot for a 50/50 mix of RP and combat. They agreed to both this setting and approach. I asked which published setting they were familiar with to allow them to be more comfortable/have background knowledge immediately. Two had played in Greyhawk and were familiar with it. So, I decided Hollow had arrived in Greyhawk and become established. The players talked and came up with character stories that had to do with the secrets in their families. I wanted to flesh out some political factions for use in my own setting. So I utilized the secret organizations of Greyhawk to fit my own setting. In our campaign, The Scarlet Brotherhood and Splintered Mind factions would be at play on the island trying to destabilize one of the clans through the use of a criminal organization called the Fourth. I now had literally hundreds of pages of lore to pull from regarding these two organizations and how they would play into the campaign.
See how this worked?
- Players and DM agreed on what was wanted for tone and RP/combat balance.
- Pulled from published settings.
- Considered how much time the DM had available to rework for the game.
- Remixed components to create the desired tone and balance.
- DM has ability to fall back on/utilize published lore to additionally flesh out world along the way.
You too can utilize prepublished work to add to your campaign! Have fun in the multiverse!
About the Author
John’s TTRPG experience: He has played D&D off and on for 14ish years. Starting in 2019, he has consistently run campaigns and one shots. Starting soon after that John started publishing his homebrew to the internet. He has written enough homebrew that he has plans for a book of it to be released sometime in 2023(DrivethruRPG). He has also played Monster of the Week, many RP board games, Call of Cthulu, and Pathfinder. You can see other of his work on Instagram!
RPG Counterpoint 
Leave a comment