Choosing a Campaign Setting, and How It Impacts Your Games 

I think the best example of a setting with Iconic imagery is Darksun - that lightly armored valkyrie standing in front of a vast desert (Neeva) is unbelievably evocative of the fantasy mad max that Darksun IS

I think the two settings that have fantastic blank spaces are Wildemount (from EGtW) which has so many great blank spaces, and then Starfinder has such an AMAZING blank space in the Gap, a period of history where no one remembers what happened - such a great place to place anything a GM wants to include in the setting with a reason as to why no one knows about it.

I don't know if this helps, but I would love to see more of you analyzing popular media for how it can be brought to the table, like you did with Van Helsing and The Batman. I think a potential source for one of these videos could be Tropic Thunder, as the 4 actors actually make up a pretty interesting party composition. That being said, I'm here for whatever content you decide to produce for the foreseeable future! I don't have too many settings I'm interested in learning about, but I'm sure any video you make is one I'll enjoy!

I love it. Yes, WotC is very much in the doghouse. I just bought the Midgard setting in order to show them some love. I'm really hopeful about Project Black Flag. But in the meantime, my table just started a new Forgotten Realms campaign because, as you said, we've already spent the money.

Honestly, I personally would appreciate your take on Magic The Gathering settings, especially Theros and Ravnica (although PlaneShift ones like Amonkhet would be incredible). I do understand these may not be as popular, but I feel they both have a good balance between established lore and room to grow/change the setting wherever we might want to take it. Also, the job stuff is terrible to know: hope someone of your talent gets hired and appreciated as much as you are worth (which is immesurable). Prioritize yourself; we will be always happy to see you back!

I'm right there with you, I only recently got into DnD. I'm working on making my first campaign, and your videos have been a tremendous amount of help. I don't plan on giving WotC any more money, but I still plan an using the 5e system since that's what my friends are used too. So at least from my perspective, I'm glad you're still releasing 5e related content.

I'm excited for this series and pretty much anything on this channel.

I completely agree with you about not just dropping 5e immediately because of the OGL debacle. I have a 5e campaign I intend to finish and have had waterdeep dragon heist sitting unplayed on my shelf for ages but I won't be buying any new dnd products for sure. And when my main campaign is wrapped up I will be looking into pathfinder 2e as what little i've seen of the system has piqued my interest.

Can't wait to hear your take on Monster of the Week. Sorry that your 2023 is starting out with a table-flip. I'm happy to support ya - especially during these weird times.

I would recommend Glorantha, but I realise it is a massive world that even those of us that have wandered around for over 30 years struggle with.

Regarding your channel announcement: I too intend to keep playing 5e without giving WotC money in the future. I like the game and they don't get to take it away from me. There's always an option to look for books secondhand - lots of people ARE going scorched earth, and that's a valid decision, but if you decide to keep playing and find an Eberron book in a secondhand store, and you want to run a game in that setting after seeing an awesome Mike video, there's no reason to hesitate - that money isn't going to WotC. Anyway, I'll look forward to your settings videos and keep following along! I hope you find a great job soon. ❤️

A campaign setting I got excited for was the Runeterra one the DnDBeyond did before they were acquired. They almost immediately took it away, but as a fan of League of Legends lore that sounded really cool to me. I always wanted to give the setting a try (they did Bilgewater specifically but anywhere in Runeterra would do). I just don't have the creative stuff to be able to convert the setting over like that, but it sounds so cool to me. Though there is another setting I wanted to sort of recreate before the wotc ogl fiasco... Halo. Here me out, the main threat of Halo isn't actually the Covenant aliens the humans are fighting, but the threat is truly the Flood (a parasitic life-form that takes over corpses and functions off a hivemind). So in the setting I picture your average humanoid races (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes) take the part of humans; the Covenant is the more monstrous races (goblins, kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, minotaurs, etc.); and the Flood is of course Illithids.

Tal’Dorei: Reborn. I feel like that’s an obvious 3PP campaign setting that should be top of the list :)

If you haven't played it yet I think every DM should play Curse of Strahd at least once (I know, is an adventure not a setting) cause the base adventure can be really expanded and r/curseofstrahd has brilliant megathreads with ways to enhance the experience and besides being a great aventure as a DM, at least for me, it was a huge learning experience

So sorry about the layoff, Mike, I hope you can find a new one soon. I would imagine having to face financial troubles with all of the OGL drama going on must be extremely stressful. Anyways, so far probably your approach was the one I could side with the most. I have already invested in a lot of 5e materials and have plans for roughly the next 2-3 years for 3 groups, so course-correcting suddenly would be a pain. That, however doesn't mean that I would financially endorse Wizards if they keep going in this direction.

"Blank Spaces" is a great point. Also my primary problem with Forgotten Realms.

big thump up for just showing the Wheel of Time setting book (even if DnD may probably not be the best system to capture the ambiance of this world) ^^ And an other nice video

One example that recently came up for me as a new DM with a group of new players. I was torn between running waterdeep dragonheist or lost mine of phandelver for them so I wanted to present the group with the choice and so had to very briefly summarise them. Here's what I came up with: "Lost mine is a very stereotypical fantasy story, its probably what you first envision when thinking dungeons and dragons, with a focus on uncovering a lost ancient mine and a bit of western flavouring, meanwhile waterdeep dragonheist is a mob faction drama combined with a treasure hunt set in basically pre industrial era London, not as much combat or exploration focused as it focuses much more on the mysteries and political conflict of the city". The players elected to run lost mine first partly because they were new and it seemed an easier way to get comfortable with the game, while they were very intersted in waterdeep. One player even asked "can I break the laws and be a criminal in waterdeep" and I replied "yes but there's rules for the consequences for doing so, and the adventure is generally designed assuming you dont do this" she jokingly replied "we are playing the other one", she made a cunning and manipulative bard who was accused of thievery by another PC who is a merchant sorcerer and she ventured with him to try to clear her name of that accusation.

Best of luck on your job hunt, I hope you find something great soon! I've been really enjoying your videos and I hope you keep going strong! Looking forward to the combat video! I think you really got it right at the end of the video; we can still enjoy 5E while also not throwing more money at WOTC. There is a balance to be found for sure! A lot of channels have been really focusing a whole lot on the OGL thing and it's been exhausting, so I'm grateful for the upcoming combat video as well as your lovely Critical Role lessons videos. I really enjoy those too. Keep it up Mike and best of luck in all you do!

I really love the Lankhmar/Nehwon setting. Fun stuff!

Hey, Mike! I've listed a few games below... I'm still running D&D games, because I have commitments as a DM and volunteer, but WotC won't get another dime from me this year, at least. So now I'm checking out Pathfinder, Blades in the Dark, hopefully Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and Call of Cthulhu. Maybe Numenera, too - so many choices! Thanks for helping the community learn and game :) Oh! Good luck on the job hunt. Don't forget how awesome, brave, and intelligent you are. Someone lucky is going to hire you.

I love finding more about different campaign settings as you can pick and choose ideas what you like for your own world. Eberron is one that I would like to know more about as magic is widely use by many in that world which tends to be more fun for players.

In the future, once you have the funds.I'd love to see you review the Dungeon Crawl Classics setting Dying Earth, based on the novel by Jack Vance, known by most for the D&D vancian magic system. The setting itself is set on Earth in the far future when our sun has turned red and is a blend of Sci-Fi and fantasy It's currently being shipped to it's kickstarter backers and should purchasable in the next few months.

I'm sad to hear that you're having to juggle so many stressful things all at once. I appreciate the videos you do, and your comments at the end of this video surprised me in how you balanced unpleasant truths with positive tone and forward-looking plans.

I like to steal small ideas from SCP and modify them to fantasy. They are perfect for 1-3 session adventures and they are easy to chain together in random ways to make it seem like I prepared whole campaign before hand (but I didn't - I just steal from a lot of small ideas that have consistent tone :) ). I can introduce 2 or 3 new plot hooks when players are close to finishing the last one, and when they choose which new one to follow - I think of ways to combine it with what happened before. Often I don't even have any plan what the plot hooks leads to - I just imagine a weird thing that they can investigate and later if they investigage I prepare the justification what really caused it and how it connects to everything that happened. Over months of playing this creates complex plots and conspiracies, but I don't have to prepare everything at once or to overprepare stuff that players won't see.

I have to say, I am always flabbergasted as to how thoroughly you plan things out on this channel. Granted I could have guessed it from the meticulousness of your videos themselves, but still.

That add transition was exceptionally smooth, well done lol

One of my favourite settings/systems is The Between where you play as hunters of the supernatural in Victorian London. Such a specific place and vibe, it really lets you dig into the gothic genre. The same publisher als has Brindlewood Bay where old ladies investigate murders and some Lovecraftian horror happens which is also a fantastic set-up. They have great rules that make the game very cinematic and have expanded my DMing for DnD as well

Totally fair about needed to take a lot more time to shift, if at all, away from 5e! Excited to see everything to come :)

7:32 Believe me, many of my past players would react in the opposite way -- the more clearly-defined the setting and the more solid the character expectations, the more they would act out against it and create the silliest and most obscene characters they could. They used to call those players "Loonies" back in the '90s. Of course, there's a reason that they're "past" players.

I'm so happy to see you still posting. I love when you talk at me!

I’m going to say Southlands is probably one of the most fun settings to DM if you like ambushes. The Gnoll mechanics are great for setting up combat encounters and a lot of their abilities depend on advantage so players have to think tactically to subdue them. It’s great fun!

I like the message here for the most part with the exception of getting all wrapped up in whether or not somebody at the table may know more than you about the lore. It's kind of on that player if you lack of knowledge about the setting ruins their fun. It's sort of the archetypical "dick move" for a turbo fan to get down on folks for not knowing their fandom as well as they do. Any time I have run a game in a setting with long-established lore and a lot of it, I am very clear that the tabletop universe may vary from the canonical universe. Oh, and I totally made a used starship salesman for the second character I ever made for the old West End Games Star Wars game.

Looking forward to your next videos!

I say definitely continue with the videos you have planned, especially if you've already spent money for them At this point most campaign information is available online, and if anybody needs the books they can get them second hand or from... _unofficial_ sources And the new OGL stuff might take a while to be implemented, so leaving plans for new systems until 2024 sounds fine!

Man all the best luck for whatever future plans you have, I hope everything works out well for u, I genuinely love ur content

I still have a lot of DD5 compatible settings (Brancalonia, Iron Kingdoms...) but my favorite game/system at the moment is by far Spire: the City must fall.

thank you for the update and for being upfront with it. i am a newcomer, so you mentioning the wotc situation gave me the prompt for research (i understand now the necessity to refuse them new money). but i can say that i am personally still attached to 5e as this was the edition through which i was first introduced to dnd, so your vids will be still useful and relevant for me. thank you for the vid! i really enjoy how eloquently you put things into words & how you work with the given topic(s) in general.

Grim Hallow is my favorite setting. Its where my almost 2 year old first home game is set!

What campaign settings would you like to see me discuss in the future? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

This came exactly right time! I was just yestersay looking info on different campaign settings and its very scattered and hard to find.

I think Wildemount, Golarion, Eberron are probably great places to start. They're impactful and accessible and connected to D&D, but not aligned with Hasbro's current focus.

"Nobody would roll up a plumber named Farts McGee." Yeah, I might have some stories about my players from days gone by. My favorite was Bobo, the Sith Ewok. Definitely a memorable creature, that one. Also, and totally related: don't give the starship a power distribution problem when one of your players is actually a licensed electrician. The meta gaming is sometimes a bit strong, but maybe I should have come up with a better root cause for the problem.

With the OGL situation going down im glad i had course corrected and instead of being a combat "improvement" with its own world to a full TTRPG

I want to play “Neverland” and “OZ” so much…and “The Dark of Hotsprings Island”. But I’m currently running a homebrew setting cause it’s been a while. I highly recommend the above three campaigns over anything published by WotC just for the ease of use at the table. All WotC written campaigns need a good chunk of work. Their Eberron, Ravnica and Theros settings are a lot easier because they are just settings you can play your own adventure in as opposed to an adventure that you have to stretch and mold to get to actually be fun at the table. If you are ok with going old school, the Mystara setting has a lot of interesting stuff. I still want to do an established IP game (Star Wars, etc.), but have yet to do so.

I'm pretty sure I'm done buying anything from Wizards, but I don't see a need to abandon things I've already bought from them. I'm in a 5e game currently and will probably run additional 5e games in the future.

A thing that might be good to do here & there in this vid series is to talk about how to mix settings. Like how you would incorporate wildemount into the forgotten realms or sina una into golarian.

I may have mentioned it on a previous video (no idea, life is a blur atm!) but definitely look into A|State. Forged in the Dark ruleset (D6 dice pool building) and strong dystopian future vibes. Also best of luck finding new work - that must be extremely stressful!

i fell in love with ryuutama and symbaroum lately. also rediscovering earthdawn. always would like to see more critical role, and they have exciting times coming. and regardless of how i feel abt wotc, their settings will live on at ppl's tables regardless of whether they will spend money with the company or not.

Playing a game in a deadwood setting where everyone is just basic humans is weirdly appealing to me right now. Gonna think on that

Saw the title of the video and went, "I wonder who the sponsor is?"

After a few settings a video on cutting parts out of one, and posting into others would be useful.

I've been eyeing the Edge of the Empire and Age of the Rebellion books in your shelve for a few videos now, so I would love it if you covered those (as campaign settings, not game systems) in the future. I'm currently playing in a (sadly monthly) Edge of the Empire game and plan to start running my own with Force and Destiny (although since learning just the past sunday that FFG has moved on to the next edition and they are not printing any more I raided my local game store for its supplements and everything they had was from Edge of the Empire so... that will be an interesting mix of character options). Forbidden Lands is another TTRPG that seems to be gaining traction with this OGL business and I think it has a good mix of interesting, deep lore and LOTS of blank areas. After all it's a game that focuses on exploration. You should priorize what you already have so if you don't have it yet don't feel pressured to cover it though!

Wheel of Time actually spans 15 books, Mike. Also was a great setting; loved that world.

this could use a playlist on RU-vid, I really like your criteria, but where do I go to hear them?

I'm only now catching up on your videos, and so just watched this one; i'm sorry hearing about your job. just wanted to say i'm sorry life threw you a curveball, and i'm feeling hopeful that as i finish catching up to hear some good news of new opportunities that you've found in the meanwhile. (and if you haven't yet, i hope soon)

A personal favorite of mine is Pathfinder's Golarion although I've never played Pathfinder I have looked into it's setting deeply and fell in love with it because it has everything and the fantasy kitchen sink. Want to run a gothic horror game? Go to Ustalav home to many vampires,werewolves and ghosts. Want to be Vikings raiding and pillaging? Then the land of the Linnorm kings are for you. Want to crusade against demons? Then Mendev and the Worldwound is the place. And while the Inner Sea region and the eastern flavored Tian Xia are the most explored regions info wise there are regions like Casmaron and Sarusan have very little to no lore to go on so you could fill gaps yourself my own version of Sarusan is the home of Dragonborn since pathfinder doesn't really have a equivalent.

I would love videos about Kobold Press' Midgard

The only other system I have played and can reccomend outside of 5e would be Cyberpunk RED. The only other systems besides those two I've done is the Edge of the Empire Beginner Box so it would be cool see content for that, and finally a complete home brew system my friend is designing

For the topic of the video I don't have any idea. I went to do a homebrew campaing from the get go. I had several ideas I wanted to explore. Sorry for not being able to help in that area. From the later part of the video. My thought about the game isn't the problem, the problem is giving money to THAT company. I bought some books, last year, what should I do, never use them and lose money in experiencing the game. What I'm not going to do is give them more money until they do what is right. If that means that as some point I should give it a try to a new system I'll do it. No one should give me the bad look for that (no one has, just talking hypothetically). And for the comic idea I had taking D&D as inspiration, well, I can do it more like The legend of Vox Machina that doesn't make use of spells and monsters from the game.

Sorry to hear about the job Mike.

Warhammers Old World has a rich grim dark setting.

Lore - consider leveraging the enthusiasm and knowledge of players who know more about the lore of a setting than you do. If they aren't lording it over you but are really about sharing the lore you can't go wrong. They get to play in a setting they love, their enthusiasm will be contagious to other players and the GM will learn more lore as you go along. Win win!

You should look into power by the apocalypse system they are doing a avatar the last avatar ttrpg it looks awesome and fun just got my kickstarter and sorry you lost your job I hope you have a job that provides you everything you need to keep making videos I love your content

For some transhumanist hard-ish sci-fi/dystopian conspiracy theories/post-apocalyptic horror, check out Eclipse Phase. The best part, is that it was all published as Creative Commons; one of the authors (Rob Boyle, I think?) has all the pdfs on his blog, for free.

Understandable position. If you can try to add comments or focus within videos that are System Agnostic then I would continue to click and watch.

I bought a Warhammer Fantasy RPG starter set in response to the OGL drama. I will still run 5E games, but I’m definitely not buying any new Wotc books.

Commenting for algorithm

I think you're caught in the ethical bind that a lot of us are in. That we don't want to support WotC but we are bound somewhat to 5e still by our existing financial mental and emotional investments. I too have bought a lot of 5e products that I was hoping to use in my campaign this year with largely new players for whom 5e is their first system. "Guess what guys, now you get to learn PATHFINDER" " ... so I think that campaign will be staying as 5e a bit longer :) . I'm sure you'll be able to cover those 5e settings in a mature , sensible way. It is up to the individual if they want to try those settings and support Wotc - they are still in my doghouse too. Hopefully your situation is such that you can focus on those non-5e systems sooner. (I've just upped my Patreon membership by a tier to help you get back on your feet ! I hope you can keep your trademark enthusiasm and positivity through all this turmoil)

I was getting frustrated with 5e already, to be honest. Now my only question is what game I'm jumping to.

Obviously your situation may already have changed again, since WotC have done an almost complete 180 and in some regards gone even further (with the creative commons SRD). That does not mean (imo) that we forget what went on, but for me at least I regard the OGL debacle as a corporate mess created by the higher ups, not something dreamed up by the creatives at the ground floor. I will still play the game and go watch the new movie. I have however not been super hyped about the type of content they produce. Its a little hit and miss for me. I think that when people say they will look for "new" games, they still want the levels, the classes, all the stuff that makes it DnD but somehow they hope to find it elsewhere. Maybe from the Black Flag project or Paizo or Level Up 5e. But people are not suddenly gonna want to play Burning Wheel or FATE. They still want DnD. Just like you say that you are still gonne play it. Suggestions: I would love to see some attention to some 3rd parte 5e stuff. Like Monte Cooks Planebreaker, Sandy Petersens Cthulhu 5e campaigns, Kobold Press Midgard and maybe the Tal'Dorei setting!

First?

hello plz rate my world Hyrule Azorth Warhammer fanasty Age of Sigmar runeterra (league of legends) Eorzea (final fanasty 14) all set in the same planet

I don't want to leave 5e behind completely, there are definitely ways to play without giving too much money to WotC

Wizards =/= D&D. Just because you still love D&D and still want to play it and talk about it does not mean you are supporting Wizards. You do what you gotta do for you.

Do you find something funny about the name Farts McGee? He has a wife, you know.

Honestly, just make the D&D content you had planned, while I know a lot of this OGL stuff is throwing a lot of people into a tizzy, there's little reason for this "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" that everyone is doing. Want to keep playing 5E without giving WOTC money? Buy a used book. No piracy, likely you can support an LGS, no money to Wizards, it really is THAT simple. Also, while everyone is SUPER fast to let WOTC know how badly they messed up, people seem to forget you also need to give positive reinforcement when they take steps in the right direction, which it seems like they are, at least in part. The fact they've walked things back at ALL is already a win that they didn't actually need to do, but this is a really really long term thing, and thinking we'll just get everything we want in a few weeks time is.... silly, and if you're sitting around telling them what to do without buying their stuff the whole time, that's actually a great way to make your voice not matter, and they'll just go do whatever.

Season 2: Mike vs Capitalism.

Unsubscribed. Porkins is a Y-Wing pilot.

One of my favorite settings is “Vaults of Vaarn” it’s free online with tons of free fan material you can find in itch. And it’s derivative of Knave which is basically a more simplistic version of dnd, so conversion to other dnd like systems is easy. It’s set in the far future where multiple empires have risen and fell. The death of the sun is soon but not soon enough that anyone living has to worry, ai have some planning to do though. If you like the idea of swordfights in ancient spaceships and technology no one understands anymore I highly recommend.