Alternate Settings

Hey there,

my gaming group finally decided to bring our coming campaign setting into a more usable written form including all special rules, exploration chart and warbands. Thereby I wondered about the common expectations players have and which requirements have to be fulfilled by a new setting.  

Most settings consist at least of a new exploration chart and special terrain, often along with appropriate new warbands, scenarios and environmental rules like weather.

One question that bothers me is: Do you have to reinvent the wheel? So does a new setting need absolutely new concepts like BTB's campaigning system or can a setting be viable with mostly using and modifying existing rules?

At last the optical appearance does certainly matter - a bunch of plain pdfied Word documents won't get as many worshippers as a fully layouted setting book like BTB.


As a conclusion, we came up with the following list to fulfill in our setting:

Rules:
- exploration chart
- scenarios
- random happenings
- new equipment
- new objectives (using the marvellous concept from BTB)
- environment (in this case rules for bad sight)
- new meta-phase dependent on campaign progress, affecting games/exploration/bargaining in subsequent campaign rounds
- several fitting warbands
- apendix: rules for map-based campaigns

Fluff:
- setting description (history & current status)
- relations between different factions/warbands
- warband fluff
- stories

Layout:
- picture-heavy InDesign layout comparable to BTB (being trained as a technical editor has its benefits^^)



What else would you expect from a setting (besides being perfectly balanced ) or what don't you want to see ever in setting rules?

Quote :

Do you have to reinvent the wheel? So does a new setting need absolutely new concepts like BTB's campaigning system or can a setting be viable with mostly using and modifying existing rules?

I don't think you have to reinvent the wheel but that does seem to be most people's focus. I'm trying to think if Lustria: Cities of Gold introduced new concepts. Khemri: Land of the Dead has the record keeping nightmare of tracking water supplies. They also introduced the Supply Source for trading. Relics of the Crusades has Locations, Career Paths, Unwanted Company instead of Random Encounters.

I think you can create a new setting by just adapting existing rules, although I also think there should be something that makes the way games are played fit into the story. One published campaign setting combined Mordheim, Lustria and Khemri all in a set in Mordheim campaign. Part of the City of the Damned had become a jungle, part was 'as written' and anther part had become a desert.

Some things that are missing from the above list are Hired Swords and Dramatis Personae. I don't think you need many, but local color is always nice.

Ohhh.. a new stetting ... I'm always eager to get new stuff....

What kind of environnement/flavor do you expect to create ?

@Von Kurst
Hmm, didn't get any mail on your answer.
Hired Swords and their named relatives are a very good suggestion, we nearly forgot that part.^^
We will have some new mechanics, but mainly focus on getting all ideas from us and other sources to go well together and creating a consistent setting.

@Goglutin
Most rules are still in a state of flux, but the main ideas are fixed already.
Expect:
- A city-setting with mostly intact, but abandoned buildings
- An atmosphere somewhere between known Fantasy, R'lyeh and the adventurous discovery of long-forgotten secrets
- 7 new Warbands - some regular, some more uncommon (5x human, 2x not)
- Clockworks
- New Objectives
- usual stuff like exploration chart, scenarios etc.