Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MidgardFrostburn 10-06-04, 03:01 PM	I’ve played D&D from the original box sets through 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 versions of the game. I’ve always found the game to be very rewarding to both players and DM alike and time generally well spent. I’ve enjoyed the creative and customization aspects of the game more than anything, thus I have been a fan of the game for well over 20 years and a DM for the last 12 or so. I exclusively buy reference and source books as I have very rarely used any pre-made adventures and the fictional books aren’t as appealing to me as playing the game itself. I have a group of players ranging in age from 23-35 thus we tend to play games that are bit more mature and “realistic” in content. I call our gaming style “Surrealistic” Most of us are long burned out on the high-magic presented in most campaign worlds and/or the influence of incredible magic throughout the game. We are not fans of gun powder, Gnome Flying Machines, combustion/steam engines or far-eastern influences such as ninjas, samurai, or their weapons. We found these things to be a bit too trite and silly for our games and have omitted them completely. My players NEVER play epic level characters and we advance our characters realistically. We take a lot of our influences for our campaign world from the source books Races of Stone and Frostburn, though we’ve edited even these to make them fit into our style of gaming. I really like the Frostburn and Races of Stone book as they detail many things I am particularly interested in. Believe it or not, some Ravenloft products added another aspect to our game as we incorporated the Fear, Horror and Madness saves into our games as well as bit of terror from time to time. What’s the good of having a warrior whose heart isn’t checked from time to time? The horribly unbalanced prestige classes from early 3rd edition products (Ravenloft in particular) are obviously not playable in our world, though with some editing I have made exceptions. We view our world somewhat like a dark version of “Middle-Earth” with less flashy magic (magic as a whole has been completely revised and many spells simply will not function in our world). It doesn’t follow a “Viking” or “Gothic” tradition exclusively though elements from both genres of gaming exist in our world. Races, magic and advancement have been modified by us to suit our style and enjoyment of the game. We all have a distinct interest in pre-christian Europe and thus tend to play games that would invoke Norse, Celtic and Teutonic themes. We do not like flashy magic or fantastic events happening in our realms every given day. However, we have found a very rewarding and interesting process in creating our own gaming world. We’ve started from the ground up and building a campaign world suited to our tastes and playing style. Simply entitled “Midgard” we’ve found some of the latest D&D resource books to be very helpful in molding our direction and they have helped us formulate workable solutions for our game. To be honest with you, we had to modify the current game only as far as theme goes and omit some fantastic magic, other than that we found the 3.5 rules to be very playable and enjoyable. What I like most about playing the D&D game now is the amount of customization that you can easily do to in effect build your game any way you see fit. To be quite honest with you, we wouldn’t be playing D&D had we been forced to play a game where magic ruled the day every single moment or where epic level ninjas were throwing +25 Ninja Stars of City Annihilation from the backs of their Red Dragon mounts. That overtly campy style of gaming based on unrealistic stats and super-high rewards really turned off the mature players (and myself for that matter) and almost sunk the chance of us playing the game again as we matured and our interests changed. But that’s the genius of the game, it can be played many different ways. Younger gamers are going to want to play Epic Level lords and destroy whole cities on a whim from their fantastic mounts. Silly gamers are gonna want to incorporate Monty Python skits and themes at every point. Gamers interested in the Far-East are going to want Ninja assassins stalking the night. Ebberon and The Forgotten Realms are going to appeal to the majority of gamers interested in high-magic or higher-tech campaigns. Ravenloft is there for those who like the gothic terror aspect and some gun powder for good measure. Sales no doubt prove that my particular style of gaming wouldn’t sell that well. It appeals to a small demographic of gamers and simply not as outwardly appealing without the massive fireballs and spike covered black knights with heavy armor. But, the D&D game allows us to make it as we see fit and use the rules we want. We can now in effect change things as we see fit and I have yet to see a reference or sourcebook that Wizards has put out that I wouldn’t buy or consider buying. The fact my library of D&D game books is so big is testament to the interest I have in the game and the quality products they have put out.
DungeonMaster 10-06-04, 04:21 PM	We take a lot of our influences for our campaign world from the source books Races of Stone and Frostburn, though we’ve edited even these to make them fit into our style of gaming. Just out of curiosity how in hell did you take a lot of influence from books that have been out for a month or so? Maybe my definition of "campaign" and "world" is something different. (magic as a whole has been completely revised and many spells simply will not function in our world). That explains a lot. Anyhow, I won't let my general negativity cloud this starry sky any further. Happy gaming!
MidgardFrostburn 10-06-04, 04:44 PM	1. I got the books as soon as they were available. When I heard they were coming out, I was already ordering them from the local book store. 2. I applied them as quickly as possible to our existing world, which of course, is saved on a variety of formats (Word and Publisher being the most used). It was not that hard to add a paragraph here or there to expand upon it or delete and modify small items to make the books such as Frostburn and Races of Stone have their influence upon the world. It was almost as if these two books were written to complement the project we had under way for the better part of a year! Very easy to add to our world. We couldn't have asked for better products to add the finishing touches. The only thing I had to do thats an ongoing process is fully incorporate some of the races in our world and give them histories and ancestral ties to the land. Thankfully Midgard is vast thus, we have plenty of geographical places to store things in the future. 3. As for magic, my players and I agree the game has had way too much of it, thus we curtailed flashy magic and summon spells as a whole. Its just our flavor of gaming. Divine magic was altered very little, Psionics and Arcane got a face lift and redo in some parts. Thanks for the comments. Btw, I included a step by step process with exerpts from this document in the world building section of this site at http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=318544