Your favorite old school campaign?

[gloriousbattle]

Probably like most of you, my TRUE favorites were all of the home grown variety. However, of the published ones:

First Fantasy Campaign (JG): Ah, the Egg of Coot, et al. Though I never enjoyed this campaign, I never dissed it either. It was something of a fountainhead, and though it wasn't all that great, it created guidelines for what came after.

City State Campaign (JG): Though it was fun in a primitive sense, I never really enjoyed it, somehow. Go figure.

Greyhawk Campaign (TSR): Had a love-hate relationship with this one. I somehow thought that the fantasy element got underplayed, and that it was just medieval Europe with a different map.

Still, I really enjoyed some elements, especially the more evil ones, like the sneaky Scarlet Brotherhood, the decadent Great Kingdom, and the evil demigod Iuz.

You?

[makofan]

I ran a Mentzer campaign set in Karameikos/Ylaruam which lasted 5 years - was good fun. Players got to name level before we broke up.

I ran an excellent AD&D campaign in CSIO and environs. Worked great until the players summoned Orcus during an adventure...

Most others were a different RPG system or a weird home brew mishmash. I am currently running two OD&D groups through Verbosh (from JG) and it's not bad

[Finarvyn]

Mar 23, 2010 7:23:00 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

First Fantasy Campaign (JG): Ah, the Egg of Coot, et al. Though I never enjoyed this campaign, I never dissed it either. It was something of a fountainhead, and though it wasn't all that great, it created guidelines for what came after.

City State Campaign (JG): Though it was fun in a primitive sense, I never really enjoyed it, somehow. Go figure.

Greyhawk Campaign (TSR): Had a love-hate relationship with this one. I somehow thought that the fantasy element got underplayed, and that it was just medieval Europe with a different map.

All three of these are excellent campaigns.

I played the JG City State game the most, but I like Blackmoor/FFC the most.

[codeman123]

I would vote blackmoor as the one i would like to run or play in. Though i have never had a chance to do so.

[Falconer]

Mar 23, 2010 7:23:00 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

Greyhawk Campaign (TSR): Had a love-hate relationship with this one. I somehow thought that the fantasy element got underplayed, and that it was just medieval Europe with a different map.

I admit the 1980 release of World of Greyhawk product gave that whole “real history” feel. It’s a great product, very polished and professional. However, that is its downfall, and I suspect that is your problem with it. It doesn’t have the right feel that a home campaign setting has, that feeling that Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign and Bob Bledsaw’s City-State of the Invincible Overlord deliver in spades.

But, there are plenty of products which better reflect Gygax’s home campaign—specifically, Greyhawk itself, the artifact descriptions in Eldritch Wizardry and the Dungeon Master Guide, his 16 TSR AD&D modules (plus arguably Yggsburgh and Upper Works), the material from Dragon that was added to the 1983 release of World of Greyhawk, and then all the Kuntz modules... It is a really, really fantastic world.

All three of the old-school published campaign settings are great. I hate to pick a favorite, but for me World of Greyhawk wins out slightly over the other two. I think Gygax had an unrivaled imagination, and the synthesis of game and world he created was brilliant, very fun and appropriate for gaming. The only real flaw is heart-brokenness over the fact that it was never truly completed—no true City of Greyhawk, no true Castle Greyhawk, no true Temple of Elemental Evil. In each case, close but no cigar.

Wilderlands of High Fantasy is probably the most successful from that standpoint. We got the real city from Bledsaw’s home campaign. We got the real dungeon from Bledsaw’s home campaign. If Greyhawk is great, Wilderlands is good. However, the abundance and completeness of material counts for much.

First Fantasy Campaign is at the opposite extreme. It is excellent, but the amount of material is very sparse. “The Temple of the Frog” is good; and we do get a bare-bones Blackmoor town + castle + dungeon; but that’s about it. The later publications are suspicious. The best use for this campaign is as inspiration for creating your own—at least, that is how I used it.

What other published campaigns would qualify as old school? Empire of the Petal Throne, no doubt. I am intrigued, but the exoticism is ultimately overpowering. Glorantha I don’t know too well, but am willing to try Griffin Mountain at some point. The Moldvay/Cook Known World is too much the work of editors with not enough homebrew roots, for my taste. I feel like both Jeff Grubb’s Toricandra and Ed Greenwood’s Faerûn were interesting as 70s homebrew worlds, before they became the big 80s published TSR settings. But at that point they became too much committee-run worlds that it is now too difficult to reach the old-school roots through those publications. Regards.

[Falconer]

One could could add into the mix literary settings like Arthurian Britain, Mars, Lovecraftian 1920s, Hyborean Age, Middle-earth, Dying Earth, Newhon, the Young Kingdoms, etc. (Star Trek: The Original Series!) However, in order to make it fair, I would limit myself to consideration only of gaming products, and that before a certain year. From that perspective, very few would make it into the running for my favorite published campaign setting, and ultimately none could win out over the likes of Greyhawk as a gaming world. Regards.

[kenmeister]

I have a poster of Lovecraft's Dreamlands up on my wall from the Call of Cthulhu book on it, I've always want to run some D&D there.

[geoffrey]

I must give two answers:

1. M. A. R. Barker's Tekumel is my favorite fantasy creation, of any sort, ever. It transcends the genre so much that I (sadly) have only marveled at Tekumel. I've never played in it. I'd be afraid of mucking it up.

2. In terms of playing D&D, the Wilderlands is my favorite. The maps alone account for 80% of my love for the Wilderlands. I've never felt constrained by any of the written hex encounters. Instead, I've felt inspired by them to do my own thing. So just give me those maps, and I'm good to go.

[coffee]

Mar 23, 2010 7:23:00 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

Greyhawk Campaign (TSR): Had a love-hate relationship with this one. I somehow thought that the fantasy element got underplayed, and that it was just medieval Europe with a different map.

That's the impression I'm getting. I'm currently playing in an AD&D Greyhawk game (I'd never done so before), and it really doesn't seem all that magical. But that could be the DM, too.

[parmstrong]

10 years ago I would have said Greyhawk without hesitation.

I would now say the Wilderlands.

[doc]

My favorite old school campaign was Arduin. It really changed the way that I look at fantasy. My second favorite was The First Fantasy Campaign. Just good, old-fashioned fantasy campaigning that didn't feel like warmed over Tolkien.

I never cared much for Greyhawk or forgotten realms. And sadly I never got to play in a Wilderlands campaign.

Doc

[capheind]

Forgotten Realms. Ok, so conceptually it wasn't my favorite, and ideally it wasn't the setting of my dreams, but there has to be something to the fact that no matter how many settings me and my friends read about we still played 80% of our games in the Forgotten Realms.

Greyhawk for me, sentimental favourite I think.

[howandwhy99]

Known Realms for over 5 years and still ongoing without me.

It's actually a "Stone Soup" campaign, meaning we all get to add setting elements via our backgrounds or module suggestions, so it is not "the canon map" or canon anything really.

For example, for all that we have explored and haphazardly mapped, we are still within the Wilderlands of Harn section of the Grey Realms. (Wildlerlands, Harn, GH, FR, and more).

[Mr. Dark]

Greyhawk/Aerth for me. Still getting my head around Blackmoor.

[jblittlefield]

I've enjoyed reading all the settings mentioned by previous posters; however, I have never played any of them. :0

I've been running my own homebrew -- The Realms of Thelaria -- since 1978. It's a mish-mash of my favorite parts of any and all settings I've come across over the past 32 years.