"What setting do you use for your games?" Topic

What setting do you use for your wargames and rpg sessions? Is it a setting from a book, movie, or television? Is it a setting published by a game company? Or it is a homebrew setting you created?

I prefer the homebrew option myself. I get ideas from other sources, but I put my own spin on them. I just find it more enjoyable.

What are your thoughts on this?

Planning on home brew myself, with an Imperium/Traveller-esque backdrop, to justify the planetary invasions, and ground combat.

For 40K I use the 40K universe. It and the minis are the primary appeal of the game to me.

For DzC I use the DzC universe.

For Infinity I have my own homebrewed story line.

For my 15mm stuff, I use that to play out scenarios from worlds in my creation or from other TV/movie/book things as the whim moves me.

Home brew:

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Set on a first generation colony world.

I'm very partial to the Tuffleyverse, for wargames.
Used loosely, though, and generally as a background for some colony world.

For my Mutant Chronicle games, I run the solar system as created, but modify the history and current status so that I feel it makes some kind of sense (with a single large handwavium element in the backstory).

Although I'll be interested to see how the new version's backstory and current story tie together.

I tend to stick with the RPG system as created, but add tweaks as and how I feel like to get it to run in a way I like and enjoy.

For Black Powder Fantasy, Alternative Armies' Valon with some twists.

For sword and sorcery, Two Hour Wargames' Valon,

For sci fi…not sure I have a consistent world. Anything is possible out there.

For me a home brew setting. However, influenced by FUBAR type mechanics. Small, simple games.

I also drew inspirations from other back grounds.
Angel Barracks being the main factor and influences and from other game companies.

TV, books and of course people on here have all played a part in my home brew settings.

I always love a good Bug Hunt myself.

I've always done homebrew. Although we happily cribbed from published settings (eg Space 1889) there was enough personalization done that the end result would have been barely recognizeable to the original authors.

Pulp Sci Fi on the ground: Hyadra miniatures and a background around Galacteers and Robot Legion

Near Future: Ravenstar Leif Ericson type ships vs Shapeways Belters – early days of exploration and conflict

Further Future: Valiant Stardate Earth and Allies (MKP Feline ships (but manned by Levi Jeans Clidean Warlord types) and others vs various hostiles – Valiant Zanthorians, Ravenstar ships with Asian sounding class names, etc) in essentially an expanding human sphere encountering resistance and hostility setting, though the Zanthorians are hostile to everyone.

On Ground: Earth (Alternative Armies Ion Age and Hasslefree stuff) and allies (Drantakh, Garn and other Saurians) and mercenaries (Rar, Rafm Reaction Marines) vs various hostiles (Shia Khan, Kyromek, etc) and Pirates (Blue Moon).

my Space/Traveller game is based on H.Beam piper Space vikings

For sci-fi, I have Traveller (6 and 15mm), Hammer's Slammers (6mm), another home-brew setting for 15mm far-future, and a home-brew retro/pulp sci-fi setting. I also have a home-brew gothic sci-fi setting, loosely based on Edgar Rice Burrough's Lost Continent idea though (western hemisphere writes off Europe during WWI, comes back to it several decades later).

Oh and I have some 15mm Star Trek figs to work on someday, and 28mm Star Wars pre-paints.

For fantasy, I have 6mm and 28mm WHFB-universe projects using other figures and rules, as well as Conan, Kull, and Imaro projects.

Star Wars or BattleTech universe for almost all Sci-Fi.
Tolkien, undefined, WFB Old World or Mystara (Known World) for fantasy.

I'm pretty fond of the Infinity setting. The conflict on Paradiso is an excellent setting for platoon+ engagements between humans and aliens, as well as human versus human conflicts.

I also like DP9's Gear Krieg setting, and have quite a few minis available for that. However, I'm also mixing in Mamoru Oshii's "Kerberos Saga," where the Germans won the Battle of Stalingrad due to the employment of troops in personal body armor.

And finally, I may start mixing in some SF elements into my Colonial games on the Northwest Frontier. A lost outpost of Alexandrian Greeks, or maybe some lost technology from Lord only knows where and when.

I use the Classic Traveller setting for both the rpg and 15mm skirmishing, particularly the Crucis Margin supplement ftom Judge's Guild. My VSF/Weird West project is the New Mexico Territory 1880. My last D&D game of note was placed in their Moonshae setting.

Homebrew. Such as:

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I'm also developing a "Space Templars" sci fi campaign

I tend to do a kind of '40k lite' most of the time, so no chaos powers just squads of Space Marines and troopers vs either similar forces or aliens.

Or sometimes I do survivors based scenarios with low tech humans vs robot or alien invaders. Or sometimes I get inspired by movies or TV shows. I'm currently running a theme based on Blake's 7 with dark blue guardsmen as the Federation troopers and a mixed bag of survivors and Necromunda figs for the rebels.

All I do now is 6mm Sci-fi … I have terrain from various sources, Eqyptian, Mayan, Alien, Human/Gothic, etc. … so pretty much a homebrew of Epic, Slammers, Stargate, etc., etc. …

RPG's are homebrew, most wargames we play have an established setting and we pretty much stick to that, although we typically name our own characters and armies, and make up our own background for them within the established setting, rather than using the provided named characters or "historical" forces.

I'm interested in trying a few "generic" rule sets like Tomorrow's War, AE: Bounty, and Gruntz, though. I know several of those have a loose setting, but it seems like they leave plenty of wiggle room for inventing one's own stuff altogether, and I think that appeals to me for 15mm sci-fi more than a setting with a more rigid background.

Home brew fantasy RPG for the adults, D&D 1st Edition for the son.

Thanks for the replies, folks. Lots of variety here. I try a lot of different rpgs myself because I tend to get bored playing the same thing all the time.

I'm bored with the regular high fantasy and space opera genres, so I try to make my settings unique. Like a fantasy game without magic but lots of rapiers and Kung Fu. Or a near-future SF where the nations of the world fight one another in space but with railguns instead of lasers.

I prefer creating my own universe to something from the movies or TV. Nothing wrong with those; they're great. But I want to create my own universe with its own background. I do use ideas from TV, rpg settings, etc. but I always change things around to my liking.

Well, I like the Dune, 40K Universe and a few others. Why stifle yourself to one universe? Just like Imaginations lets you create your own, there is nothing stopping you from doing the same. After all, it is in the future and who knows what things will be like?

I made mine up, primarily to justify the units I painted.

I mix and match as well, taking what I like from different settings and discarding the rest.

Oh, I forgot to mention one of the RPGs I've picked up recently. The game is called Tenra Bansho Zero, and it's set in a scizotech world where most of the obvious tech is 1600s, but there are giant mecha, cyborgs, combat robots and gunpowder firearms close to today's tech.

Basically, take every non-historical anime and put them all in the same world.

I may twist that into a Samurai wargaming setting.

(Dantes Cellar) Home brew fantasy RPG for the adults

I'm not even going to ask ;)

For scifi Traveller and for PA Twight Light 2000

I tend to do something in between Warhammer and D&D. It's what I grew up on and I like how things aren't as clear cut as generic high fantasy. I like straddling the line between high and low fantasy. Also, a lot of it has to do with me liking GW's vision of Orcs. I was never a fan of Orcs back when I played D&D, but for whatever reason the GW Orcs caught my attention immediately. Maybe because they look like a buncha chimps turned Hulks or that they seem more like a neutral chaotic force (they do bad things, but aren't evil). That said, not a fan of Blizzard's ripped off and mutated version of Orcs. To me, Orcs should always be the bane of civilization.. not this "savage yet noble" BS.

Post Apocalyptic Australia that is a mixture of Fallout and an old Aussie game called Hunter Planet is my latest passion.

Low level supers where the characters aren't costumed fighters but cops dealing with the gangsters of NYC. Still some supers elements but lots of mystery.

oh and I use Savage Worlds for both