What would be a unique fantasy setting that's still deep and interesting?

I mean, just have a dude walk naked into a McDonald's singing Katty Perry every once and a while.

Stuff like that is great to hear about on the radio

This this this this this.

Bah, you only need to hone setting when it is necessary.

A pointless question asked only by people who have no idea what they are talking about and answered by people who pretend to know what they are talking about.

Gosh guys don't you see any wonder in creation anymore.

I mean storytelling is its own reward, but making a setting is like playing with the most perfect Legos

A Post apocalyptic setting where the only technology that survived was Vinyl Records. They are worth ten times their weight in gold and large amounts of people search the ruins of the old world for them.

Are there cargo cult tribes built around specific artists or albums?

>"If you are headed north, be wary: the Blue Oyster Cult haunts the Soho Pass, and they have no love for Fortunate Sons."
>"We will heed your words, wise chief. Farewell! May the gods smile on the Black Sabbaths!"

I haven't thought that far but that'd be cool. There are nations and cultures who have been shaped by certain albums though.

For instance, the king of the main faction has the title of "Sultan of Swing"

There are wonder in creation, that's called writing.
I see so many people wanking themselves over setting and worldbuilding and they can't make a good narrative, making the setting completely useless.
Good writing can make any setting work

>Gosh guys don't you see any wonder in creation anymore.
No, we don't see any wonder in superficial threads like this
What do you mean by deep? What do you mean by interesting? Did you know that people have different tastes? What's interesting and deep to me may be shallow and stupid to you.
Unique in what way? Do you mean some odd quirk in world building? Or something related to the metagame to affect players?

In the end it's what you make it and what others read into it, there's no magic guide

You will generally find that people with good writing skills make better settings than those without.
But like
said, setting's quality varies by person to person. That is why some of the advice in here is great, think about it, not take it so seriously and make it your own.

>You will generally find that people with good writing skills make better settings than those without.

You know why that is?

It's because they're better at telling good fucking stories. Y'know, the shit that actually gets people invested in settings in the first place?

No-one cares if people in your world have to take a treacherous road through the Oogaloog Mountains to reach the city of Par'f'nar. But they'll fucking care if a character they like and are emotionally invested in has to take that road, because then there's a chance that they might get hurt or die, or be waylaid in some other terrible manner! There's actual fucking stakes to the action! There's tension and suspense! There's motherfucking capital-D Drama!

Worldbuilding notes are not interesting. Characters struggling to achieve their goals is interesting.

Hey guy did you realize that setting and story are actually two different subjects? You can talk about either one at a time! Meaning just because someone makes a thread talking about setting, it doesn't automatically mean you're choosing one over the other. Just that this doesn't happen to be a thread about it. Isn't it wonderful?

You fucking sperg.

I bring it up because every "unique and interesting" setting was created by a writer who didn't give a flying fuck about worldbuilding, and was just trying to tell a decent tale.

The worldbuilders' approach to storytelling is the most ass-backwards method imaginable, and is a gigantic waste of time.

>I see wonder in vapid questions

This this and eternally this.

What the hell kind of question even is that?

A unique fantasy setting is one with many unique traits setting it apart. This can be measured objectively.
Depth comes from how deeply the plot delves into the characters' psychological states, and therefore exists independently of setting. This depends on your players and on you as a writer, not the setting.
Whether something is interesting or not is entirely subjective.

So what you're asking for is:
>What would be a setting [that has certain objective traits] that's still [a certain type of story, and therefore not a setting] and [caters to some unspecified group]?

No wonder people are giving you shit.

A world based around hermetic, gnostic and goetic lore and general enlightenment occultism.
>Elementals want to marry you so they can receive souls
>Demons offer knowledge of the sciences and political positions
>"As below so above, as above so below" the principle that drives so many clandestine societies attempting to change the world thru the tiniest actions.
>Errant philosophers attempting mad experiments to achieve godhood
>Discovering odd properties and politics of unseeming animals
>Hedonistic magicians
>Wise soldiers
>Constant searches for patrons, financial or mystical
>Archons walking about, disguised as men making sure there are no troublemakers about
>Hording items of symbolic power. Swords which rally soldiers, staves which demons kneel to and rings of great terror
>Everything must be perniciously counted and colour-coded
>Taverns are good places to discuss the fate of the world as are theatres and coffee houses
>Quests for strange metals and mind altering substances
>Bodily disease is natural, elemental terror, mental disease is supernatural, spiritual terror. With the proper knowledge ether can be exorcised.
>Despite all the death and madness, life is pretty comfy
>Information warfare by way of astrology, numerology and necromancy
>Lies, confusion and misconception abound. Even truthful practices are littered with mistakes but somehow function in spite of it
>Well dressed beings with too many arms and legs
>"Good company is worth more than gold or black magic"

Sub-Saharan Africa is incredibly underutilized as a type of setting. I especially like the idea of setting something on the open savanna where villages are very low key and isolated from one another. Fights would be more sparse as well but would be much higher stakes while requiring a high level of skill or teamwork to survive. Enemies would be beasts or monsters with fighting human enemies being a huge deal due to the scarcity of people and the danger involved. A lot of the game would be spent trying to survive and keep enough supplies to last to the next objective or resupply point. I envision the sparse encounters/villages and wide plains to be isolating in a comfy way, sort of like Shadow of the Colossus. Magic if it is included at all would entail charms, items and listening to local shamans.

I still have to work a lot of things out on this but you get the general idea.

Something that a lot of people don't really do, IMO, is an animistic/panpsychic scenario. Everything is alive, just some things are 'more' alive than others. Enforcing the idea that rivers have nymphs, fish sometimes talk, and holy shit did that rock face just send me on a quest is something I've never seen done in an RPG, except maybe in Exalted. The sword you're carrying, handed down by your grandpa, has a motivation of its own. Everything has a cost. You can ask the birds for advice.

>unique fantasy setting that's still deep and interesting
Made in Abyss?

...

This but modern industrial-scale chicken farm.

>Rise up, poultretariat! You have nothing to lose but your cages!

this thread is just for fun

Hollow Knight had me loving a tiny noble-gentlemen bug-world. No matter how terrible the story would be, I would still love that just for the art and alterations to Victorian society to meet bug needs.

Wrought iron and chitin forever.

>are you a bad enough hen to lead the egg-laying workers of the farm in revolution against the vicious farmer and her guard dog cronies?

Transformers.
Despite space and lasers pew pew, it's pretty fucking fantastical.

That's an impossible question to answer because everyone has different interpretations of what is "deep" or "interesting".

Why getting angry tough? They are simply stupid.

The fun fact is that putting together a decent setting is simple as fuck. ESPECIALLY as a group.

And you know who might actually be the most egregious example?

That Tolkien fellow, you might've heard of him.

>tough it's not really a perfect analogy for RPGs

Forget unique. Make it something resonant for your table. Fill it with metaphor. Populate and color it with things that matter to your group. Make it somewhere worth escaping to for a few hours every week. That's as unique as you ever need.

...

>What would be a unique fantasy setting that's still deep and interesting?

No such thing.

No really: The more "unique" and "interesting" you try to make a setting, the further you stray away from "familiarity."

I've learned over the years that the majority of players are much more comfortable in "familiar" surroundings.

In other words: There will ALWAYS be Dwarves will ALWAYS grow beards. There will ALWAYS be elves and they will ALWAYS be an elder race proficient in magic. There will ALWAYS be dragons and they will ALWAYS be powerful creatures. There will ALWAYS be magic. Etc. etc.

Basically, the more "unique" and "interesting" you try to make a fantasy setting, the more players lose interest. I really wish it weren't this way, but there you go.

I didn't make this thread to try and get advice for writing, or even for worldbuilding. I just wanted to see what people would come up with because I thought it could be fun.
I only added the "deep and interesting part" because I thought that if I didn't, some pedant would come in with something like "a world where only copper exists and no life can form". Obviously, there are many unique concepts that are like that because they are unsuited for stories, but that's not the point of the thread.

I'd say the most interesting settings are ones that riff on the familiar. Things like the classic "grimdark fantasy races IN SPESS" that gave us 40k, or a relatively standard-issue fantasy world where gnomes happen to be the dominant species and anyone taller than a halfling is likely seen as a giant, or a world where dragons are very much in charge of all the government and everyone else just tries to stay out of the way (until a dragon decides to use them for it's schemes) all sound interesting. Any concept that you can follow all the way through its logical conclusions can make things interesting. Also, this keeps you from getting a group bogged down with lots and lots of species with made-up names that they don't have any associations with. (Not saying custom/weird races can't be good, just that they take more work to develop than ones players know)

>I don't want to make something interesting because the mouth breathers content with consuming production line schlock will stop coming to my games

>touching balls

That's gay.