A tricky one, as I believe in most cases environments, evocative or not, are down to the GM firstly to imagine, then describe to the players, rather than an intrinsic property of the RPG itself.
I suppose it's easier in a well defined game world, where a lot of the environment is the product of the writers. I'm sure the Forgotten Realms has evocative environments (I did like the Panopticon in the film), but I know relatively little about the Realms, so can't really comment.
I much prefer to make a game world my own. I have used published worlds, notably Mystara, but they are often very open to interpretation. The more space there is for my own material, the more I like it.
I really enjoyed creating my own world (Teramarr), and I like to think there are some evocative environments there (minotaur tomb complex built into a cliff face, jungle ruins, islands surrounded by near impenetrable storms or flying islands anyone?). I must get back to Teramarr.
If I have to nominate something I'll suggest Mystara. Although I said it's pretty open, there are some stunning places. The staircase up to the monastery in X4 Master of the Desert Nomads, ships flying over Alphatia, or the first sight of the Hollow World. All memorable, stunning and very, very fantastic.
I agree with you. I prefer to either make my own adventures or take a published one and make it my own (as I am sure most DM's do).
ReplyDeleteI suspect you're right, although if time is short, published scenarios are very welcome.
DeleteI also think that having splashed out on a big campaign book, there's a desire to get as much as possible out of it. I think I got caught up in this with 4E, continuing to play it some time after I ceased to really enjoy the rule system (the actual campaign play was great though).