Dristram said:
What about Al-Quadim do you like over other settings?
What's Oathbound's appeal? Anything special about Scarred Lands besides what has already been said?
Why were you unsatisfied? Why wasn't it playable?
What kinds of dedail does FR have that other settings don't have that players can take advantage of?
I'm interested in your answers 
I like Al-Quadim on a lot of levels. The fantasy Arabia style was pretty and let the adventures play through a lot of very different but appropriate genres. There was a sea-faring adventure, for instance, that featured everything from a Harryhausen-esque fight with a crab giant to a very medieval isle of talking animals. Felt more like story-telling than anything WW ever put out.
As a setting I really appreciated the enlightened vs. unenlightened dynamic. Good and evil were more personal issues. Status and the way you could influence provided the game with a role-playing rule unrivaled, in my experience, by anything save the honor system in Hackmaster. An entire campaign in one fractured empire was nice. All the races fit and had histories that made sense with each other down to the genie courts. Had great non-generic magic. Adventures could happen in cities, ruins, deserts, and the ocean, all my favorite places. All the class options, even the generic ones, felt interesting and challenging.
The lack of dragons and a cool meta-plot were the only arguable drawbacks in my eyes. That and my discomfort with 2e.
Oathbound appeals because it has the best meta-plot I've seen in a DnD game. Great classical references. A very cool city-scape nice fantasy races. Fun politics and a chance to use all the 3e rules I love even the ones that make no sense together. I like the artwork, the fact that they included a recipe, and the new vocabulary they created.
Scarred Lands brought out nice products early and while I am upset by how long a more or less comprehensive gazeteer was in coming, the fact that they went and made a setting out of the Hesiod pleases me greatly. mmmm, spells.
Kalamar had the opposite spin from SL for me. Gazeteer and big details came out first, all the rest followed. Made it hard for me to use in a really meaty way. If I had picked up more of the early adventures I might think otherwise. The way metahumans fit in also made no sense to me. Since they were so little detailed vs. the humans my players who played them had a really hard time getting into them.
FR highlights that concern. When I'm playing FR and the DM mentions a city from something like Silver Marches I can look up the city in my big ol FR book and have details to play with. When I say my characer is from Chult I can look up chult and have a wealth of details with which to flesh out dialogue and actions. Yet I still have enough room to detail new prestige classes and spells for my character. As a DM it's way too messy and constrained and incoherent for my tastes, but as a player I weep when looking at the poverty of most other settings.
