Best D20 non-WotC Campaign Setting?

[Teneb]

Another vote for Oathbound. As was mentioned earlier, any type of area you want can be found in Oathbound. I'm using my old Dark Sun stuff in Arena, Some good Ravenloft stuff in Penance, the next book out Into the Green will see heavy use in Wildwood.....you get the idea. Its very modular.

I'm hearing the sirine song of Midnight, and will probably be forced into buying it soon.

 

[Nightfall]

Blue,

No offense to Lol, but while moving to a new campaign setting isn't easy, it's not any worse than moving to any OTHER campaign setting, even the old 2nd edition ones. But what ever you choose I hope you like it.

Btw, while I don't do much politicing in my games, I do think that Scarred Lands has some interesting ways of doing politics. (Again just this one man's opinion.)

 

[Psion]

I'm a homebrewer, but of published settings, I gotta hand the prize to ...

Scarred Lands

Cool feel, lots of neat variations... not quite vanilla D&D, but not so different you can't get a handle on it.

 

[JoeBlank]

I asked for similar advice a couple months back, and also received some excellent suggestions. My criteria were a little different, but you may be able to benefit from reading thru that thread:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=733278#post733278

And if you like the advice you get on EN World, just think about how beneficial being able to search for older topics would be. Get a community supporter account for only $25, and you can. (I'll be a community supporter as soon as PirateCat gets my check.)

 

[KDLadage]

UMBRAGIA (but I am biased).

DUSK is a close second. I really like what Michael has done with it so far.

 

[Nightfall]

Thanks there Psion. (Always nice to have a kindly reviewer like yourself praise a setting)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Based on Bluemoon's first post, Kingdoms of Kalamr seems the route to go.

Lots of adventure support.

Excellent GM screen.

Excellent Atlas.

Part of a 'living' RPGA thing.



It lacks on providing more specific support and crunch support that the Scarred Lands does provide in Spades (Creature Collection I & II, Relics and Rituals I & II, etc...) but is more of a traditional D&D style setting and has a ton of adventures and a fanatic fanbase.

Note, I play the SL myself but that's because I used Kalamar prior to it's 'official' 3rd ed conversion so I was looking for something a little different when I started to GM d20.

 

[Outlaw]

Although I've been chomping at the bit and wanting to try my die at Wheel of Time and Slaine, I play almost exclusively in the Kingdoms of Kalamar.

Where one man says that the setting requires too much DM input, I enjoy it because I am given a wealth of information and ideas without being dictated how they need to be played out.

And although I'd go into more detail, I'm at work and need to catch up from going to a con last week. I generally look for Kenji's comments in threads like this. He's played quite a few settings and always gives reasonable opinions rather than sticking to just one (like most of us who go out of our way to support our favorites).

 

[Outlaw]

Based on Bluemoon's first post, Kingdoms of Kalamr seems the route to go.

Lots of adventure support.

Excellent GM screen.

Excellent Atlas.

Part of a 'living' RPGA thing.

Yes, there is a Living Kingdoms of Kalamar which provides a dozen or more modules a year to play as an ongoing campaign set in the Principality of Pekal. Although a Living campaign can be played at home or at conventions, I've found that they predominate conventions and monthly gamedays rather than replacing home campaigns (as the former has to be written in segments of four-hour convention slots while the other is more flexible to tailor to the specific needs of the DM and players).

If you're interested in learning more about living campaigns, and specifically Living Kingdoms of Kalamar, stop by the LKofK yahoo group and ask any questions you might have.


Outlaw
LKofK Director
Campaign Story and Plots

 

[GrimJesta]

I found Kalamar to be intensly DULL . Its too human centric. There isn't anything really outstanding about the setting at all. I ran it for a few months before my players begged me to go back to our original setting.

Egads, you must have been doing something wrong!

Kalamar is far from dull. Yea its Humanocentric, but it still has Orcs and Hobgoblins as PLAYER races, and the Kalamar player guide rewrote the races to get rid of that silly ECL idea, so all the D&D races are there from the get go.

And there land is probably one of the adventurous Ive played in to date. And Ive DM'd Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, DragonLance, Al Quadim, Spelljammer, EarthDawn, etc., and Ive had the best adventures in Kalamar. Its perfect for games based on political intrigue, epic wars on the scale of Lord of the Rings, dungeon crawls through old Imperial ruins, adventures on the high seas, and the list goes on and on.

Not to mention the setting is supported very, very well by KenzerCo. Theres a slew of books out for it, and if you look on the EN World reviews, most of them received excellent reviews, and theres more on the way.

So yea, my vote, yet again, is Kalamar. And no, Im not being dogmatic, as Im always on the hunt for new settings and will readily change when I find a better one. To date I havent found one better than KoK.

-=Grim=-