tjoneslo said:
One of the other people noted they hate, despise, loath and revile the D20 system (my hat of teh D02 system know no limit), but has a great interest in setting material. So what settings books would you most recommend to this person. Fluff is more important than crunch, but if you think the crunch in the book would bring them around note that too.
OK, I'll throw my dollar down for Warhammer too (this one gets a vote for 'feel', 'atmosphere', whatever). Apparently v2.0 is some good, though I can't confirm or deny that yet.
I have particularly fond memories of Dark Sun and Birthright, for good old 2nd ed settings (never mind that I intensely dislike 1st and 2nd ed AD&D
). Fluff-wise, they were a bit (alright, a lot) cheesy sometimes. Crunch-wise, they had some neat innovations (I thought).
Pendragon has a really.. interesting feel. It's not d20, any more than WFRP is, just to clear that up first (if that's even necessary). I don't know why it is exactly, but I've always found the whole package oddly compelling.
Um.. not all of those are dark
- honest! Birthright, for example, can be all kinds of things - even a jolly ol' hack n' slash with yer mates.. er, if you want.
Anger of Angels - whether with a fantasy, modern, historical, post-apoc or other backdrop - is something really different (from your usual d20 elves, dwarves et al), and the creators did pretty well here, IMHO.
Some of the GURPS setting / supplement books are great for the fluff, IMO. Examples include some of the historical ones and their take on vampires (again, IMO). Really, very useful and well-written RPG books.
Um.. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head right now. But there
are others, to be sure.
edit - well... it's not really a setting, I suppose, but Book of the Righteous (and the Book of Fiends) have some very good fluff, I think (as well as crunch, for that matter).