D&D 5E What is the best D&D Campaign Setting and why?

[Whithers]

I am about to take numerous files (the random writings of about a years worth of prep) and convert them into an organized world guide. Since 5E has yet to produce a world guide, I am curious which world guide would be the best example to use. Here is a list of D&D and AD&D campaigns. Those to which I have access are emboldened.

Birthright Campaign Setting
Blackmoor Campaign Setting
Dark Sun Campaign Setting
Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Eberron Campaign Setting
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting
Hollow World Campaign Setting
Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms
Planescape Campaign Setting
Ravenloft

Questions:
Which one has the best format and why?
What sections did you find the most informative and why?

 

[Jester David]

Ptolus is hands down the best in terms of layout. But unless you're an InDesign master and willing to splurge on a colour full bleed book that's unlikely the route to take.

I really like the format of the Pathfinder setting book. The Inner Sea Worldguide. It spreads the information out in a pretty logical way and presents things fairly easily. Races then nations and then life in the world and miscellaneous details. Plus it's nice and clean with each entry starting at the beginning of a page.

The 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is reasonable for most, except that it arranges the nations rather curiously: grouping them by region rather than straight alphabetical order (and having details spread out over multiple pages). But I like the bit of world lore introducing the world prior to the full description of the continent.

 

[Lidgar]

Mine.

 

[LordEntrails]

Asked before, see http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?537854-What-s-the-Best-Setting-TEMPLATE

 

[mellored]

Spelljammer, because you can visit all of those other worlds.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I am about to take numerous files (the random writings of about a years worth of prep) and convert them into an organized world guide. Since 5E has yet to produce a world guide, I am curious which world guide would be the best example to use. Here is a list of D&D and AD&D campaigns. Those to which I have access are emboldened.

Birthright Campaign Setting
Blackmoor Campaign Setting
Dark Sun Campaign Setting
Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Eberron Campaign Setting
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting
Hollow World Campaign Setting
Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms
Planescape Campaign Setting
Ravenloft

Questions:
Which one has the best format and why?
What sections did you find the most informative and why?

Well, technically two of the settings in bold are technically the same setting, as canonically Kara-Tur is simply the eastern extension of the Forgotten Realms.

But focusing just on setting format, the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is very well done, packing just about all the information you could want for a setting with very little in the way excess fat (mainly 3e-specific stuff like character stat blocks and prestige classes).

In second place for me would be the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, which again, puts in just about all the info you could want for a setting, in even less space than the 3e FRCS (and arguably better organized). However, the text is just a bit on the dry side - the facts are there, but there's little in the way of heart.

 

[guachi]

Known World/Mystara

Buy the first 14 Gazetteers and a few other things on DMSGuild for $15!

FR is severely weakened by the huge amount of stuff added on, all the NPCs, the novels. It's a mess.

Known World didn't have that problem. Only a few novels. One meta plot adventure you can ignore. And a setting frozen in Amber (pun intended) so it's there​ like you left it. Oh, and it has a great fan base full of free stuff.

Birthright, Darksun, Planescape (also $15 at DMSGUILD), Spelljammer benefit from a particular focus that isn't "generic fantasy". I would not pick these to DM, but I'd play them because I assume any DM that wanted to run the setting is doing so because he loves it and not because it's the default like FR.

My favorite FR "smaller setting", and second favorite setting, is Al-Qadim. Never bought anything of it when it was new, but I've picked everything up online. There isn't so much of it that it's overwhelming, but there's enough to be interesting. That and BOXED SETS!!! OMG... BOXED SETS!!! I got all of mine in near mint condition for $20-30. One was still in the shrink wrap!

But, considering Planescape and Known World are $15 each for almost all of it, get one or both and spend some quality time reading.

 

[machineelf]

I'm a little confused by the question and what you are trying to accomplish. But in terms of your title, my favorite campaign setting is Planescape. Evocative design and beautiful art. Because you can use it as a part of another campaign world, I pair it with the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Lancelot]

Best formatted book for simply conveying setting knowledge, in my experience, is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Sure, it's dry... but the nations are all presented in alphabetical order, in a consistent format, with summary info at the start. You also get a complete list of deities, terrain features and organizations that cross national boundaries, a highly functional map, a brief history of the world... everything you need.

The 3e Forgotten Realms Setting has higher production values but, as previously mentioned, the choice of grouping nations by region rather than alphabetical is a bit annoying. Also, the Realms book spent quite a bit of space on stat blocks... again, embedded almost randomly. Quick: what nation would YOU look under to find Artemis Entreri's stats? Also, why even have them in a campaign setting book?

Good things to have in any new campaign setting book that you're creating: alphabetical nations with summary information before the text (primary alignment, population, major settlements, allies/enemies, etc), a complete list of deities (domains, worshiper alignment, ethos), a summary history (ideally explaining how nations came to be, including racial migrations, major events, etc), a separate listing of key features that are outside nations (e.g. summary info on oceans, major mountain ranges, etc), major organizations and power-players (especially if cross-national, or outside national borders), and an index!

...

And to answer the misleading title of the post: Planescape. Because it contains all of the other D&D settings within it. If you're playing Ravenloft or Mystara or Forgotten Realms, you're already playing a Planescape game... just a very limited subset of it.

 

[Lancelot]

[double post]