What Is Your Favorite Campaign Setting?

[Parmandur]

Assuming we're not counting our own homebrew settings, it clearly would be The Savage Frontier for me.
That little Forgotten Realms book can stand as a full campaign setting on its own, and the first version of the North from 1988 is a much more interesting place for adventures than all the later versions that timeline advanced all the best villains and threats out of it.
The map keeps impressing me more every time I look closely at it as the layout and the positioning of settlements and factions inspires plenty of situations.

Star Wars during the Rebellion Era is also a very cool setting.

Playable D&D - Grey Box era Forgotten Realms. Playable, full of hooks, plenty of room to make it your own.

I took the opportunity during my recent paternity leave to read the Grey Box and the early FR code Setting modules and Forgotten Realms Adventures hardcover...and I have been radicalized as an FR Originalist. Sticking to 1E FR and a few early 2E books (FR 7, FR9, FR11, FR13, the FR Atlas and FR Adventures) and ignoring the Time of Troubles and Oriental Adventures (cringe) leaves an awesome D&D Setting just as good as Greyhawk for me.

 

[Parmandur]

I do enjoy the Third Impreium. There is a lot of basic foundation type material laid, but a ton of room for Refs to fill in the blanks. Players dont seem too obsessed with it being all perfectly canon. There is no end to the exploration that can happen there.

The Third Imperium is perfect, and too big for a.publisher to fully detail. Ideal for a procedurally generated Sci-Fi exploration game.

 

[Muso]

Ravenloft, 40k, Forgotten Realms (as a whole, not only the sword coast), Cerilia, Planescape.

 

[nevin]

I took the opportunity during my recent paternity leave to read the Grey Box and the early FR code Setting modules and Forgotten Realms Adventures hardcover...and I have been radicalized as an FR Originalist. Sticking to 1E FR and a few early 2E books (FR 7, FR9, FR11, FR13, the FR Atlas and FR Adventures) and ignoring the Time of Troubles and Oriental Adventures (cringe) leaves an awesome D&D Setting just as good as Greyhawk for me.

I think FR 1E was just about perfect. Everything after has been a slow slide down the mountain.

 

[Parmandur]

I think FR 1E was just about perfect. Everything after has been a slow slide down the mountain.

I actually like quite a bit of later FR stuff, I only got.into the Setting in the 5E era. Taking the 5E Adventure material and setting it into the 1360's is what I will be doing in the future. My players will not notice, at any rate.

 

[Laurefindel]

Star Wars and Forgotten Realms remain my favourite; both of which are beautifully convoluted and full of things to ignore and others to expand upon.

I also like Eberron and am discovering Rokugan these days. Oddly, I love, love, love Middle Earth as a setting, but quickly run into paralysis when playing or GMing it.

 

[Divine2021]

I think FR 1E was just about perfect. Everything after has been a slow slide down the mountain.

First Forgotten Realms book I read was Faiths and Avatars as a preteen and it is smeltered into my brain as being amazing. Soooo, I don’t mind the ToT stuff as much. 3.5 also had some good books, no?

 

[Parmandur]

First Forgotten Realms book I read was Faiths and Avatars as a preteen and it is smeltered into my brain as being amazing. Soooo, I don’t mind the ToT stuff as much. 3.5 also had some good books, no?

The 3E FRCS is a fantastic gamebook. I do prefer the story set-up of the 1350' pre-metaplot to the 1370's, however.

 

[The Soloist]

I've always been a home brewer. I never used settings as is but I've read many and took ideas from them. My favourite setting is Greyhawk because it showed the teen me how vast and ambitious a campaign could be. Dragonlance is a close second.

I also like Star Wars, the Knights of the Old Republic era. It's Star Wars without the Skywalkers. You can do pretty much any story you want.

 

[Yora]

My current homebrew setting is pretty much my personal Forgotten Realms greatest hits turned into a mold for a new casting about a tenth the total size.
The High Forest bordered by Rashemen, Vaasa, and the Dalelands, with Neverwinter, Telflamm, Baldur's Gate, and Westgate as coastal city states.

I think the biggest flaw of the Forgotten Realms is that it's just way too big. It could easily have been three separate campaign settings as it is, with plenty of potential to develop the South half into two additional settings.