What is the most detailed setting available?

[Jd Smith1]

Tékumel is an inspiring setting that has many elements that I enjoy from a world-building perspective, but I don't actually think that Tékumel is the best setting. It's a highly detailed one. At times while reading through the materials, it feels as if one needs an anthropology and linguistics degree to penetrate the dense layers of Tsolyani society. I remember needing a chart, for example, that layed out Tsolyani clan and family relations, such as who counts as your sibling, mother/father, aunt/uncle, cousin, or not. The social values and structures of Tékumel are quite alien to contemporaraneous Euro-American societies.

I'm not deeply familiar with the nuts and bolts of the setting, but wasn't Tékumel written by high-voltage academics?

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not deeply familiar with the nuts and bolts of the setting, but wasn't Tékumel written by high-voltage academics?

Professor M.A.R. Barker, a linguist whose academic specialty was Urdu and South Asian Studies.

Tekumel.com is a pretty good primer to the setting.

 

[AtomicPope]

RPG settings that were RPGs first and not adapted from a different medium, it's difficult but I'd have to go with Forgotten Realms. The problem is a lot of settings repeat information, update it for editions, and advance the timeline without really adding much. Some RPG worlds have a ton of information, modules, and supplements, but they're not popular. The old 3e Gamma World from the mid 80's had lots of information, modules, fluff, articles, and was completely different from any other game at the time, but it was a cult classic. When you consider what else was happening in RPGs, Gamma World 3e was cutting edge of sci-fi/fantasy. However, it does take place in an alternate future of Earth so the foundation isn't fully imagined. For this reason I'd leave out settings like Vampire the Masquerade completely because they are more a filter or lens to used to reimagine history than a created setting.

 

[reelo]

RPG settings that were RPGs first and not adapted from a different medium, it's difficult but I'd have to go with Forgotten Realms. The problem is a lot of settings repeat information, update it for editions, and advance the timeline without really adding much. Some RPG worlds have a ton of information, modules, and supplements, but they're not popular. The old 3e Gamma World from the mid 80's had lots of information, modules, fluff, articles, and was completely different from any other game at the time, but it was a cult classic. When you consider what else was happening in RPGs, Gamma World 3e was cutting edge of sci-fi/fantasy. However, it does take place in an alternate future of Earth so the foundation isn't fully imagined. For this reason I'd leave out settings like Vampire the Masquerade completely because they are more a filter or lens to used to reimagine history than a created setting.

The Forgotten Realms can't hold a candle to Hârnworld, sorry. The amount of minutiae is simply staggering.

 

[Bluenose]

I'm not sure how Traveller's Third Imperium setting rates in this. On the one hand, there's an absolutely massive amount of material from the various companies (and their own Open material) that have made products over the years. On the other hand - there's 11000 worlds in the Imperium, many haven't more than a short code describing them, one's outside often have less, so the detailed areas are rare. True also of course for other settings, but more obvious on the scale of a small patch of the Milky Way.

 

[MNblockhead]

I got some items for that I think, Rappan Athuk? and Barakus?

How much stuff is on it?

Could you give me a list of the different books (or at least a starting point). I think I found the ideas intriguing from what I read originally, but no idea how much more there is out there or where to start.

Thanks

FGG books are insanely large and detailed.

It is a rather kitchen-sink type campaign world and the world itself is less flavorful than the adventures. But it is designed to give lots of space for DMs to add their own content if they want, while still having so much material you really don't have to do much world building at all.

I would start with buying the PDF or physical copy of the Lost Lands Setting guide. See if you like the flavor. If you already use World Anvil, you could also try to subscript to the Lost Lands world in World Anvil. You can do that with a free World Anvil account but you do have to pay Frog God Games for the subscription. The cross linked articles, the interactive map, and search functions make it a great way to full up setting information in-game or when prepping games.

After that, there are a variety of massive regional and city setting guides and even their adventure books have a wealth of setting information for the various regions. Some of the more popular are:

Bards Gate - large, detailed book for the City of Bards Gate
Borderland Provinces - setting guide for a large European-inspired fantasy area on the Eastern cost of one of the two main continents.
The Grand Duchy of Reme - a plains people setting
Tehuatl (Inca/Mayan inspired setting)
The Northlands Saga (viking inspired setting)
Razor Coast (pirate themed, island hopping setting)
City of Brass - huge setting and sandbox adventure for the City of Brass (other plane - connected to plane of fire)
Cyclopean Depths (underdark setting)

and there are many many more.

You mentioned Rappan Athuk. I'm in the third year of running a Rappan Athuk campaign. This is just one mega dungeon located in one of the provinces from Boarderland Provinces. But the already massive book has many linkages so that players can go from Rappan Athuk to the Cyclopean Depths, or to the City of Brass, or to Bard's Gate, or other areas. For my Rappan Athuk game I have also regularly used the Bard's Gate and Borderland Provinces books for regional setting material. I've also referenced the Cyclopean Depths and City of Brass books although the party has not yet gone to either location.

There are some areas where the setting could collect information from all their various books, flesh out some more, and put them into one source book. In particular, information on the cosmology and religions. They've been talking about kickstarting a book on the Regligions and Gods of the Lost Lands for a while now, and I am eager for them to do this. I would rather have this at this time rather than the alchemy book and magic items book they've recently published.

 

[Voadam]

I got some items for that I think, Rappan Athuk? and Barakus?

How much stuff is on it?

Could you give me a list of the different books (or at least a starting point). I think I found the ideas intriguing from what I read originally, but no idea how much more there is out there or where to start.

Thanks

Most everything but the most generic mechanics books from Frog God Games and Necromancer Games is set in the Lost Lands.

There are a number of setting books but the big one is the 518 page World of the Lost Lands.

 

[Voadam]

I've never bothered with the religious system, but the book is over a hundred pages on a small pantheon. Plus there are amendments listing the most popular hymn-books, prayer books, and religious journals. Others listing shrines and holy sites.

One of the parts of FR that I really enjoyed was reading the hundreds of pages on the pantheons in 2e: Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm not deeply familiar with the nuts and bolts of the setting, but wasn't Tékumel written by high-voltage academics?

Many have compared Professor MAR "Phil" Barker favorably to Professor Tolkien... except that Phil Barker adopted RPGs as a secondary outlet for his worldbuilding.
I've not gotten into Tekúmel, myself, so I can't make a personal judgement. I can say those I've met familiar with Tekúmel compare it directly to Middle Earth in terms of worldbuilding, but note that it's set on a lost colony of a spacefaring Earth.

 

[Committed Hero]

I'm not sure how Traveller's Third Imperium setting rates in this. On the one hand, there's an absolutely massive amount of material from the various companies (and their own Open material) that have made products over the years. On the other hand - there's 11000 worlds in the Imperium, many haven't more than a short code describing them, one's outside often have less, so the detailed areas are rare. True also of course for other settings, but more obvious on the scale of a small patch of the Milky Way.

The Imperium deserves special mention because you could set a campaign at a great number of times. There is playable setting material for the Interstellar War period, Year 0 of the Imperium, the Golden Age, the Rebellion, the New Era, and the alternate history where the Rebellion didn't happen.