Best and Worst Settings?

[dpdx]

I am struck by the inherent delusion most gamers have about thier dice.

Most people say the love the random nature of using dice, yet the inherent mechanics of using dice in system where you "advance" and get better in skills and attack rolls means the random nature of the dice becomes less significant over time. So the biggest paradox in the argument would be a fellow who wants to "random" dice and yet brags about his high level characters.

In truth, dice are a prop that provides a tatctile sensation and in a way, rpgs allow people to "gamble" with the PCs ... in a fixed match.

And considering the alternatives, DM Whim and Communal Decision, dice rock.

Nice try at a troll, though.

 

[Daiymo]

Best IMHO: Rokugan. A good human dominated low fantasy setting with a familiar Asian influence without being a veiled carbon copy of RL (like ahem..Kara-Tur). I also like Middle Earth actually.


Worst IMHO: Some homebrews. Those run by DMs who focus too much on the minutae of setting and not on the players.

 

[shadow]

Best IMHO: Rokugan. A good human dominated low fantasy setting with a familiar Asian influence without being a veiled carbon copy of RL (like ahem..Kara-Tur). I also like Middle Earth actually.

I really agree with you on this, Daimyo. Although I don't own any Rokugan books (I do however have OA) I think that it's vastly superior to Kara-Tur. I swear that some of the text from the Kara-Tur boxed set was ripped straight out of the Japanese history textbook I used last semester. Rokugan captures the feel of samurai movies and anime with some original ideas (like the shadowlands).

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Well, the one I keep thinking of when I think of the best is Birthright. Al-Qadim is second only by a nanosecond. I almsot think of them at once.

For d20, it's tough to choose. So many of them have strong points - for example, Scarred Lands has Hollowfaust, one of my favorite RPG cities of all time. Iron Kingdoms is shaping up to be one of the sharpest looking and coolest-in-concept settings I've seen. I have a soft spot for The Hunt: Rise of Evil. It's too tough to choose.

Non-D&D/d20: The Britain of Pendragon, and the Europe of Ars Magica are very cool. The setting of Call of Cthulhu is another winner. Traveller's Imperium is a good scifi setting.

 

[Wayside]

And considering the alternatives, DM Whim and Communal Decision, dice rock.

Nice try at a troll, though.

Riiiightt.. because Amber or Saga etc. use Whim and Democracy. He made a valid observation, even if it was off-topic.

 

[Wayside]

Wow... lotsa dislike for the old Dragonlance, which, believe it or not, I can understand. The Dragonlance novels were how I got introduced to gaming, Dragonlance Adventures was my very first RPG book, purchased before I even knew I needed the Dungeon Master's Guide & Player's Handbook.

That's hillarious. My history is exactly the same, and I only read the books because the cover of Autumn Twilight reminded me of the characters from Dragon Warrior II on old Nintendo. I still find the the original trilogy and Legends to be better written than any of the other fantasy stuff around, but I don't think the world is any good to play in. Won't stop me from getting the new book when you guys put it out though.

Another vote for Al Qa *friggin*dim, in addition to Birthright and Dark Sun.

 

[Michael Morris]

Micheal Morris' Dusk(found here on EnWorld) also comes in a close third for me. I like the idea of a "low fantasy" world. Dusk really tries to emulate the early middle ages, not over the top cartoons and comics that Forgotten Realms resembles. Although it is obvious that Micheal Morris has "borrowed" heavily from a lot of various sources, I think he has created an unique setting

Thank you Shadow...

Anyway, my favorite setting that I didn't write is the Forgotten Realms. A highlight of last GC for me was getting to meet up with Ed.

As for worst... Well, when I finally rid of my own setting of its flaws I might have room to talk - but I doubt that will happen since some of the elements I've embraced have turned off other people from the setting. And the settings that try to please everybody (FR, Greyhawk) inevitably turn off some people precisely because of that trait as well. I guess the point of this bit of babble is that no matter how good a setting is, somebody won't like it.

Ah forget it. I just don't like negative superlatives. They strike me as being mean-spirited.

 

[Nightfall]

Really that statement is in direct reaction to some heat I took for daring to criticize Rob Kuntz' adventures for NG, and one raving fanboy labelled me biased against "1e feel", which is total poppycock because there are some NG books I adore... just not the ones written by Kuntz, which are bad.

Which I felt and still feel was total crap on their part. Hell they even picked on Clark after the whole "City of Flames" incident"

In any case I have to say I'm VERY proud of the fact this thread has gone on WITHOUT too much animosity or mean spirited bickering. So props to everyone.

 

[baseballfury]

I actually like the old Known World setting better than any of the 3E settings. Those Gazeteers were cool.

It's not a full campaign setting, but I love Green Ronin's Freeport. Works great with just about any world in this thread too!

Least favorite D&D setting is Spelljammer (I just found the whole idea so lame). Least fave d20 setting is Erde. It's possible there's something worse out there but I've stopped buying any campaign setting that looks it was someone's homebrew.

 

[Tratyn Runewind]

Hello!

Posted by shadow:
What do you think the best and worst campaign settings are? Are there anything that causes them to stand out? What things make them good, or bad?

As I've mentioned before, my two favorite TSR-produced settings are Birthright (for a more serious tone) and Mystara (more lighthearted). Birthright is the best "generic fantasy" game world I've seen, had beautiful art and "production values" (until the later stuff, just before they killed the line), an interesting concept (the bloodlines) that was thoroughly in-genre and yet previously untried among published settings, and coherent religious and political themes with some solid thought behind them. Execution wasn't perfect (what is?), but was better than the vast majority of similar settings I've seen before or since. Mystara I like mainly for the fun NPCs (Haldemar of Haaken, many of the Glantrian characters, Terari, the Black Eagle Baron and Bargle, Thar, et multiple cetera), the artistry of weaving the world together from the wildly varying background strands of the many OD&D modules, the myriad of well-developed cultures, and (again) the excellent quality of most of the supplements.

Some intriguing non-TSR/WotC/D&D/d20 settings worth noting include GURPS Cabal, GURPS Cthulhupunk, and the new 5th Edition Champions universe. I'm avoiding mention of licensed worlds (Star Wars, Middle-Earth, Marvel/DC, etc.) that are often deeply detailed, epic in scope, and way cool, but mostly developed outside the world of RPG'ing.

Plenty of good worst-setting candidates have already been mentioned; I'd probably put the Synnibar/SenZar/FATAL-crowd and similar vanity-press-level stuff at the bottom of that heap.

Posted by Lurks-no-More:
Worst D&D setting: Original D&D Known World / Mystara
An ungodly mishmash of radically different races/cultures in a tiny, tiny corner of the world.

Yeah, THAT's totally unrealistic - a small, peninsular corner of one continent with representatives of analogs to the Greeks/Byzantines, the Romans, the Arabs, Germanic peoples, Slavs, Central Asian nomad tribes, Italian-like merchant city-states, and crusading knightly orders.

Or not. Look up the history of the Balkans sometime. And Southeast Asia is in a somewhat similar position with regard to the mixing of Asian cultures. Mystara hardly seems out of line when magic, nonhumans, and active divinities are added into such a mix.

Posted by Lurks-no-More:
The entire Heldannic Knight thing (a combination of Teutonic Order and Nazis, originally from the definitely Byzantian Thyatis).

Thyatis is not just Byzantine. As another Mystara fan once pointed out, its three major cultures can be viewed as representing three aspects of historical Roman empire: Classical Rome, represented by the Thyatians proper, Greek-dominated Eastern Rome (Byzantium), represented by the Kerendans, and the Germanic "Holy Roman Empire" (aka the First Reich), represented by the Hattians (one faction of whom helped form the Heldannic Knights). Incidentally, for a nice fictional juxtaposition of Classical Rome with a Byzantine-like culture, see Harry Turtledove's "Videssos Cycle".

Posted by Lurks-no-More:
Alphatia, with its million zillion 36th-level archmages.

Yeah, Heaven forbid any D&D setting should have even one tiny continent as a REAL high-magic area.

Posted by Lurks-no-More:
Hollow World with climate differences (a thing which even Pellucidar got right!).

The Hollow World was specifically created and maintained by the Immortals (OD&D "gods") as a nature preserve of sorts for moribund cultures and species. To expect it to slot neatly into climatological models that don't have a Divine Influence component in their equations is folly.

Posted by Shoon:
Best TSR setting: Mystara. Sooo cooler than Forgotten Realms. And no rabid fans.

What, I don't qualify? Granted, I don't walk up to total strangers browsing the D&D section in my FLGS and start blathering on about my wicked cool reformed-Shadowelf character, and how he totally "ownz" with his two-weapon style...

Posted by Psion:
But, pray tell, where did Dracoliches appear before FR?

Hm, didn't the old classic computer RPG, Wizardry I (Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord) have "Dragon Zombies" among its more powerful monsters? Breathed cold-blasts, IIRC. Perhaps they could be counted among the ancestors of the Dracolich. Not completely sure whether this is older than the Realms or not - it's in the right time-frame, mid-'80s or so; I think it is just a tad older. OD&D also had drolems, dragon-bone golems which have recently made it into 3e in the MM2. Not sure whether the OD&D product they first appeared in came out before the Realms either - it's another in that same time frame.

Anyway, hope this helps!