Best and Worst Settings?

[jester47]

Well Poop.

I dislike FORGOTTEN REALMS due to the over crowding issues. In my near sighted opinion, Forgotten Realms needs a good old dose of plague then a huge war then the gods need to do a REAL throw down, then some more bad stuff could happen like a flight of dragons then wait about 500 years and then come back to play.

I'm not picking on you Katerek, but your post made me realize somthing. Alomost everyone has a different view of forgotten realms. And I think that would indicate that everyone has a different view of any campaign setting.

And how could we not? It all depends on what the DM has brought to the table. In this respect I think that campaign settings might be like Modules. How good they are depends on the talent and creativity of the people running them. I could Elmunchkin Scarred Lands about as easily as I could the realms. All you need is a wizard who is powerful.

I think bad expereinces lead to bad perceptions of the gameworld. Cause I am pretty sure that no matter what the campaign setting is, wheather its Greyhawk, FR, Kalamar, Scared Lands, Ravenloft or whatever, the source material is not bad.

So with that in mind I have started this thread

Hope to see you over there.

Aaron.

 

[The Cardinal]

my favorite settings are always my homebrews - but if you're asking for mass-market stuff...


non-licensed:

>BEST

- GURPS Madness Dossier (from GURPS Horror 3e): cool enough to be superconducting!

- GURPS Cabal: the WoD done right (plus a great magic system)

- Transhuman Space

- Blue Planet

- Scarred Lands

- Known World / Mystara

- GURPS Reign of Steel

- the setting implied in GURPS Illuminati & Warehouse 23

- Nexus


>WORST

- Dragonlance

- Forgotten Realms

- Das Schwarze Auge (a german game)

- TORG

- Rifts



licensed:


> BEST

- GURPS Uplift

- GURPS New Sun

- GURPS War against the Chtorr

- GURPS Conan

- Hellboy



> WORST

- Species

 

[skar111]

Very hard to answer that question.

Fantasy: i would say Warhammer FRP. It might be a bit too dark for some ppl but i think its very playable (rules based on 3rd edition WHFB) and the supplements manage to creat a very dense atmosphere (also very affordable, one rulebook and you are set, including world description and if you get the enemy within campaign u dont need anything else for a year)

Science Fiction: i must admit i dont know that many systems there but i would say Fading Suns (original) cause, though again prety dark in atmosphere captures the low tech SF style very well (always preferred low tech over those shiny high tech thingies of Traveler)

Near Future: i would def say shadowrun. not too far away from real world and offering wide varietys of campaigns (for all ppl who are complaining that the magic doent fit into the near future...leave it out we had a lot of fun with no magic round in that world)

Odd ones in between (those settings that break the barrier of normal definiton): Def Planescape for me. but as many ppl have said before its love it/hate it (though i didnt like it at first either, so for all ppl out there sayin no to it, try it, u need an open mind but maybe itll grip you after all)

Now Time: again hard to define area including from Twilight 2000 to vampire. i would go for Call of Cthulhu there. but again if you dont go for lovecraft or horror in general that wont be it for you. Vampire is not bad but in my opp very dependant on the round u play with.


honerable mention: Harnmaster. not too many ppl ever took the time to fight through the rules (which are a pain i agree but who of us didnt want to build a nose armor) but if you take the time to explore the setting you will geta very well balanced medieval world.

worst: mmmh i would agree with an earlier post that Das Schwarze Auge is very high on that list. i am also not really a friend of Wraith (think its pretty unplayable though i like the great war book).
ok hope u survived that novell and see ya around

 

[Voneth]

TSR:
I wouldn't know. Only one DM ran Spelljammer, (which was okay), everyone else did homebrews, with about 30 pages of home rules to boot. I think that's what some DMs liked about their "backyard" games, only they truely understood what was ever going on.

I would have liked to play Dark Sun. After looking over AD&D rules, I decided not to run the game.

WotC: Not a setting per se, but Oriental Adventures is fairly complete on giving you buidling blocks ... and stuff you can use in a Western game if you shave off the serial numbers.

d20 Setting:
Farscape and Spycraft are cool for completely different reasons. Spycraft is the "modern dungeon." Everyone knows the expectaions of the group and what is to be expected of them and they get cool abilities to show off as well. Farscape is very cool in that you can do almost anything from an MM critter of the week to soap opera. The rules for d20 Farscape are okay, but quirky. I am having better luck using Mutants and Mastermind rules with the setting.

non d20 Setting:
Ahhh, the source of my grief for almost 15 years. Lots of good settings and no one wanted to play because it didn't have a TSR stamp on it. Lets see .... Castle Falkenstein, Mage, Trinity, Adventure (White Wolf), Everyway (rules had promise, but the setting lacked), Rifts (Setting had promise, but the rules lacked), Earthdawn, Pendragon, Star Wars, and Torg (Setting had promise, but the rules were a tad too detailed for the feel of the world), and Deadlands.

 

[Nightfall]

Re: Thanks for the plug Nightfall but...

Pleas note, the adventure is called Enigma of the Arcanexus. And yes, it's a great adventure. I should know, I helped co-write it with Tony Bounds and Darrin Drader.

The print version has shipped to the distributor, which Tony already announced on another thread. Thus, it's out there now so get yourself a copy and have fun.

Thanks Rob! I'll be sure to do that. Hell I might even just put up a webpage that says "BUY ENIGMA of the Arcanexus." (Sorry Riddle-Riddler-Enigma. You know it happens! )

But I do hope that Veil of Malice will be available soon. Could use the second part you know...*hint*

 

[Psion]

I'm primarily a homebrewer for various reasons. But I'll assume you are just talking about published settigs

Best WotC Property

Planescape. I'll be frank - I hated the art until rk post showed up, and I wasn't too fond of putting the cant in GM only text. But the setting itself is awesome. Most settings make me feel crowed in. But the Planescape setting, OTOH, can take you anywhere... to the oddest places you can imagine. Its the richest fantasy experience out there IMO. The source material was also great, and provides a menagarie of interesting adventure ideas and makes more of the alignment rich D&D setting than "good guys vs. bad guys."

On top of that, Dead Gods and Tales of the Infinite Staircase are two of the best adventures out there.



I'm not going to use the word worst. Doubtless the worst setting died in obscurity.

However:

Most Disappointing Setting

Forgotten Realms. Forgotten Realms is like a prodigal son. So full of promise, but yet you are so disappointed with the things that he has done.

FR has some great fantasy ideas, like Dracoliches, Undermountain, and so forth.

But first, TSR started tacking every possible thing onto the setting until it started to lose its own identity as well as contaminate whatever was tacked on. This trend started with Kara Tur and the nonhuman deities. Now, you can't even find any nonhuman deities other than the main ones in the core setting - by canon, they don't exist. But they exist in the realms.

Finally, Edminster is a mary sue character and needs to go.

Most Aggravating Setting

Greyhawk. Not for the setting itself, which is a nice gritty fantasy setting which was the very basis of many D&D tropes.

Rather, for all the purists. I don't think I could run a game in GH and dare speak of it, lest the purity brigade analyze me for compliance with canon.



I think I'll duck trying to categorize a best d20 setting. For best SF setting, I'll plug Traveller.

 

[dpdx]

DnD, Best: For me, Greyhawk, because it's built for adventure. When you drop your campaign into Greyhawk, no matter where, it usually fits, because there's always a war, or intrigue, or an evil cult the next spot over that needs wiping out. Liberators of Tenh, for example, is based in Greyhawk, and not only has that campaign (as written up in the excellent Story Hour) never lacked for a premise, but there's still enough room to fold just about any other group into the story.

DnD, Worst: Living Greyhawk. Possibly the only thing they could have done to ruin such a setting was to cut it into tiny pieces and assign each of them to a specific geographical group of RPGA gamers. But then they put people "in charge" of those sections who don't seem to live anywhere near you, or have been elected by anyone else, except at some con you couldn't go to or didn't hear about, and they set even more restrictions (beyond the ones the RPGA sets about where in Greyhawk you play). Not much fun, even if you don't have an imagination.

Most anticipated setting: SWRPG. That's a huge universe, and half the planet loves Star Wars. I'll bet it rocks when they release some content for it. Close second: Nyambe, but only because I saw it at the FLGS, and came this >< close to picking it up. RPG, set in African Culture. I'm fascinated.

 

[Mercule]

FR has some great fantasy ideas, like Dracoliches, Undermountain, and so forth.

Much of what is now considered "special" in the Realms didn't originate there. This is one thing that is frustrating to me.

Four things I can list off the top o' my head that originated somewhere else: 1) Dracoliches existed before FR was published; 2) Shades did, too (although I think the 3E/FR version is modified); 3) Drow, too; 4) Shadow Dragons were created in 2E and were only found on Greyhawk (officially, DMs are always free to deviate). Now they exist in FR, but not Greyhawk.

Rather, for all the purists. I don't think I could run a game in GH and dare speak of it, lest the purity brigade analyze me for compliance with canon.

I suppose I could be considered a purist at times. It's not that there is "one true way" to put Greyhawk together. It's that it had something of a feel to it. That feel has been beaten around quite a bit since "From the Ashes". Those of us who have been playing in Greyhawk since 1E still think of it in those terms.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Best D&D setting/preferred edition - Greyhawk/1983 Boxed Set
This setting drips with history and D&D lore. I like the proximity of the kingdoms and the politics that goes on. I enjoy the personalities like Mordenkainen in that they are big shooters but are not Elminsters. They do not define most of the "world shattering" events in the setting. I like the 1983 set becuase it's lacking the "big shake up" that seems to be done to every setting. I don't really like the Greyhawk Wars or how later authors put evil in the drivers seat and threw demons everywhere. This isn't WHFRP. But there is good stuff in every edition of the setting. It's very easy to have the PC's be the main heros of the setting w/o worrying about the 935 Epic NPC's that are all over the place.

Worst - Forgotten Realms 2e/3e* I'm just plain tired of the Forgotten Realms. Too many megaplots and actions of the UBER-Npc's seem to decide what happens in the setting. Don't like the novels or the setting books. The 3e book is nicely put together however.

*1e FR is totally different at least out of the boxed set.

 

[Outlaw]

The reason I've pledged my allegience to Kingdoms of Kalamar is because it's the only setting that's outdone my homebrew. I was very proud of that thing and I, from time to time, used other published campaigns to add a bit of flavor. But when I got Kalamar, all the things that I felt were wrong but couldn't figure out how to fix had been fixed. The setting, to me, is phenomenal.

I played Forgotten Realms all through 2e adn near the end became disappointed. So disappointed in fact that I didn't look at any other settings until 3e (with the exception of birthright which had a good premise, but used too many things I didn't like). As a player in the Realms, I'd talk after sessions with the DM telling me all the lofty aspirations I had for my character. "I want to do this, I want to do that!" He'd always reply, "Too late, so and so already did that." Fame and great deeds had already been achieved in every facet and nothing I tried to accomplish was ever original or able to surpass someone like Elminster (how can you outdo someone who is shagging a god?).

That broke my spirit on that world and 3e FR is absolutely revolting.