Best and Worst Settings?

[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? I would post a poll, but there are so many settings out their that it would be impossible.

As for me:

Best: Dark Sun-It was similar yet vastly different. Familiar races that had been hardened by a harsh life in the deserts of Athas: Xenophobic elves, barbarian halflings, etc. The concept of magic was totally different without having to learn a whole new set of rules. Magic was powerful (the sorcerer kings were almost demi-gods, having the power to grant spells) but came at a price of defiling the land around you. The pervasive psionics gave the setting an unique flavor. The world itself had some fantastic places like the sea of silt: a dried ocean of dust that stretched for miles.

Worst: Planescape (please don't flame me for it!) This is one of those settings that you either loved or hated. I just couldn't get into it. The setting was certainly different, but it was a bit too surreal and philosophical for my tastes. I never really understood the idea of the factions, nor really liked the street slang that was used pervasively throughout the books. As I said, some people really loved it, but it was too far out for my tastes.

 

[Gez]

Havn't tried much. Only the Realms and two homebrews (plus my own homebrew I sometimes DM). But I'm always interested in settings (mainly to pilfer ideas) so I've read everything I could (mainly free stuff on the net).

Best would be... I'm not sure. Planescape has some appeal IMO, I quite like the Scarred Lands, and have found out that Mystara was full of interesting stuff.

Worst would be DragonLance. Three words: Gully, Kender, Tinker.

 

[DanMcS]

Best is a tossup between Birthright and DarkMatter for me, and it depends what genre I'm wanting to play at the time. Right now I'm in a steady d20 modern game, so of course I want to play Birthright Birthright was vast and detailed and had politics as an essential part of the game, and I love it down to the little quirks in the domain rules that you have to ponder. DarkMatter was just fun, aliens and monsters and conspiracy theories.

Worst? Eh, there are a lot I've never played. I can say that FR never grew on me. Don't know why. My brother liked it and ran a good game there.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Best and worst to play in, best and worst concepts, or best and worst to read about?

Best setting to play in: Any homebrew setting.. Homebrew settings are undefined, maleable, tailored to the players and DM.
Worst setting to play in: Planescape. It's so dense and unusual, chances are that only half your group will be able to get into it.

Best concept: Dark Sun. A low magic, brutal world should be the perfect setting for heroism and drama. The Sea of Silt is very cool, as is the concept of a world abandoned by even the gods. Feral halflings, gypsy elves with alien customs, thri-kreen as PCs, defiler magic... this setting is loaded with cool and unusual concepts. Planescape is a very close second.
Worst concept: Forgotten Realms. As a fiction setting it's not bad, but as a game setting it's terrible. When I play in the FR I feel like an intruder into a world already conquered. FR already has heroes; what's my character to do? The only setting worse (to play in) than FR is Middle Earth.

Best setting to read about: Tie between Dark Sun and Planescape. I loved the complexity and mystery of these settings.
Worst setting to read about: Greyhawk. The background info is vague and not all that interesting, the geography/geology is so unrealistic as to be distracting, and as a whole it's just... boring and generic.

-z

 

[Shadowkiller]

Best/Worst

Best Setting: Planescape - Definately is a "love it" or "hate it" setting. I loved it. The philosophical bend on the game. The massive scope of the setting (the entire multiverse). Alignment conflicts, planer races (devils, demons, angels, etc.) Also had some of the best written and illustrated sourcebooks that have ever been published (Cook & Ditrizzelli).

Worst Setting: Forgotten Realms - The realms always struck me as playing is someone elses homebrewed campaign. Everything was always limitted by what other epic characters had already done or where doing.


-Shadowkiller

 

[Zappo]

Best one for expert players: Planescape. Deep roleplaying and de-emphasis on combat and character power. The only D&D setting that matches WW's World of Darkness on those fields. For advanced players only, though.

Worst one for expert players: Dragonlance. A rigid plotline prevents the players from doing anything significant, and if you ignore the plotline then you find yourself in a severely underdetailed world, mostly made of simple archetypes.

For new players, the matter changes. The best one is a standard tolkienlike, or something that can be easily reduced to a standard tolkienlike and later increased in complexity: Dragonlance, Greyhawk, FR. Which is also the reason for which these three are the best-sellers (people start with them, and then have too much inertia to change). The worst one is Planescape. It is exceedingly complex, and the bits that expert players enjoy are exactly the bits that newbies don't understand or don't like. Bad ones are also the "tough" ones like Dark Sun and Ravenloft.

If homebrew is a valid choice, then homebrew is the best for new players. You can adapt it as you find what the players like more.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Best Setting: Eh, my favorite setting was Zakhara. Cool new races, great style, best mixing of fantastic, historical, and historically fantastic elements. A setting that managed to make the world fairly positive and progressive while still chock full o' adventure. Followed closesly by Oathbound which has the best meta-plot I ever did see and gives me the opportunity to actually use every single one of the d20 books I've purchased at once.

Worst Setting: Dragonlance did grate at times. But the worst was likely that game with the superheroes that came out before the new 3e rules had.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Best D20 Setting: The Scarred Lands. It is a very atmospheric campaign in which everything connects.

Best Setting: Earthdawn. Very, very intense. Like the scarred lands it offered a lot of diversity combined by a common theme. On top of that, there was a very, very intriguing metaplot to it.

Worst Setting: Das Schwarze Auge. A German campaign/system that makes me wish Eric's grandma wouldn't check on this place. Imagine every RPG and Fantasy clichee you can think off wrapped up in one setting. Then you get Das Schwarze Auge...

 

[Nightfall]

There are a LOT of great settings out there...and then there are mediocore ones. So far I can't really think of a worst one. Just ones I didn't have fun in.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Hmmm. A bit subjective.

My favorite non-homebrew: Galantri from the oD&D "known world". It covered a full campaign starting your characters as lowly apprentices and having a nice transition to adventurers, nobles, archwizards, and ending with divine ascension. Nice.

What I thought was poor: Diomin. Some nice artwork, the first Shaman core class ... and there my nice comments end. The back said "no elves" but all the races had long lives, great power, and hot women. The introductory adventure had a Ogre demanding money from the party with no suggestions on how to roleplay the encounter (how the players were supposed to live through that is beyond me, the encounter pops up out of nowhere and the just-made-1st level PCs have to contend with a beast that could insta-kill a max hit point barbarian on a minimum damage roll). The entire book was WRITTEN IN LARGE FONT WITH HUGE MARGINS . I could go on. Seriously. There's a lot of not-good stuff in that setting.

Favorite read: Planescape. I never got to game in it though. But I can see where the factions could encorage party squabbles, especially with the factol wars.