Best and Worst Settings?

[Broken Fang]

D&D-wise - Best Setting = Birthright

Worst Setting = Forgotten Realms

Best Setting Overall = Warhammer Fantasy

 

[Buttercup]

Setting I love: Kingdoms of Kalamar.

Settings I mine for ideas but would never play in: Forgotten Realms, Sovereign Stone.

Settings I own but haven't played in yet, but want to: Scarred Lands, Nyambe, Rokugan.

Settings that I don't like: Greyhawk, Planescape, Dragonlance.

 

[Nightfall]

Well glad to see there are good number of people that like the Scarred Lands. Hope this means you'll check out the now free downloadable S&SS Quarterly/Insider, available now at www.swordsorcery.com

Try it, you'll like it.


Btw thanks fellas for making me feel like I'm doing a good job...what ever that is.

 

[shadow]

Well the "runners up" awards for best and worst setting in my opinion are:

"Runners up for best setting": Kingdoms of Kalamar. Although others have found the world to be dry, I love the detail given to the world. While not completely "realistic" (is "realistic fantasy" an oxymoron?) it was certainly believable. I loved the detail that went into the languages and the naming conventions. It's a nice change of pace to see a setting that's not full of "Throg the barbarians" or equally silly character names

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

"Runner up for worst setting": Without a doubt Kara-Tur! I've always been a fan of Asian culture and kung-fu/anime movies. Boy was I dissapointed with Kara-Tur. The setting simply seemed like a rehashing of real world Asian history. The books were extremely dry to read, and it seemed at times like entire passages were copied out of textbooks of Asian history. Moreover I found many concepts of the setting silly, such as the two "Japans" (Wa and Kozakura, representing two diferent periods of Japanese history) as well as the Shou "alphabet" (actually the roman alphabet written in a psuedo-oriental font). At least Rokugan has original ideas!

 

[tleilaxu]

WORST: DRAGONLANCE

 

[CRGreathouse]

I'm not sure what the best setting is. I prefer to run homebrew games, based vaguely on the PH skeleton of Greyhawk -- I use some of their gods, for example.

I think that the Hunt: Rise of Evil is one of the most creative settings I've seen recently.

The worst setting, though, is an easier pick: Dragonlance.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Well glad to see there are good number of people that like the Scarred Lands. Hope this means you'll check out the now free downloadable S&SS Quarterly/Insider, available now at www.swordsorcery.com

Try it, you'll like it.


Btw thanks fellas for making me feel like I'm doing a good job...what ever that is.

hey Nightfall, how come I never read you writing about Dark Portal Games, but they are prominant in your sig? Did you catch my slam about that in my Suessian tribute BTW ?

Also: thanks for the link to the S&SS newsletter.

ALL: Don't be confused by the Table of Contents that has no d20 stuff. The d20 focus starts on page 36 with a seperate Table of Contents - looks like it may have been originally designed to be 2 documents but they stuck them together.

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Oh yeah - my favorite D&D setting of all time: PLANESCAPE. Sigil is possibly the most detailed city that TSR/WOTC has ever put out. You don't have to speak cant if you don't want to either - you can just be "clueless" Demons & Devils & other planar creatures really came alive with personalities and motivations beyond "another cool monster to slay". Hurry up you 3E people ( Ashy get to work bro! ).

Least favorite would have to be JAKANDOR ISLE OF WAR! - it seemd really uninspired to me, and the art didn't help much. I never really liked Ravenloft either, but I never got the feel for that whole "goth" thing, and I HATE undead. No - really. I hate them. Yeppers.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Best D&D Settings: Planescape and Dark Sun. Plenty complex, rich, and detailed. It could support low-level adventurers as well as high-level power players. Both settings had plenty of room for introducing new elements, and Planescape was practically Mulligan Stew, if you wanted it to be.

My first Planescape game had a Mythic Era Klingon in it, scale mail and bat'telh included. He did not in the least seem out of place.

Worst D&D Settings: Birthright and Dragonlance. Birthright seemed to focus too much on bloodlines and weird powers from your ancestors, and power-politics should be a game for high-level D&D characters, not your fresh-out-of-the-box first level characters.

Dragonlance just doesn't allow you to do anything. For plot there is the War of the Lance or... nothing. And if you choose the War of the Lance, you can either replace the Heroes of the Lance or you can... nothing. The books were great fantasy fiction, but there is absolutely no reason to play this game.

Best non-D&D settings: Gamma World and Shadowrun. Oh, and Deadlands.

Worst non-D&D settings: Luckily, I've never played a non-D&D game that sucked.

 

[hong]

I've never been a great fan of Planescape, but a setting that could produce something like Torment can't be all bad.

 

[Chauzu]

Best: Forgotten Realms and Rokugan, with Mystara close behind.

Worst: Greyhawk is the worst I can think of right now.