Best Setting Books?

[Turjan]

As the 'City State of the Invincible Overlord' has already been mentioned, I'd like to add the Wilderlands setting itself. The 'Player's Guide to the Wilderlands' is a nice 128 pg. introduction to the setting and contains a foldout map. If you like to fill out the details yourself, that's all you nee, and CSIO is a wonderful addition. Of course, there's now the boxed set out with lots of maps and two 256 page 'booklets' . Should be enough adventuring for years .

 

[Yair]

Unfortunately, I have been somewhat like a frog in a pond over the 19 plus years that I have been involved with RPG...so this Thread's a real eye opener for me...could someone let me know which of these setting, that have come so highly recommended by those of you who are far more widely exposed than I am, are available to be purchased as PDFs?

C.

Well, I don't really experienced but a little search goes a long way...
Egyptian Adventures: Hamunaptra is available for 24$. BTW, you might also want to check out Eternal Rome, Trojan War, Testament, and The Medieval Player's Handbook - just part of why Green Ronin is the great publisher that it is.

Midnight 2nd Edition is also available, but for the outragous (IMO) price of 49$.

All the 2e products are available (with a few exceptions), but with generally poor quality.

Oathbound is also available for 20$; though perhaps you might want to wait and purchase Wildwood which is their newest release and I *think* should become available in pdf shortly.
Edit: Oops! Wildwood is available through RPGNow. As a general note, purchasing through DriveThruRPG will get you a "watermark", a small text at the bottom of every page with your name. Purchasing through RPGNow wouldn't, so I generally recommend using RPGNow when they both offer the same product, for a little extra privacy, but YMMV (the watermark is kinda cool in its way, like an exlibris).

I don't believe other products (Iron Kingdoms, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Arcanis, Valus, Nyambe, Warhammer, Dragonlance) are available as pdfs. Well, not legally.

I hope that helped

 

[Turjan]

The two I mentioned are available as pdf's:

The Player's Guide to the Wilderlands is available for $11.98.
The City State of the Invincible Overlord sells for $24.49.

The abovementioned Wildwood (Oathbound setting) is already available here for $19.99.

 

[devilbat]

The last system that made me go out and buy all the books was Midnight. Even though my players will never let me run it due to it's dark setting.

I also enjoy Arthaus' version of Ravenloft.

When in doubt, I can always fall back on the Forgotten ( heavily modified and
de-magicked ) Realms.

 

[Akrasia]

As the 'City State of the Invincible Overlord' has already been mentioned, I'd like to add the Wilderlands setting itself. The 'Player's Guide to the Wilderlands' is a nice 128 pg. introduction to the setting and contains a foldout map. If you like to fill out the details yourself, that's all you nee, and CSIO is a wonderful addition. Of course, there's now the boxed set out with lots of maps and two 256 page 'booklets' . Should be enough adventuring for years .

I agree with Turjan that the Judges' Guild stuff is probably the best 'd20/3e' campaign material around. Midnight also sounds very interesting, but I just don't know enough to comment.

My favourite published setting is probably the Warhammer world. I like its combination of 'real-world' parallels, dark Cthulhu-esque atmosphere, and unique take on standard fantasy tropes.

My favourite D&D world (aside from the Wilderlands) is probably Mystara. If you can pick up a copy of Gazetteer 1, "The Grand Duchy of Karameikos", you'll have a very compact and interesting setting (with decent maps). The box-set "Dawn of the Emperors" (also in Mystara, and also by Aaron Alston) is very good as well, and has a huge scope (essentially, it focuses on the rivalry between two empires: a Roman-like empire called Thyatis, and a mage-dominated chaotic empire called Alphatia).

 

[Pants]

Aw, this thread makes me want to go and buy the IK World Guide... but I'm poor

Anyways...
The BEST Setting book I've ever seen, in terms of content and style is the FRCS. It may not be my favorite world, but it's an awesome book.

I, of course, dig Eberron, but it's not for everyone...

 

[Bobitron]

Privateer Press's Iron Kingdoms setting is my favorite that is currently in print. It's really amazing stuff. You really should pick up both the Player's Guide and the World Guide, even though the PG has a good amount of crunch. The World Guide is 99.9% fluff, with only a few mentions of character classes and levels for NPC's and a couple sidebars detailing optional rules. The Player's Guide is probably 50/50, but it has lots of info about the Iron Kingdoms not included in the WG.

If we extend things to include out-of-print, I would add Planescape. Great stuff, and its plane-spanning scope gives you the ultimate in flexibility.

 

[Yair]

The settings I fell for at first reading (and I've read very little) are...

Midnight (I didn't read the 2nd edition but I'm sure it's even better) - an excellent product with a dark mood, with the heroes struggling against the ever encroaching tide of evil. It's a bit too depressing at times, and I didn't like some of the mechanics, but it's definitely in the "go play!" category.

Birthright - it might be old and 2e, but it has some excellent and original ideas in it. The land makes sense and is politically immensly complex wit conflicts built-in, the Shadow plane and its effect is fascinating, and the Anshwalgen (sp?) aka Mythic Monsters are just brilliant. And I'm talking about pure setting here, the dominion-rules that goes with it are an intriguing concept in of itself.

Mythic Europe - Ars Magica so not d20, but a world based on historical medieval Europe and its myths, with all the wealth this brings, plus an amazingly good magic system coupled to a rich political setup for the wizards... golden. I'd actually just read suppluments such as Guardians of the Forest and The Mysteries (the latter not of the new edition, but whatever) for fluff, though. The 5th edition core rules have OK fluff, but are mostly mechanics and it is in these two books that the fluff truly blossoms. Stay AWAY from the 4e core, it's utterly boring.

 

[Cherub]

To Yair, Turjan and Voadam; thanks for getting back to me on my query...will check those sites out once I'm a little more liquid...cheers, fellas!

C.

 

[Kanegrundar]

D20:
Iron Kingdoms
Freedom City
Eberron

Non-D20
Warhammer
Rifts

Kane