Best Setting Books?

[Psion]

It was rough, it got better. Nothing new at the moment for me and RPG's so......just became real quiet for awhile .

Coming on to say hi to my friends and post an occasional insightful post, well at least to say hi!

Good to hear things are going well. Missed seeing you at GenCon this year.

 

[Just_Hal]

Good to hear things are going well. Missed seeing you at GenCon this year.

I posted something about missing GenCon in my LJ, I did not think I would but I missed it also.

Maybe for 06....

 

[der_kluge]

Just_Hal, you can request a name change for your old account. You won't lose your postcount that way.


I'm also totally smitten with the Wilderlands boxed set. It's $70, but it's got an incredible amount of detail, and is just a superb product. I'm not familiar with the old Judge's Guild stuff, but it's just got so much information and detail, it's insane.

I was thinking of coupling it with something like the FR deities books from 2nd ed. for a really detailed, rich pantheon, or maybe looking into Book of the Righteous, and then fleshing it out with certain modules here and there to put dungeons into strategic locations. And then utilizing maybe C&C for the ruleset. It would make a great combination.

 

[Morpheus]

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

Gotta agree with this...I enjoy Eberron, but not everyone does.

 

[Just_Hal]

Gotta agree with this...I enjoy Eberron, but not everyone does.

It was pretty good, but my rollin' wasn't, so that put a damper on play.

 

[Gundark]

As has been mentioned The Iron Kingdoms setting book is ALL fluff. And is quite good.

 

[Gundark]

I've seen Rifts mentioned almost everytime the setting-fluff discussion comes up. .

Just to warn you the crunch for Rifts is REALLY bad....but the setting is kinda cool. Rifts tired to be everything, so there is very little consistency. Every pocket of the world is totally different. Which kinda annoyed me, besides the Palladium crunch that is.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

As has been mentioned The Iron Kingdoms setting book is ALL fluff. And is quite good.

One of the IK setting books is The other's mostly crunch.

I'm a fan of Eberron, too.

 

[Erratic K]

Favorite Setting books ever- semi-chronological order:


Planescape- hmmm.. tough to go with one, but the original box set is available PDF, I'd add dead gods and the infinite staircase for adventure flavor. The original box is great. The artwork is inspired, the text is fitting, and at the time there was nothing like it.

Dark*Matter setting book- The text, hooks and flavor of this book is great. Sure it smacks of Sculley and Mulder, but it mixes up so much more. It is more than the sum of its parts. Well crafted all the way around. I hope this is available pdf somewhere... so good. It is for alternity so it is semi useless for d20 play, but it is such a good book.

Forgotten Realms Campaign setting: 3.0 ed D&D, this book is lush. It is how a setting book should look. Some of the text could be better, but it certainly communicates the feeling. I like it better than the 2E material for it (blasphemy I'm sure).

Here are three good settings that have some problem with their book that keeps them from getting in the top 3:

Feng Shui- great game, great book. Super fun to play, the setting is awesome. Drawback: book is cheap quality, not much color art, some of the line art is weak, no balance (if you have a bunch of tactical rules freaks this is not your game). That said, this setting is great, great to play and very imaginative (setting shared by Shadowfist CCG also a great multiplayer game).

Legend of the Five Rings: setting is rich and nifty. Book is okay, but the game rules are kinda wonky. I think my drawback is the cards from the card game somehow convey the setting better than the book (this is a personal problem heheh).

Eberron: this could get to the top three... I can't really come up with a firm drawback. The drawback right now is it's competion to get into the top 3. It is not as lush as the FRCS, not as innovative as Planescape, not quite better than the sum of the parts like Dark*Matter. Eberron is 2nd place in all of those categories however... so if it were some kind of number based judging rubric, instead of my biased opinion, it would probably be the champ.

-E

 

[Hussar]

Well, I'm going to mention one here that I haven't seen yet.

The Dying Earth RPG. Based on Vance's works, this is a bloody brilliant little game with some excellent concepts. Take a gander at some of their freebies and you'll see what I mean.

(Is sad that he only got to play a few sessions of the game - would love to try it again.)