Best Setting Books?

[MonsterMash]

Personal favourites:
Wilderlands of High Fantasy - just waiting for the boxed set now (Players Guide to the Wilderlands and City State of the Invincible Overlord are great)

The setting information in the Grey Citadel is good and would be nice to expand upon

D20 version of Blackmoor

non D&D stuff:
Glorantha
Alpha Complex (Paranoia)

 

[tjoneslo]

Well, since everyone else is doing this, I ought to put forth my favorite settings.

Traveller: I'm a huge fan of the Traveller universe and have been since the Classic Traveller days. Suggesting a Setting book for Traveller is difficult since the authors don't do setting books the same way as D&D authors do. GURPS Traveller 2nd edition and the T20 Gateway to Destiny are probably the best books out there in terms of more fluffy setting material .

Changeling: The Dreaming. Yes, White Wolf's World Of Darkness. It really helps when you have a GM and a bunch of players who grok the setting. Our game was a combination of high fantasy, high action and high weirdness. If you ignore the happy dancing bear art, the text of the setting comes across much better.

 

[Voadam]

I've seen Rifts mentioned almost everytime the setting-fluff discussion comes up. Unfortuantly Rifts now encompasses 50+ books at $15 each and no PDF versions. So all you people who like Rifts, please recommend one to three of the books (beyond the core book) which are the best of the setting, iconic of the ability of the setting to inspire.

I own three, Rifts core book, (the basics and sets the stage with neat ley line wizards, variety of psionics, lots of varied techwarrior classes, and alien/demon things) Atlantis (aberration style powerful creatures, tattoo magic, rune weapons, bio graft tech), and Africa (necromancy and four horsemen of the apocalypse incarnations).

I was considering getting England for the herb magic stuff and Rifts Magic for all the magic collected in one book, but haven't done so yet for either.

My tastes run to the supernatural, not the techie/mech side so take that into consideration.

 

[Wraith Form]

2e Planescape
2e Dark Sun
2e Planescape
2e Forgotten Realms
2e Planescape

How could you forget.....(wait for it)..........Planescape?

 

[lgburton]

i'm throwing in another suggestion for Kingdoms of Kalamar. it has a really nice sourcebook without all that much crunch, but loads of interesting places for adventures.

 

[tetsujin28]

All the best settings seem to be dark, gritty horror settings. Anyone want to recommend a 3rd edition setting that isn't dark and depressing.

Eberron.

 

[tetsujin28]

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

Yet strangely, the fluff in the crunch book is a lot more useful than that in the fluff book.

 

[froggie]

Grey Citadel

Ok....I have a preference for Wilderlands....but Monster Mash....just for you. A new greatly expanded Eamondale is one the way in late 2006

 

[Pants]

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).

I dunno about that...
A lot of people seem to really, really hate the 2e stuff. At the very least is sparks a lot of strong emotions in people (usually negative ones), but that's just what I've witnessed online.

 

[catsclaw227]

Ok....I have a preference for Wilderlands....but Monster Mash....just for you. A new greatly expanded Eamondale is one the way in late 2006

Very nice!!!

What do we have to look forward to, Froggie?