Kanegrundar
Explorer
I voted for: Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Planescape, Dark Sun, Red Steel, Mystara, and Spelljammer.
Forgotten Realms is one that I've picked up all but 3 books for out of the 3.0/.5 editions. I never really liked the Realms in 2E, but I like it quite a bit now. Not that I play (or will ever) in the Realms, but I mine the heck out of it for my own games.
Eberron: I love it. From the second that I opened the book, I fell head over heels for the setting. While it's more "magicky" than I was really wanting, I'm still very pleased with it. I'll continue buying soucrebooks for it as long as they're put out.
Planescape: I can pretty much run a game with the feel of PS with the Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook. If they put out a few books dealing on a specific plane or a group of planes, that would be all that I'd need to easily run it.
Dark Sun: I wasn't really a fan of the Dragon conversion. I didn't mind there being Paladins in DS. My beef was with the total lack of that Dark Sun feel. That said, I really like the work the folks at www.athas.org have done in bringing DS back to life.
Red Steel: Say what you want about Red Steel, I liked it. It was actually the last 2E campaign I played in that I actually had fun with. It was weird. Kind of like D&D meets Gamma World with all the legacy afflictions. Plus they had some pretty cool and classic monsters for the setting like Tortles, Lupins, Rakastas, and Enduks. I loved it and would gladly plunk down the money for a Red Steel book. (I wish I had time to convert all the material over to 3.5, but alas, such is life...)
Mystara: Other than my foray into Red Steel, I never played in Mystara proper. I did love the 2E Monstrous Compendium they put out for the setting. It was one of my favorite monster books put out by TSR. I hope that future monster books from WotC ressurect more of the Mystara/Red Steel critters.
Spelljammer: This was "wahoo" D&D at it's finest. I loved the setting, the races, the monsters, everything about it. I missed the conversion of it in Dungeon/Poly (what issue was that?). There is a group tyring to convert it over to 3E, but the last I looked (it's been a while) it seemed like work had stopped on it...or at least slowed to a trickle.
The other classic settings that I've picked up the "official" conversions for are Dragonlance and Ravenloft. Dragonlance was much maligned in 2E, and while it's better now it just doesn't grab me as a setting. It's simply too vanilla for my tastes. I will mine a few races and monsters for my homebrews, however.
Ravenloft was one of my favorite settings in 2E. (Right up until the whole mess with Darkon and the Necropolis and killing off Van Richten.) I picked up the new edition, read it, and traded it in. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore. There isn't even anything that I want to mine from it that I can't get someplace else.
Other settings that I can't get enough of are: Iron Kingdoms and OA.
Iron Kingdoms is simply the best setting I've read in a long time (including Eberron). Only the Character Guide is out so far, but even it is so crammed with so much fluff and crunch goodness, that I know I'll want to run it as is once the Campaign Guide comes out this winter.
OA/Rokugan: This is a setting that I missed out on in 2E (I know it wasn't Rokugan then), but I'm happy with now. I don't pick up much of the sourcebooks, but what I do have is so full of flavor that other settings like Dragonlance should take a look at to see how it's done. I mine just about everything from this line for use in my homebrew settings.
There you go. My .02.
Kane
Forgotten Realms is one that I've picked up all but 3 books for out of the 3.0/.5 editions. I never really liked the Realms in 2E, but I like it quite a bit now. Not that I play (or will ever) in the Realms, but I mine the heck out of it for my own games.
Eberron: I love it. From the second that I opened the book, I fell head over heels for the setting. While it's more "magicky" than I was really wanting, I'm still very pleased with it. I'll continue buying soucrebooks for it as long as they're put out.
Planescape: I can pretty much run a game with the feel of PS with the Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook. If they put out a few books dealing on a specific plane or a group of planes, that would be all that I'd need to easily run it.
Dark Sun: I wasn't really a fan of the Dragon conversion. I didn't mind there being Paladins in DS. My beef was with the total lack of that Dark Sun feel. That said, I really like the work the folks at www.athas.org have done in bringing DS back to life.
Red Steel: Say what you want about Red Steel, I liked it. It was actually the last 2E campaign I played in that I actually had fun with. It was weird. Kind of like D&D meets Gamma World with all the legacy afflictions. Plus they had some pretty cool and classic monsters for the setting like Tortles, Lupins, Rakastas, and Enduks. I loved it and would gladly plunk down the money for a Red Steel book. (I wish I had time to convert all the material over to 3.5, but alas, such is life...)
Mystara: Other than my foray into Red Steel, I never played in Mystara proper. I did love the 2E Monstrous Compendium they put out for the setting. It was one of my favorite monster books put out by TSR. I hope that future monster books from WotC ressurect more of the Mystara/Red Steel critters.
Spelljammer: This was "wahoo" D&D at it's finest. I loved the setting, the races, the monsters, everything about it. I missed the conversion of it in Dungeon/Poly (what issue was that?). There is a group tyring to convert it over to 3E, but the last I looked (it's been a while) it seemed like work had stopped on it...or at least slowed to a trickle.
The other classic settings that I've picked up the "official" conversions for are Dragonlance and Ravenloft. Dragonlance was much maligned in 2E, and while it's better now it just doesn't grab me as a setting. It's simply too vanilla for my tastes. I will mine a few races and monsters for my homebrews, however.
Ravenloft was one of my favorite settings in 2E. (Right up until the whole mess with Darkon and the Necropolis and killing off Van Richten.) I picked up the new edition, read it, and traded it in. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore. There isn't even anything that I want to mine from it that I can't get someplace else.
Other settings that I can't get enough of are: Iron Kingdoms and OA.
Iron Kingdoms is simply the best setting I've read in a long time (including Eberron). Only the Character Guide is out so far, but even it is so crammed with so much fluff and crunch goodness, that I know I'll want to run it as is once the Campaign Guide comes out this winter.
OA/Rokugan: This is a setting that I missed out on in 2E (I know it wasn't Rokugan then), but I'm happy with now. I don't pick up much of the sourcebooks, but what I do have is so full of flavor that other settings like Dragonlance should take a look at to see how it's done. I mine just about everything from this line for use in my homebrew settings.
There you go. My .02.
Kane
)
