Favourite Fantasy Settings

[Turjan]

I will always have a soft spot for the Forgotten Realms, especially the NW and the Wizards of Thay. It feels a bit like coming home.

My favorite commercially available fantasy setting is Glorantha. On one hand, it has some living mythology that feels real. On the other hand, it's completely fantastic. The mountains are dreaming dragons, dwarfs are bio-automatons, elves are vegetables, and so on. The setting's take on trolls is immensely interesting. Or Dragonnewt cities. Or swimming baby Giant cradles. Whether it's Kerofinela or Pavis, the Glorantha has quite a few areas that make for good adventuring grounds.

Well, it was suggested to include homebrews, and I guess those will be many people's favorite settings, although they are "hard sells" to other people, simply because of their inaccessibility. I'll just mention that mine is an amalgamation of many of my favorite aspects from Ultima, Greyhawk, Glorantha, Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure" series, Arcana Unearthed, Dark Sun, FR, and others.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Middle Earth and my homebrews.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

When pressed for inspiration and a good read, I always find myself going back to the heroic tales set in Theils's Gorzom, the Norgolian Empire, Ecordia, et al.

 

[Mercurius]

Favorite RPG Setting(s): Talislanta, Shadow World, and Earthdawn. Talislanta is just brimming with creativity; Shadow World may be the greatest setting that a whole new generation of gamers has never heard of (a classic not considered to be a classic), and Earthdawn is what the 4ed "points of light" default setting should have been. Honorable mention to Shards of the Stone as the "greatest RPG setting that never was."

Favorite D&D Setting(s): I can't say that one stands out above the others, and I really do like all of the big names in various ways, although don't think that any of them are "just right" but rather, "almost right." I suppose my favorites would be Planescape, the Scarred Lands, the Forgotten Realms, and Golarion.

Favorite fantasy novel setting(s): Middle-earth (Tolkien), Earthsea (Le Guin), Malazan world (Erikson), Erna (C.S. Friedman).

Favorite science fiction setting(s): Dune (Frank Herbert), Hyperion universe (Dan Simmons), Requiem for Homo Sapiens universe (David Zindell).

Favorite fantasy setting of all time: The world of my novels-in-process. Sorry, but its true--as a writer I've always thought that the way to go is to write (or create) what I would want to read (or explore). So I build my world with the idea of making it as beautiful and interesting and wondrous to me as I possibly can, but always with the sense that it is something I am discovering rather than creating.

 

[drothgery]

Favorite D&D setting - Eberron. What's not to love about either the 3.5 or 4e incarnation?

Favorite Fantasy setting - The world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Say what you will about his writing, but Jordan was one of the best world builders in fantasy, ever.

Favorite Sci-fi setting - Probably David Weber's Honor Harrington universe. Lots of interesting things happen there.

 

[Stormonu]

Rokugan. I absolutely loved the world that I read in the 1st edition for that game; it made me want to learn as much as I could about oriental culture (unfortunately, Karu-Tur bored me and never caught on like Rokugan did). It struck a chord with me that I haven't quite experienced in any other game setting.

Second place would probably go to Dragonlance - for the setting during the original novel/modules. It's epic storyline, dragons, art and the tie-in novels just did it for me.

One I'd really like to see fleshed out though, is the world of Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords. I really enjoyed those books and would like to see what it would look like as an RPG game world.

 

[Shades of Green]

I like Cyrodill (sp?) from the Elder Scrolls series of computer games, and especially the province of Morrowind. It is extensively detailed with massive amounts of in-game texts explaining its various religions, fantasy elements and long history. Morrowind is IMHO the best part of that setting as it is quite alien and quite unlike the 'standard' D&D assumptions (most monsters, for example, are either insectile or reptilian) and has its own very unique lore.

My favorite sci-fi setting is the one depicted in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy: hard sci-fi, realistic technology, terraformation, the post-human effects of vastly prolonged life expectencies and a ton of varied politics; what's not to like?

 

[Khairn]

Top 5 fantasy settings ...

1- Iron Kingdoms "Full Metal Fantasy" 'nuff said
2- Forgotten Realms (pre 4E) Richly detailed, classic D&D high Fantasy
3- Golarian Everything Paizo has done for this setting has been superb.
4- Harn A setting that even 25+ years after its creation is still the benchmark for medieval themed, detailed and consistent setting. And their maps are still some of the best.
5- Exalted Creation is an amazing setting. Colorful, exciting and different. In an industry where high fantasy settings have very similar elements, Creation is in a class all its own.

 

[wedgeski]

My favourite fantasy setting is Donaldson's The Land. I'm not a huge fan of any of the D&D settings as compared to literary universes in general, but if I was going to play in a known setting, it would be Dragonlance's Krynn.

My favourite setting *of all* is Iain M. Banks Culture universe. Just a wonderful, wonderful vision of a universe where technology is essentially limitless, and the cultural entropy that might occur as a result. I absolutely live for those books.

 

[Jhaelen]

Mythic Europe (the default setting of the Ars Magica rpg) - no other (fantasy) setting even comes close to the richness and variety of a setting that is basically the real world (with a twist).