D&D General Great and not so great setting specific sourebooks/modules

[Enrico Poli1]

MODULES
Mystara: B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B10, Eye of Traldar, X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X8, X9, X10, CM1, CM2, CM3
Greyhawk: Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Against the Slavers, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, Lost Caverns of Tsojicanth, Against the Giants, City of Skulls, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Age of Worms
Dragonlance: the adventures replicating the novels.
Forgotten Realms: Tomb of Annihilation, Descent into Avernus.
Dark Sun: Dragon's Crown
Ravenloft: original Ravenloft module, From the Shadows, Roots of Evil

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Pathfinder 1e: (all are APs) Reign of Winter, Kingmaker, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Skulls&Shackles, Strange Aeons
13th Age: Eyes of the Stone Thief

 

[Voadam]

Pirate's Guide to Freeport, a statless huge setting sourcebook for an island city state with strong themes of naval commercial hub, piracy, D&D tropes, focus on urban aspects, and underlying Cthulhu mythos in the shadows. I like the tone, the details, the presentation of the mix of themes, it hits a lot of things right.

 

[Bitbrain]

2e Dark Sun Campaign Setting Expanded and Revised (box set). I first became aware of Dark Sun from PotA’s appendix on adapting the adventure to other settings, and went looking for more. This was the first DS product I found, and while I would later delete it, it still inspired me to look for more.

2e Dark Sun Campaign Setting (box set) & 4e Dark Sun Campaign Setting. After reading the Expanded and Revised, I purchased these two products (2e PDF and 4e hardcover) and loved them both so much that I started building a 5e Dark Sun-inspired campaign right then and there.

I believe that the original 2e Dark Sun box set was the best D&D product ever made.

I could continue on with Dark Sun and similarly flavored sourcebooks (Dark Sun Monstrous Compendiums, the Ravaged Wasteland of Crifoth, B/X Mars, etc). However, that wouldn’t be fair to the other sourcebooks I draw inspiration from.

D&D Basic, Where Chaos Reigns & Twilight Calling. Technically adventure modules (set in Aelos and Mystara respectively), but I think they work better as a campaign resource.
Time traveling cyborgs, a domed city at the end of time, and several unique demiplanes? Heck yeah!

2e Time of Dragons (Taladas sourcebook). A sub-setting of Dragonlance. Great in its own right, and also a precursor of sorts to Eberron.

3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting. The first official setting I discovered on my own. I was so impressed by the world that next session I started telling my old DM about it, without knowing that he had the entire line of 3.5 Eberron products himself.

3.5 Secrets of Xen’Drik. This one was recommended to me by my old DM. I especially enjoyed the adventure sites chapter. The Sulatar are also the only interpretation of the drow that I actually like.

4e Eberron Campaign Guide. The two 3.5 products above made me a fan of Eberron, but this was the one that convinced me to actually run an Eberron campaign. It’s the best official Eberron sourcebook ever produced by WOTC in my opinion.

Monte Cooke Games’ Arcana of the Ancients. I consider this one to be a Numenera sourcebook.
When I’m running an Eberron campaign and the PCs enter the Mournland, this is the book I reach for. It’s got sci-fi items galore and bizarre monsters, all perfect for the Mournland.

Onyx Path’s Blood Sea: the Crimson Abyss. The cover art alone was so awesome, I went and looked into the rest of the Scarred Lands.

Pangolin Press’ City of Salt in Wounds. If ever I actually run a Scarred Lands campaign, I’m sticking this place in as the source of the Blood Sea.

Pathfinder’s Numeria, the Land of Fallen Stars & Iron Gods. What happens when you take Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and create both a campaign region and adventure path based on this classic module.

Seth Tomlinson’s Blades and Blasters. What if UFOs invaded your standard tolkienesque fantasy?

Dragon #315 & #359. I’m currently creating a wide variety of campaign ideas. These two issues have been helpful with the Isle of Dread campaign. I plan to use the Defilers of Ka as one of the enemy factions, and will be including an abandoned temple to Shaktari as a dungeon.

 

[TwiceBorn2]

My favourites:

1) Midnight (FFG): The core book + all of the region sourcebooks for the line (Hammer and Shadow, Honor and Shadow, Destiny and Shadow, Star and Shadow, Under the Shadow, Heart of Shadow, Forge of Shadow, City of Shadow). Still the most evocative sourcebooks I have ever had the pleasure of feasting my eyes on.

2) Greyhawk: The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer and the From the Ashes boxed set (and add to that the Marklands, Iuz the Evil, and Ivid the Undying sourcebooks). Those books brought so much more historical, political and cultural depth to the setting, however controversial. While the strength of the 1983 boxed set was that it provided a sketch of the world for the GM to fill in, the LGG and FtA brought greater cohesion and a distinctive identity to the setting for those who wanted it (I realize that not everybody appreciated the contributions made by those products). In my opinion, only Birthright is on par with the LGG and FtA when it comes to political and historical depth among D&D settings.

3) While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, both the original I6 Ravenloft and the 5E Curse of Strahd stand out as adventures that I really want to run.

4) When I first started gaming in the late '80s, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Scourge of the Slavelords and Queen of Spiders were modules that really fired up my imagination... and while in hindsight all of those products have pretty significant flaws and fall short of epitomizing great adventure design, I still want to run adaptations of them. There's just something about those old classics that keeps calling to me (I could add Against the Cult of the Reptile God to that list, which I had a blast running back in the day).

5) The original Dragonlance modules... don't know if they've stood the test of time, but when they first came out, I really wanted to play the War of the Lance.

Truth be told, I think the original Forgotten Realms boxed set, and the Birthright, Planescape, Ravenloft and Dark Sun boxed sets all really made me want to play or run campaigns in those worlds (the cloth map in the Revised Dark Sun campaign set alone was a huge inspiration). TSR had a knack for creating brilliant boxed sets. I have since lost interest in the Forgotten Realms, but still dream of someday getting to play/GM in the other settings... if only my players and I had more free time.

As for horrible modules...

Greyhawk had some real stinkers:

WG7 Castle Greyhawk, WG9 Gargoyle, WG11 Puppets, WGQ1 Patriots of Ulek... how those pieces of crap ever got published is beyond me. There are other terrible Greyhawk modules, but those arguably are among the worst offenders.

Interestingly, while I've probably played and DMed Pathfinder more than anything else, I can't say that the setting or any of its adventures scream "must play" to me. I think Paizo has tried to shoehorn far too much into Golarion (kitchen sink design) for it to really inspire me. I enjoy playing Pathfinder, but I wouldn't call it amazing.

 

[R_J_K75]

A few 2E Forgotten Realms supplements standout to me as being some of the greatest towards the tail end of 2E from 1997 thru 2000. Seems they really hit their stride, and had a good template down, not to mention they crammed a lot of information into those products. They all were areas I always wanted more information on and wasn't disappointed. I think they did a great job of checking all the boxes so I didn't want more after I was done reading them.

1) Lands of Intrigue
2) Empires of the Shining Sea (and its companion Calimport)
3) Skullport
4) Secrets of the Magister (was just a fun read, never used it)
5) Cult of the Dragon
6) the Sea of Fallen Stars

Another honorable mention was the FR Conspectus that came in every boxed set was great only for the fact we used it so many times to mark off the areas we laid waste to during our campaigns.

I'm sure there are more for other settings like Ravenloft's Carnival was really good, but those are the few that immediately came to mind. I really wish WotC coast would release books like those again but I know its not going to happen.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

2e Time of Dragons (Taladas sourcebook). A sub-setting of Dragonlance. Great in its own right, and also a precursor of sorts to Eberron.

Oooh yeah. Don't really see the Eberron resemblance, but it never really felt like Dragonlance to me... just a great setting in it's own right. Very rugged, "points of light" setting with lots of interesting cultural spins.

Monte Cooke Games’ Arcana of the Ancients. I consider this one to be a Numenera sourcebook.

Recently got this one as well. All kinds of fun stuff for my Midgard campaigns - these can easily become Ankeshelian and Caelmarathian devices, littering the Wasted West and the ocean floor... and plenty of new occupants for my dungeons... ::evil grin::

 

[Bitbrain]

Oooh yeah. Don't really see the Eberron resemblance, but it never really felt like Dragonlance to me... just a great setting in it's own right. Very rugged, "points of light" setting with lots of interesting cultural spins.

Tamire Elves are quite similar to the Tairnadal Elves in attire.

Old Aurim is pretty much Darguun. Hobgoblins even live here, among the ruins of a now destroyed human civilization.

The Scorned Dwarves live underground and are fighting a war against slime-covered aberrations called Disir. The Realm Below was an underground kingdom of dwarves that fell to the Daelkyr, among whose number includes Kyrzin, the prince of slime.

The aereni elves’ face painting traditions are very similar to that of the death gnomes.

Thenol is a bleak and harsh nation that stockpiles and uses undead. Karrnath is both bleak and harsh, and they definitely used undead in the Last War.

 

[aco175]

I liked the 4e Netir Vale stuff, but there was not a grand book that had all the stuff. The first few modules had some stuff on some of the towns and people, while the DMG had one of the towns, Fallcrest, outlined. It was kind of scattered, but came together when assembled- like the Avengers.

 

[Ancalagon]

Yoon-Suin - the best D&D campaign setting I've purchased in 30 years of gaming. And it's on sale for ONE pound!

Noisms Games

noisms-games.squarespace.com

My review: Review of Yoon-Suin - RPGnet d20 RPG Game Index.