D&D General Kingdoms of Kalamar vs Greyhawk? And any good modules?

[Voadam]

How would you compare it to Greyhawk as far as flavor and playability?

I would say it is a bunch like 1e (boxed set) or 3e (LGG) Greyhawk, very grounded, ethnicities and kingdoms are important, has a ton of detailed gods (about fifty in the big gods book), and it takes things like natural geography even more seriously so all the rivers go out to seas from high ground origins for example and they put a lot of work into their maps and their atlas book. Humanocentric but big humanoid and demihuman populations. Greyhawk had tons of Gonzo 70s fantasy stuff particularly in modules, but the setting as presented in the setting sourcebooks had a lot of grounded and detailed fantasy medievalisms with knights and Arab kingdoms and ethnic migration patterns and such.

I was more into Kenzer's Hackmaster stuff at the time, particularly their hacklopedias.

I never really got into Kalamar as a setting, it is just a bit too big and sprawling with a sort of down to earth D&D feel from what I have read of it. I feel it would take a full read through of the core setting book hardcover to get a real handle on it, which I have not done. I feel it would have benefited a lot from a 32 or 64 page gazetteer to initially get a handle on the setting like the first 1e folio or the 3e gazetteer.

I like that it has a hugely detailed out fantasy Africa with advanced civilizations in a giant hardcover sourcebook. The humanoids and demihumans are important and supported with sourcebooks. Hobgoblins in particular with big roman style militarized empires sort of set the standard for that trope and it is fairly core in the setting with big hobgoblin areas.

I did like their 3.5 monster book Dangerous Denizens: Monsters of Tellene a lot. It gives good monsters (a lot of mummies stand out in memory) with fantastic descriptions and world lore.

 

[Voadam]

Thanks, a very nice review. The others are positive as well. I will have to look at this. Is it one of the more celebrated of the bunch? They have quite a few adventures. I'd be looking for something starting at level 1.

I only own Harvest of Darkness and one other Kalamar module but Harvest was the only one I read start to finish.

I was always intrigued by their Coin Trilogy of modules though. That starts off with The Root of All Evil which is for 1st level characters.

They have maybe 10 modules in the 3e Kalamar line.

 

[Desdichado]

Beyond the annoying naming conventions (and, really, are they that bad beyond the few obvious ones?), how is the setting for someone who still plays 3e? How would you compare it to Greyhawk as far as flavor and playability?

A little more grounded, but similar. Naming conventions; I mean, it's not like Greyhawk had great ones either. Verbobonc? Blibdoolpoolp? The Duchy of Geoff?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I always liked the 3e setting. The book read like a textbook, but world felt like a powderkeg just waiting for a spark to set it all aflame. Never did get a chance to do much gaming in it, though.

That's the perfect summation of Kingdoms of Kalamar. When I first read it, my first impression was that nothing was happening. Then I realized that the entire setting was perched on the edge. There was no metaplot at work, just meaty hook after hook, waiting for the PCs to come along and change everything.