Looking for: Good Setting Books (any edition, any game)

[Dannyalcatraz]

Quality RPG setting books? Excellent question!

In addition to the many fine suggestions above, I'd recommend:

1) RIFTS: the game has notoriously messy mechanics, but the setting is incredibly creative. It may be worth picking up some of the supplementary stuff as well, like Atlantis, with the same caveats and kudos.

2) Space: 1889: its based on adventures in the style of the writings of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and others. Simply awesome things you can do include big game hunting dinos on Venus or swashbuckling adventures on flying masted ships over the red sands of Mars.

3) Underground: a dark supers game that is one part Blade Runner, one part Mad Max and a dash of Judge Dredd.

4) Deadlands: Gunslinging and Ghosts...need I say more?

5) Godlike: a very nicely detailed supers game set in WW2.

6) Traveller: the D&D of hard sci-fi RPGs

7) Paranoia: equal parts Logan's Run and Joseph Heller's Catch-22, this setting is pure genius.

8) Dream Park: I don't usually recommend this one, but either the RPG or the Larry Niven/Steven Barnes trilogy should be a fine addition. The concept? LARPing is a spectator sport with genuine athletes and an internationally audience. Celebrity Game Masters use actors, holography and robotics for the storyline & special effects.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Park-Larry-Niven/dp/0441167306]Amazon.com: Dream Park (9780441167302): Larry Niven, Steven Barnes: Books[/ame]
Dream Park - R. Talsorian Games - Wayne's World of Books - Info & Sources

9) Second World: A nicely done modern fantasy setting.

10 MechWarrior: roleplaying in the world of Battletech? Yeah!

 

[Hjorimir]

Oddly, as a guy who has played tons of fantasy RPGs and very little in the way of science-fiction RPGs, I find that I'm drawn more the the sci-fi settings. Maybe that boils down to the fact that there seems to be a formula for fantasy settings where the sci-fi settings seem to be more willing to break out in different directions.

At the top of my settings list I absolutely must put Shadowrun. The setting material is so incredibly enjoyable to read it's really hard to describe. One of the key elements is the voice used to describe the setting is often that of the shadowrunners themselves. I've read more Shadowrun supplements cover-to-cover than every other RPG combined.

I've heard great things about Alpha Omega (especially for its production values and art), but I haven't read it yet (I just ordered it, so it should be coming any day now).

So far, Eclipse Phase has been an interesting read. It was just released at Gen Con and I get the feeling that it just may become the new RPG darling if they follow up with more product in a timely manner.

For some reason I never got my hands on Dawning Star (and probably never will now as d20 Modern/Future isn't a game I'm looking to play these days), but what I saw of the setting was beautiful.

As far as fantasy settings go, I personally can't recommend too much (as most of D&D's stuff shoehorns in everything that's come before...bleh).

I loved Planescape, Al'Qadim, and Kara Tur back in the day, all of which broke away from the traditional Eurocentric theme used elsewhere.

I wanted to pick up Midnight at some point, but never got around to it, but it looks like it would be a fun read.

 

[Crothian]

Bluffsuide City on the Edge. Excellent city setting

Palladium Fantasy: Not the greatest game but the supopliments for the world are excellent.

 

[jdrakeh]

You may want to check out Orbis Mundi at RPGNow. It's technically a scholarly examination of our own Medieval Europe for use with RPGs, but I mention it since so few RPGs represent Medieval technology and social conventions accurately while claiming to do so. It's like Medieval Europe for Dummies.

 

[coyote6]

Pirate's Guide to Freeport, from Green Ronin

GR also had Mindshadows, which was a South Asian-flavored setting featuring psionics; Damnation Decade, a setting wherein various '70s movie tropes are true, amongst other things (it's been awhile since I read it, so I'm fuzzy on details); Freedom City, for M&M, their superhero setting; Testament & Imperial Rome (I hope I remembered the name of the last one correctly), semi-historical settings/games from the Mythic Vistas line; Book of the Righteous, which is a book about a pantheon of gods (& advice on creating your own), but which is steeped in setting flavor; and probably others I'm forgetting.

There's also the Warhammer RPG, for the Old World setting -- info in various books, including the core rules, Sigmar's Heirs, and other books whose names escape me.

GURPS Banestorm describes Yrth, the GURPS fantasy world.

GURPS Fantasy II describes the Madlands, Robin Laws' insane fantasy setting. GURPS 3e book.

GURPS Technomancer describes a world where magic is unleashed in the 1940s, with the Trinity atom bomb test -- so it's the modern day, with magic (and magical creatures). GURPS 3e book.

GURPS Transhuman Space is a science fiction setting, set in 2100, that attempts to be fairly "hard" SF -- no aliens, FTL, etc. But plenty of bioroids, ghosts, AIs, and other post-cyberpunk technologies. GURPS 3e series of books, w/4e updates & support.

GURPS Reign of Steel -- also SF; kind of a variation of the Terminator future -- AI awakens, robots go to war with humanity -- except instead of one AI, there are several, and they've divided the world up, and don't necessarily get along. GURPS 3e book.

I think Mongoose also has several books describing Glorantha (for the RuneQuest RPG), in an earlier age (or maybe it's a later age) than HeroQuest's Glorantha.

 

[Bluenose]

For one setting I know well.

Glorantha - you've been recommended Pavis and The Big Rubble already. I'll tell you to buy Cults of Prax, which is both important in that Glorantha is a very 'religious' world and imo well written. Cults of Terror is also worth buying, covering the cults of several chaotic entities, though it's less useful for normal play. Also, get Trollpak. It's still among the best RPG products to discuss a non-human race 20+ years after it came out.

Honestly, there's too many to list from the 2e/3e RQ era. Even if you avoid the adventures (I'm not saying they're bad, just not as full of setting information) I could name a dozen quality products. And then there's the fanzines, Tales of the Reaching Moon, Tradetalk, Book of Drastic Resolutions.

 

[Kafen]

I.C.E. Cyberspace setting was fun for detailing a virtual combat world - Matrix style. Very sci-fi, though...

 

[TheYeti1775]

x2 on Valus the author is a member here, also two of the story hours in my Sig take place in it, as well as the Sins of Our Fathers one here.

Dawnforge - another fun out of print setting from 3.0E days

 

[jdrakeh]

I.C.E. Cyberspace setting was fun for detailing a virtual combat world - Matrix style. Very sci-fi, though...

I actually liked the Cyberspace setting more than that of Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020. I guess it seemed less gonzo and more representative of the genre fiction at the time (with the exception of Death Valley Free Prison).

 

[CaptainChaos]

Pirate's Guide to Freeport is awesome. I used it to run a True20 Campaign for long time.

The Great Pendragon Campaign is also an impressive piece of work.

I also agree that Space: 1889 is cool. Terrible system but neat setting.