Please Help Me Select a Campaign Setting

[MoogleEmpMog]

Spelljammer. It's the answer to every setting search.

But, since it's not available for 3.x D&D and doesn't fit any of your criteria, I'll skip it.

I like the current edition of Dragonlance best of the still-supported-TSR-settings crowd. Sovreign Press has done a wonderful job with the line, and the production values are top notch. Dragonlance never seemed all that high-magic to me, or at least it's somewhat rare magic. I recommend the War of the Lance period over Age of Mortals, but that's just me.

Privateer Press's Iron Kingdoms are a gorgeous rareish-magic setting if you're looking for something new and different. There aren't a lot of mages and the culture is fairly low-magic. On the flip side, the CRs of some monsters go up to the 30s, with NPCs to match, so if by high-magic you mean high-level, it would be a bad choice. Award-winning adventure series and all, though you'll be hard-pressed to actually find it (the Witchfire trilogy) in stores until the hardcover is released.

Mongoose's OGL Conan is a wonderful, wonderful book. It's not compatible with core D&D, though.

 

[Vonlok The Bold]

I'll vote for Kalamar as well. I'm happy to see so much fan support for it. This would be good because it does fit all the criteria you mentioned, and there are plenty of adventure hooks in the setting should you decide to create more adventures on your own at a later date when you have more leisure time on your hands.

Nearly every city and every region has some kind of hook to bring in adventurers and plan your own thing. In addition some of the support material offers hooks for future adventures already published or for you to create.

 

[lgburton]

another one for kalamar here

i think the reason that it's often considered a low-magic setting is that the magic has not had a distinctly shaping role in the history of this world. some small parts of tellene are definetly highly influeced (pel brolenon, for instance), but there is no one magic-central part of the world.

personally, i think it's a great campaign setting.

 

[Vascant]

The "high magic" nature of the Realms is more to do with variety than quantity, and while it might turn out to be too high-magic for you as written, I wouldn't take that for granted.

The other "issues" I suggest you consider if and when anyone actually experiences them. In every setting, NPCs appear as and when the DM wants them to.

Of course, the only real deciding factor is which setting you like best after looking at them.

Personally speaking, though I do not run a FR Campaign, I love the setting and own everything printed for it. As I said, it is one of the best support CS's available and thats no small matter. I was merely going over the list of settings I thought would be worth looking at.

As I wrote it and recalling some issues he had and the reason he is looking for a setting, Greyhawk seemed to a good match for a DM with little time.

 

[Faraer]

Sure. Fast Learner should certainly look into the World of Greyhawk.

 

[Testament]

Like Greyhawk or Freeport? Cool, then go down to the FLGS and grab yourself the Player's Guide to Arcanis and the Codex Arcanis. A massive, relatively low magic world inspired by the latter days of the Roman Empire, full of politics and intrigue as well as adventure, that's in desperate need of heroes. You can grab some great city/adventure books in the form of "Bloody Sands of Sicaris", "A Carnival of Swords" and "Nishanpur: The City of Secrets".

All three would make for a fantastic "home base" for your characters and could spark off three very different campaigns, a gladiator/revolutionary/frontier campaign from Sicaris, an urban intrigue campaign from Old Coryan (in Carnival of Swords) or a dark, nasty intense scheming/rebellion game in Nishanpur.

And you can easily get grillions of free adventures for it from the RPGA, following any number of their story-arcs, all detailed at www.onaraonline.org

 

[was]

I'd vote for Greyhawk as well.

 

[Nightfall]

*can't help the fact there's only ONE "set" of adventures* but hey you got your own sage and SL resident right here!

 

[Turjan]

The Wilderlands Box Set is due out in a couple of months and will certainly be worth checking out. Support includes the City-State Hardback, the Player's Guide to the Wilderlands, and the adventure Caverns of Thracia.

Well, White Wolf Quarterly says August 2005, which doesn't sound like 'a couple of months' to me. Has it been postponed? I'm already waiting for this one .

 

[grodog]

I'd suggest Greyhawk.

Seconded!