D&D General [+] Tell me about your favorite official D&D setting...

[overgeeked]

I'm a fan of a lot of settings from D&D, but I don't know all of them. And I thought it would be nice to have some positive threads about things we like for a change.

So, keeping in mind this is a plus thread: sell me on your favorite official* D&D setting. Describe what makes it cool to you. What makes it worth reading up on? What make you want to run adventures in that milieu?

(Official here meaning it's something produced by or licensed from the original TSR or Wizards of the Coast.)

 

[Voadam]

Ravenloft Gothic Horror. Emphasis on description and immersive feelings, people experiencing things that are off, growing dread, classic horror monsters fleshed out more than in normal D&D, a mundane baseline that gets twisted and the fantastic and horror elements contrast with the human and nature elements. Lots of investigation to find out what is going on and strong character master villains with stories anchor the setting.

 

[Voadam]

Eberron Post Great War Noir D&D. Well Done diversity of religions. Kingdoms on the edge of a renewed World War with lots of spies and plots ongoing. Paladin nation. Undead soldiers are OK nation. Elemental powered airships and great train systems. Common low level D&D magic. Newly emancipated former soldier warforged. Mercantile specialized dragon mark magic Great Houses. Mystery of the Mournlands tragedy that ended a nation and the last war. Jungle continent of magical giants fallen to barbarism where there are great magical minerals to be exploited. Orc druids. Ancient goblinoid empire history.

 

[Voadam]

Forgotten Realms. Sprawling pantheons with lots of developed god histories and actions. Stygian Sorcerer style Red Wizards of Thay as a magocratic nation of wizards bent on power expansion and exploitation. Diversity of fantasy analogue cultures and kingdoms to use. High magic high fantasy D&D.

 

[jdrakeh]

Pelinore by TSR UK, as it first appeared in Imagine magazine. It's more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay than the typical high fantasy of other official D&D settings. Kind of a down and gritty D&D. I like that. It was later expanded (in an unofficial capacity) in Game Master Publications.

 

[pemerton]

Over the years I've used four official D&D settings: Greyhawk; Kara-Tur (ignoring it's FR connections); the Grand Duchy of Karameikos (especially the fragment of it presented in Night's Dark Terror); and Dark Sun.

The one I come back to most often is GH, most recently as a backdrop for Burning Wheel and Torchbearer. What I like about Greyhawk is that it has everything needed for generic fantasy RPGing: in the middle of the maps there's a "hidden" Elven kingdom (Celene); Dwarves; Orcs (in the Pomarj); pirates and freebooters (the Wild Coast); the Bright Desert, with its nomads carrying secrets of Ancient Suel magic; the woodsfolk of the Gnarley Forest; cities like Hardby and Greyhawk; and the feudal lands of Urnst.

I tend to ignore all the minutiae - it's those broad tropes that are there in the maps and the most basic gazetteer information that do the work I want the setting to do.

 

[Yora]

I want to say Planescape, but while it's undoubtedly an incredible piece of worldbuilding, I found it to actually be pretty poorly done as a campaign setting to set campaigns in.

So I would actually go with Forgotten Realms. Certainly the 1st edition version, and to some extend the 2nd edition material as well. The early material is mostly quite sketchy and a bit bare bones, but I've found that this actually makes it much more useful as a campaign setting. The world is kept vague enough to some degree that it becomes clear that the material is all suggestions for stuff to fully develop on your own, rather than a finished world that has one objective state that GMs should try to get the full picture of to make their campaign set in the same place as everyone's else campaigns.
I think the main issue with it is that it's actually more like 5 complete settings stapled together. The Heartlands would make a complete setting on their own. The Sword Coast would make a complete setting on it's own. The Northeast would make a complete setting on it's own. And great settings. (The Southwest and Southeast are somewhat underdeveloped in contrast.) If released as their own things, I think they would have been even better.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Exandria. While it wasn't created by WotC, there are two official D&D 5e products published by WotC for the setting, so I'm assuming that it is fine to be included in this thread.

As someone that was first introduced to official D&D settings through the Forgotten Realms, I was really on board with the idea of a D&D setting that was similar thematically and in subgenre to Toril, but without decades worth of novels, sourcebooks, adventures, and retcons to overcomplicate the already complicated and huge setting. Exandria, to me, is like the Forgotten Realms, but small enough that it's actually manageable to run a campaign on it (even if you want the adventure to span the whole setting!).

Exandria has way less gods than the Forgotten Realms, enough that all of the major roles are filled but not so much that you can't remember all of them. It has the Divine Gate surrounding the Inner Planes that prevents the gods from interfering directly in the setting, which gives a reason why the Gods don't Deus Ex Machina all the time and solve every problem on Exandria, and is kitchen-sinky enough that the players can play practically any character they want while still having a place in the world.

Oh, and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is hands-down the single best D&D 5e setting book ever. It gives so many different starting quests, adventure hooks for every location mentioned in the Gazetteer, in-depth but not overwhelming lore-dumps, and unique magic items and monsters. It's exactly what I want from a D&D campaign setting book. Oh, and the Heroic Chronicle is awesome, and every D&D setting needs one.

And I say all of this as someone that doesn't watch Critical Role. The setting is legitimately amazing.

 

[cbwjm]

I love the epic fantasy of Dragonlance, the knightly orders, the orders of high sorcery with the effects of the moons. Many races which were new and and the introduction of the draconians as the enemies of the forces of light. It had a lot going for it.

Planescape was perhaps tied with dragonlance for top place. It was weird and wonderful and brought the planes into focus as adventure locations. Best things was that pretty much any things could show up there. You could have a knight of solamnia, a thief of greyhawk, and tiefling descended from something from baator or elsewhere, and a priest of literally any god in the game's history adventuring together. I loved the artwork and the ideas of portals and keys and factions. Definitely a favourite setting.

Although then there's Darksun, a harsh, post-apocalyptic setting where psionics are the main source of power, everyone (and everything) has some psionic powers. This one I never got to play in, maybe I should set my next game there...

 

[billd91]

Greyhawk is still my favorite official D&D setting, particularly when using one of the broader setting publications like the World of Greyhawk boxed set. There's enough detail to inspire the imagination while giving the DM plenty of room to define specifics - meaning everyone's Greyhawk is a bit different. And there's a wealth of adventures already out there, ready for each successive generation of players to take on depending on where they want to go and how you can weave the stories together.