settings I like
Here are setting books I like for d20.
Greyhawk. I found the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer and Greyhawk The Adventure Begins for 2e more helpful than the 3.0 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
DragonStar. I think it's a great concept. Very portable to d20 D&D but presents a great high-tech & space campaign. I bought the books before the Essential DragonStar Collection became available, but I bought 2 copies of the Starfarer's Handbook (it's the best one I think--but I stopped after Imperial Supply). The Essential Collection is definitely a bargain.
Judge Dredd. I found this another great variant D&D d20 game. I was not into JD at all before getting this game. I had seen the movie and borrowed about a dozen comics from friends. I have all the books for JD d20 now. It's got about 5 printed stand-alone adventures.
Omega World. This is a mini-game from the Polyhedron side of Dungeon magazine issue #94. It really captures the essence of the classic RPG Gamma World (for me). It is very concise, too. It does in about 40 pages what many games struggle to do in 200-300 pages. I ran ti with campaign setting information and adventures from the Alternity Gamma World book, which I also recommend even though it's not d20.
Mesopotamia. It's a great module AND a great campaign setting. Another concise product, which I love. And I probably won't use any of the new prestige classes, feats, magic system, spells, etc. It just presents a very cool mini-campaign option for all-human adventurers in the bronze age of a near-east-like setting. Very cool.
Horizons. Redline, Grimm, Virtual, Spellslinger and Mechamorphosis. This whole line is fun to read. Each is a concise treatment of a different genre. I ran a Spellslinger mini-campaign after rejecting 2 other d20 western products. I want to run the free Grimm adventure download (found here):
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/hrdownloads.html
for twisted fairy tale goodness. After reading Grimm, I read a Grimm's Fair Tales book from my local library. It was very interesting. Redline is a nice Mad Max kind of game. Should be popular down under.
Skull & Bones. Check out the free stuff here:
http://www.greenronin.com/catalog/grr1018
The maps and free mini-adventure encouraged me to buy it. It is fun to read that book, but I opted out of 90% of the new rules for my pirate D&D campaign.
Star Wars. Because it's Star Wars.
I'll also give a nod to Conan, but not the main book--only The Road of Kings. TRoK is essentially an atlas of Hyboria. It was written by a true fan of the stories.
If you're looking outside d20, I also enjoyed reading the AD&D Age of Heroes book recently. You can download it for $5 at rpgnow dot com. There were several of these AD&D green books for different campaign models, but this is the only one I have. It was a good look at a classic Greek camapign model.
Along those lines, I am reading Relics & Rituals Olympus now. It is a gorgeous book and looks very promising. I can't give it a good recommendation yet, but you might want to check it out (or its fellow, Excalibur). It seems like a d20 toolbox for a Greek-style game. Take what you want and leave the rest, which is very appealing to me.
Here are setting books I like for d20.
Greyhawk. I found the 3.0 D&D Gazetteer and Greyhawk The Adventure Begins for 2e more helpful than the 3.0 Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
DragonStar. I think it's a great concept. Very portable to d20 D&D but presents a great high-tech & space campaign. I bought the books before the Essential DragonStar Collection became available, but I bought 2 copies of the Starfarer's Handbook (it's the best one I think--but I stopped after Imperial Supply). The Essential Collection is definitely a bargain.
Judge Dredd. I found this another great variant D&D d20 game. I was not into JD at all before getting this game. I had seen the movie and borrowed about a dozen comics from friends. I have all the books for JD d20 now. It's got about 5 printed stand-alone adventures.
Omega World. This is a mini-game from the Polyhedron side of Dungeon magazine issue #94. It really captures the essence of the classic RPG Gamma World (for me). It is very concise, too. It does in about 40 pages what many games struggle to do in 200-300 pages. I ran ti with campaign setting information and adventures from the Alternity Gamma World book, which I also recommend even though it's not d20.
Mesopotamia. It's a great module AND a great campaign setting. Another concise product, which I love. And I probably won't use any of the new prestige classes, feats, magic system, spells, etc. It just presents a very cool mini-campaign option for all-human adventurers in the bronze age of a near-east-like setting. Very cool.
Horizons. Redline, Grimm, Virtual, Spellslinger and Mechamorphosis. This whole line is fun to read. Each is a concise treatment of a different genre. I ran a Spellslinger mini-campaign after rejecting 2 other d20 western products. I want to run the free Grimm adventure download (found here):
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/hrdownloads.html
for twisted fairy tale goodness. After reading Grimm, I read a Grimm's Fair Tales book from my local library. It was very interesting. Redline is a nice Mad Max kind of game. Should be popular down under.
Skull & Bones. Check out the free stuff here:
http://www.greenronin.com/catalog/grr1018
The maps and free mini-adventure encouraged me to buy it. It is fun to read that book, but I opted out of 90% of the new rules for my pirate D&D campaign.
Star Wars. Because it's Star Wars.
I'll also give a nod to Conan, but not the main book--only The Road of Kings. TRoK is essentially an atlas of Hyboria. It was written by a true fan of the stories.
If you're looking outside d20, I also enjoyed reading the AD&D Age of Heroes book recently. You can download it for $5 at rpgnow dot com. There were several of these AD&D green books for different campaign models, but this is the only one I have. It was a good look at a classic Greek camapign model.
Along those lines, I am reading Relics & Rituals Olympus now. It is a gorgeous book and looks very promising. I can't give it a good recommendation yet, but you might want to check it out (or its fellow, Excalibur). It seems like a d20 toolbox for a Greek-style game. Take what you want and leave the rest, which is very appealing to me.
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, will take it to the next level. Everyone should check out the book, it really is fantastic.
). The fabled Midnight is much too depressive for my taste, and the newer ones that I have (FR, Scarred Lands, Kalamar, Oathbound, Diamond Throne, Arcanis, The Wilderlands, Dawnforge, Dragonlance, Bluffside, Freeport) don't really fit your description, because they usually sport a normal to high magic level. Of course, many of those settings have their "dark corners" 
