Which Campaign Setting has the best fluff? Why?

[Shemeska]

I'm with Psion, DiTerlizzi never did it for me either. What Planescape I've seen (remember, I'm a child of 3rd Edition) was usually done by rk post, and yes, there was some Brom work as well. Thing is, to me, Brom means Dark Sun, while rk's strange visions are Planescape.

I'm a child of 3rd edition as well. DiTerlizzi did most of the early to middle work for the setting, and rk post and hannibal king took over the later stuff mostly IIRC. However, that said, DiTerlizzi did all of the work for 'Faces of Sigil' and 'Factols Manifesto' which to me are two of the defining works of the setting (Faces of Evil and Faction War following up those two).

I've been tempted to actually go back and look at the Changling stuff simply because Tony Di did the artwork for it. *chuckle* I would give my players' kidneys to own one or two specific DiTerlizzi PS pictures. *hawks kidneys*

 

[Turjan]

But the one here http://www.diterlizzi.com/art/games/planescape/ps-guardinal.html is just...wow. Doesn't immediately call Planescape to mind though.

Funny . I thought that's one of the weaker pieces. If any of the pics calls 'Planescape' to me, then it's this one . Or, if you want to be direct, that one .

 

[Akrasia]

... 1. Mystara. A very detailed world, though not in any way consistent, but it captures the perfect balance of playability and a sense of life without the heavy-handed metaplot or crippling author-dominance of other settings like Dragonlance or FR.
...

Finally some support for the Known World! If I ever run a game in a setting other than my homebrew, it will be the KW/Mystara. If you want great 'fluff', it is pretty damn hard to beat the better Gazetteers that TSR produced in the late 1980s. GAZ1 (Grand Duchy of Karameikos) is a true classic. I also love GAZ11 (Republic of Darokin), GAZ5 (Alfheim), GAZ13 (Shadow Elves), and the 'Dawn of the Emperors' box set. Really excellent stuff.

I like my homebrew world 'Ilmahal' a lot too -- obviously! (I have used it for 3e, and am now running for C&C). It is heavily inspired by Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy. I describe it to people unfamiliar with Lyonesse as 'King Arthur with corrupt followers versus Evil Elves and the Cult of Cthulhu'. Alternative description: imagine if Robert E. Howard wrote his own version of Camelot.

 

[Nisarg]

Sweet Drunken Ninja Jesus! I've seen some ranty rants from you Nisarg, but this one takes the cake. I'd love to know exactly how you arrive at the conclusion that Eberron is nothing more than a structure for power-gaming, especially when there's settings out there like Forgotten Realms. Even better though is how you turn the fact that they tried to justify the existence of many of the MM monsters into a point of criticism!

Truly your best work yet Nisarg. I salute you!

The Forgotten Realms is filled with powered-up beings, and certainly can lend itself to power gaming if played a certain way. The 3e material for FR is pretty oriented to that, but its all haphazard and slapdash. It hasn't been designed from the ground up to be played as a powergaming fantasyland, the way Eberron is.

And no, I don't consider it a virtue to go alphabetically down the list of the Monster Manual and think up flimsy excuses for why each and every one of them should be included in your game world, just to "maximize" the use of the MM.

Eberron was created, an intelligent design, to tie it to the system. I can think of only two game worlds for D&D that were done that way: Mystara, and Eberron. The others (Greyhawk, FR, Dragonlance, etc) were thought of first as settings, first as fluff, and later as crunch.
Even Mystara was only semi-intelligent design, you could say, because it was made up in bits and pieces. And Mystara was made with the fluff in the forethought, so that while that world was ideal for play in OD&D (and ONLY in that system, it didn't translate well at all to 2e and wouldn't translate well at all to 3e), it was also a detailed flavour-rich setting that had a life of its own.

Eberron, on the other hand, was designed by taking a few basic ideas by the author (who apparently said the right catchphrases in the one-page description in the contest.. words like "includes every monster"), and these ideas were then elaborated upon by Wizards in such a way as to "maximize" the connection to the 3.5 system... unfortunately these days "maximize" means the most absurdly overpowered classes, prestige classes, races, feats, etc etc.

End result: a powergamer's wet dream.

Nisarg

 

[Kanegrundar]

<snip> End result: a powergamer's wet dream.
Nisarg

I was wondering when we'd hear Nisarg's comments on Eberron...

Any campaign setting can be played as a power gamer's wet dream just as any setting can be used for low-powered, more roleplay-centric campaigns. Eberron is no more a power gamer's paradise right out of the gate than Dragonlance or FR. It's all in how the Dm and players want to play. For me, Eberron is a fresh setting that is different from the rest of the typical fantasy settings out there. It's a welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant genre.

Kane

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I gotta wonder, Nisarg, whether you've taken the trouble to read anything Keith Baker's written. Have you looked at his posts here or on the WotC boards? Have you read the Dragonshards articles? Have you even read the ECS? Because honestly, you don't sound like it. Keith Baker seems like a good guy who like his setting and is doing a good job with it; IIRC, he's not even paid for Dragonshards. That's perhaps not directly relevent, but good Lord, you're being a bit over-vitriolic. I repeat my questions, have you read any of Keith Baker's work or are you just repeating the criticism that, IMO, Mr. Baker has effectively dispelled?

 

[Nisarg]

I was wondering when we'd hear Nisarg's comments on Eberron...

Any campaign setting can be played as a power gamer's wet dream just as any setting can be used for low-powered, more roleplay-centric campaigns. Eberron is no more a power gamer's paradise right out of the gate than Dragonlance or FR. It's all in how the Dm and players want to play. For me, Eberron is a fresh setting that is different from the rest of the typical fantasy settings out there. It's a welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant genre.

Kane

Yes, we've heard it before, any game can be played in any way: I can take Vampire and run it as a hilarious romp through the dark underworld, and I can take paranoia and run it as a deadly serious commentary on the current political atmosphere. I can make an exclusively low-level FR game that never leaves the dalelands, and I can run a superhero-themed Call of Cthulhu game (in fact, that last one I actually did run).

But that's called playing against type. And there's a huge difference in the assertion that "you could run any setting in any way, its all up to you" (which is true), and "no setting is inherently created with a bias toward a certain style of play" (which is an obvious and absurd lie).

Settings are all biased toward certain playstyles, and Eberron is biased toward, at best, severly crunchy severely tactical full-use-of-the-battlemat-and-the-$14.95-miniatures-booster-pack D&D. At worst, it is oriented toward the total munchkinfest "my-warforged-juggernaut-is-bigger-than-your-warforged-juggernaut" powergaming extravaganza.

And in either case, the fluff in it all exists not for its own sake, not because it was a dream in its authors mind for years before it became a published setting, not because of socio-political rationality, but only to justify the crunch. What socio-political rationality exists is only constructed after the fact.

Eberron's fluff is all pre-fab. It was done by committee to allow maximum crunch to satisfy a target demographic.

Eberron is at best the Monkees of the D&D world.
At worst, Eberron is the Milli-Vanilli of the D&D world.


Nisarg

 

[Desdichado]

I prefer campaign settings that have a strong "hook" or raison d'être more compelling than "kill thing and take their stuff" so to me, that's the primary criteria by which I judge the "fluff."

In that vein, I think my favorite d20 settings are, in no particular order: Iron Kingdoms, Midnight, Conan, Black Company, Dark Sun, Call of Cthulhu and Planescape. Moving outside the d20 aegis, I also quite like the oWoD, particularly Werewolf, for its fluff, and of course, it's hard to argue with the fluff of MERP, at least if you consider the Lord of the Rings to be part of that fluff. I actually didn't much like a lot of I.C.E.'s treatment of the setting, which seemed bound and determined to ignore it's strengths and try to turn it into a D&D rip-off.

 

[Nisarg]

I gotta wonder, Nisarg, whether you've taken the trouble to read anything Keith Baker's written. Have you looked at his posts here or on the WotC boards? Have you read the Dragonshards articles? Have you even read the ECS? Because honestly, you don't sound like it. Keith Baker seems like a good guy who like his setting and is doing a good job with it; IIRC, he's not even paid for Dragonshards. That's perhaps not directly relevent, but good Lord, you're being a bit over-vitriolic. I repeat my questions, have you read any of Keith Baker's work or are you just repeating the criticism that, IMO, Mr. Baker has effectively dispelled?

The only Eberron material I have read is the main book and a few glances at the Sharn sourcebook.

I would be very interested to see Keith Baker's refutation of the charges made against Eberron, since I suspect most of those charges to be irrefutable; but I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And don't get me wrong, for the people that like that kind of gaming, Eberron is just fine. If ever really wanted to get out the battlemat and pay $20 for my official D&D miniatures (TM) and wanted to create a Golem PC and play in a setting that lets my inner powergamer go wild, Eberron might just be it. Though FR can do much the same.

But setting wise, Eberron has an identity crisis. It doesn't know if its medieval or industrial or post-industrial. Its medieval kingdoms make no sense in the context of the "tech" available and the massive changes that such a thing would create. Though in some ways Eberron is less patchwork than FR (which is not really a big accomplishment, I've known quilts that are less patchwork than FR), Eberron is in fact far more schizophrenic than the Realms.

Nisarg

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Eberron's fluff is all pre-fab. It was done by committee to allow maximum crunch to satisfy a target demographic.

This, at least, I know is false, and it would seem to prove my suspicion that you've not paid any mind to Keith Baker. It is an easily destroyed allegation that can be disproved by reading the Dragonshards articles, or just about any of Mr. Baker's posts.

EDIT: Posted while Nisarg was posting. I see that my suspicions are, indeed, the truth. I am sad.