Your favorite 3.x published campaign setting?

[rgard]

Hi All,

I figured out that I really don't have the time to design my own campaigns any more.

Does anybody have a favorite pubished 3.x campaign setting? Could you post what you liked about it?

I have most of WotC's Faerun stuff and just use that as source material to mine and don't plan a Faerun campaign.

I am considering Mongoose's Conan setting, but before I dive in I would like to hear from others here.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Asmor]

I'm a big fan of Eberron.

For something a bit more esoteric, how about Ghostwalk?

 

[Khairn]

A lot depends on the type of setting you're looking to find. Standard high fantasy, steampunk, grim 'n gritty etc.

For me personally, I thought the best 3.5/OGL settings were Midnight, Iron Kingdoms and Game of Thrones.

GoT is on the list simply because I am such a GRR Martin fanboi it's silly. Plus, GOO did a great job on the book.

Midnight provides me with a setting where the players are not the biggest boys on the block, and have to be both smart and lucky to avoid the followers of Izrador. Fewer magic items, a dark setting filled with despair and only the faintest rays of hope.

And finally Iron Kingdoms, which thankfully is available as a pdf now. And only $10 at RPGNow / Drivethrurpg until Jan 7! Its probably the only RPG that I would read simply for the fantastic "Full Metal Fantasy" (steampunk) setting that Privateer Press created. Sure, some of the rules are a little clunky, but that's easily fixed.

 

[Witty Comeback]

I really liked (though have never actually played) the Pathfinder AP, rise of the runelords? Or sinlords? Something like that. The setting was very evocative to me, I liked the cultures. Just using the first installment of the adventure and the player's guide would be a great start.

 

[howandwhy99]

I liked Freeport. There are a number of good supplements and adventures out for it too.

I'm having a hard time remembering which campaing settings were 3.x exclusive though.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I've played in several since we started played 3E ...

Freeport (plonked into Greyhawk) -- I really like the wide-open feel of Greyhawk (contrasted with Forgotten Realms), and I began my 3E DMing as a big fan of Freeport. As Freeport developed, it started getting a little too silly for me, but before I could pull the plug myself, I had a TPK (in Black Sails) when the PCs were 10th or 11th level. I still love Greyhawk, but too be honest I'm not sure how much of that love is simple nostalgia.

Scarred Lands -- I just dug the riff on Greek mythology that went on in this setting, and I really liked being in from the beginning of a campaign setting with massive ongoing development. This setting has my favorite D&D nation ever: Calastia, the realm of a beloved LE ruler. Although Scarred Lands was 3.0, I recall the setting books being almost entirely fluff, so if you can get them cheap I highly recommend them. I TPKed my group at about 6th level (ironically, in a module written for Forgotten Realms).

Eberron -- It shocked me how much I enjoyed Eberron, because I'm sort of a fantasy purist. For example, I very much dislike psionics and other science-fiction elements in my D&D. (I even had a hard time with the firearms in Freeport.) But I loved Eberron, somehow, and I would say that as of now it's my favorite setting. The history and national identities are very interesting to me, I'm enamored of the slight shading of D&D's normal black vs. white morality, and I enjoy the new rules (like the races). Even the setting's quirks -- e.g., the map scale is off by a factor of 10, according to Keith Baker -- are somehow charming.

Golarion -- I haven't played in this one yet, so I don't feel I can make a wholehearted endorsement. I will say, though, that judging from what I've read -- which is about a quarter of the setting material published -- Golarion might supplant Greyhawk as my favorite "generic" D&D world.

Forgotten Realms -- For quite a while, I was genuinely angry at the love shown for the Forgotten Realms -- in production values (the FRCS ... are you kidding me?) and in production schedule -- but aside from that, FR just doesn't do anything for me. Too developed, too nit-picky, too ripe for GM-NPC garbage.

 

[Snoweel]

Golarion -- I haven't played in this one yet

I haven't played it either but it reads so well.

If I didn't run my game exclusively in World of Snoweel, I'd run in Golarion. It is incredible.

 

[Ahnehnois]

With the qualification that I run a homebrew setting and haven't actually played this, I do like Kingdoms of Kalamar. The basic humanoid cultures come through really strongly for me and I get a sense of the history and geography and why things are the way they are. They've put out some high-quality products for this setting.

That said, I don't know any "bad" settings; it's really a matter of taste and I think the above suggestions are probably good ones as well.

 

[Greentrees]

I've always liked 'Wilderlands of High Fantasy'. Been playing in that setting since AD&D.

 

[Freakohollik]

I've never been big on campaign settings, but I thought Eberron was great. I like how different it is from your standard Greyhawk/FR fantasy. The lower levels at which characters become meaningful in the world was a welcome change. All the different areas of the world are good as well. You could run so many different types of adventures across the world of Eberron and it would all work.

I like Greyhawk too, but we didn't see much for it in 3e. The Living Greyhawk gazetteer was not nearly as inspiring as the Eberron Campaign Setting. I have not read Kingdoms of Kalamar, but I have heard good things.