Your least favourite setting

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Hmm... well, there are settings that are playable, and fairly interesting, but just don't "have that special something"- Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Eberron, Scarred Lands, Kalamar, etc. I know I could run a good, interesting campaign in all of them, and there's plenty to like, but they just don't leap off the shelf at me. They're not bad though, and if a friend of mine wanted me to DM any of them, I would in a heartbeat (with the possible exception of Greyhawk, which doesn't really seem to give me any reason to run it rather than running a homebrew setting that I could mold to my tastes. Plenty of classic modules to plunder though.).

Then again, there are settings that I find quite interesting, but have a more difficult time trying to run- Midnight, Ravenloft, Ghostwalk, Dragonlance and Wheel of Time especially. All of them have "great fluff", but there's not enough breathing room outside the metaplot in the latter two (unlike Forgotten Realms or Star Wars, where there are vast swaths of gaming territory that the "plot" barely touches), and the first three just have a mood that is too oppressive and/or limiting to cater to good long term gaming (or they're terminal, meaning that the setting itself is "resolved" and irrevocably altered). Yet I enjoy reading the material for all of them.

To find a good setting, it has to both "leap off the shelf at me" and be "playable"- Dawnforge, Diamond Throne, Planescape, Star Wars and Iron Kingdoms all do this. But it doesn't mean the other settings don't have their virtues.

On the other hand, there are some settings which don't really appeal to me much at all- mainly computer game spinoffs, like Everquest (I've noticed I've never heard anyone talk about EQd20 on these boards!!! Despite the massive, overproduced full-color manuals...) and WarCraft (which doesn't have bad material, but the maps and detail is too scant- and I haven't played the computer games, which would make running games for my friends, who have played them all through multiple times, a daunting task- similiar to why I couldn't run post-Episode VI Star Wars for my friends who were hooked on Tim Zahn novels...) Of course, I'm sure these games are great for those who are their target audience- which isn't me.

 

[Sarellion]

Dragonlance: Liked it after the first books but it went downhil rapidly after the whole stuff with the magic gone away, Chaos and so on. Never read stuff about Taladas.

Ravenloft: Don´t like horror.

 

[Terath Ninir]

Let's not forget Hollow World now people.

Gah. That was a very bad idea. The Known World was fun up to a point. That was the point. And the way it was used in Wrath of the Immortals. Barf-o-matic!

I dislike Dragonlance. Okay, I can see changing halflings to kender, so you avoid any potential Tolkien lawsuits. I can see adding in new monsters, like the draconians. But why the heck couldn't those two hacks write a book about D&D that included at least SOME elements of D&D? Good grief. I disliked, or even hated, every single change they made.

Spelljammer was, I am afraid, just kind of dorky. Not bad enough to be bad. Just dorky...

 

[painandgreed]

Dark Sun never did anything for me except cultivate a dislike of Brom artwork, but I really hate Dragonlance. I hate the powerful NPCs, the railroading of the modules, the various PC races, but most of all I tend to hate people who really, really like Dragonlance and will typically refuse to play with anybody who wants to be a kender reguardless of system or setting.

 

[danbuter]

Forgotten Realms, which is sad, because I loved it way back when it first came out. But I didn't read the novels, and when the 2nd edition came out, I was sitting there going "What the heck???!!!!".

 

[MrFilthyIke]

There is not ONE Tsr/WotC setting I dislike. I have/own/enjoyed them all. Of any of them, Dragonlance was the hardest to use as EVERYONE had read the books, and there were no secrets. That's why I loooved Taladas.

 

[The Human Target]

I don't hate it by any means, but Ebberon doesn't do anything for me. I have no problems what so ever with the tech/magic aspect of the world, I actually like it a great deal. I don't like the fact that the PC, by virtue of being Player classes alone, are really special. And once they hit 10th level they become like the masters of time and space. I like my players to have to work for the fame and power they get.

 

[Alzrius]

I could never really bring myself to like Birthright. I mean...the setting was cool. You've inherited the powers of dead gods, and the bad guys seemed larger-than-life, with not only cool names and powers, but their own countries behind them.

And yet, the execution seemed so blase. The main theme of the game (that you're a political ruler) seemed to get bogged down with the minutia of having to run a country. It lakced even a real political intrigue feel, and became more about micro-management than adventuring.

That was my take at least.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Forgotten Realms.
It made me feel like the player characters were just along for the ride.

I would disagree with that as long as you left the uber-powerful npcs out of the game. They could go away and I wouldn't give a crap.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Dragonlance.
I _HATE_ kender. I _HATE_ Gully dwarfs.
And more than anything else, I _HATE_HATE_HATE_HATE_HATE_ Tinker Gnomes.

I hate the fact that WOTC is now making core halflings into kender.

Gully dwarves are kinda funny, to an extent.

No comment on tinker gnomes.