Your least favourite setting

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

No it's not turning them into Kender. That would be a gross overreaction by those who would prefer their halflings as short, fat, and with furry feet.

So short, slight, and pony-tailed is what, then? Girl Scouts?

(And let's not forget that suddenly, they're more resistant than average to Fear effects.)

 

[Mystery Man]

So short, slight, and pony-tailed is what, then? Girl Scouts?

No they're just little tiny liberals.

(And let's not forget that suddenly, they're more resistant than average to Fear effects.)

Touche'

 

[Pants]

I know absolutely nothing about this setting. Nor do I really care to.

Well... at least you made an informed opinion... yeah...

So short, slight, and pony-tailed is what, then? Girl Scouts?

(And let's not forget that suddenly, they're more resistant than average to Fear effects.)

Sorry, still doesn't make them Kender.
In order to be Kender, they'd have to be kleptomaniacs and immune to fear. 3e Halflings are not. Doesn't mean you have to like them or anything, but they aren't kender.

 

[Mystery Man]

In order to be Kender, they'd have to be kleptomaniacs and immune to fear. 3e Halflings are not. Doesn't mean you have to like them or anything, but they aren't kender.

Kender in the d20 Dragonlance setting are actually full blown immune to fear, magical or otherwise. Plus he has special rules for taunting. Quite a bit more than the halfling.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Kender in the d20 Dragonlance setting are actually full blown immune to fear, magical or otherwise. Plus he has special rules for taunting. Quite a bit more than the halfling.

Which is, of course, why I said half-kender before.

Is it your assertion that the radical physical transformation and the fear resistance happened totally independently of the kender? Where, exactly, did the inspiration for the pony-tailed, fear-resistant halflings come from, then?

 

[Staffan]

Explain, please. What are these? And WHY are they so bad?

I'll leave Wraethuthu to someone else, but I'm a fan of Jakandor and feel qualified to explain it.

Basically, Jakandor is an island in the middle of an ocean without much contact with other places. It was described in a trio of sourcebooks in the waning days of 2nd ed:

Jakandor - Island of War described the Knorr, a warlike and deeply spiritual race of human. Their main patron goddess is the War Mother, but they also worship totem spirits, hearth gods, and storm gods. They arrived at Jakandor a couple of centuries ago, after being driven from their old homeland during circumstances that are only vaguely described, but involved them losing the favor of their gods due to getting weak and soft and trading with other peoples and so on. Anyway, they see Jakandor as their chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the War Mother. Knorr are highly independent, and don't form communities larger than villages. During their explorations of the island, they found ancient ruins, and eventually ran into another people: the Charonti. The Charonti are considered walking abominations, in large part because of their reliance on arcane magic (something which is deeply mistrusted by the Knorr - there are some wizards among them, but they're pretty limited) and especially because of their heavy use of undead (the Knorr take the sanctity of death very seriously). So, the Knorr hate and despise the Charonti, and consider them sub-human. There's not outright war, but when groups of Knorr run across groups of Charonti, combat usually ensues.

Jakandor - Isle of Destiny came next, and described the Charonti, an ancient culture that fell before a magic plague a couple of millenia ago. They are only recently beginning to rebuild, and have created a highly regimented society that puts the good of the nation very high. The highest caste is that of the scholars, but those are not rich in the conventional sense, rather they have their needs provided for by the state. Below those are the guildsmen, who may be rich but don't have the political clout scholars do. Wizards are rather common, especially among the scholar caste. Since the Charonti population is rather low, and because the ideal of service is the highest one there is, most Charonti continue to serve the state or their families even after death, as zombies or skeletons. Most Charonti live in big cities - well, it could be considered one big city, since their four main cities are all linked by portals. During their explorations of the island to reclaim their heritage, they have recently (in the last century or so) run across a race of animalistic people, the Knorr, who seem bent on destroying said heritage and the Charonti as well. So, the Charonti hate and despise the Knorr.

Jakandor - Land of Legend, finally, provides a neutral look at the place, and provides a bunch of semi-finished adventures (some for each side).

Personally, I like Jakandor, but I can see where some people might not like it, either due to the relatively low magic level (even the Charonti have limited access to magic, because much of it has been forgotten) or due to the lack of black and white morality. Both Island of War and Isle of Destiny provide a positive description of their chosen people, and a negative description of the enemy, which could be confusing to someone who's used to having stuff that says "Bad guys over here, go kill."

 

[Staffan]

(And let's not forget that suddenly, they're more resistant than average to Fear effects.)

Because hobbits never showed exceptional courage in the face of adversity.

 

[Testament]

I find it interesting that the very thing that drives people to like Forgotten Realms, or as I think of it "elFRealms", is what drives me to hate it. Quite simply, its monumentally overdeveloped. Wingsandsword might love the fact that everywhere has a history, a culture, a story, but I can't stand that. I want my tabula rasa, and more importantly, I want to remove the horrific metagaming potential that comes with the players being able to know all about these places.

It's also the biggest powergaming setting WotC have ever released, just look at Magic of Faerun, Faiths and Pantheons, and even just the domains in the FRCS. Lets not forget that using only WotC books, an Elf Cleric from FR is still the best dang archer you can make. And on the topic of Elves, just how many different flavours does FRealms have? Heck, how many subraces are there for the core races there?

Finally, there's the issue of how cobbled together it feels. Every region is so fruggin' different that it makes no sense to me how this world came to exist. Mulhorand especially feels out of place, it seems more like an excuse for Egyptian style games in the same world. The absurdly large number of uber NPCs is just the final nail in the coffin.

Dragonlance is also a little-loved setting for me, mainly because of the enslaving metaplot for the different ages, and Kender. Stupid little communist kleptomaniac hyperactive 5 year old race. Gully Dwarves were just annoying, whilst Tinker Gnomes were just...silly.

Finally, no love for Spelljammer. Nothing about it made any kind of sense, and the way that it invaded every other setting was even worse than the fruggin' Hippos with monocles and high explosives.

 

[JVisgaitis]

My least favorites would be Red Steel and Spelljammer. Red Steel was just too goofy for my tastes and Spelljammer was just. . . I don't know, weird. I like Dragonlance, but I think the problem is its a better world to read about then play in. I think about Dragonlance like I think about Middle Earth. There is just no way that anyone should be poking around in the world and messing things up. Its a set story piece and no one should be playing around with it.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

To be honest, I haven't read/played in a published D&D setting that I didn't like at least a little, and several I liked quite a bit. Most of my experience has been in homebrews when D&Ding, and those all PWNZ over published settings.

I really can't get into 1920's Call of Cthulhu though. It's a time period I know very little about (outside of what I read in The Great Gatsby) and the main book didn't give me enough to go on. And I've never seen so many shotgun-wielding professors from obscure New England colleges in my life. If I ever get to play CoC again, it'll be with Delta Green, which solved just about every problem I had with CoC.