Which official D&D setting is the best?
Ravenloft because i like vampires and think they're cool
>>96944512Not sure I've never felt creatively bankrupt enough to use an "official" setting
>>96944512Mystara and Dark Sun
>>96944512Darksun and Council of Wyrms followed by Ravenloft.Spelljammer is for dorks and Gamma World never had the guts to commit to the bit.
>>96944512Spelljammer is the coolest thing humanity has created. It's our best, possibly only, contribution of ny value to the universe.
>>96944581This is the correct answer. Mystara is the best kitchen sink setting because WoTC haven’t wiped their ass with it yet.
>>96944523This. Followed by Dark Sun.
>>96944512Mystara is objectively the best setting by most metrics. That said, Planescape is my favorite.
>>96944512Is Planescape cheating since literally anything from the others can reasonably show up?
>>96944765It is designed to stitch the settings together but we never used it that way. If you take Planescape as JUST the Planescape material, then it's still a good setting for play. I could see how it's not the right setting for a number of tables though.
>>96944625I may not agree with this statement, but I do approve of its enthusiasm.
>>96944787Work on your art.
>>96944832Touch grass, woyafag.
>>96944512The only two I've played ofc, Eberron and Dark Sun
Greyhawk, the classic is still the best.
>>96944512Dark Sun is the coolest, Ebberon is the most fun to play in, Planescape has the weirdest nuggets of lore to dig up.>>96944832How are you even still around? Shouldn't you have asphyxiated on your own excrement by now?
>>96944512Mystara for life
>>96944612Gamma World proper isn't D&D.
>>96944512Imo Birthright, it's hard to beat the fucking Highlander + A Song of Ice and Fire setting. DarkSun is also up there since Mad Max d&d is the quintessential incarnation of what d&d resource sarcity and battle of attrition spirit strive for.
>>96944512dark sun is the besteberron sucksplanescape is the worstspelljammer and dragonlance are the most incomplete and dysfunctional due to these traitsthe rest are fun
>>96944512Planescape contains them all.
>>96945671I have deliberately selected controversial choices to see how many oldfags we have in the thread.I guess we have two.
>>96946507Not everyone is going to engage with obvious bait anon.
Eberron is my favourite. I think it took into consideration how widespread D&D magic would effect a fantasy world in an internally consistent manner. I also love the Artificer class (Perfect for smith/craftsman heroes and gods. Like Ilmarinen, Weyland Smith, or Hephaestus) and the Warforged race (the other races are cool as well, WF just steal the show for me). The way Eberron handles religion is also neat.I've spent countless hours reading Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft sourcebooks. Love them all.Mystara will always have a special place in my heart since the Mentzer Basic Red Box D&D rules were the first roleplaying books I read and played. The Hollow World is also a pretty interesting place.Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance have been "the worlds meant for novels" in my mind. I like some of the books.Al-Qadim was quite interesting and I've been meaning to read Kara-Tur stuff. the vidya Genie's Curse was, fun, but I never finished it.Birthright? The world and the mechanics sound interesting, and I want to read more, but somehow when I read them in PDF form I always get distracted. I wonder if I read them in actual IRL paper book format I'd have an easier time?I haven't read any Greyhawk stuff. It's been on my To-Do list for ages. Same applies to Blackmoor. Might as well throw in Jakandor and Council of Wyrms here.I think that was nearly all of them?
>>96946591>Same applies to Blackmoor.Blackmoor turned into Mystara.
>>96946591>Al-Qadim and Kara-TurThese are both Forgotten Realms, thoughbeit.
>>96947231That was a retcon. Forgotten Realms has swallowed up a lot of smaller settings.
>>96944512I always had a soft spot for the Die Vecna Die module because it moved the PCs from Greyhawk to Ravenloft to PlaneScape
>>96944512Dark Sun, but it's "rich people are evil fucks that destroy the world" -analogue is too woke for megacorporations like Hasbro
>>96947298>"rich people are evil fucks that destroy the world"That's the reason I didn't like Dark Sun all that much. It lacks depth and variation. It's primary theme dominated it so much that there was no room for other kinds of adventures.
>>96947298>"rich people are evil fucks that destroy the world"Excuse me, I think you mean "Yakub is an evil fuck that screwed us all"
I use Greyhawk in my games largely to maintain continuity with events from sessions my dad played 40 years ago.Dragonlance novels were my absolute jam when I was in high school. I have a lot of love for the setting but don't use it for reasons.Mystara seems cool but I haven't touched it beyond the arcade game. Will have to investigate further.Spelljammer is neat but not for me.Forgotten Realms kind of stinks, but that's not really the fault of its original creators.I dislike Eberron. It just doesn't appeal to me aesthetically.Planescape is rad but I don't think I'll ever run anything with it.Ravenloft is retarded but in an awesome way. Castlevania D&D is sick.Birthright looks amazing and I hesitate to look into it because I think I'd want to start using it. Dark Sun is awesome. I have the box set but haven't ran it. Would like to someday.Overall I don't really get too involved with larger setting stuff in my games. I generally just use the Darlene map to plop down modules and give my players an area to explore. My general setting guidelines as they effect players are "it's fairly vanilla fantasy D&D. Aesthetics and tech level are somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Conan. Bikini armor (and the male equivalent) grants full AC bonus. No furries or freakshit. Pantheon is loosely defined and you're welcome to tell me about whatever village/religion/culture your character came from. Keep back stories to a handful of sentences if that. Also sorcereresses have huge tits because mana is stored in the breasts (or male equivalent)"
>>96946591I had forgotten about the Nentir Vale/Points of Light. I quite enjoyed the lore for that world.And in a related note I consider 4E a successor to BECMI D&D instead of AD&D.I also forgot about Red Steel. Which admittedly I haven't read all that much of. Can't remember why exactly (text color in the PDFs?). The setting's an expansion to Mystara. A lot of fascinating lore there, with the mutations and the magical materials that keeps it away (eventually turning into the titular Red Steel IIIRC).>>96947109Blackmoor being Mystara's ancient history (this I know of and it's referenced in Hollow World) or that the ideas/adventures of Blackmoor were turned into Mystara?Did you meant that in a Doylist or Watsonian sense in other words.>>96947231True. I almost had the text next to the FR section, but since I had Dragonlance there as well I separated it due to 'tism.Speaking of FR sub-settings Maztica is another place I know next to nothing of. Ancient Fantasy South America, those proto-Artificer Plumeweavers, and the Conquistadors from... Amn was it? They worshipped Helm IIRC.>>96947250I believe Ed Greenwood complained about TSR placing those settings in FR.
>>96944512Birthright
4e Points of Light / Nentir Vale. It's a travesty it never got an official setting overview book.Dark Sun has some very cool ideas but I just can't stomach oppressively hopeless post-apoc settings like that.Eberron also has great stuff but somehow it never grabbed me overall. Maybe it was a perceived focus on intrigue/politicking instead of a greater world? Battletech and MTG's Kaladesh had similar problems for me.
Dark Sun would be the best if it wasn't such pandering DEI slop, forcing so many white characters into a subsaharan desert setting.
>>96944512Necessarily defaults to Spelljammer given it contains all the others. I'm sorry.
>>96944523Same, but only pre-4e Ravenloft
>>96948253>Blackmoor being Mystara's ancient history (this I know of and it's referenced in Hollow World) or that the ideas/adventures of Blackmoor were turned into Mystara?>Did you meant that in a Doylist or Watsonian sense in other words.Both, This is a bit second hand, but this is how I understand it.Blackmoor was a proto-RPG setting and game that grew out of another game that Dave Arneson helped run. It was a bit like a West Marches game but he'd actually let players create their own content and let them run that content. Dave would run the local area of Blackmoor and he would hand off groups to those other creators when they'd go from his domain to theirs in game. Many of these player created places became locations in Mystara. blowing up Blackmoor Castle itself was a decision made when transitioning it to D&D with TSR to try and make the setting coherent when prepping it for publication. Some of the original Blackmoor material is in the TSR publications at launch, some was reintroduced later as they had time (sometimes is was altered from it's original state), and some all new material was added over the years.If you've done deep dives in reading all the Mystara material, you would have a solid feel for the Blackmoor setting before TSR. Untangling it all would require access to information I don't think was ever made available.
>>96948509Taking every ingredient in my fridge and throwing it all in a pot will not make the world's best stew.Spelljammer was hokey by itself and making it touch other settings corrupts and ruins them.
>>96944512If I like Basic Fantasy, which settings can I get into and which books should I get? I play solo and I pirate everything too.Please spare me the versionwar replies.
>>96948618I think you're right that kitchen sink settings don't work or can infect anything they touch but I think it can be done with care and tact and work okay. I feel the same way but I also feel like I could manage it by reeling in the scope.
>>96948253>GreenwoodI enjoy listening to that man talk about his world, not sure if WotC treated him any better than TSR did.
>>96948657I haven't used B/X but if I understand correctly it's a clone of the BECMI rules. If that's the case, you'll be able to use any of the TSR adventures and monster manuals directly. This means you can use all the settings offered by TSR. This also opens you up to a lot of third party content as well, both from the 80s and modern stuff.
>>96948769I don't tend to touch modules but fluffy books, bestiaries, equipment and spells are all my jam.I don't really know how TSR released a lot of their settings, I hoped they would have dedicated sourcebooks. I'll need to look, I am sure there's plenty to pilfer.
Imagine if Lodoss had become one, man TSR was retarded then
>>96948688Mystara is as "kitchen sink" as you can get and it works well. I think that it falls apart when it's done with poor ideas, no care into structuring it is taken, or when trying for too much homogeneity in the setting. (making a smoothie rather than a fruit salad)
>>96948856I've listened to a lot of Mr Welch and I never really got Mystara. It does seem like Forgotten Realms with a different coat of paint. I am just speaking in ignorance of course. It seems a lot more reigned in that modern Forgotten Realms but I wasn't around for FR in it's heyday.
>>96948835Most of the TSR stuff you should be able to just pick up and run with then. Be a little more careful with spells as some of them are centered around the rules of the particular version they are written for. TSR made it so that their stat blocks were mostly universal with all the versions of D&D they printed. The only real issue you should run into is the PC stuff. If you're getting PC classes or races from one edition or another, they may not be right for B/X.In the early days, there was some really cool third party stuff. Judges Guild had City State, Goodman Games produced a lot of cool stuff, and there was Empire of the Petal Throne.
>>96948657early Greyhawk and Mystara
>>96944512Forgotten Realms but that's cheating. I've been playing and developing stories in my own version of that since the Grey Box. Mostly through organic play and sometimes through the things that Ed Greenwood added that sounded fun. So it does look different than the current, official version of Toril. Out of the ones posted here I have the less experience with Dragonlance. Never really liked the books and barely got a chance to play in it.
>>96948896Greenwood was doing a very abstracted Western fantasy world at first. He was blending Celt and Germanic mythologies for his world building. Mystara was in many ways a theme park setting. There was Rome, Wild West, Polynsia, etc just with minor tweaks and name changes. The idea being "why invent new cultures when we have so many just laying around." I think the reason it worked as well as it did is that if was largely a setting created by fans. It's all stitched together with some clever world building and neat gimmicks.
>>96948425>Maybe it was a perceived focus on intrigue/politicking instead of a greater world?Would you mind expanding on that?There are plenty of ways to run Eberron campaigns that don't center around politics and intrigue. Let's take some treasure hunting expeditions in Xen'drik or the Mournlands as examples. Or fighting against one of the many nefarious organisations or eldritch horrors.>>96948509>>96948618I've seen some commentary that Spelljammer would have been better if it had avoided the Cross-Over Setting thing it attempted to do. (Planescape and to a lesser extent Ravenloft were already doing that). A more coherent identity of its own would have helped.I don't mind the wacky/zany bits, although I understand why people might not like them.
>>96948618It contains the best by default and they're isolatable because its not a food you idiot.
I was a 3e grognard so I'm going to be predisposed to Eberron although not as much anymore after getting tired of the magicpunk aesthetic in literally everything.Nowadays, if I had to run a game in a D&D setting, I'd probably Spelljammer or Dragonlance. I like having a decent amount of freakshit on the table as long as they make sense in the setting. Give me Krynn Minotaurs or Hadozee. If I wanted keep things to PHB, I'd just play without a setting.
You know, for all Forgotten Realms' issues, being the "main" setting does mean it has the most depth on "Original Generation" stuff like Drow and Mindflayers. Personally, I'm a bigger fan of weird D&D original critters than generic fantasy stuff like regular elves. I still say they need to do an OG setting like Super Robot Wars did.
>>96950751
>>96951254I know you can't understand. Its okay. There are likely various programs to assist with your disability.
>>96951356Ok, retard.
>>96949134Spelljammer predates Planescape. Planescape was made precisely because Spelljammer flopped, so TSR demanded another setting that would stitch all existing settings into one coherent multiverse.
>>96944512I'm playing a Lightbringer Cleric with the Knight of the Raven Prestige class, both from the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft book, so I have to say Ravenloft.But it's the Forgotten Realms.I just like kitchen sinks.
>>96944512Mystara.
>>96946561My opinions are as valid as the next man’s.
>>96951641>so TSR demanded another setting that would stitch all existing settings into one coherent multiverseall planescape really added to the existing cosmology was Sigil, they really did not need a setting to link campaign worlds as Greenwood established that Elminster could just gate into Ed's kitchen and tell stories in Dragon magazine of what became the Forgotten Realms. The City of Doors was not necessary for that.
>>96951641also, I never saw Spelljammer as a setting, but as a means to travel between settings. It added some bits to make the journey interesting, but the main point was traveling between crystal spheres from one setting to another.
>>96948769It's not a becmi clone, if I recall correctly it's closer to an osr-ified 3rd edition.
>>96948769>>96952650Assuming you aren't baiting, basic fantasy is simply based on b/x but with ascending AC (and other slight differences, like races not being classes).
>>96952401>Elminster could just gate into Ed's kitchen and tell stories in Dragon magazine of what became the Forgotten Realms.This part has always been retarded, and I don't think it should be taken seriously.
>>96944512Ravenloft is my favourite, but obviously I'm not touching anything WotC has written for it with a 10-foot pole.
So what do we think about third party published settings like Kobold Press´s Midgard, Critical Roles Exandria, Ghostfire Gamings Etheris or others? Did you ever pick one over a traditional DnD world?
>>96944512Mystara is probably the most playable.I like Eberron, but I feel like you need to be playing 3.5 to really appreciate what it's doing.I generally like the Forgotten Realms, but my preferred iteration is the Grey Box, and that takes a different tone from how most groups think of and play the FR. Dark Sun ticks off everything I want in a setting in theory, but I've never gotten a group to play it.
>>96948835>I don't tend to touch modules but fluffy books, bestiaries, equipment and spells are all my jam.Van Richten's Guides are fun to read.
>>96944512Dragonlance. I don't play Dildoes & Dragqueens but the novels are fun fantasy schlock.
>>96944787I may not agree with your art, and I do not approve the lack of work in it.
>>96952401Sigil was needed so that low-level parties could travel the multiverse from the get-go, without relying on high-level spells for travel and survival.
>>96954108>Did you ever pick one over a traditional DnD world?Neither but I'd much rather a TSR setting if I was forced to choose.
>>96944512Mystara
>>96954108I played a ton of Midnight during the 3.x era, it was my clear preference at the time at least.
>>96944512Mystara doesn't do anything super unique or different but it is still such a fun world to explore. Greyhawk is also good but it always felt too much like what it is, a sandbox that Gygax made to put some cool shit into. And the rest of the settings are too gimmicky for my taste. But they could still be fun places to visit for a short while. also Forgotten Realms lol
>>96945671Everything is D&D.
>>96944512Based on the image here is my list.1. Greyhawk2. Mystara3. Dark Sun4. Ravenloft5. Planescape6. Forgotten Realms7. Birthright8. Dragonlance9. Spelljammer10. Eberron
>>96958106i remember this was good and liked the monster book alot
>>96954108I was always curious about what Kalamar's deal is.
>>96944512Mystara and its not even close. Its the best setting for inspiration (Which d&d is built around)
>>96944512Nentir Vale/Points of Light is my favourite. It was how I introduced a couple of good friends of mine to RPGs and the setting of the first successful campaign I ran.
>>96954108Always thought the setting of Dragongrin had an interesting concept, a world where the BBEG had won. Never got around to putting it to use though.
>>96944512Birthright was the most interesting to me but my groups have always had more fun in Greyhawk and Planescape. Mystara was a cookie-cutter kitchen-sink with no explanation why so many races, living with the same finite resources, in the same vicinity of each other weren't massacring each other off wholesale and I don't understand why people who liked it do so. >>96944534Then you've never met real-life players because most of those cunts won't play anything else and will mock you merely for suggesting your gay magical realm as something worth dedicated 4-8 hours of their time every week to and they're probably right.
>>96944512Can't speak for the objective best, but Ravenloft still haunts my brain, rent-free.>>96954357Crazy how even the 3e ones are still great reads.>>96947231Fans of these settings just prefer to ignore the Faerûn connection, usually.
>>96944512D A R K S U N
>>96958773Have you never looked deep? It has the hollow earth filled with fallen civilizations, an invisible moon that is home to sabertooth cat-riding samurai cats, and an entire mageocracy built around a magic radioactive generator among other crazy things.
>>96944512Old Planescape was the best, unfortunately Wizards made it cringe. Dark Sun for me currently
I really liked the Nentir Vale. It's focus on the rise and fall of ages and empires and the supremacy and importance of the material world over the outer planes is what does it for me.
>>96944512Mystara, as a great kitchen sink. As pointed by others, you can keep it reasonable by staying on the main continent or go full retard with a hidden moon, an hollow earth and Mutant Monk Turtles fighting pirates. Not going to lie, thrre's also nostalgia at play here.Ravenloft if I wanted a setting with a more specific feel. I didn't like Dark Sun and only like specific parts of Dragonlance (their minotaurs for example) - i added them to Mystara, the Minrothad became the Minotauradh.
>>96944787Work on your art.>>96944512Dark SunPlanescapeSpelljammerAll others can just gtfo, although aspects of OG Forgotten Realms was OK.
>>96944512>Planescape>Dark Sun>Greyhawk>Mystara>EberronAll the ones I liked from back then. Shame we never had another campaign setting renaissance like this. Everything from WotC has been just diluted memberberries for [current year modern audiences] and the small publisher settings are too tiny to even discuss. (Who even knows about Talislanta, or Oathbound, or Amethyst?)
>>96968665Which supplements are those in? Can you post some links to the PDFs?
>>96972645Not him, but Hollow World had its own box in OD&D I think?Some of the other stuff got detailed in the Dragon Magazine's "Voyage of The Princess Ark" articles.
I think I'm most curious about Nentir Vale, and I at least read the original Dragonlance novels, so I guess I'd say those two. I've never really had any of the setting books, having to homebrew my own most of the time, and I struggle to make setting feel like it really matters beyond some options at character creation like PC race choices or fiddling with how magic works/spell lists. What is it that makes one setting feel/play different than another? My PCs tend not to dig into history/lore, much more concerned with whatever quest/storyline goal that's been set up, though they are pretty good at identifying and interacting with the major players(factions/NPCs) of whatever campaign they're in.
