Campaign settings

I just bought the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting which is the setting book associated with the Pathfinder (surprise, surprise) line of products, which is what Paizo Publishing has been focusing their efforts on since the expiration of the Dungeon and Dragon Magazine contracts that they were doing.

I like campaign settings in general. I've got quite a few. Here's a few of my thoughts about some of them that I know better than others:

Eberron: Great setting. Intriguing hook for a setting, well executed, very interesting, and with several new useful things that I've since borrowed heavily (shifters and changelings, most particularly.) The Pulp Noir vibe is a great change of pace from "default" D&D tone, while at the same time not being all that radical of a departure to begin with. Eberron is one of my favorite fantasy settings. The only thing is suffers from a it is being too kitchen-sinkish. Keith Baker (the setting's creator) had to leave it open-ended enough that everything in D&D could fit if needed by individual DMs, and he had to make a lot of D&D conventions default. Not his fault, and I'm not surprised by it, but it is a weakness. It occasionally makes the setting feel a bit scattershot.

Forgotten Realms: Lots of elements to borrow, but I don't really like this setting much. In fact, it's the "setting I love to hate." I don't like the over-the-top high fantasy tone, I don't like the hippie sexual utopia vibe (granted, that's pretty subdued in the setting book itself. As it should be), it's way too inclusive to the point of incoherence, and just generally there are few things that it does that I don't think I could get better elsewhere. That said, there are plenty of things here that are nice to borrow: the Red Wizards and Thay in general, for example. The Shining South and Unapproachable East and even The Underdark books are all top notch. Worth having in my opinion, just not worth running as is.

Greyhawk: I've got the old 3e Gazetteer, which arguably isn't enough of a setting to go on, but I think it qualifies. Greyhawk is pretty much unadulturated iconic D&D. I'm not a huge fan; it feels very vanilla to me, and has many cheesy/silly elements.

Diamond Throne: This is the setting that went along with Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed alt.PHB. Pretty nifty in some ways, although boring in others. Conflict is kinda minimized, the world is a relatively peaceful happy place that doesn't scream "Adventure! Action!" like it should, and it's also a lot more high fantasy than is my wont (I'm a bit of a low fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, grim'n'gritty fan if that's not already clear.) One thing I did like was that the setting was relatively open ended rather than extensively cataloged. But heck, that's even more true of a homebrew setting, right? Anyway, a few things worth borrowing, and worth reading as an exercise in creating a d20 fantasy game and setting that's specifically not D&D and seeing how it's done.

Midnight: This is another setting that benefits from a strong hook. There's only one god in Midnight, and he rules with an iron fist, cruelly oppressing the typical PC races. A lot of people describe this setting as "Lord of the Rings, except that Sauron won." I think, being a bit of a Tolkien pedantic, that it more closely approximates Beleriand after Nírnaeth Arnoediad, when Morgoth rules openly having defeated most of the elvish and mannish kindgoms one by one, right up before Eärendil went west and got the rest of the Valar to come kick him off his throne once and for all.

I think the setting is also a great toolkit to borrow from. In fact, I specifically by default borrow a lot of the setting rules for other games I run; the Defender is a great low fantasy alt.monk and the Wildlander is one of the best alt.rangers in print, in my opinion.

Iron Kingdoms: This is, by far, my favorite D&D setting right now. Not being content with vanilla, more of the same, Privateer Press created a world in the throes of an industrial revolution, threw out or radically redesigned most of the standard D&D races, and made a real tone change. Iron Kingdoms simply isn't high fantasy; it's gritty and rough and tough. It works best with themes of social revolution, open warfare between superpowers, intrigue and espionage, and rooting out horror elements (so some of my favorite themes are guiding principles of the setting, as you can see.) Very highly recommended. Very highly.

I've got more, but let's stop there for now. Also, I haven't read enough of the Pathfinder setting to comment yet anyway...