The location maps in WFRP 1E, complete with horizontal elevation. They spoke of a credible, authentic world that underlay the fantasy. It also coinicided with my disenchantment with faux medieval vanilla fantasy. WFRP grabbed Elmore derived aesthetics by the scruff of the neck and kicked them in the bollocks, for which I'll be eternally grateful.

7th Sea

(a) pirates
(b) NOM - yeah those of you who know the setting know of this
(c) the secret societies and levels of intrigue that just keep getting deeper

My favorite settings -

1)  Forgotten Realms.  It is a rich tapestry to work with, and almost any kind of game, style or campaign can find a foothold here.  I love the structure of the deities, and each is individualistic with a strong personality and flavor.  Being a cleric in FR is NEVER boring.  The 3.5 setting books for this are top-notch, and have loads of workable ideas and are chock full of great little niches and areas of interest.  At this point, FR has to be the most exhaustively detailed setting ever.

2)  old World of Darkness - it wasn't the "catch all" setting the new one is, but each and every game had more....PANACHE...than the new ones.  They had big problems, but man, they were just an absolute BLAST.  Werewolf, Wraith and Hunter were my all time favs, and the great thing about them was, again, you could play them almost any way you wanted.

3)  Shadowrun - I love this setting, even if the rules are often wonky through the edition ages.  Just simply the best mash-up setting ever.  Cyberpunk + D&D.

I made it.

I guess I should toot my own horn: Ebonyr

If we're talking published setting rather than homebrews, I'll say Greyhawk, because of its history. Not the setting's history, but the game history that places all of D&D's early, formative adventures in it, which helped shape what D&D's "default" or "implied" setting was like.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;309634If we're talking published setting rather than homebrews, I'll say Greyhawk, because of its history. Not the setting's history, but the game history that places all of D&D's early, formative adventures in it, which helped shape what D&D's "default" or "implied" setting was like.

This.

For one of my other favorite settings of Palladium, I like it because of the availability of playing traditional "monster races" that fit in, have a culture, and make sense, and because it is depicted with such richness and enthusiasm.

Quote from: Drew;309526The location maps in WFRP 1E, complete with horizontal elevation. They spoke of a credible, authentic world that underlay the fantasy.

... and weren't invented by GW. They came out of TSR UK's own contender to Dragon Magazine, Imagine. The Pelinore campaign setting was described in monthly instalments, with prominent buildings and locations from The City League.

When TSR stopped the publication of Imagine an exodus of writers and artists from TSR to GW happened, among them the artist responsible for those maps, Paul Ruiz.
(He also did the maps for the UK series of D&D modules, and some adventure maps in the old Corgi edition of Dragon Warriors.)

On topic:

While it is not my favourite setting I found the idea behind demons in Lace & Steel quite remarkable:
In that game, demons weren't extraplanar entities, but manifestations of a wizard's dark side. In all his lifetime, a wizard could summon just one demon whose stats would be built from his own mental stats.
Since emotions and relationships were also numerically rated (and could modify die rolls and skill checks) all the hatred that the wizard may have had for other people gave more building points for his demon...

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;309906... and weren't invented by GW. They came out of TSR UK's own contender to Dragon Magazine, Imagine. The Pelinore campaign setting was described in monthly instalments, with prominent buildings and locations from The City League.

When TSR stopped the publication of Imagine an exodus of writers and artists from TSR to GW happened, among them the artist responsible for those maps, Paul Ruiz.
(He also did the maps for the UK series of D&D modules, and some adventure maps in the old Corgi edition of Dragon Warriors.)

Yes, I was aware of that. I have the complete run of Imagine magazine boxed up in my garage.

The TSR UK exodus was an interesting phenomenon. Paul Cockburn's explanation of what happened can be read as a direct chain of causes-and-effects that led from Lake Geneva's mismangement of D&D to WFRP's creative inception.

Quote from: Melan;309397The Wilderlands: the Campaign Hexagon System (basically a hex grid keyed with four digit coordinates); an elegant and unobtrusive way of partitioning imaginary place and translating it to game procedures. Simple genius. I wonder why only Traveller adopted it, and Greyhawk/Mystara went with unlabelled hex maps.

I love that too. Excellent point.

In Greyhawk, that's the lack of detail of the 1983 boxed set, the ability to build whatever you want from Gygax's setting, as well as the overall layout of the books therein. Great stuff.

My favorite setting is our own past and present, so the best thing is that it's so well-developed (whole libraries of setting books, and they're free!), but with enough left minimally defined for the referee to insert all sorts of crazy stuff.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;309906While it is not my favourite setting I found the idea behind demons in Lace & Steel quite remarkable:
In that game, demons weren't extraplanar entities, but manifestations of a wizard's dark side. In all his lifetime, a wizard could summon just one demon whose stats would be built from his own mental stats.
Since emotions and relationships were also numerically rated (and could modify die rolls and skill checks) all the hatred that the wizard may have had for other people gave more building points for his demon...

I have to say, that is quite cool... never heard of the game, though.

Quote from: SunBoy;310074I have to say, that is quite cool... never heard of the game, though.

Some info:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/search-review.phtml?productAuthor=Paul%20Kidd
http://www.arielarchives.com/LaceSteel.html
http://www.mad-irishman.net/pub_lands.html
https://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetail.asp_Q_ProductID_E_-813535657_A_InventoryID_E_2147640844_A_ProductLineID_E_-1413414034_A_ManufacturerID_E_842930753_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_

Thank you.

I like that Exalted's setting has an internal consistency that I've never found in other fantasy games.  The way ghosts, spirits, gods and reincarnation works makes sense and carries so many play opportunities.  I covet the "macro" in games, I need to know the underlying cause to everything, so this to me is best in life.