Are there geographic regions of your favorite RPG settings that almost never see use in your game or at other tables (from what you've heard)? Why are they underused? What would it take to make them more appealing? What should creators watch out for when trying to make a playable region?

I hardly ever use areas outside the Heartlands when DMing FR. Mainly because it's the most varied and adventure-friendly region.

One can kinda tell wich areas of a game world were created during actual play and wich ones were added later; the former tend to be very detailed while the latter tend to be very sweeping, making the former more exciting to play in (well okay it does depend on style. If more developed means "bunch of exciting locations" then more exciting, if it means "tons of NPCs and extreme detail on city stuff not necessarily relevant" then maybe not so much. But you take the good with the bad).

In general, any part in a fantasy setting that isn't a.) Ye Olde Englande, b.) another more-or-less medieval rip-off of a more-or-less European nation or c.) can be spinned to resemble either a.) or b.).

Even ancient pseudo-Europe (Mazes&Minotaurs) or early modern pseudo-Europe (7th Sea) can push some people out of their comfort zone.
Non-European cultures OTOH tend to be less accessible to unfamiliar players, and are hard to describe well without devolving into setting wank that will make the campaign area even _less_ accessible to the average gamer.

In Ravenloft both the Nightmare Lands and Bluetspur were pretty under-used. The Nightmare Lands I think never quite came together as a concept. It was a cool idea initially, then go quite strange when they did the boxed set. Bluetspur was exceptionally lethal with a barren and rocky surface. If you lingered outside at night (or what passed for it in the domain) you would have to save every round or be struck by lightning and take 8d6 damage. Underground the place was crawling with mind flayers. Bluetspur was pretty good for the occasional venture in but didn't feature into many campaigns I played.

The northwest parts of Greyhawk and Iuz we never used. Aside from a long adventure into the northeast region that did not end well at all for my magic user at the time - we stuck mostly to the southern half of the map.

In Karameikos we never used the eastern half of the map diagonally from the northwest corner down to the south east corner. Never used Threshold at all. We adventured primarily in Karameikos itself and the Five Shires and eventually up to Galantri.

Oddly enough we never visited the Rock of Bral or the Spelljammer itself in Spelljammer. Never used Astromomini but that was because the group was DMing for had to disband for years as we lost our home and gaming HQ. Still on the to-do list.

Eh, there are a bunch of areas in my game world that have seldom or never been visited.  This doesn't disturb me much: it gives me the opportunity to pour more development time and energy into the areas players frequent -- and thus make them deeper and richer -- instead of having to reinvent the wheel twenty times over.

I hardly ever hear of people playing in the rural areas of Eberron.

I like them though and the two longer runing campaigns I have DMed in the setting where in rural Karnath and the Shadow Marches.

Great spooky athmosphere in both, the marches being a supersized Insmouth and Karnath being fantasy east Europe with more Undead, great for a gothic horror or Grimms fairy tale vibe.

Quote from: Gold Roger;785995I hardly ever hear of people playing in the rural areas of Eberron.

True.
To me, Eberron comes off as such an urban setting in both flavor and mechanics, even without Sharn being its defining start-point. It's the setting you use to run Shadowrun or Star Wars in D&D, and even when the 4e Eberron books tried to put a focus on rural areas as part of its "Points of Light" refocus it didn't feel right. Like you'd be wasting the setting's true assets.

Quote from: BedrockBrendanIn Ravenloft both the Nightmare Lands and Bluetspur were pretty under-used.

The Nightmare Lands were oddly more useful when they were vaguely defined, but I did like the write-ups of the various nightmare lords. Hypnos in particular is nicely creepy, a mastermind who never moves and isn't even awake, but can show up anywhere. He should have been the lord of the entire thing instead of a subordinate of a boring grim reaper figure.

I kept forgetting Bluetspur existed. I feel it should have been a smaller area inside a more fleshed out domain to give a better "road" into it.

Tilea & Estalia in Warhammer. Especially Tilea. Why'd you make a renaissance pastiche RPG without actually providing material for play in Italianesque - Greekesque City States?

Quote from: Rincewind1;786025Tilea & Estalia in Warhammer. Especially Tilea. Why'd you make a renaissance pastiche RPG without actually providing material for play in Italianesque - Greekesque City States?

old world is full of unused regions. tilea, estalia, norsca, silk and ivory road regions on the way to cathay...

just before black industries caved in there was some talk about age of sails campaign/supplement in old world. chalk that also under great could have-been together with charles stross penned githyanki super module.

Quote from: Rincewind1;786025Tilea & Estalia in Warhammer. Especially Tilea. Why'd you make a renaissance pastiche RPG without actually providing material for play in Italianesque - Greekesque City States?

Seriously, they never got around to it!? I haven't exactly been paying close attention, but I could have sworn I saw material for those regions. Must be the lack of a miniature army pushing them to the eternal back burner.

Well, Mystara is absolutely fucking ENORMOUS.  We tried to travel to all the places possible in the very long level 1-36 campaign we ran, and even then I think we didn't get to see about more than half of the whole area actually mapped.

Quote from: RPGPundit;787387Well, Mystara is absolutely fucking ENORMOUS.  We tried to travel to all the places possible in the very long level 1-36 campaign we ran, and even then I think we didn't get to see about more than half of the whole area actually mapped.

I'm pretty sure there's at least one whole continent that's never been officially mapped.

I've been in a ton of FR games (and also ran a bunch of them). Never been in a game near Calimshan or the Unther/Mulhorand regions, and both are very cool.

Quote from: Rincewind1;786025Tilea & Estalia in Warhammer. Especially Tilea. Why'd you make a renaissance pastiche RPG without actually providing material for play in Italianesque - Greekesque City States?

http://www.liberfanatica.net/Tilea-Estalia.html