I haven't played all of these, but have used at least elements of them in various campaigns:

Greyhawk - It was called "vanilla" above, and I can see that. It is, indeed, subdued due to it never being as developed as Forgotten Realms. This makes it easy for the individual DM to customize it to his taste. The later "From The Ashes" box made it seem too much like fantasy Twilight: 2000.

Garweeze Wurld/Aldrazar - the setting for HackMaster. You see B.A. using this for his campaigns in Knights of the Dinner Table. I have the pdf's for the setting, which are pretty good. It "feels" like a more "wahoo" Greyhawk.

Cerilia (Birthright) - The entire BR concept has interested me. They came up with an interesting setting for it with a cool history. I like how many of the movers and shakers are unique monsters with strange backstories. Too bad it languishes, despite a fan-based 3e adaptation and a few odds and ends in Dragon and UA that help update it.

Al Qadim - At its best, this setting evokes a dreamy, Arabian Nights feel.

Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne) - A truly unique setting. It's tough to describe it briefly.

Ravenloft - the original boxed set was the one I liked. I never got why they changed so much of it later on. Strange and creepy, especially since Stephen Fabian did so much of the art for it and its sourcebooks.

Wilderlands - This is a true artifact of the early days of D&D. It really is freewheeling and fun. Tone of adventure hooks and the most wild city in RPGs.

Hyboria (Conan) - Howard's original work has been nicely adapted by (in large part) Vincent Darlage for Mongoose's "Conan" RPG. Dark swords & sorcery, with magic really being creepy and dangerous. I picture it all as one big Frazetta painting.

Atlantis (or whatever it's called) - This is the setting for the Arcanum D&D clone from way back. The setting book is called the Lexicon. It's a "fantasized" Earth from before Atlantis fell. This is a "kitchen sink" setting, with pretty much any type of setting showing up somewhere. You could set a Conan game in one area (like, say, Cimmeria), a Pendragon game in another, a Greek-type setting here, an African (Nyambe) game there, etc.

Lankhmar - The original city book was pretty cool, even if the attempted adaptation of Nehwon magic to D&D was pretty weak and half-assed. I liked the way the city was extremely customizable, so no two Lankhmar's are alike. A great campaign site for those who like city adventures.

2300 - The 2300 universe is one of my favorite scifi settings, in or out of RPGs. The aliens are really alien, and the setting seems plausible. No Federation or United Earth here; individual nations colonize space - hell, an entire planet became a state for the United States.

The Imperium - Traveller's setting is a huge, sprawling playground for a scifi game. Books like the Spinward Marches and the Solomani Rim give the GM thousands of worlds to throw at the players.

Quote from: KnightcrawlerAny particular reason or just the standard drow hate.

I just don't like the way it's done, as a facsimile of above-ground dwelling, just a bit different. I would rather it be done like "the Underworld" of mythology, but then that's just peculiar to my tastes I guess.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonAtlantis (or whatever it's called) - This is the setting for the Arcanum D&D clone from way back. The setting book is called the Lexicon. It's a "fantasized" Earth from before Atlantis fell. This is a "kitchen sink" setting, with pretty much any type of setting showing up somewhere. You could set a Conan game in one area (like, say, Cimmeria), a Pendragon game in another, a Greek-type setting here, an African (Nyambe) game there, etc.

I have never heard of this, but it piques my interest.

Quote from: ZalmoxisI have never heard of this, but it piques my interest.

I picked this up at a used bookstore back in the early 90's:



By modern standards it's very old school.

Quote from: SatyrI picked this up at a used bookstore back in the early 90's:

By modern standards it's very old school.

The books I have don't include that one. The Arcanum is a black book with a pentagram, the Bestiary has some critter or other on the cover, and the Lexicon, my favorite and the one I recommend the most, depicts a market scene crammed with a lot of colorful beings.

Quote from: SatyrI picked this up at a used bookstore back in the early 90's:

By modern standards it's very old school.

That also looks cool, Satyr. Maybe I can hunt them down somewhere.

Quote from: ZalmoxisThat also looks cool, Satyr. Maybe I can hunt them down somewhere.

As I mentioned above, the specific book I recommend is the Lexicon. The book Satyr shows isn't one of those I have, but I'm sure it's related. Perhaps a revision or a distillation of them.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonAs I mentioned above, the specific book I recommend is the Lexicon. The book Satyr shows isn't one of those I have, but I'm sure it's related. Perhaps a revision or a distillation of them.

I think it's a combination of The Bestiary and The Lexicon.

I may still have the Arcanum book for "Atlantis" somewhere around.  Man, that was totally a "kitchen sink" book.  

It had like two dozen classes in it.

I play almost exclusively in the Forgotten Realms.  It is way overdeveloped, and Ed Greenwood is the king of the fatbeards, so a lot of stuff in the sourcebooks is silly and in many cases, contradicts itself.  So, I change the Realms to suit my needs, and heavily butcher the source to get it the way I like it.

Planescape, though, now that is my favorite setting of all time.  I had the most fun playing it, and even now want some good source material to start playing there again.

Quote from: AelfinnI also had a lot of positive experience with spelljammer. I loved the hell out of it, and still treasure my complete collection of spelljammer books & boxsets i've got here at home...

I loved it better never got to play it. I had the entire collection also, but I sold it on eBay a few years ago.

I started with and have always loved Known World / Mystara. My most successful 2e campaign was set there, ranging from Karameikos,  to Glantri, esat to the Northern Reaches (east to the north?), and south to the Isle of Dread.

I've played plenty of Greyhawk and have considered breaking out a bunch of old 1e modules to update and run there.

Forgotten Realms: The most successful game that I was in as a player was set here. Unfortunately, I got burned out on the setting as it seemed it had a new sourcebook every week. Today, I use some of the "crunch" from it for other campaigns, but I will probably will never run it again.

I've played Birthright, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Al Qadim (once?). I didn't dislike any of them, but none of them really did anything for me either.

I enjoyed Planescape quite a bit.

I would have to say my favorite at the moment is Kingdoms of Kalamar. I wasn't really shocked not to see it mentioned as I've not found many others that like it. The ones that do, REALLY DO LIKE IT. I guess it's one of those love it or hate it settings. *shrugs*

Quote from: GeoFFieldsI would have to say my favorite at the moment is Kingdoms of Kalamar. I wasn't really shocked not to see it mentioned as I've not found many others that like it. The ones that do, REALLY DO LIKE IT. I guess it's one of those love it or hate it settings. *shrugs*

we are ambivalent about KoK. While it is an interestingly desinged setting with much going for it in the way of history, we feel that the poor quality of the modules which have been released for the setting, when combined with the failure of the setting to provide anything truely interesting or unique holds it back from being a truely memorable game setting.

I'm a big fan of Dark Sun, to the point where I have a complete collection of all the stuff (except novels and articles - unfortunately most of my RPG stuff is in storage in a friend's basement). I also like many of the other oddball 2e settings (Planescape, Spelljammer, Al-Qadim), but Dark Sun edges out the others.

I'll be different and weird and say Magnamund from the Lone Wolf game books and rpg.  I'm probably biased because the gamebooks were my gateway drug into rpgs, but I loved them when I was a kid (although the later ones did get kind of weird, with submarines and trains).

Not entirely thrilled about what Mongoose has done with it.  I would have preferred to see basic classes with the specific ones as something like prestige classes.  But I'm glad they resurrected it.

As far as FR, there are things I don't like about it, most notably:

1-The rabid fanboys who will call you on any deviation from canon
2-The high-powered magical nature of it.  I prefer magic to be rarer and more mysterious.
3-Of course the high powered NPCs who are the real movers and shakers

But it is an incredibly detailed world with lots of plot and adventure hooks and one I'm pretty comfortable in, so I grudgingly have to name it my second favorite setting.  Heck, despite the problems mentioned above, I never fail to have fun playing in it.