This isn't a game rules question.

This is lore.  Let's discuss the world of the game you like playing in, even games with shit rules.

Rifts is one such game to me.  Gonzo doesn't begin to describe it.  As a mecha fan, giant robots are my spirit animal of choice.  Or you can be a wizard.  Or RoboCop.  Or be hopped up on so many drugs you can beat everyone up for a few years until you die of burnout.  Or an evil army soldier who thinks they're good. All while fighting literal demons with laser rifles.

Another game that impressed me for the lore was Dragon Lance.  I have yet to play a single D&D rules based game, but Dragon Lance novels are well worth reading. 

Also, if anyone wants to, this is a good place to list any RPG books that are purely a world book with out without any system specific rules involved.  I'm sure people write them.  A book about just their home brew fantasy lands, people, and places of interest.

Rifts and Dark Sun are two favorites that I've played a lot in. I love to just read the setting stuff.

Mutant Chronicles is fascinating. 40k meets Film Noir.



Heavy Gear's world building was extensive and great. It really felt like an Anime series.

I bought nearly everything for the Jovian Chronicles setting just because it was fun.  It's a Gundam analog. However, the various nations are from Mercury on out to Jupiter.  Jupiter is the top dog, with a militant Earth looking to conquer everyone, despite only controlling half of Earth itself (some of which isn't worth owning due to nuclear fallout).

I've never played Runequest, but I bought the huge coffee-table "Guide to Glorantha" books just for their lore and to mine ideas.  I'm also quite fond of Mystara/Known World.  And the Old World from Warhammer is cool; some of the novels are fun.

For AD&D, it's Greyhawk.  I also still love Middle Earth because of the deep history and back stories.  ICE did a better job of capturing that than subsequent RPGs even if some of the game's mechanics made it more "high magic" than the books.  L5R had a good setting until recent editions turned it into Wokeugan.

Rifts...the ultimate kitchen sink game universe.

Outside of that, probably Star Wars for obvious reasons.

I like Mystara a lot. I love both Warhammer's setting and 40k. Though in 40k's case i prefer it as a backdrop for wargaming rather than RPGs

Realms of Terrinoth's extensive lore was fantastic to read. I wish the setting wasn't only (officially) adapted to the Genesys system.

Deadlands will always be my favorite setting, particularly for all the different flavors it comes in.... From the Wild West, the Wasted West, The Way out West... and it's mini-settings like Noir and Dark Ages.

Pinnacle was never afraid to put in little homages to popular culture and real history either. Hell on Earth was probably my groups "RIFTS" as it was Deadlands in the Post Apocalpyse with a Gonzo Kitchen Sink setting.

Outside of that, Shadowrun pre 4th edition was a lot of fun. The setting kind of lost it's appeal and everything fun about it when it went from 3rd to 4th edition.

Traveller's Third Imperium is pretty high on the list.  There's so much going on.

I'm also a Mutant Chronicles fan.  I even wrote a GDW House System / MC hybrid.

The GURPS Fantasy world of Yrth has long appealed to me, even if it does wind up being a bit more like a ren-faire theme park than a more realistic fantasy world.

Dark Conspiracy's five minutes into the future dystopia has always appealed to me more than cyberpunk and other more extreme dystopias.

Space 1889 is so much fun it's like pre-steam punk without the excessive silliness of steampunk.

Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I'm a GDW fan.

I love the Shadowrun setting.  Which is a bit out of character as I don't usually like mixing magic and modern technology

I have been looking at the Hostile setting book recently - 320 pages of 1980s futurism, it is Alien with the serial numbers filed off. Corporations, starships, colonies, guns, all of that sweet clunky tech and explanations of why it is that way. There is a separate rulebook, which is an OGL version of Traveller.

Dark Sun for Sword & Sorcery, Golarian (1E) for Fantasy, Star Wars for Science Fantasy, and Charted Space (Traveller) for Science Fiction.

Don't laugh (too much), but for me the XXVc setting from TSR (aka Buck Rogers) is a pretty cool setting.

Sure, it's got two major stikes against it:

1.) It was an obvious money grab for the Dille Family Trust by using the Buck Rogers IP.
2.) Flint Dille is the brother of Lorraine Williams - Tiamat herself to a lot TSR fans.

In my opinion, the best spirit of the setting was captured in - of all places - the TSR Comic Modules of the time (which was a dubious venture and could be argued as a sign of things to come).  They are gritty and great fun. 

The novels aren't bad, either, although I've only read six of ten (and some material in "Arrival", the first novel, contradicts some of the later lore). 

The Countdown to Doomsday game (PC, Sega Genesis) is fantastic fun and I've played it all the way through several times on the Genesis.  It was the first game to actually make me feel sad (for those who know the game, when the Lowlanders had been attacked and the mom is holding her crying baby).

The actual RPG boxed set is "ok" and the system (a stripped-down AD&D 2nd Edition with percentile skills) is "ok".  The supplements are definitely hit or miss, with at least one of them reading as if the author was slightly mentally incapacitated while actively writing it.

Heck, even the Battle in the 25th Century boardgame gets pretty good reviews.

For years I've been compiling a list of systems to run the setting with (the one and only time I ran it, we used d20 Modern) and I'd love to play it again sometime.  It has some paradoxical, conflicting info that a GM would need to iron out to make it work ahead of time.
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The Star*Drive setting for TSR's Alternity is pretty cool, too.
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I love the idea of Ravenloft but some of the fantasy elements irk me.
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I love Al Qadim.

Greyhawk - Gygax's, Carl Sargent's and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer versions, not the new bastardised DMG 2024 version.

Harn
Great maps, great setting, great Fan content.