What if your favorite game setting and why?

There are multiple world settings for the games we play. I would love to hear what your favorite setting is and why?

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I will start with my personal favorite, Eberron.
Eberron to the natural progression of a magic world and industrialised it with Dragonmarked houses as megacorporations.
Eberron also heavily leans into noir storytelling—gritty cities, private investigators, shady deals, and ethical dilemmas abound. And there is no inherent good or evil races. Everyone is the good guy in their own story.
Underneath it all is the post-war tension, and the scars from the last war. There is so many opportunities for stories and adventures in what ever flavor you want.
There is the recognisable, like the drow elves, and then there is the twist - they used to be a slave race of the giants.

Did I mention flying ships?

My personal favorite is the city detailed in After the Serpent, but that's cause I wrote it. A science/fantasy collision of unliving, imperial colonial, nomadic, barbarian, and ancient native city cultures, set on a necklace-style ringworld.

Next favorite is Trilemma Adventures. Scrappy human types surviving dark times and plucking through the war-ravaged ruins of elfen (Seree) and dwarfen (Martoi) empires.

Both of my favorite settings are homebrewed:

Jenneria: Jenneria is a campaign world that started in the days of AD&D 1e. It was originally a place to house all the modules and adventures that weren't set in a specific campaign setting. Over the years, the setting has taken on a life of its own. Jenneria is, in many ways, a typical high fantasy world. There are elves (but no drow), dwarves, and all the fantasy tropes. The world has transitioned over the years, from AD&D mechanics, to GURPS, to Pathfinder 1e, to its current form as a Savage Worlds setting.

Aerth: This is the setting for my novel series that I am writing. It is very similar to 19th-century Earth, except that magic exists and there are elves, dwarves, goblins, orks, faeries, and dragons. The planets are surrounded by the æther, an unbreathable vacuum, but it can be traveled through. Travelers in the æther use a substance called oxigum (gum arabic infused with crystalized oxygen). When chewed, it releases the oxygen into the body. Venus, being younger than our world (because it is closer to the sun, dont'cha know?) is a hothouse jungle with dinosaurs, cannibal halflings (my favorite part of Dark Sun), and lizardfolk. Mars, being older, holds the ruins of an ancient civilization and the remnants of the insectoid race that built it.

If we're talking about settings that were professionally produced, my favorite is the World of Greyhawk, just because it was my first. It was the campaign setting that started me on the way to creating Jenneria, and showed me that there was something beyond linked dungeon sessions.

My favorite wasn't when I first started, but it was one of my first 13A games and I leaned very heavily on the players to flesh things out. It was a success. I got the idea from a friend of mine who ran a game in a very similar setting, but I've run four or five games now and get more little details every time.

Terminus was created in the aftermath of a cosmology-spanning war between the gods that nearly destroyed everything. Not everything as in laid waste to the planet, but everything as in entire galaxies died, and the universe almost followed them. Terminus was the last battleground. Orcs and trolls were sent into battle against the elementals and the dwarves. When they died, they were raised again as revenants to fight the giants. The celestial war was fought to a stalemate, and eventually a truce was called. As the gods attempted to rebuild their one remaining world, a new god - or a risen old one, attacked without warning, throwing Terminus out of its orbit. The rest of the gods used what little power they had left to give the world magic enough to survive in the dwindling light and growing cold, and then were never heard from again. There is a prophecy that as part of their plan to save Terminus, they hid their power away from the new god on Terminus itself, and it waits for someone worthy to claim it.

I don't know if it's my favourite setting, but I DM all my games in the Forgotton Realms and only play games set in the FR too.

Most D&D 5e modules (both official and 3rd party like AL) are set in the FR, so there's lots of material to help DMs and players. As it's D&D 5e's unofficial default setting, there aren't many restrictions on PC species or spells, so the players don't have to learn anything special to get started. There are loads of novels, video games (there are 12 in Baldur's Gate alone!), and a comprehensive wiki with ideas for players and DMs.

But because there are so many novels and modules by different authors, the lore is contradictory enough to allow space for ignoring it. There's no demand to be 100% canon (which canon?), so that makes it less intimidating for players and DMs. It also lets us tie campaigns together, and players can get some callbacks from other adventures (even adventures with other players and PCs). I like players to add and change the setting too, because nobody owns the truth of it - "Volo says Elturgard exemplifies humanity's potential for greatness, does he? Well, I lived there, mate, and let me tell you, Volo's talking bollocks."

As far as 5e settings go, FR is D&D's basic beige vanilla, but there's a lot of it - and that's why I like it. It's like a massive mansion; it has structure and space, but the walls are blank and waiting to be painted.

I'm a big fan of Frog God Games' Lost Lands.. It, too, has a wiki. It has a world book that gives a lot of a little information, some regional books that give a good bit of a good bit of information, and plenty of modules that detail sections of the world. And there's so much of it!

It's a world in which good literally battles evil, where there is as much darkness and intrigue within city walls as there is without, and where the status quo is crumbling and various factions are moving to take advantage and take control. A world where ancient runes can be found and not just talked about. And also it has Rappan Athuk. It is the perfect setting for adventuring.

My other favorite setting which has less written about it but is all flavor and vibes is the Latter Earth from Worlds Without Number. Four thousand years since the ancient planet split off in an alternate timeline, the beginning of which happening after ages of alien and sorcerer control and post-technology. It's a dying earth with science fantasy, and boy howdy does Kevin Crawford know how to lay out delicious nation descriptions. My problem is that I'm awful at original creation, so the broad strokes provided aren't enough for me.

I have quite a few! I really like the gritty post-apocalyptic feel of Dark Sun. I'm a sucker for fantasy steampunk so Iron Kingdoms is one of my all-time favorites. The bizarre and gonzo world of Hubris for Dungeon Crawl Classics is unique and inspirational. I love the kitchen-sink world of Golarion from Pathfinder (especially the names of countries and deities). And who doesn't love the fantasy-cyberpunk hybrid of Shadowrun?

So many good ones. I don't usually gravitate towards big dense settings, but I certainly used to. Not gonna explain every one of these, but happy to expand if someone is wondering about one or the other...

Classic Fantasy
80s Greyhawk (the only Greyhawk I know)
DCC Lankhmar

Sword & Sorcery / Sandals
Jackals
The Midlands from the Low Fantasy Gaming and Tales of Argosa RPGs
Swords of the Serpentine

Grim Fantasy
Rangers of the Midden Vale
Outcast Silver Raiders
Forbidden Lands
DCC Stennard
Kingdom for the Warlock! RPG

Science Fantasy
Orn from the Electrum Archive zines
Masters of Umdaar

Dark Fantasy
Symbaroum
Midnight
Band of Blades

Science Fiction
Aliens & Asteroids
CY_BORG
Underground
Coriolis
Bulldogs

Mecha
Heavy Gear
Jovian Chronicles
Lancer
Salvage Union
Camelot Trigger

Historicalish
Holler
Vaesen

I think my favorite settings are:

1) Rokugan - the setting of Legends of the Five Rings, shared with D&D's Oriental Adventures during the third edition. Nobility, honor, ambition war on a world of politics, tradition, and betrayal.

2) Deadlands - the setting and original game that spawned Savage Worlds. Horror, pulp, and a unique character that bridges technology with a grim and troubled time.

3) Blue Rose - romantic fantasy written for the modern age, full of a true utopian, Arthurian hope. Light is never brighter than when contrasted with darkness.

4) Symbaroum - do you like black forest and Slavic inspired gritty dark fantasy? This is it done with loving ingenuity.

5) World of Darkness - our world taken to a more dystopian extreme than even the most unhappy of our world imagine it to be. The poor are poorer, crime more crimey, and politicians even more corrupt. In this setting, strange horrors lurk in the shadows, and heroes and villains alike battle for straenge industry.

My favorite is definitely Rokugan L5R. Maybe because its closer to my own culture.

Beside that; Greyhawk, Forgotten realms for the more western medieval setting. I think they are complete and well balanced, lot of material online as well.

World of Darkness and Shadowrun are probably my two top picks.

I still love me some high fantasy, but I played so much D&D growing up it's got sort of a "been there, done that" feel.

Shadowrun takes that high fantasy, gives it a bleeding edge dystopian makeover, and sends it out to tick all the fun boxes.

As for World of Darkness (and Kult)... I enjoy horror. The idea of our world but with monsters -- and everything that comes with that -- appeals. Shadows aren't just dark... there are things in them. Corruption, string-pulling, plots that span centuries.

And of course, Kult is essentially World of Darkness if World of Darkness stopped being geared for kids.

I totally agree about Shadowrun, its an awesome setting, to bad that the systems have all been much to crunchy

Truth.

To be fair, D&D started out pretty crunchy too. And hey, at least it isn't RoleMaster levels of crunch! Lol

But yeah, crunchy systems don't do fantastic in PbP. It's amazing around a table though.

Quick comment, D&D is currently far more crunchy than it was originally. It ain't 3.5 levels, but 5e has a lot.

I don't think crunchy is necessarily a bad thing for PbP, it's when that level of crunch requires back and forth. Character sheets can do a lot of the heavy lifting either on GP or Google Calc or wherever you want to host them, which can take care of so much number crunching.

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Just a tangent lot related to the topic at hand.

Back on topic, I really enjoy the Cyberpunk setting (Night City), too. Especially in RED where you have detailed descriptions of the districts, gangs, major players, and plenty of locations. It makes it really easy to use, and is packed full of flavor.

I dunno. I consider AD&D to effectively be the start of D&D, and I feel that had a lot more crunch than 5e. The charts, the racial maximums, the race-based class limits, the split XP multiclassing rules... it was a much more mechanically complex game.

That got worse as they revised it into 3, and then 3.5. But AD&D absolutely felt a ton crunchier than 5e.
There's truth to that, certainly. However... the more crunch, the more likely a game is to require that back and forth. Of course there are exceptions, but I think it's true enough to view as a general guideline.

I couldn't imagine a fight in Rolemaster via PbP. It might be a rather extreme example, but with all the moving pieces -- adrenals, adjusting OB and DB, the possibility of open ending low or high, different charts for almost every form of attack, critical charts, and then calculating XP both for hits given and hits received, spells, and skill use?

I don't hate myself enough to try it.

I love the setting of Shadowrun, but considering I've only been playing D&D 5.5 for about a month and a half, I don't think I'm quite ready.
I love the mashing of dystopia with fantasy. Imagine if we found out the biggest corporations in our world were ran by dragons. (McDonald's, Coca Cola, Starbucks, etc.)

Kinda giving off Final Fantasy 6 vibes.

Has to be Shadowrun. The inclusion of magic and fantasy races in a cyberpunk setting is so original and the creators have really put in the labour to make it work. It's not just "pick one, cybernetics or spells" or strictly mechanical game balance, it's how they've thought about how such a world would function. How mages, often discovering their power at a situation of great duress, are feared because many a person has caught an accidental fireball while arguing with another driver after a car accident, or how the court system would function when you can summon the ghost of the murdered victim to identify their murderer and testify against them. Everyday things aren't just handwaved away and if you're paying attention, you can notice the cracks to slip through. I remember a text about runners discussing the value of discreet clothing, blending in and using pubic transportation instead of a big flashy vehicle that can be traced and chased, only for someone to provide the counter argument of "hey, sometimes I just need people to not get in my way so rolling in all decked out and geared up does the trick". I think SR gets a lot of heat for being "crunchy" but once you've created a character or two and played a couple of sessions, it all flows very well. My complaints would have to be 1) the endless gear/gun/spell/cyberware/drone/programme lists which are hell to navigate and pick, then it encourages players to dig into supplemental books for more of it, then it's a mess as a GM to figure out what's ok and where the info for everything is and 2) how the tech heavy classes, mainly deckers and to an extent riggers, have their own set of rules and individual mini game mechanics that slows the game down to a halt for everyone else.

I quite enjoy Pathfinder's world of Golarion for similar reasons. It's a kitchen sink of ideas, but it feels like they've put in the thought of how such a thing could operate.

Planescape is another favourite, obviously. There's great potential to go to unique places and do all sorts of things, but what makes me tick is that moment where things click for players and everyone's re-defining their motives and values. Yeah you want to amass treasure and gold, but what good is it in such a setting? Oh you're a devoted priest of god X, hop through that portal to their home domain and go meet them in person. Want to be the greatest warrior huh, step right up into the plane of eternal combat and fight it out with the specialists. Come see how things work with Petitioners after you die, it'll make you question your life choices and where this path is leading you. Plus, it's the only setting where you can literally force things into existence, or talk people out of it.

I do like Dark Sun's "dying earth" post apocalyptic fantasy vibe, but sadly I've only read about it so far, never got to actually play it.

Midnight is another one I enjoy, for the trope flip of having evil rule the world and characters being sneaky resistance fighters. It sure feels fresh when PCs aren't the flashy folks parading around in their big swords and sorceries.

Quite like Warhammer Fantasy, but I wouldn't say it's a world or setting I especially adore.

Honorary mention, the world of The Witcher. That's cause I've only finished the first game, started the second but didn't have the capacity to go on and have the third waiting on the wings. I've only played one game of the TTRPG in the borders between Temeria and Redania, which I enjoyed. As such, I wouldn't say I'm that familiar with the world to pick it as a favourite or not, but I'm certainly liking what I've seen of it so far.

This is a fun thread!

The setting for Rifts is good fun. It's so open and flexible that, despite its age, it never takes itself so seriously that it invites people to argue whether something is "canon."

The Realms of Terror, aka, Ravenloft, are great. The idea of a planar federated system of prisons for creepy and disturbing things is fantastic.

The Dragon Empire for 13th Age is nice as well. Not only are there ultra-powerful entities extant in the world, but the setting is deliberately incomplete so players can fill in the gaps as they see fit.