My own.  Playing any other setting is like playing in someone else's sandbox- it's nice for a while but sometimes you just want to go pantless.

In reply to Ronning (msg # 3):

What's your setting like or what do you enjoy in your settings?

Hmm, close call between my sci-fi and magic setting, Magitech, and Fallout Equestria.

When I'm playing rpgs, I want a familiar setting, an unobtrusive system, and some good role-playing. This applies to whether I'm on RPOL or not.

This is tough. I guess I have to say that my favorite settings are, in order:

- Judges Guild's Wilderlands
- Classic Traveller's 3rd Imperium, Spinward Marches, just before or after the 5th Frontier War
- Old Chaosium Runequest 2 -era Pavis/Big Rubble/Prax
- Tekumel

I see rpgs as a way to play out the books I love. I much prefer to play in a 'signature' setting rather than someone's 'home-brew' setting. It's the thrill of playing in a place that's vivid in my imagination.

Forgotten Realms, probably because of the diversity as Wyrm says.

<quote Wyrm>
Forgotten Realms Pre-$th edition.

Ed Greenwood and his buddies just seemed to give me a really huge playground
Yes for all the same reasons.
Though  Lankhmar is a close second for me.

Dark Sun; 2nd edition days. Where magic items meant something again.

World of Greyhawk very close 2nd. Just as big a playground as FR really; but without the ELminster/Drizz't issues.

My favorite setting is whichever one lets me throw fireballs or the equivalent of around like candy and play it up for comedy.

So, currently, Slayers d20 is my favorite setting, because it's in a universe where you can quite literally defeat an opponent through embarrassment damage.

That sounds awesome Shei-kun.

As for me. I am in limbo right now. Lost in a sea of text unable to decide anymore.

 I hear that one!

I would venture it has to do with the optionality of pants. :p

I like old world of darkness because it dives into rather heavy stuff like n-dimensional physics and memnomic theorem.  Then they take that and make it work with stuff based off real world spiralisum to come up with some stuff that is crazy supernatural reality bending stuff but mates compeat sense that it could be posable, even if only in the slightest minute chance.

They had to change it all up for 3rd ed for the fact it was over most peoples heads by like a mile, and there were pople that found it so plausible they started thinking it was real. (Probably didn't help they put there company in the game as a company working for dark powers to make supernatural elements more acceptable by the general populas, and to curupt and/or drive the acasional kid crazy)

As an note my friend did have to tie some dandelion we use to know to a tree till sunrise once over it. Though I would have rather let him just act like a Morton but he tried to drink some ones blood and that's a little to far.

In reply to kouk (msg # 13):

Touche'!

I'll steal this line from Baron.

Classic Traveller's 3rd Imperium, Spinward Marches, just before or after the 5th Frontier War

Started playing in 1979, no need to stop now.

My two top favorites are Rifts & Forgotten Realms.

Mainly because i like a variety of choices at my disposal when i play a game and these settings to me deliver on that.

As a GM, I'll second Ronning - my own Homebrew ... not because it's better than any established setting or anyone else's world, but simply because as a GM it's nice to know more about the world than any of the players !  Especially the dark secrets that dwell therein.  <grins>

As a Player, then Forgotten Realms 3rd Ed has a wealth of information so that my characters can sound as if they actually live there (yup, it's one rule for me as GM and another rule entirely for my players).

Greyhawk I never quite got ... to me the available material always seemed a bit haphazard (though next to Ed Greenwood's efforts EVERYTHING would).

Always had a soft spot for Judges Guild ... but to me the setting wasn't that well documented (despite the comprehensive maps) - the beauty of their products was that they could slot into any campaign.  City State of the Invincible Overlord in particular is well documented, but I could place it anywhere and get just as much out of it.

I liked Midnight (evil rules OK, low magic world).  Never got around to running it, but I use ideas from it all the time.

And of course Alpha Complex, for the truly Paranoid.  :>

I like a setting with hard science that makes me need hard liquor afterwards. Shadowrun and Eclipse Phase are my current favorites.

Something with a bit of flair and plenty of hooks for players to get their teeth into.

If I'm using someone else's setting, that normally translates to a decent well-structured canon - deep, with opportunities for meaningful play and interesting characters drawn from a broad pool who can interact (i.e. doesn't rely on everyone being a loner or a member of a secret society). At the moment that means FASA's Battletech universe, or Palladium's Rifts/Megaverse or World of Darkness - though that may be cheating with the modern setting ;)

If I'm using my own setting, I tend to world-build heavily and provide a bunch of colour elements so players can immerse themselves quickly. Not played one of those on RPoL yet, so will see how it adapts

On here I'm finding some of the shared setting creation to be exceptional, so playing a bunch of games that are looser than what I normally play. Mixed results, but some strikingly interesting gems amongst them

Mostly horror and sci-fi genre's myself.

But what I really like is approaching a game world from a different perspective.  Playing cops or corporate security in Shadowrun, playing something new or wild in a sci-fi setting.  I'm currently running one of these, a special operations group in the zombie apocalypse.

I like the BattleTech universe as well as the Lone Wolf setting. The latter more-so as it's what got me into roleplaying in the first place.

I predominantly like dark/horror, sci-fi (if not too tech heavy), end of world, post apoc and superhero.

Oh yeah, forgot to add why. :P

I love dark/horror stuff b/c that's some of the first books and movies I started reading and watching. Stuff like King, Koontz, Poe, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Carrie, Christine, etc.

I think Aliens got me into Sci-Fi, which in turn got me into ST:TNG and DS9 and B5. I like a good Sci-Fi setting as long as it's not too tech heavy.

I like End of the World settings b/c it's kind of cathartic to fight against that thing that can just bring an end to everything.

From End of the World, it seems a natural progression to Post Apocalyptic. Maybe "the end" was stopped, but at what cost? Maybe "the end" wasn't stopped, but it didn't kill everything, it just reset things? It's kinda cool to play and survive when you have very little to work with.

Last, but not least, superhero. I'm a comic geek. To me, there would be NOTHING better in life than to develop super powers. I don't care what anyone says. Me having super strength, or the ability to transform into living stone or organic steel, or any other combination of powers could never be topped.
This message was last edited by the user at 03:03, Wed 17 Sept 2014.

In reply to PsychoJester (msg # 24):

Do check out Delta Green then.

Golarion, Ninth World or late 19th century Europe/Asia.

Originally I'd have answered Faerun, because I was playing it when it first started coming out, and it was always exciting to see what the next part of the world that would roll out was going to be and how our DM would incorporate it into our games. (We did a lot of world traveling and eventually Spelljamming in our D&D 2e games.)

Today, I'm enjoying the Golarion setting as it's being unveiled (much like Forgotten Realms 20 years ago).  However, the most recent one has me questioning it just a bit - adding a sci-fi element to a fantasy setting (yes, it was done back in Gygax's day) has always left me scratching my head asking why?  But other than that little glitch, I'm enjoying Golarion these days.