Quote from: dragoner;759455Goth at Burning Man?

Heh, Gothic Horror really isn't like the Goth scene though they can be connected. Dark Sun was Post Apoc/Environmentalism and other similar vibes. It's not horror as I conceive of it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;759447"Everything's dead!  It's refreshing!"

Yup.

Elves frolicking in the forest gets old.

In a Dark Sun game I ran, an Entity claiming to be an Elven god emerged; such a nice caring individual. This new god was gathering the nomadic elves to a miraculous oasis in the desert.

Too bad no one knew it was not really a benevolent nature god come to revitalize the world.

It was Lolth.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;759454Ravenloft was Gothic, not Goth. There's a difference. It must be remembered that Ravenloft predates the World of Darkness by a full year.

  Seriously, Ravenloft's ambiance is very much Universal/Hammer/horror literature, as Brendan points out. You can find that fact going all the way back to the Black Box and its recommendations for reading, viewing and designing adventures. But that's probably why I love it--I grew up reading about the classic monster movies, playing the Castlevania video games, etc. So Ravenloft hits those buttons just perfectly for me.

  And to really work, the setting requires a stronger sense of contrast than most horror games. This is perhaps a result of it being designed as the 'Twilight Zone' of D&D. But it really doesn't work so well if you embrace the nihilism that so often goes along with Cthulhoid, WoD or 40K horror.

That all may be true, but it was all the Goth kids (The Anne Rice crowd) who were in love with it, so that's what I associate with it.

I liked a lot of those settings in concept if not execution.
Mostly I wanted to excise the D&D-isms out of them... get the trad-fantasy races out and change up the magic.
Mostly I mined them for ideas without using them straight up.
Ravenloft and Dark Sun in particular (I've always been curious about Birthright but never bought/read/played it).
I think Ravenloft might work best, for me, as a 19th century sandbox version of Supernatural... crossed with bits of The Whispering Vault to set up Shadowlands/Domains and the Buffy/Watcher campaign.

Spelljammer was better done as Spacemaster's Dark Space.

Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms never interested me... except for the Underdark, which I happily stole for my homebrew setting.

Quote from: Bill;759459Yup.

Elves frolicking in the forest gets old.

In a Dark Sun game I ran, an Entity claiming to be an Elven god emerged; such a nice caring individual. This new god was gathering the nomadic elves to a miraculous oasis in the desert.

Too bad no one knew it was not really a benevolent nature god come to revitalize the world.

It was Lolth.

Ok, that's pretty horrific. Imagine Dark Sun Elf Driders?

Quote from: Marleycat;759458Heh, Gothic Horror really isn't like the Goth scene though they can be connected. Dark Sun was Post Apoc/Environmentalism and other similar vibes. It's not horror as I conceive of it.

Yes, I agree, as literature, Gothic Horror and the goth scene has nothing to do with Gothic Horror; which is a great genre as well for its social commentary.

I had some Goth friends go to Burning Man, and their pictures they brought back of them covered in dust was great. The movie Hardware kinda did that too.

My favorites are the ones that I felt took interesting risks and then pulled them off:

Dark Sun because the setting was a return to the pulpy Sword & Sorcery and Science Fantasy roots of the game in the vein of Howard, Burroughs, Moorcock, and Vance, while still presenting a very original and compelling world with its own unique take on pre-existing tropes.  I also adore Brom's artwork for the game.

Ravenloft was wonderful because it has some really quality adventures, and because campy Gothic horror can be a ton of fun.  I never felt that Ravenloft took itself too seriously; even when it was in full Anne Rice brooding mode it felt like it was sort of winking at itself.  I love the Gothic and horror generally, and I think it understands the genre it's playing with very well.  It might not be the best fit for the D&D system, in some ways, but I still like it a lot (enough to run annual jaunts to Ravenloft in October).

Planescape is probably my all-time favorite of the era because it married "high weirdness" and wild, even gonzo imagination with a really detailed urban fantasy/noir/punk aesthetic of a very unusual and ambitious sort.  I love DiTerlizzi's illustrations and unlike some enjoyed the attempt to incorporate conflicts around ideas, beliefs, and philosophies into the game.  It didn't require a philosophy degree to understand, but it presented groups and characters motivated by concepts and ideas in a way that's rarely been done.  Some people (I know the Pundit is of this opinion) don't like the way that it undercut the gravitas or "specialness" of the Planes, but I find the cynical, hard-boiled way it approaches things like gods and demons quite compelling.  I am currently DMing a (pre-Faction War) Planescape game that's just passed it's 2 year mark.

As for settings I didn't care for:

Dragonlance was certainly not my favorite since it led to some detrimental trends in the way adventures were written and the way TSR did business.  I don't think the setting is all that interesting or appealing, either.  It really feels like just a homebrew setting that's fine to run a game with, and everything, but that didn't really merit dozens of novels, sourcebooks, and modules.

Forgotten Realms gives me very mixed feelings, because I love some aspects (the Underdark is great, for example), but overall it just feels a bit hackneyed and stale.  I can appreciate the immense detail and I can see it as a viable alternative to Greyhawk for some, but it's just not really my cup of tea.

Spelljammer is fairly ridiculous and doesn't really hang together.  Unlike Planescape, which takes pains to adapt itself and integrate elements from other settings in a way that makes some kind of sense, Spelljammer always just felt tacked on to the D&D multiverse.  The first module, Wildspace, literally just has a spaceship dropping anchor in front of the characters and pulls them into a space adventure... it just struck me as clumsy and awkward and not very well integrated into the existing material.  It could have worked if instead of doing the whole "different settings are crystal spheres" thing it had done something more like Shadowrun, where it's an original world in its own right but still makes use of fantasy tropes mixed in.  So I guess it really just suffers from a botched execution, in my opinion.

Quote from: Bill;759459It was Lolth.

That is a good twist.

I have played her out as the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan or Spider Woman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan

Quote from: Marleycat;759464Ok, that's pretty horrific. Imagine Dark Sun Elf Driders?

That would be a great monster.

Buck Rogers XXVC was my favorite 2E setting.

Quote from: Bill;759473That would be a great monster.

Good you should use it next time you run Dark Sun.

My favorite was Dark Sun. Hands down. As long as you ignored the last parts of the Prism Pentad, it was awesome, novels and all.

My second favorites were Ravenloft and Spelljammer (though I liked the idea of Spelljammer more than the reality.)

My least favorite was Dragonlance.  

Forgotten Realms novels were great, but I never played there.

I never got to play or read Birthright or Planescape, though I was very interested in the latter.

I loved Birthright.  It just felt epic.  It's actually one of the few setting that has a PC I played that I remember in any detail (and have frankly recycled from time to time).

I loved the idea of Spelljammer (but not the execution) and liked bits of Dark Sun, but not the whole, though the Brom art really helped set a mood.

I liked the idea of Planescape, and loved the art, but never had a chance to really delve into it enough to grok it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;759392Never got into the 2e setting craze.  Stuck with my own game world (heavily pulled from Grayhawk).

I was the same too. We mostly played out of Dungeon magazines in 2e and implied a setting much like we did in 1e with Greyhawk and the early modules. I didn't encounter settings outside of GH, FR and DL until 3e and 4e.

Quote from: BranderI liked the idea of Planescape, and loved the art, but never had a chance to really delve into it enough to grok it.

In case you were interested in reading more without tracking down the old books, quite a bit of the setting is now online.