Greetings!
I always played AD&D 1E back in the day, using my own campaign world. I did purchase *many* gazetteers for Mystera though, and used them for inspiration, and adventures. What do you like about the world of Mystera?
What don't you like about Mystera?
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I grew up with Becmi and Mystara, the first RPG and Campaign Setting brought to Italy, where I live.
Mystara to this day is my favourite setting.
The Gazzetters are mostly quite good, but are splatbooks: any one of them is like the story of a football club from the mouth of their hooligans. So in Ierendi you learn what an adventuring/swasbuckling/pirate/merchant powerhouse that Kingdom is, but in Minrothad you discover that the Guilds are actually that. Glantri is the fabled Wizard Country, center of Magic Lore and Weirdness...but, hey THE Magocracy is really the Empire of Alphatia.
Also, many thing are retconned out of the blue...the Heldann Freeholds, where peaceful Icelander live....no, the fearsome Heldannic Knights territories, the unstoppable zealots with skyship. And skyship? Suddenly are everywhere, every country got magical air force.
The best gazetteer, in my opinion are the most vanilla:)
GAZ1 Karameikos: a masterpiece. A credibile kingdom (GrandDuchy) and a lot of adventure ideas. Also, plenty of oppurtunities for characters to make a fortune. Thieves Guilds, a silly concept for laughs, is converted into something real (well movie-real). Politics done well with animosity between conquerors and conquered, a reasonable ruler that only partially controls the country ecc
Rockhome and the Five Shire also are well done. All theese Gaz have that in common:
- a simple premise well executed;
- describing lands with just one culture (or 2 in case of Karameikos).
Glantri is awesome, the high-fantasy realm of the wizards...but:
- landlocked Venice? come on!;
- the kitchen sink of every European culture (Scottish, French, Italian, Spanish Elves, Flemish, Romanian/Slavic vampires...)
Well, all this is justified in the setting, but the Theme Park effect is quite strong.
In Mystara everything seems possible no matter how zany.