campaign setting books, worth it or no?

[jjcrpntr]

Curious about the opinion of the board on setting books. Some of the settings out there are interesting and while I enjoy dming and coming up with campaigns I think having a map with details about settlements, politics and such already made up could be incredibly useful.

So what do you guys think?
And what are some of your favorite campaign setting books?

[nedz]

I never buy them since I run my own settings. Half the fun of DMing is writing this stuff — at least for me.

[endur]

I generally like the campaign setting books.

Whether its Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or another setting.

FR has a ton of books. I like some of the FR books, some I don't care for.

[Vhaidara]

Eberron has lots of goodies to steal. Same with FR.

[sakuuya]

A lot of the purely fluff aspects of the various settings are available on wikis, and the FR wiki, at least, is very good about citing sources. I'd start by poking around online, and then if there's something you want more information about, or you want crunch for, you can get a book.

[aspekt]

I use FR a lot, but I have no issues with borrowing stuff from other settings and even pull things from previous editions of settings if I like it better than the current edition.

[Raven777]

They can be a nice inspiration for one's own setting, and a trove of quick ideas when in a pinch. Some are also very pretty, like Pathfinder's Inner Sea World Guide.

[Greenish]

I really like the Eberron books. Dragonmarked is pretty cool, and I've an inexplicable fondness for Forge of War.

[jjcrpntr]

They can be a nice inspiration for one's own setting, and a trove of quick ideas when in a pinch. Some are also very pretty, like Pathfinder's Inner Sea World Guide.

I've seen parts of that looks cool.

I've been reading a bit about the realms of Twilight pathfinder campaign setting. The sun blocked out, world in darkness setting sounds pretty cool.

[atemu1234]

Personally, I like books that have more crunch than fluff, so I pick up less campaign settings, because they tend to contain less crunch.

[endur]

Personally, I like books that have more crunch than fluff, so I pick up less campaign settings, because they tend to contain less crunch.

I'm the opposite, I prefer setting books that don't have any crunch. Elminister's Forgotten Realms is all flavor and zero crunch. Menzoberanzan City of Intrigue is another all flavor, no crunch book.

I can use an all flavor book with any version of the rules (AD&D, 3.5, PF, 5.0, or who knows).

[Kol Korran]

I do like well made setting books. They oftenoffer ideas I didn't think of, and are great either to use as it is, or as inspiration.
My favorites are the Eberron books. I like the themes of the setting, and some of these are very well made. I like the basic campaign setting book, dragonmarked, faiths of Eberron (By far the best D&D book dealing with religion), forge of war and the books dealing with the other 3 continents. The player guide, adventure guide and magic of Eberron? Not really. they feel lacking somehow...
I also love the Planescape books, though I never used them. Fantastic setting! But they are made for AD&D only if I'm not mistaken.
FR I like for the maps, but little else. I do 't much like the setting.
Never tried Darling other than reading novels. Looks intriguing

[HammeredWharf]

They make a DM's job easier. If you're playing in a mostly homebrewed setting (even if it's a part of something bigger like FR) you can end up in a situation where players try to "leave the map". With a CS, you have a very large map, so that becomes mostly a non-issue.

Some setings, such as Ravenloft, offer a great amout of variant rules, too.

[Zubrowka74]

Novels, are they worth it?

Because it's pretty much the same (at least for the fluff only). I like to read them for the stories it tells.

[BWR]

Are they worth it?
Depends on the setting and depends on the book.

In general I'm a big fan of established settings. I can understand the appeal of making your own stuff but I prefer having a shared world where you can have tons of common fans, even more great ideas from fans making their own stuff to share. The Mystara and Planescape fanbases have been really productive and pushed the boundaries of the settings in great ways, for instance. Some settings hook you in with detail, storylines the players can actively influence and tons of fiction, like L5R.

Qualitywise there are some settings are frickin' amazing and the books the put out are all almost equally amazing like Planescape, Mystara,. You have ok/moderately good settings with amazing products like Ars Magica or Tribe 8, You can have great settings with books of varying quality like Ravenloft (2e was good, 3e not so good), Dark Sun (generally good but then you get things like "Mind Lords of the Last Seas") or L5R ("Bearers of jade" is outstanding, "Art of the duel" was a complete waste of money and almost offensive in how badly it handled the subject matter). You can have ok settings with varied quality products like Dragonlance, Greyhawk, FR, WoD, etc.
Pathfinder's Golarion is a bit of an odd duck in my book, to mix my metaphors. I love what they are doing with it but when reading the Inner Sea World Guide my thought was "this is Mystara 2.0" (actually more like 3.x now that Bruce Heard has gotten his Princess Ark reimagining going) so while there is a lot of good stuff there, I keep thinking how it is not quite as good as Mystara even though it actually has been thought through better than Mystara - let's face it, the Known World was a hodge podge. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and there is a lot of legitimately great stuff from that Mystara, so however good Golarian is, the fact that it resembles Mystara to the extent is does (at least in my eyes) is both its greatest strength and weakness. I buy a fair number of Pathfinder products and enjoy their adventure paths and much of their world-building, but I can't shake the impression that it tries to be Mystara and doesn't quite live up to that despite being pretty good.

Bringing in fiction based on the settings is a whole 'nother dimension to worry about but in short most of the settings have some good books, a lot of mediocre to somewhat poor, and some really bad. There are exceptions like Planescape which had one ok book and the rest were really bad,


Favorite setting products? Where to begin?
I'll just throw out the first dozen or so that spring to mind
Planescape boxed set
Uncaged: Faces of Sigil
Bearers of Jade: The second book of the Shadowlands
Nobilis
Engel: Creatures of the Dreamseed
Hollow World
Thunder Rift
Dragonstar: Starfarer's Handbook
Dragonstar: Galaxy Guide
Ravenloft: Van Richten's Guide to Vampires
The Orcs of Thar
Call of Cthulhu: Delta green
Kult
Kult: Purgatory