D&D 3.x: What non-1st-party settings do you like?

[Kaje]

See title. And why do you like them? What makes them different from the typical D&D fantasy setting? And etc.

[Chrono22]

Ptolus. Unfortunately I don't own the sourcebook myself, but as a concept and my from my play experience, it's freaking awesome.
Basically the entire campaign setting is one single, gigantic city. It's the single largest, most fleshed out setting ever published.

[Shyftir]

I really want to try the Diamond Throne setting, of Monty Cook's Arcana Unearthed books. But sadly my group is pretty firmly centered in generic not-exactly-Greyhawk.

[JonestheSpy]

I like White Wolf's Scarred Lands a lot, although I think they went a bit overboard into grimdark, as that company tends to do.

[Amiel]

I've heard some pretty good things about Sword & Sorcery's Scarred Lands setting; haven't personally played a game which used the setting unfortunately, although I do have the Avatar's Handbook.

[Zaydos]

I have the Scarred Lands Creature Collections 1-3 and Relics and Rituals.

Creature Collection 1 had horrible CR assessment; realized later that in one of the books they bragged about how it came out before the real monster manual so maybe that's why. When they remade the 1st one for 3.5 the CRs got better as they also did in the 2nd and 3rd one.

Relics and Rituals had some neat stuff, but I've never really used it. I prefer to do teh epic rituals differently (more as pure DM fiat I'll admit) and I didn't trust a 1st level spell that dealt more damage than Magic Missile (although now I've realized that it was actually fairly balanced needing an attack roll and dealing fire damage). I need to look back over it sometime.

Never could find the core setting when I still actually cared.

[dsmiles]

Iron Kindoms. Steampunk fantasy, need I say more?

[Attilargh]

Iron Kindoms. Steampunk fantasy, need I say more?

Well, you could mention the totally sweet robots, big guns, fun races or the general all-around coolificousness.

Too bad I dislike its rules even more than I dislike D&D in general.

[dsmiles]

Well, you could mention the totally sweet robots, big guns, fun races or the general all-around coolificousness.

I though that was covered by "Steampunk Fantasy."

[Morithias]

Does Ravenloft count as 1st party? I've seen a lot of debate about it, but if it counts as 3rd party that one.

Most of the time, if we need a non-1st party setting, we make it ourselves. I enjoyed the setting i made where the world was ever expanding (flat world to avoid complex gravity debates).

Needless to say it basically meant I could put a new town for encounters down and say "this was randomly generated by existence expanding last week" and have it work in context and not as an ass pull.

[dsmiles]

Does Ravenloft count as 1st party? I've seen a lot of debate about it, but if it counts as 3rd party that one.

Most of the time, if we need a non-1st party setting, we make it ourselves. I enjoyed the setting i made where the world was ever expanding (flat world to avoid complex gravity debates).

Needless to say it basically meant I could put a new town for encounters down and say "this was randomly generated by existence expanding last week" and have it work in context and not as an ass pull.

Initially, in 2e, Ravenloft was 1st party by TSR, WotC sold or rented the licenses of both Ravenloft and Dragonlance in 3.x. Most people consider those third party nowadays.

[Attilargh]

I though that was covered by "Steampunk Fantasy."

Most steampunk settings don't actually have huge, top-heavy robots or such positively ginormous guns IK does. Or half the cool, for that matter.

[jiriku]

Hamunaptra, by Green Ronin press. I like my D&D Egyptian-flavored lately.