Setting Books and Organization

[Tinkermancer]

I'm working on putting together a fairly extensive setting manual for my (and my group's) custom setting, and am looking for ideas on GOOD organization practices. What setting books have you used that you really enjoy? What books have made mistakes that you would recommend I avoid? What would you have liked to see that you haven't? Any advice or comments appreciated!

[CharonsHelper]

I really liked the layout/vibe of the original Eberron setting book. Now - it was released shortly after I started playing D&D so it may be nostalgia talking - but I know that I loosely based the setting portion of my own game (still WIP) on the 3.5 Eberron book.

It seemed to have a good mix of world-building & more boots on the ground style fluff, and the way it was divided by region made it easy to figure out what fluff would be relevant to a game you happened to be running. I know I've seen other setting books where it feels like I have to trudge through a bunch of irrelevant stuff to my game (interesting or not) before finding something I can actually use in my next session.

[Florian]

When it comes to settings, a wiki beats a book any day of the week.

When it comes to books, the Inner Sea World Guide by Paizo is actually pretty good, because it separates the geographical/national stuff from the organizations.

[Jay R]

For any monster, unit, or army, I want all the information needed to run a combat to be together, so I don't need to dig through cultural information to find it.

And the same in the other direction, or course. Don't make me dig through combat stats of the traditional Once-ler Super-Axe-Hacker when I'm trying to find the eating habits of the Brown Bar-ba-loots