Back before the Wizards bought them, DnD was published by a company called TSR, originally standing for Tactical Studies Rules as DnD was spawned out of wargaming in the 70s. By the time of my childhood in the 90s they had become pretty mismanaged, and yet this mismanagement led to a sort of creative hurricane. Albeit one that did not translate to profits for the company.

One of these fonts of imagination were the advent and push of many different campaign settings produced by the designers. Now, I've always stuck to almost exclusively homebrew in my DnD exploits, excluding a short Forgotten Realms campaign I ran in 2004 that was awesome. However, I have always been fascinated by the various settings put out by the makers of DnD who created everything from various flavors of standard fantasy to borderline science fiction in the vein of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom to gothic horror to near-nonsensical parralel worlds.

I know I am making this sound so good, and it was. Just tons and tons of the oddest ideas just thrown out there. But as I mentioned previously, this was not a wise financial decision on part of the company. For one, it split the fanbase up into many different factions, and for another while it was very dreamy and brilliant in its madness the products were often poorly designed owing to a company policy at the time for unpaid playtesting. Game balance had not quite entered the forefront of thought for many tabletop games of the time the way we think of it now, but it could still be egregiously lopsided.

So most of these settings have languished in the past, with their fanbases occasionally becoming rabid enough to trigger a poorly executed relaunch that is forgotten quicker than the originals, the fanbases wishing they'd left well enough alone.

My favorites of these settings are mostly typical, but I'd like to talk about them anyway:

The burnt world of Athas: a fantasy land devastated by apocalyptic warfare leaving a savage desert of sword and sorcery where heroes must live and die by their weapons and their wits beneath a brutal sun.

If you've heard of any of the old and forgotten settings, you've probably heard of Dark Sun. It was developed by Tim Brown and Troy Denning in the very early 90s as a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy world, taking many cues from Princess of Mars and its sequels. It doesn't merely presents itself as a near-alien setting of brutal city states in a desert full of monsters, where the people you meet are just as dangerous as the horrid creatures in the desert. It emphasized survival and combat tactics in a world long devastated, where having hope for a better world is not just hard, but a dangerous statement of intent against the powers that be.

I was first exposed to Dark Sun via the video games Shattered Lands (1993) and Wake of the Ravager (1994), I received for Christmas in 1996 in the DnD Masterpiece Collection. It started in the combat arena, your characters forced to battle for the thrill of the mob before you can manage to escape into the desert and hopefully find a way to survive.

Little me loved it so much, compelled by the exoticness of all the leather and bone and bizarre locales. The creatures you could play as included like giant mantis people and little cannibalistic halflings and even hulking half-giants. It was so cool.

I slowly acquired a collection of Dark Sun stuff during the 2000s, seeking them out in used bookstores as they had gone out of print by then, but had not yet acquired their nostalgic edge that makes them so rare to find in the wild now. My collection is near complete, missing only a handful of accessory books and a few adventures.

This is a setting I wish I could find a group to run for in second edition. By modern game design standards, AD&D is very outdated and clunky, but all attempts to update Dark Sun to a more modern setting seem to lose something in translation. Perhaps it's the modern focus on game balance, or maybe it's attempts to make it brighter and softer or even darker and edgier. Maybe it just merely captures a moment of shirtless sword and sandal epicness that just isn't in vogue anymore.

The fanbase continues to clamour for a rerelease, and in my estimation the most vocal of critics seem to just want it exactly as it was when they discovered it. I've seen a few criticisms of modern companies being too "cowardly" to release it due to all the slavery and the environmental destruction aesops or the potential political controversy of all the various authoritarian regimes prominent throughout.

Whatever the case may be, it strikes me that Dark Sun is a challenging setting to get right, and I would love a chance to try my hand at it someday.

Dreary castles with forgotten sins giving way to ruined secrets. Bubbling swamps inhabited by drowned victims yearning for another to join them. Cruel tyrants and vengeful monsters eying you from the shadows with every step.

Now here is one that isn't exactly forgotten. You've probably seen a modern product or two bearing the name Ravenloft on store shelves, and you may even be familiar with Strahd von Zarovich himself.

Ravenloft was originally an adventure module with strong gothic horror themes focused around exploring the titular castle and hunting down the horrid vampire lord, Strahd. Originally made by Tracy and Laura Hickman (whom you may know from the Dragonlance series), the module was centered around Strahd as a main character involved with the story, a creature meant to be a constant thorn and one to be feared; not merely a boss monster at the end of a dungeon. This module gave way to an entire world of patchwork kingdoms centered around the horror and tragedy of a central monster, a being so cruel, self-centered, and awful that from the moment you step into their domains you are drawn into their destructive spiral and must persevere or be destroyed.

Ravenloft, being a horror setting, emphasized atmosphere and theatrics. I myself developed my DMing style from Ravenloft adventures. Each Ravenloft adventure usually revolves around a central villain, one who the players will not be able to just march up and kill, someone who is an intrinsic to the setting as the location itself. They usually represent some inherent vice or sin and the entire story is painted in it as a result.

At least, that is the ideal. Some characters were written better than others. And most were homages (or straight ripoffs) of classic horror characters. But immersion was emphasized above all else, and if done right one could be bothered to forget that little detail and instead lose yourself in the terror of being stalked by a terrifying vampire.

I discovered Ravenloft via the aforementioned Masterpiece Collection, which included Strahd's Possession (1994) and Stone Prophet (1995), which were first person perspective RPGs and while ultimately hack and slash, did possess a spooky horror vibe in line with an old monster movie.

I didn't have much interest in it at first, it was only after I read the campaign setting book in a shop I was hanging out in that I fell in love with the concept a few years later. I've used many concepts for my own homebrews, but haven't really run a Ravenloft game myself.

This one has been reintroduced over the years, kept alive by White Wolf's Sword and Sorcery inprint during 3rd Edition, and later relaunched by Wizards of the Coast during 5th edition after positive reception to their reimagining of the original Ravenloft module. From what I've seen, it's been very good, with some updates to remove a few sexist, racist, or otherwise uncomfortable tropes that might not enhance a game between friends.

I occasionally think about running a short Ravenloft campaign, I have many different adventure modules from 2nd ed, and it would be a relatively simple time to convert it to an edition other than 2nd if that would be a problem for players. I feel like I would have to prepare a lot though, get some mood lighting, get some music, maybe even sound effects. Actually I'm getting a little excited just thinking about it.

Ancient spires, beautiful pirates, mad genies, and adventure untamed!

It may come as no surprise that Al-Qadim has been conveniently ignored in this post 9/11 world. Not only does the very subject of Arab and Persian themed adventure cause upset among some, the perceptions of cultural appropriation causes it in others.

I have been a fan of Middle Eastern folklore filtered through a Western lens since I was a child, and have been a fan of it unfiltered since college. The topic on whether or not its depictions in the west are appropriative is a deceptively complex one, as it has undergone an incorporation and synthesis as its own subject matter and cannot be simply summed up as Western Imperialism or Orientalism. However, that is another talk for another day that I would be happy to have with anyone curious about my thoughts on the matter.

That said, Al-Qadim is very well researched, not just into stories like the Thousand and One Nights, but also into the cultures of Islam and the Middle East in general. The setting is not merely a hollywood caricature of the Arab and Persian world, but emphasizes the cultural differences to be found there. Being that DnD is a polytheistic setting, the world of Al-Qadim takes a great deal of inspiration from pre-Islamic and pre-Christian Middle Eastern history.

The setting was designed by Jeff Grubb (one of the greats) and Andria Hayday, taking place in Zakhara, the Land of Fate, a blend of the different historial Caliphates, folklore, and a little hollywood.

Stop me if you're sensing a pattern, but I was introduced to this setting through The Genie's Curse (1994) in the Masterpiece Collection. It was an action adventure game centered on a corsair (good guy pirate) on a quest to restore his family's honor and to bring peace to the Crowded Sea.

This is one I am not sure if I know how to run. I'm more familiar with the folklore than most people, but enough to know that I know basically nothing. But my games of DnD often include genies and common tropes from the One Thousand and One Nights (the ones that aren't bizarrely racist anyway).

Something I am fascinated by in the rules is the class called the Sha'ir, who are wizards who depend on Genies for their magic. They are a lot closer to classic genies, who were powerful but had clear limits on their powers, rather than the phenomenal cosmic power popularized by Robin Williams. There are also the previously mentioned Corsairs and their adventures on the high seas. Not to mention the gamut of regular DnD classes and races. It is a fascinating blend of post-Tolkein fantasy into Middle Eastern folklore that I feel has managed to minimize any exotification aside from myself. Though admittedly they do homogenize much of Arabian, Persian, and even Mughal culture.

But I do find the whole concept just so endearing, and I adore movies like Arabian Adventure (1979) and the Thief of Baghdad (1940). I would definitely want to try running a short campaign with the leeway to extend it if people were having fun.

There are others, I could probably talk at length about almost all of the settings published for DnD, some even from outside the Masterpiece Collection.

I understand why it was such a bad idea to produce so many products that most people would not be buying, though I feel the other hostile management decisions from those in charge of TSR were far more damaging to the company. Ultimately these game settings I feel enriched the DnD line and I regret that I have not had a chance to play in any of them.

Yet.