Regardless of the rules used, it isn't hard to find a published setting for almost any kind of fantasy game imaginable. I like some better than others, but much of that has to do with personal preferences. Some are closely tied to settings created for novels or movies and I generally find them less appealing for gaming than material created specifically for roleplaying. Like a lot of things in this hobby, I am partial to some of its oldest products.
Glorantha has become over time one of my favorite game settings. I can recall the early days of playing at Runequest 2nd ed. and being frustrated with the peculiarities of it's default setting, Glorantha (Ducks?), aspects of which seemed contrary to the heroic literature I liked to draw from when gaming. It took several years, but I eventually started to understand how to take best advantage of the strengths Glorantha offered as a published setting. Glorantha taught me to roleplay in Glorantha rather than try to use Glorantha to game my way. Glorantha is its own unique thing, with its own stories to tell. Some game world's demand respect, while others are easily molded into what the referee wants. It's been quite a while since I refereed a game set in Glorantha, but I have come to favor a "voyage of discovery" form of gaming where the uniqueness of the setting unfolds as the PCs travel about interacting with everything new.
Harn is another favorite fantasy world with some of the most beautiful maps and detailed descriptions ever published for the hobby. Harn itself is a large island which has given it's name to a world setting as well as several editions of rules written to take advantage of it's unique qualities, Harnmaster. Published material for Harn is packed with what I would call adventure hooks, one or two line descriptions, often of historic note, that could be developed by the referee if the players show interest. The NPCs are well developed and Harn is one of those "heavy immersion" settings where it is possible to play for hours interacting with NPCs, developing connections and relationships and pursuing "business" interests. Of course nothing about Harn prevents the PCs from dungeon exploring and killing orcs (foulspawn) if that's their pleasure. It's just that Harn has so much more to offer, including a real feel for the experience of spending the night in a hay barn.
Both Harn and Glorantha I tend to use "straight out of the box". The settings are incredibly detailed and half the fun of refereeing them is doing the background reading. Harn is a low magic world with a very historic feel to it. It has been described as "realistic" and I think applying it to Harn is as accurate as the term can be when describing a fantasy world. The publishers of Harn material (there are currently two) use a "start date" so that referees can rest assured that official canon won't overtake their campaign. Published material all uses the same in-game date and anything that happens from there forward is all your own campaign. That's the way I like my published campaign and Glorantha, Tekumel and others can be run that way as well.
Judges Guild's City State/Wilderlands setting will forever hold a special place for me among published settings. Judges Guild was one of the first publishers of any kind of referee aid and really taught me a lot about how the white box game could be run. Judges Guild published the works of several authors and therefore there was considerable variation in their line, which helped a young referee see there was more than one "correct" way to play this new game. For my money, the City State/Wilderlands products stand up well in comparison with more modern publications and continue to offer the referee one of the better published sandbox-type settings.
I have become a recent fan of Tekumel, at least from the standpoint of a setting to read about and study. It is one of the oldest game settings, but can be difficult to approach due to it's alieness. Some world settings I just read about and never referee, Tekumel may be one of those. Some world settings I borrow ideas from and although I may never referee specifically in those settings, parts of them become integrated into another setting such as my own Dreadmoor (a combination of original and borrowed material heavily influenced by my favorite fantasy novels).
Greyhawk is the background setting for many of the classic TSR adventure mods and as such the background for many games I have refereed using those published modules. Often appearing as nothing more than a few names or a small area map during the play session, Greyhawk always had an overall theme or feel to it that influenced white box and later edition publications. The standard game races, classes and monsters were Greyhawk, especially after the publication of Supplement I.
Middle Earth and other settings from fantasy literature influenced the white box itself (as described in Appendix N from the DM's Guide) and many publications since. I absolutely love many of those settings, but I have always found it easier and more satisfying to borrow elements from them rather than to try and referee a game using one of them as a specific setting. I didn't have to read far into Appendix N before I could easily see the genesis of some of the elements of the game right there in the pages of the novels and short stories listed.
So it's about time I get to the image at the top of this post, Titan. As it says on the can Titan is the world setting of the Fighting Fantasy adventure books and the Advanced Fighting Fantasy tabletop roleplaying game (Dungeoneer/Blacksand/Allansia). Titan is a rather minimalist fantasy setting in that only the basics are covered in broad strokes that leave lots of room for individualization. Most of the classic fantasy troupes are covered, such as Arabian Nights style adventure, barbarians of the north, knights in shining armour (its a British thing, of course), pirates, etc. Titan is essentially a playground for the imagination (as reflected in the many Fighting Fantasy volumes as well as the tabletop RPG) and is supported throughout the line by some very nice art. As playgrounds go, I think it's a good one.
Legend is the setting of another early British tabletop RPG, Dragon Warriors (Dragon Warriors/The Way of Wizardry/The Elven Crystals/Out of the Shadows/The Power of Darkness/The Lands of Legend). Legend and the Dragon Warriors RPG have a very "medieval" feel where fealty to one's lord, forgotten haunts, and lots of mystery, a rather low magic, superstitious baseline and several engagingly good adventures all leaves me with a fondness for both the game and it's setting. Both Titan and Legend have provided me imaginary space for many hours of fun adventuring and are sentimental favorites.
I have just brushed the surface of the topic, and many other published settings are out there waiting to be discovered, explored, mined and remembered. The human imagination seems an endless source of fantastic settings, some better described than others and some more useful for roleplaying than others. If this hobby has given me nothing else, I am grateful for the faraway places I have glimpsed through the lens of published settings. The enjoyment that alone has brought me is well worth the effort.
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