Most detailed non-D&D RPG settings?

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Neon

Neon

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Hey all,

So all this RuneQuest news and discussions had me thinking about which are the most detailed non-D&D rpg settings? Glorantha certainly has to be up there. Harn I'm guessing? What are the mega settings out there? Does not have to be limited to fantasy. I know nothing about WoD Vampire, but there seems to be going alot there setting-wise.

So let's hear them.
 
Heavy Gear's Terranova should definitely get a mention. As a setting it is described across numerous sourcebooks in exhaustive detail. Every single region gets a write up, with numerous city-states described in detail. I really have to applaud it for being one of the few Sci-Fi series that doesn't forget the sense of scale. Planets and Solar Systems are a really REALLY BIG.

I wish more sci-fi settings described planets in such extreme detail.
 
Off the top of my dome:

Tekumel, from Empire of the Petal Throne and other games set on Tekumel.

Talislanta, broad but not especially deep, by design. But, oh is it broad...

Immortal: the Invisible War. Yeah the setting is ostensibly "our world", but the amount of background and lore woven into it is pretty immense.
 
I was thinking of Tekumel (and wasn't thinking of Talislanta), but I'm not sure those stack up against Glorantha. They are certainly "hard to get into" settings, but I think on sheet volume of setting output, Glorantha wins. But Harn might well dwarf Glorantha.
 
How does Traveller compare or is it an open ended setting?
 
Neon said:
How does Traveller compare or is it an open ended setting?
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The Traveller setting would be pretty detailed also, though it's detail is mostly of a different nature than Glorantha and Tekumel (Talislanta doesn't have the depth of cultural detail that Glorantha and Tekumel have). It is a very broad setting.
 
Due to multiple RPGs and the odd bit of other media, the obvious answer is Star Wars

Beyond that
Shadowrun has dozens upon dozens of books
Warhammer's old world has a fair number across 4 editions.
If you include the miniatures game, computer games, board games and many, many novels then the 40k RPGs have more detail than you can shake a big pointy stick at.
 
Neon said:
How does Traveller compare or is it an open ended setting?
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As you can see here for yourself, the Official Traveller Universe (OTU) setting extends to tens of thousands of systems. But the vast majority have only got a short alphanumeric code of basic info. Some of the key worlds have much more detailed info available, especially in the most popular region (the Spinward Marches).

There is book after book of setting history and details of alien species, but you don't really need any of it to get a game going, and knowing who the emperor was 400 years ago is pretty unlikely to come up in play anyway. You can build it out gradually e.g. if you introduce an alien species.

Despite the massive amounts written about the OTU, it has always seemed weirdly quite sketchy in some areas, like how exactly the nobles run the Imperium. I suspect this is a function of the tone of the setting getting skewed by its use for board wargames early on. (Also I haven't read the latest Mongoose stuff.)

In any case I am not that keen on the OTU. If I ever got a Traveller game going again I would cut right back to the original 1970s books and homebrew a few subsectors of my own.
 
Titan (the Fighting Fantasy universe) is pretty detailed, especially if you take into account the large number of canon gamebooks (which is most of them).
 
I wonder if we can come up with some parameters to rate settings for.

One parameter would certainly be size of area covered, for example square miles, or number of worlds. Another parameter would be the number of cities detailed (at multiple levels, a paragraph or so, a page or so, a rough map, street maps showing individual buildings, how many buildings are written up, how many buildings have a floor plan and more than a paragraph or two of detail). OK, trying to characterize a setting can get crazy...

You'd also want to characterize the social detail, cultures, religions, etc.
 
This is a good question. I would't think that Talislanta nor Tekumel would rank among the top. Neither would Middle Earth. Glorantha would probably be in the top, but the true behemoths would be settings like Forgotten Realms with lots of game books, novels, computer games and so on.

Quality? Debateable. Quantity? Yes!


Edit: I forgot the non-D&D part. Never mind!
 
Harn is obviously in a class by itself, nothing comes close to touching it, to the point you can't even really talk about "runner ups", just Harn, then way, way, way, way TF down the scale...

Tekumel, MERP, Warhammer's Old World if you include all the Wargame supplementary material, Mechwarrior if you include all the BattleTech supplementary material, maybe Kingdoms of Kalamar (which did start as a D&D setting but is now firmly tied to Hackmaster 5e)
 
TristramEvans said:
Harn is obviously in a class by itself, nothing comes close to touching it, to the point you can't even really talk about "runner ups", just Harn, then way, way, way, way TF down the scale...

Tekumel, MERP, Warhammer's Old World if you include all the Wargame supplementary material, Mechwarrior if you include all the BattleTech supplementary material, maybe Kingdoms of Kalamar (which did start as a D20 setting but is now firmly tied to Hackmaster 5e)
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Actually Kingdoms of Kalamar was released in 1994 for D&D, pre-D20... I actually had it buried in my stuff, and then noticed it when I started doing D20 stuff. But I'd solidly label it a D&D setting...

I still think Tekumel as published doesn't touch things like Harn or even Glorantha but I may be wrong about what's out there. A lot of the depth of Tekumel died with MAR Barker... Though I also know he had a filing cabinet, we'll see if anything ever gets published from all that...

Yea, Warhammer and Mechwarrior with their supporting war games count. If we were going to count the Forgotten Realms novels and such, war games count just as much.

Hmm, what other settings have extensive novels or other fiction associated with them?
 
TristramEvans said:
Kingdoms of Kalamar (which did start as a D20 setting but is now firmly tied to Hackmaster 5e)
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No, Kingdoms of Kalamar was released in the early to mid 90s. I picked it up as a box set in at Dragon*Con in 1996 where it was promoted as a setting you could use with the system of your choice. I distinctly recall they gave me the choice of getting the maps as a roll or folded. I recall the two guys in the booth were very enthusiastic in talking my ear off about it.
 
I don't know if it counts as one of the *most* detailed but the Exalted 2nd Edition supplement mill filled the map with stuff, lots of stuff, too much stuff.
 
Traveller. When I was cribbing off wikis to fill out my DtD40k7e setting Traveller had just tons and tons of setting bits. More than BT, SW, ST SR, WoD, and WH40k.

Now that's kinda restricted to sci-fi/sci-fantasy, doesn't include novels or published adventure books. Just what people have put on the web that I could find.
 
Shadow World for Rolemaster was a pretty detailed setting in it's own idiosyncratic way.

Symbaroum is also pretty detailed now, although a lot of that detail would have to be teased out of adventure path books.
 
Neon said:
Hey all,

So all this RuneQuest news and discussions had me thinking about which are the most detailed non-D&D rpg settings? Glorantha certainly has to be up there. Harn I'm guessing? What are the mega settings out there? Does not have to be limited to fantasy. I know nothing about WoD Vampire, but there seems to be going alot there setting-wise.

So let's hear them.
Click to expand...
Harn by far. Between Columbia Games and Kelestia nothing else compares.
The Third Imperium, Glorantha, Tekumel, and Ars Magica approach it in scope and level of detail.

1677789515979.png

1677790223828.png

Basically starting with this in 1983
1677789726167.png
Then encompassing everything that is

here (Columbia Games)
and
here (Kelestia)
 
Triumvir said:
As you can see here for yourself, the Official Traveller Universe (OTU) setting extends to tens of thousands of systems. But the vast majority have only got a short alphanumeric code of basic info. Some of the key worlds have much more detailed info available, especially in the most popular region (the Spinward Marches).
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With the Traveller Map and the Traveller Wiki, The Third Imperium has the organization to surpass Harn. The problem in the past has been rationalizing the data found in the work done by various licensees.
 
Harn must be getting to the stage where if you read everything available it would summon Nyarlathotep.

There is clearly far more available than anyone could ever use in a campaign.

Not knocking it, I do find Harn quite compelling (much more so than Glorantha) and expect I will eventually succumb and lose my remaining SAN over it.
 
I would like to throw in The dark Eye (Schwarze Auge, german). That is also an extremly detailed "setting" to the point to find something that has not been described in detail in some publication being rather difficult.
Will checkout Harn, not familiar with it.
 
Middle Earth (MERP, The One RIng, D&D AiME)
Glorantha (RuneQuest)
The Ninth World (Numenera)
The Old World (WFRP)
World of Darkness (WoD)
The Third Imperium (Traveller)
Talislanta
Battletech Universe
Shadow World (Rolemaster)
Forgotten Realms (D&D)
Fateforge (D&D)
Symbareum
Trudvang
 
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There’s a fair bit of detail on Conan’s Hyborian age, between the various versions: TSR, GURPS, Mongoose & Modiphius.

Also, there’s quite a bit of detail on Mythic Earth.
 
Kommissarg said:
I would like to throw in The dark Eye (Schwarze Auge, german). That is also an extremly detailed "setting" to the point to find something that has not been described in detail in some publication being rather difficult.
Will checkout Harn, not familiar with it.
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This is Columbia Games' ten cent summary. A few years back for RPG Day they made a version of the Harn Map with this printed on the back.

Harnworld_summary.jpg
 
Shadowrun has many dozens of sourcebooks, which details the world from 2050 to about 2085, over 7 editions (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 20th Anniversary, 5th and 6th, gosh darn that's a lot). With the 'extra' books printed in Germany, pretty much every geographic region has some flavour text, some indication of what's going on under the surface.

We Shadowrun players may collectively swear at the jumble of a system, but the background is well sourced.
 
robertsconley said:
Harn by far. Between Columbia Games and Kelestia nothing else compares.
The Third Imperium, Glorantha, Tekumel, and Ars Magica approach it in scope and level of detail.

View attachment 57238

View attachment 57240

Basically starting with this in 1983
View attachment 57239
Then encompassing everything that is

here (Columbia Games)
and
here (Kelestia)
Click to expand...

I've barely scratched the surface with HARN and have to concur here. When I was first introduced to it, detail was the description given.
 
Yeah, so I think the various Marvel universe RPGs have a lot of source material if we are counting games, books, comics, movies, TV series'.
 
JAMUMU said:
I don't know if it counts as one of the *most* detailed but the Exalted 2nd Edition supplement mill filled the map with stuff, lots of stuff, too much stuff.
Click to expand...

AsenRG said:
Exalted, amusingly, has loads of detail on its various directions.
Click to expand...
I have a good number of the RPGs mentioned in this thread but Exalted would be the one that stands out in terms of quantity of detail. 2e is the most comprehensive to date at 40+ books all containing a chunk of setting material, with another 36 books in 1st edition.
 
Kommissarg said:
Will checkout Harn, not familiar with it.
Click to expand...

There's a kickstarter for the original sourcebooks collected in HC (as opposed to the three-ring binder sheets they're normally presented in), going on now...



(Edit: and I see now I was scooped by SS)

Also Trevor ("Devil" here at the Pub) just did a video on Harn...

 
TristramEvans said:
There's a kickstarter for the original sourcebooks collected in HC (as opposed to the three-ring binder sheets they're normally presented in), going on now...



(Edit: and I see now I was scooped by SS)

Also Trevor ("Devil" here at the Pub) just did a video on Harn...

Click to expand...

If I can't get every single last drop of Harn in a single order then I want NONE OF IT!!!!
 
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