How did TSR manage to create as many memorable settings as they did? What is it that makes so many of them classics...

This. As with most things in D&D, it's mostly a case of nostalgia.

>No one gives a shit about Dragonlance, Birthright, Red Steel, Greyhawk, Blackmoor Dragonfist, Council Of Wyrms, Al-Qudim, Kara-Tur, Maltra, Maztica, Jakandor, Kalamar, Lankhmar, Thunder Rift or the Wilderlands.

Are you mad?!? Those are almost all remembered fondly and were quite good in themselves (at the time, not just through nostalgia glasses).

People are STILL begging WOTC to bring back Birthright, Lankhmar, Greyhawk, Maztica and al-Qadim on a recent survey I visited on ENWorld, and there are countless blogs for many of these games (like the Wilderlands) still keeping the flame alive.

Dark Sun and Spelljammer were the games I cut my teeth on. Still fondly remember arguments over the minimum density of phlogiston required to create explosions.

Point is, the settings that lasted in memory had something that made them stand out and be enjoyable from either a 'that game was fun' standpoint or a 'think of the possibilities' one.

Example, I've planned and written a whole lot more Ebberon stuff than I've played.

Well I mean by that standard, all settings are good because there's always SOME people either willing to play them or pining for their return.

D&D is just the biggest name on the block, which gives its settings lots more exposure.

>People remember Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft and Spelljammer if they're trying to win nerdpoints. Its rare to talk to anyone who played Spelljammer. Or Ravenloft.
>No one gives a shit about Dragonlance
the fuck

For a long time, Dragonlance was THE D&D setting because of all the novels.

Dragonlance was pretty fucking dope yo.

>Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer.
Actually played all those.
Finished the whole Freedom line flipbook series. It was sorta absurd towards the end.
Planescape we mostly docked around making bad cockney accent jokes and being roughly the chaotic neutral versions of Dr who.
Ravenloft took some getting used to. I still think D&D is a bad system for what they wanted to do. Much better as something more narrative.
Spelljammer was lots of fun. I'm not sure why there is even a rumour that people didn't play in not Star trek with Nazi elves...

Lankhmar and Dragonlance were much better as story settings than game settings in my opinion. Kara-tur and Maztica weren't even their own places, just part of the realms. Greyhawk utterly failed my internal consistency standards. I never enjoyed Gygax's pet setting and was more than a little annoyed that it was default in 3e.

Logical fallacy. When comparing today's settings to all the best settings released in the past today will always lose.

The answer is that only the best settings from the past are remembered today, and not the bad parts of the good ones, but you still remember all the shit that's released today and it makes it harder for you to appreciate the actually good ones.

Nah, I came to Dark Sun only recently, and flicked through the books to be like:

"Holy shit this is cool!"

followed shortly by:

"Holy shit, the cooler parts of Morrowind were stolen fairly liberally from this?!"

It helps that the Thri-Keen are an unusual PC race that the setting made PCs interested in by associating them with new weapon types and loot, and by the way the new rules for wizards was *interesting*, adding complications that made them more roleplayable and fixed them and almost all the classes within the setting more coherently than most D&D settings where the classes and races are sort of this melange floating on top of the setting without anchor points or context.

>Greyhawk utterly failed my internal consistency standards. I never enjoyed Gygax's pet setting

Are you going to go into further detail beyond "I don't like the thing"?

Most of the settings are only memorable because of their association with D&D, because that's what people fucking played. I'm sure the poor fucks that had Skyrealms of Jorune also fondly remember Jorune as a classic setting.

Dark Sun is my jam nigga.
>Always wanted to play it for 2e
>It comes out for 4th and is decently playable despite 4th being a pile of turds
>Players are excited about the setting flavor, and roll desert psychics, ancient constructs from the red war and opportunistic bandits
>Take them on a rollicking journey of blood and sorcery through the sands
>They meet the primal spirit of Death, get chased by the Dragon for kidnapping and adopting the lost reincarnation of the Sun Goddess who everyone wants to kill, fight jackal-weres in brothels, and generally have a swell time
>Final session was an epic-level battle in a forgotten temple where a Sorceror-Queen was killed and her blood used in a ritual to try and slay the sun-child and empower Death, so he could finish the job of cleansing the planet for a new beginning that he started in the Red Age
>One of the players did some broken Psion shit and spawned a black hole with his mind

Hands down the most memorable campaign I've ever had. It got a little more high-fantasy than I wanted near the end, but I blame 4th for that and its utterly unprecedented level of power creep. My players had like 6 pages of powers each and no idea what to do with them.

Still, it was best campaign. I continue to get requests to do a sequel even today.

3 of 20 posters remember actually playing dark suns
2 of 20 for spelljammer
1 of20 for ravenloft

Its nostalgia, nerd hipsterism, and the niche of people on Veeky Forums who talk about games far more than we play.

You can probably find people who basically remember Dragonlance, there were a lot of novels. That shit was actually 30 years ago.

So things to make memorable settings: Cool art, recognizable themes, videogames. Dragon knights, slave gladiators/brom, dracula, Diterlizzi.

Tfw nobody remembers mystara/the known world

Osr save me from this hell

The game Fantasy Empires used that setting so at least few more than us know of it.

drivethrurpg.com/product/144820/YoonSuin

That, and the arcade games - Tower of Doom / Shadows over Mystara.

Not sure that it matters.
It was a point in support of the statement that the setting was generally unloved, personal anecdote that it is.

In short, the setting felt very generic to me, except for the parts that were very blatantly DMPCs running rough shod. None of the locations seemed particularly thought out beyound not fantasy Europe.

>Al-Qadim
I'll chime in for this setting mainly as it was my first introduction to dnD [and Roleplaying in general.

from what i remember the Al-Qadim line was never intended to be long running - they released all the suppliments and adventures that they wanted to release and ended the line.

Hey, plenty of people I know remember Mystara and Dragonlace fondly, me included.

Law v. Chaos as a cosmic backdrop to unaligned mortals is some decent Swords and Sorcery.

Two axis alignment is inconsistent garbage so far up its own ass that it can't spot its head.
The Great Wheel had some interest references, but you can't build a perfect machine from imperfect parts.
Also, Tony DiTerlizzi and Planescape:Torment pulled all of Planescape's weight.

Maybe it's a local thing, but I've always considered Dragonlance one of the more popular and influential settings up there with Forgotten Realms.

>Tony DiTerlizzi and Planescape:Torment pulled all of Planescape's weight.
You should be so ashamed for writing this as to refrain from posting for at least a week.

>No one gives a shit about [...] Al-Qudim
I don't know a thing about Al-Qadim's lore, but damn if it didn't have the best supplements TSR made.
>Its not like many people any of us play games with have read more than 1 Dark Suns supplement
The Will and the Way. Dragon Kings. Never read the boxed sets though.

I like Glorantha, but that thing's a coelacanth.

At the time their CEO was a nutter feminist womyn who hated role players
She wrecked the company but her control freak attitude was focused on the core stuff
End result was projects that could do amazing things because the management were focusing on other stuff
Bad side was certain aspects of those settings were v weak in concept
Dark Sun - place should be dead/ where it fit into the greater multiverse since they tied it into other settings where there were real gods e.g. Planescape
Planescape - the most powerful characters on the planes (including proxies of the gods) are lvl 15 at most when the prime is over running in lvl 20s, somehow every planar being is actually part of a sigil faction

Actually they overextended by putting their stuff in mainstream bookshops where the returns for unsold stuff was a lot less
Also major dumb idea deciding every new novel would be hardback first

>most when the prime is over running in lvl 20s,
Pretty much just Forgotten Realms. Most Prime material Worlds peaked around 10-15.
>somehow every planar being is actually part of a sigil faction
If you lived in Sigil or a faction-owned city, you are probably in a faction. Otherwise, no.

You forgot Masque of the Red Death. And Ravenloft was/is the best.

Too bad DiTerlizzi was shit.

Fuck off, that art was fantastic

Honestly I think Planescape's kinda interesting but I wouldn't play a game in it. It's just not all that interesting to me but I prefer high magic noblebright settings.

I do Like Planescape bit I still refrain frfrom playing it because my experience the few times that I have is that people run it like an ordinary high fantasy setting with none of the philosophical weirdness.

Played all the aforementioned... but this is by far my favourite of them all.

I loved the setting, 11/10, would play again

>somehow every planar being is actually part of a sigil faction

They're philosophies that are really popular across the planes, Brent.

Seriously, the 2nd Edition business model would have done a lot better in an age of kickstarter-as-preorder and print-on-demand.