I've been running games for my group for a while, mostly

My personal favourite sets g is SLA Industries world of progress, a world where the title company rules most of the universe, taking place in the crumbling mort city on the dying world of mort, where the players play as SLA operatives, climbing the corporate ladder, becoming media darlings and facing all the dark horrors mort has to offer.
If you would rather have a fantasy setting, maybe try exalted? Don't know if you have tried it, it has plenty of lore and a rather deep world. If you are having trouble finding any setting you haven't played in, maybe look into the old D&D settings like dark sun and planescape, or use gurps to play in a fantasy setting from a show or book you enjoy.

>>52747090
I've got Dark Sun and Planescape already on the list. I'll also take a look at Exalted. Is the third edition the best way to read up on the setting?

>>52747137
Third edition has the best system as far as I know, but 2e and 1e have more setting info as they have more splats and the core book is more helpful. I recommend getting the 3e book and then the 2e one for background fluff, then when you settle on where you want to play your game expand on that, maybe get a few splat books as well. Creation is huge and offers a wide variety of options.
Just be forewarned, the system is a mess, and while I love the setting and the style of game, I got so bogged down in planning the game that I ended up adandoning it and creating my own setting for gurps just so it would be less work.

>>52746976
Birthright, AD&D 2e.

>>52747684
I've always heard of Birthright as more interesting for its gameplay and concept than its setting. Is the setting interesting as well?

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>>52747759
Depends, really. Its a lot of pretty drudging low fantasy, for the most part, and the setting is somewhat common, with only a few minutiae to separate it from generic D&Dland, such as different racial tensions, no orcs (only goblins and hobgoblins) and divine right to rule, literally birthright to divine abilities tied to running kingdoms. there's a few more I cant be arsed to remember right now.

>>52746976
where is Sylvania?

>>52746976
>Northern region
>Southern region
>Western region
>Eastern region
They sure went balls to the wall creative with Kislev

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>>52747759

2e Birthright lacks good mechanics.

1. The "starting domains" for PCs have no sense of balance to them whatsoever. In Anuire alone, you could choose for your PC to start off as regent of the small little "recommended" domain of Roesone... or you can start off in control of "the most powerful church in Anuire," the Western Imperial Temple of Haelyn, or the massive megacorporation that is the Heartlands Outfitters (which also has its own city-state).
Another massively overpowered "Recommended for PC use" starting domain is Danigau, in the Western Reaches of Brechtur. You start off in control of *eight* moderately-developed provinces, many Law and Source holdings, a huge amount of pre-accumulated Regency and GB, an elite army with considerable fortifications, and the inexplicable ability to raise defensive militia extremely efficiently.

2. Wizards are actually underpowered here. They are mistrusted by the populace to start with, their realm spells start off middling, and by the time said spells become strong, they are hamstrung by the fact that developing provinces reduces magical source ratings. (This can be circumvented by playing an elven domain, but elves are locked out of temples.)

3. Priests, on the other hand, are godlike for their ability to wield priestly realm spells (many of which, especially those from the supplements, are on the level of wizard realm spells) without having to deal with magical source reductions. They are also necessary for investitures.

4. Some classes are objectively superior than others at the domain management subsystem. For example, fighters collect Regency only from Law, while rangers collect Regency from Law and Guilds (and have overland map mobility benefits), and paladins collect Regency from Law and Temples. Halfling ranger/priests can collect Regency from Law, Guilds, *and* Temples (while keeping the overland map mobility benefits), and are probably the single best character type at domain management.

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>>52749012

4, continued. Characters of the following classes gain Regency from the following holdings:

>Guid: Thief, Ranger, Bard (only half)
>Law: Warrior, Priest (only half), Thief (only half)
>Source: Wizard
>Temple: Priest, Paladin
>Province: All
>Trade Route: Thief (1 RP per GB produced)

"Warrior" includes fighters, paladins, and rangers, so fighters receive the short end of the metaphorical stick here.

Multiclassed characters count as members of all of their classes.

It costs 1 GB for a party to "relocate to any province or holding in their domain," but bards and rangers can do this for free because they "have a knack for traveling quickly and being near the action."

Priests have access to priestly realm spells, and they do not have to contend with declining Source ratings, unlike wizards.

In Birthright, only halflings can be ranger/priests, and as far as I am aware, this is the single most effective possible character type from a domain management standpoint. It also helps that halflings, as a race, have a host of inexplicable benefits, including Detect Evil, Detct Undead, Detect Magic (necromancy only), Dimension Door, and Shadow Walk.

The ideal way to game Birthright is to choose to be the teleporting halfling ranger/priest regent of the almighty domain of Danigau.

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>>52749015

5. The game claims that a government type wherein the province-owner delegates Law holdings to others is viable (and indeed, this is the case in the Rjurik Highlands), but this actually screws over province loyalty tremendously (and makes the Rjurik Highlands ironically quite disloyal despite the delegation of Law holdings, which goes against the lore).

Not only do the rules for law holdings make the Rjurik Highlands' system of delegating Law holdings to thanes completely unviable, but Khinasi's wizard-kings are undermined by the way province levels screw over Source holdings, and the civilized domain management rules make little sense for Vosgaard's savagery and primitive "might makes right" society.

The base rules only handle Anuire and Brechtur well. Even then Brechtur is feasible only because they later introduced a relatively well-thought-out set of trade expedition rules.

Of course, we come to the issue that the base rules are poorly-written even for Anuire and Brechtur.

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>>52749019

6. Some domains have less detail than others, which is a bad thing for a GM who has to manage a massive world. Some domains have listed treasuries, Regency accumulated, armies, and fortifications, while others go into no detail at all on such things. In fact, the writers were so lazy with some domains that they declared their holding values to be "unknown" and up to the GM to decide.
We are looking at *31* domains for Anuire alone, and that is just the southwestern peninsula of the game's main continent. That is a tremendous burden for the GM to fill in the blanks for.

7. The action economy is screwed. No matter how expansive your lands are, you still have the same allotment of actions (and scale for those actions) as you did when you were starting off. This means that your lands are bound to spiral out of control once you start expanding... unless you make *every* new land you expand into a vassal state under your control (because then they get your own set of actions). However, since vassals can be disloyal and/or passive-aggressively be unhelpful, the DM is the one to control them; this means that eventually, the DM is playing out the majority of your little empire's actions.
Alternatively, if *each* PC controls their own domain, then the action economy is stacked tremendously in their favor, because they and their vassals receive many more actions than the DM ever will.

Action economy is poorly thought-out in Birthright. In the event that, say, four player characters each have their own domains (not impossible given that regent characters are the default in Birthright), they already have four sets of actions each domain turn compared to the DM's three sets of domain actions for *the rest of the entire world*.

If the players all choose the strongest of the "Recommended for PC use" domains, they will be even more unstoppable, at least until their domains expand to the point wherein they are forced to rely on vassals for reasonable action economy.

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>>52749024

8. The DM controls only a few other domains each turn. Every other domain is just assumed to be zero-summing itself and not accomplishing anything, but also not losing anything. In other words, the PCs' domains and their DM-controlled vassals get to steadily improve, whereas the vast majority of the rest of the world is completely stagnant for no good reason.

9. I have not studied it too in-depth, but I have not heard good things about mass battle.

I do not recommend AD&D 2e Birthright at all.

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>>52748934
As much as with everything else
Compare what the Empire was based on to what it is - a confusing patchwork of feudal fiefs of various ranks, some joined by dynastic ties + free cities + church property + few separate nations vs nine princedoms, 8 of which end with -land, being not!german in laziest stereotypical way + not!Shire

Also
>Bordeleaux

Old World is easily the laziest setting ever

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I took this map.

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>>52749823
And made this map. It is stupid but it is mine and therefore good. I've got a document describing everything.