Guides to published RPG worlds and worldbuilding
Ancient realms await: mist-shrouded kingdoms, steam-powered metropolises, and war-torn domains where adventures unfold. In D&D and other tabletop RPGs, a campaign setting is the world where play happens: its geography, history, factions, and rules of magic. It is more than a backdrop. It shapes the characters players create and the conflicts that drive the story.
From the sunbaked deserts of Athas where metal is more precious than life, to gothic realms where fog shrouds ancient tombs and dark forests, each setting offers its own dangers, cultures, and mysteries. These are places to inhabit, not just visit, with histories waiting to be rewritten by your players' choices.
Whether your party is drawn to the political intrigue of Waterdeep, the post-apocalyptic survival of Dark Sun, or the lightning-rail noir of Eberron, these settings provide a stage for conflicts, moral dilemmas, and stories worth telling.
The right campaign setting gives your group a shared reference point and shapes the kinds of stories you tell. A few considerations can help narrow down the options.
Consider whether your players prefer heroic high fantasy, gritty realism, or something in between. A gothic horror setting like Ravenloft requires different player engagement than the optimistic heroics of traditional D&D settings.
Epic settings like Forgotten Realms work well for long campaigns with deep lore exploration, while more focused settings might be perfect for shorter adventures or specific story arcs.
Ensure your chosen campaign setting has official support for your RPG system. While any setting can be adapted, official sourcebooks provide mechanics, stat blocks, and guidance that save preparation time.
Involve your players in the selection process. A setting that excites the entire table will generate more engagement and memorable moments than one chosen by the GM alone.
Dungeons & Dragons has produced some of the longer-running and more recognizable campaign settings in tabletop gaming. From the classic realms that defined the hobby to worlds that push creative boundaries, these settings provide foundations for varied adventures. Many have inspired extensive novel lines that bring their worlds to life through fiction.
Published by TSR/Wizards of the Coast
The flagship D&D campaign setting, featuring the Sword Coast, Waterdeep, and a long roster of well-known heroes. A high-fantasy world with deep lore spanning hundreds of novels and adventures.
Wikipedia →Published by Wizards of the Coast
A pulp noir D&D campaign setting that combines magic with technology, featuring lightning rail trains, sentient constructs, and a cold war between nations after a devastating conflict.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR/Wizards of the Coast
A gothic horror D&D campaign setting consisting of demiplane domains, each ruled by a Darklord. Features locations inspired by classic horror literature and films, perfect for horror-themed campaigns.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR/Wizards of the Coast
A post-apocalyptic desert D&D campaign setting where arcane magic has drained the life from the land. Features psionics, powerful sorcerer-kings, and a brutal, resource-scarce environment where metal is rare.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR/Wizards of the Coast
Gary Gygax's original D&D campaign setting, a classic medieval fantasy world with evocative locations like the Free City of Greyhawk and Castle Greyhawk. Known for its political intrigue and iconic characters.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR/Wizards of the Coast
A world shaped by the War of the Lance where dragons have returned after centuries of absence. Known for its epic storylines, the Heroes of the Lance, and themes of balance between good and evil. Features unique elements like the three moons of magic and draconians.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR/Zeitgeist Games
Dave Arneson's legendary first D&D campaign setting and one of the oldest RPG settings ever created. A dark, low-fantasy world featuring the mysterious Castle Blackmoor, arcane technology, and subterranean horrors.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR / Wizards of the Coast
Built around the Great Wheel cosmology and centered on Sigil, the City of Doors — a torus-shaped metropolis threaded with portals to every plane of existence. Philosophy is power: factions defined by competing worldviews clash for influence across the planes. Revived in 2023 with the Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse box set.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR / Wizards of the Coast
A fantasy space-travel setting where magical ships sail the Phlogiston between crystal spheres, each containing a different D&D world. Ships take the form of galleons, giant sea creatures, and stranger shapes, serving as connective tissue between TSR's other settings. Revived in 2022 with a three-book collection for fifth edition.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR / Wizards of the Coast
A D&D setting where players take roles as divinely-empowered rulers rather than wandering adventurers. Characters inherit divine bloodlines granting Regency — a resource used to govern provinces, wage wars, and conduct diplomacy across three-month domain turns. Winner of the 1996 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR / Wizards of the Coast
The default setting for the Basic and BECMI editions of D&D throughout the 1980s and 90s, featuring the Known World — a patchwork of nations drawn from real historical cultures. Rather than gods, the setting features Immortals: ascended mortals who have achieved divine power.
Wikipedia →Published by TSR
An Arabian Nights-inspired D&D setting set in Zakhara, the Land of Fate, playable as a region of the Forgotten Realms or as a standalone world. The setting blends historical Islamic Caliphate culture with cinematic adventure, with core rules split across Arabian Adventures and the Land of Fate boxed set.
Wikipedia →The Old School Revival and independent publishing scene has produced some of the most distinctive settings in tabletop gaming — tightly designed, with strong aesthetic identities that bigger publishers rarely attempt. These settings often assume a gritty lethality and a player-driven style of play quite different from mainstream D&D.
Published by Necrotic Gnome
A fairy tale-inflected OSR setting grown from the Wormskin zine and fully realized in hardcover in 2024. Set in a 200-hex forest realm of dark whimsy drawn from British Isles folklore, players navigate the politics of seven rival factions — Cold Prince, Drune, Church, and more — using a streamlined version of Old-School Essentials with unique species like breggles and grimalkins.
Official Site →Published by North Wind Adventures
A sword-and-sorcery OSR setting — originally titled Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea — set on a flat world lit by a dying sun, drawing on Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft. The rules are loosely derived from AD&D 1st Edition and lean into pulp horror and decadent ancient civilizations. Now in its third edition (2022), simply titled Hyperborea.
Wikipedia →Published by Free League Publishing
A hexcrawl fantasy RPG set in a kingdom sealed for generations by a deadly Blood Mist — and now that the mist has lifted, adventurers push into ruins no living person has entered in centuries. The game emphasizes player-driven exploration, resource management, and the dangerous freedom of an open world reclaimed from ruin.
Wikipedia →Published by Järnringen / Free League Publishing
A dark Swedish fantasy RPG set on the border of the vast, corrupted forest of Davokar — ruins of the fallen Symbaroum empire — where Ambrian refugees press into the woods in search of treasure, opposed by elves who guard a sleeping ancient evil. Corruption is a creeping mechanical and thematic threat. A 5E adaptation, Ruins of Symbaroum, was published by Free League.
Official Site →Published by Melsonian Arts Council
A science-fantasy indie RPG set in a surreal multiverse of crystalline spheres, baroque cities, and impossible places, built on a lightweight system of three attributes and 36 wildly varied character backgrounds ranging from Necromancer to Befouler of Ponds. Its open SRD has spawned hundreds of third-party titles. The game treats genre as something to be cheerfully ignored.
Wikipedia →Published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess
An OSR game by James Edward Raggi IV set against an implied early 17th-century Europe, where the horror is real, the stakes are lethal, and the supernatural is genuinely alien. LotFP strips the classic D&D chassis down to essentials and wraps it in weird fiction and heavy metal sensibility, producing adventures known for their transgressive tone and uncompromising danger.
Official Site →D&D is not the only system with published campaign settings. Other RPGs have developed worlds with their own histories, magic systems, and design philosophies that reward different styles of play.
Published by Chaosium
One of the oldest fantasy campaign settings, featuring bronze-age cultures where myth and magic are woven into daily life. Known for its complex religions and rune magic system.
Wikipedia →Published by Paizo
The official Pathfinder campaign setting, a diverse world featuring everything from high fantasy kingdoms to steampunk cities and cosmic horror. Each region offers distinct themes and adventure opportunities.
Game Wiki →Published by Games Workshop / Cubicle 7
A grim analogue of early Renaissance Europe where Chaos gnaws at civilization through secret cults and mutation, magic is feared because it draws from Chaos, and adventurers are small people in a dangerous world rather than emerging heroes. Careers advance characters through gritty occupational paths rather than heroic levels.
Wikipedia →Published by Game Designers' Workshop / Mongoose Publishing
One of the foundational science fiction RPGs, set primarily within the Third Imperium — a vast, feudalistic human-dominated interstellar empire. Characters are built through a lifepath system that can age them before play begins, then journey between star systems trading, exploring, and fighting across a hard-SF-adjacent cosmos. In continuous print for nearly five decades.
Wikipedia →Published by FASA / Catalyst Game Labs
A cyberpunk-meets-urban-fantasy RPG set in a near-future world where magic returned in 2011, bringing elves, orks, trolls, and dragons alongside megacorporations, cyberware, and the Matrix. Players are shadowrunners — deniable operatives executing corporate espionage, heists, and wetwork in cities where corporations have more power than governments.
Wikipedia →Published by Monte Cook Games
A science-fantasy RPG set one billion years in Earth's future — the Ninth World, built atop the ruins of eight prior civilizations — where ancient technology so advanced it resembles magic litters the landscape. Inhabitants scavenge and misunderstand the incomprehensible devices around them. Won multiple ENnie Awards in 2014.
Wikipedia →Published by Kotodama Heavy Industries
A Japanese RPG designed around the joy of travel and everyday life in a fantasy world rather than combat — often described as Hayao Miyazaki's take on D&D. Each group is secretly accompanied by a Ryuujin dragon whose type shapes the terrain and weather they encounter. First released in Japan in 2007; the English edition arrived in 2016.
Wikipedia →Published by Pelgrane Press
A collaborative d20 fantasy RPG set in the Dragon Empire — defined by 13 iconic demigod-like figures called Icons whose rivalries shape the world. Designed by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, it emphasizes narrative abstraction using an Escalation Die mechanic and One Unique Thing character hooks to keep combat dynamic and story-driven.
Wikipedia →Many Game Masters prefer to build their own worlds rather than use a published setting. Homebrew settings let you design around your group's interests and respond to what happens at the table without worrying about canon.
Begin with a single town or region rather than an entire continent. A detailed village with memorable NPCs and local conflicts provides more immediate play value than a sketched-out world map.
Great campaign settings revolve around tensions: religious divides, resource scarcity, political rivalries, or magical catastrophes. These conflicts create natural adventure hooks for your players.
Allow players to help build the world through their character backstories and during session zero. This creates investment and may introduce elements you hadn't considered.
Combine elements from fiction, history, and published campaign settings that inspire you. The most creative worlds often remix familiar elements in surprising ways.
A good way to understand a campaign setting's tone is through its associated fiction. Novels set in the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Eberron show how these worlds feel in practice. See our campaign setting fiction guide for recommended novels from each setting.
Ready to start playing? Use our dice roller for your sessions, or roll up a character with the ability score generator. For classic OSR-style campaigns, the 3d6-in-order method pairs well with settings like Greyhawk and Blackmoor.
A comprehensive guide to the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms, including new character options, backgrounds, and detailed lore about the cities and factions of the area.
Official Resource →A detailed sourcebook for Matthew Mercer's Critical Role campaign setting, featuring new subclasses, spells, magic items, and the Dunamancy school of magic.
Official Resource →An overview of the major regions of Golarion following the 10-year time jump in Pathfinder 2E, featuring new ancestries, backgrounds, and items unique to each region.
Official Resource →