The flexibility of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game rules means that Dungeon Masters (DM) are free to create their own fantasy campaign settings. For those who wanted a pre-packaged setting in which to play, TSR, Wizards of the Coast (WotC), and other publishers have created many settings in which D&D games can be based; of these, the Forgotten Realms, an epic fantasy world, has been one of the most successful and critically acclaimed settings. Many campaign settings include standard sword and sorcery environments, while others borrow Asian, Central American, swashbuckling, horror and even spaceflight themes.

These are official D&D campaign settings that have been published or licensed by TSR or WotC. Theros and Ravnica originated in the Magic: The Gathering franchise, another property of WotC. A number of the settings here are no longer published or officially licensed, though all have active fan bases.

Birthright

A setting in which the players took on the powers of the divinely empowered rulers of nations, with emphasis on tactical gameplay with a broad scope.

Blackmoor

The original campaign setting played for D&D, created by Dave Arneson. Arneson created this setting for use in personal games with the Chainmail rules set in 1971, prior to Greyhawk and indeed Dungeons & Dragons itself. The D&D Blackmoor supplement was published in 1975. In 2004, Blackmoor was again published by Arneson and Zeitgeist Games. It was also run as a massively multiplayer role-playing game, or MMRPG, a type of living campaign.

Conan and Red Sonja In 1984, TSR released two AD&D Conan modules as licensed tie-ins with Conan the Destroyer (1984), the second Schwarzenegger film. CB1: Conan Unchained! is set in the Vilayet Sea. CB2: Conan Against Darkness! takes place in Aquilonia. In 1985, TSR released a stand-alone (non-D&D) Conan Role-Playing Game boxed set based on the Marvel Superheroes RPG system. In 1986, TSR published another AD&D module: RS1: Red Sonja Unconquered licensed from Red Sonja Corp., which is set on the Zaporoska River, and authored by Anne Gray McCready. All three AD&D modules (CB1, CB2, and RS1) contain a two-page setting overview of "The Hyborian World", with sections on history and geography, people, technology, monsters, spellcasters, and magic items. There are also Hyboria-specific adaptations of the AD&D rules: fear factor, luck points, and quick non-magical healing.

Council of Wyrms

Council of Wyrms is a D&D boxed set, published in 1994, that includes rules for playing dragon, half dragon, and dragon servant characters. It includes three rule books: one for the base rules, one for dragon family and clan histories, and one for adventure modules. In 1999 it was slightly revised and reprinted as a hardcover book.

Dark Sun

Released by TSR in 1991, Dark Sun diverges from the tone of "conventional" medieval fantasy, drawing heavy inspiration from novels like Dune and the Barsoom series. The campaign is set on the harsh desert world of Athas – once a lush planet teeming with life, it has since been stripped of its fertility by uncontrolled use of defiling magic and is now a desolate and savage place where civilization has retreated to city-states controlled by god-like Sorcerer-Kings.

Psionics are a dominant aspect of the setting and are as commonplace as magic in other D&D settings—native/latent psionic abilities are commonly found in individuals of all humanoid races and their powers are respected. Religion and divine magic is based on the worship of elemental forces, spirits or the Sorcerer-Kings themselves—the old gods have long abandoned the world.

Wizards and arcane spellcasters, on the other hand, are rarer and usually discriminated against, mainly because most of them are "defilers" who drain life force from the environment to power their magic. However, a small underground minority of magicians called "preservers" work to maintain life and ultimately restore the primeval lushness.

Playable humanoid races in Athas include the Thri-Kreen (mantis people) and Half-Giants, as well as warped variants of races found in other conventional fantasy settings: humans, the dominant race in most of known Athas, appear to be tougher than in other worlds; elves are nomadic desert dwellers and long-distance runners; halflings are depicted as savage jungle cannibals.

These elements, combined with a post-apocalyptic desert setting and the alien feel of Athas' native cultures, give Dark Sun a unique flavor among the various D&D worlds.

Diablo II Wizards released several pen and paper adaptations of the Diablo II video game, both for AD&D 2nd edition and D&D 3rd edition. Second edition products include The Bloodstone Tomb D&D Diablo II Fast-Play Game (1999), D&D Adventure Game: Diablo II Edition (boxed set, 2000), Diablo II: The Awakening (adventure, 2000), and Diablo II miniatures (2000). Third edition products include Diablo II: To Hell and Back (adventure, and its web enhancement "The Secret Cow Level") and Diablo II: Diablerie (supplement), all from 2001.

Dragon Fist Dragon Fist, released on the Wizards of the Coast website, was promoted as a new role playing game, describing itself in its introduction as an "AD&D variant". With its debut near the end of the lifespan of second edition, the variant rules blended rules found in different editions. For example, the game used the monster template of second edition, but the armor class rules of third edition. The campaign setting, created by Chris Pramas, is a China-inspired realm known as Tianguo, "a fictional land based on wuxia films and on Chinese folklore and legend". Beyond the initial release, the product was not supported.

Dragonlance

Dragonlance was the first complete fictional world to be intentionally produced and marketed as an RPG supplement, with product tie-ins (novels, role-playing modules, figurines, etc.) prepared and manufactured when it was first released. The success of the Dragonlance series encouraged role-playing game producers to invent and market additional fictional game worlds. Dragonlance is an epic fantasy campaign focused on a war between good and evil gods and the return of dragons after centuries of absence. It was created by Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura, with tie-in novels by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis.

Time of the Dragon

This box set introduced gamers to the continent of Taladas, noted for having a large molten sea in its middle, and a nation of minotaurs modeled on the Roman Empire, with its own imperial family, senate, and gladiatorial games.

Eberron

In 2003, Wizards of the Coast held a contest for fans to propose the most creative new setting, the reward being a publishing contract. Keith Baker's setting won, and with additional design by Wizards of the Coast's creative department, the Eberron campaign setting was released in 2004. Straying from the "standard" Western European flavor used in many other D&D settings such as Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, Eberron takes place in a world of pulp action and fantasy noir with steampunk influences, where the inhabitants make extensive use of magic in place of technology, or technology powered by magical energies. Fantasy versions of steam trains, airships, and even robots are commonplace, mostly replacing the traditional medieval trope of knights in shining armor.

Exandria

Originally created by Matthew Mercer for his personal campaigns in 2012, Exandria is the world where the Critical Role web series is set and is a high fantasy setting, which moves away from the "harmful tropes in D&D" around monstrous races. In 2017, Green Ronin Publishing released a setting book written by Mercer and James Haeck, Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, which focused on the continent of Tal'Dorei in Exandria, where the first Critical Role campaign with the adventuring group Vox Machina took place. One critic highlighted that this campaign has the "specific flavor of high fantasy drama" akin to the "Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms books". An updated edition, titled Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (2022) from publisher Darrington Press, moves the timeline 20 years forward to the era of the second Critical Role campaign. Academic Emily Friedman, writing for Los Angeles Review of Books, noted designer and critic Alyssa Visscher's 2021 argument that Exandria "is this D&D gen's Forgotten Realms. It's so many folks' intro setting; a large section of the newer player base *knows* and is emotionally invested in it". Friedman commented, "if Visscher is right (and I believe she is), then Critical Role and other major actual plays are the primary sources today for D&D's narrative and world-building intellectual properties".

Exandria was first mentioned in an official Wizards of the Coast publication in the adventure book Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (2019). In 2020, after Mercer had been working with Wizards of the Coast for about a year and a half on the project, Exandria officially became a part of Dungeons & Dragons through the release of the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. This book focuses on the continent of Wildemount in Exandria, where the second Critical Role campaign takes place, and adds a new type of magic called dunamancy, which focuses on manipulating time and space. Wildemount was designed with an Eastern European influence – specifically, the Dwendalian Empire was inspired by 15th century Russia and Prussia, Xhorhas by 13th-century Romania, and the edges by 14th-century Spain. Critics have highlighted Wildemount specifically as breaking from traditional fantasy tropes.

A second collaboration book, Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep, includes some setting information; the adventure heads from Xhorhas to the city of Ank'Harel on the continent of Marquet. From there, players will be drawn into the Netherdeep – "a terrifying cross between the Far Realm and the deep ocean". In 2022, the book was "the closest to cracking open Exandria's origins that Mercer has come to date. Call of the Netherdeep is steeped in the history of The Calamity, a cataclysmic event in which the Exandrian pantheon exploded into a civil war that put the entire world in peril".

Forgotten Realms

Created by author and game designer Ed Greenwood as his personal campaign and detailed in a long series of articles in Dragon Magazine, Forgotten Realms became the most popular D&D setting from the late 1980s onwards and has been well received by both gamers and reviewers. Sean Patrick Fannon, author of The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, has praised the setting's scope and ambition and considered that it "may be the most widely played-in game setting in RPG history".

The Forgotten Realms is a high fantasy world – magic is powerful, legendary monsters are commonplace, and gods often intervene directly in mortal affairs. Players can indulge in several types of fantasy adventures, from straightforward hack-and-slash treasure hunting in dungeons to epic campaigns involving regional wars, cataclysms and direct contact with gods and extra-dimensional beings.

The lands of the Forgotten Realms are not all ruled by the human race: the setting's planet, Abeir-Toril, is shared by humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs, dragons and other peoples and creatures. Technologically, the world resembles pre-industrial Earth of the 13th or 14th century. However, the strong presence of magic provides an additional element of power to the societies.