What are the main differences between classic DND settings?

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

What do you think are the main differences between Grewhawk, Myastra, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance?

Like, I get this are seperate worlds, each having its own countries, cultures, history etc.
But what are the differences in tone, theme, inspirations?
What mechanics, player options or creatures are unique?

Cause, like, Ravenloft is a (mostly gothic) horror setting about corruption, redemption and choosing to be a hero even when the very world is against you. Eberron is a cyberpunk setting about grief and moving on from it. Dark Sun is a sci-fi dystopia setting about climate changes and Dune (sorry, I'm less familliar with that one). All these worlds cover their own subgenre and themes.

But these four at the top of the post seem (to my unexperienced eye) to all be takes on generic fantasy made by different people.
It's not a bad thing - there's no sense in saying there can only be one setting for every genre.
I'm just asking: Is there any variation I'm missing?

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

Greyhawk is sword and sorcery fantasy. Gritty and closer to Middle-Earth in magic and tone. It’s a setting about how a world can rebuild after the end.

The Forgotten Realms are high fantasy, lots of magic, lots of adventure and big clashes. It’s a world more suited to 5e than other worlds as it lends itself to big, bombastic characters.

Ravenloft, as we know, is the Gothic Horror setting. It’s about loss, tragedy, curses and being the light in the dark.

Dark Sun is the post apocalyptic setting. It’s about danger and survival. Probably the most controversial setting in that it has a lot of themes that people might find “offensive” today, but where actually explored tastefully in the setting. D&Dshorts has a good video on it.

Dragonlance is heroic fantasy. Somewhere between Greyhawk and The Realms. Its themes are more around the heroics of mortals as opposed to the powerful characters shaping the Realms, and is more hopeful than Greyhawk.

Mystara was kitchen sink fantasy. If it existed in D&D, it’s in Mystara. I’m not as clued up on the setting as others, though.

Birthright was kingdom fantasy. You started as a hero but your bloodline meant you were destined for more. Again? I’m not as clued up on Birthright as other settings.

Planescape was philosophical fantasy. Though the power levelling and scope is larger than any other setting, Planescape is more about belief and philosophy than raw might. To me, this is typified in the adventure The Deva Spark, where it gives characters of different alignments different xp for finishing the adventure in certain ways.

[Speedwagon]

Eberron is a wide magic setting, full of magitek and is something of the posterboy on TvTropes for DungeonPunk. Eberron is built primarily around pulp-fiction style action (a la Indiana Jones or Blake & Mortimer), noir intrigue (a la The Maltese Falcon I suppose), and cold war style espionage due to the 100 years of war that ravaged the main continent being only kinda-sorta over, with radical reinterpretations of D&D staples to further differentiate it (halflings riding dinosaurs, good-aligned elven liches, aberrations and fiends overlapping, a nation with undead soldiers not necessarily being able but definitely strange, similar ambiguity about whether gods are real or not as Ravenloft, a nation of orcs and goblins and other typically-typecast-as-evil monsters but they're not necessarily evil, and so much more). After Ravenloft, Eberron is my second favorite D&D setting.

See this thread for more:

[doctornecrotic]

Mystara is more than Kitchen Sink. It's I'd say almost as pulpy as Eberron. Though, Eberron went the extra step. Likewise, there's a sense of grounded Earth-iness to it. To me, that makes it easier to attach to, as you can meld fantasy ideas with a touch of historic inspiration to make a character. Some parts of Mystara did it better than others though (looking at you, Pre-Pandius Fan Reboot of Atruaghin!)