the kitchen sink

[Steerpike]

I think of Eberron as a kitchen-sink setting in that it has a huge degree of eclecticism.  Skyrails and dinosaurs and robots and otherworldly horrors and gigantic cities and pint-sized barbarians and magic tattoos.  What makes it a good kitchen sink setting (IMO) is that it still somehow manages to feel semi-cohesive; the pieces fit together, more or less, and the whole thing is united by an atmosphere of pulp action and Noirish zaniness.  Yeah it's D&D with a new paint job, of course - but the old paint was peeling pretty badly.

[Superfluous Crow]

I know these are usually considered fantasy staples more than vilified tropes, but personally I can't help but put the following two items in the latter category:
*Living gods. Although it sounds good at first, gods walking the earth toying with mortals, this ruins the entire freaking concept of religion and bothers me to no end. A few (alleged) god-kings and demi-mortals is okay, but when you start introducing the main gods of the pantheon as NPCs I start cringing.
*Dragons, oh god the dragons. They are everywhere. There is nary a setting without dragons. And they are always the cleverest, strongest and most magical being around. Gah.    

Hmm, don't know whether the above actually applies to your kitchen sink discussion, but take from it what you will.

On the subject of "official" kitchen sinks, I think Pathfinder's Golarion glaring example. Don't get me wrong, it does get a few things right and has its share of original ideas, but for every original idea there are five annoying clichés. The most scathing part of the setting though is the very incoherent nature of how all the elements are fitted together, which is really what separates a sink from an ordinary setting. Oh, and as mentioned by others earlier, they lean on RL civilizations way too much.
So we have Viking country next to Ice Witch country (I kid you not) and then there is Technology country which lies between Evil Magic country and Good Magic country. We have Egypt country, Arab country, Indian country, Chinese country etc. as well as more peculiar things like barbarians-meet-spaceships-and-robots country.
That being said, their Evil Empire is kinda neat and actually manages to separate itself from its real-world inspirations.

EDIT: Just realized parts of my comment line up pretty well with Steerpike's comment above. What determines whether a setting turns into a (bad) kitchen sink is the cohesiveness and verisimilitude of its elements. Even if you put all the fantasy elements of the world in one setting I'm not sure it would "deserve" the title Kitchen Sink unless it was falling apart at the seams. All of us here want our settings to brim with ideas, the difficult part is to stitch them together. (hmm, I think I have taken this franken-setting analogy as far as it can go)

EDIT: Oh, and Eberron is A) a pretty great setting apart from the godawful novels, B) not deserving of the kitchen sink label for the above reasons. It was more of a counter-reaction to the kitchen sink principle that pervaded the settings before it, taking care to unify everything people loved about D&D under a common flag and ethos.

[Kindling]

Wow, some great responses guys, lots to think about. Based on the definition of kitchen sink that seems to be emerging from all this, I think that might not even be what I'm going to end up working towards - a better term might just be "standard fantasy," as I'm not so much interested in jamming as many different things into the setting as possible as I am interested in making a setting that uses a number of the basic fantasy staples (demihumans, wizards, barbarians, etc.) and manages to still be a good, interesting setting rather than just "my version of DnD-land" . . . although I guess, essentially that's exactly what it will be, just hopefully my version will be a good one :P

[LD]

>>I think of Eberron as a kitchen-sink setting in that it has a huge degree of eclecticism.  Skyrails and dinosaurs and robots and otherworldly horrors and gigantic cities and pint-sized barbarians and magic tattoos.  What makes it a good kitchen sink setting (IMO) is that it still somehow manages to feel semi-cohesive; the pieces fit together, more or less, and the whole thing is united by an atmosphere of pulp action and Noirish zaniness.  Yeah it's D&D with a new paint job, of course - but the old paint was peeling pretty badly.

Well, I can agree with that, but Eberron doesn't 'really' have everything in the way that Golarion (Paizo's setting) or Forgotten Realms does. It doesn't have the Gothic Castles of Ustalav for a horror setting, or the Space weapons of Numeria, or really an ice-begotten land. As was said earlier, in Eberron, everything that's rules-compliant can fit there, but the setting itself follows a core ethos.

EDIT: Just read Crow's response above... I see you hit on the "core ethos" language as well :p. I really should have read his reply before replying to Steerpike--he's on the same wavelength as me.

[sparkletwist]

Living gods. Although it sounds good at first, gods walking the earth toying with mortals, this ruins the entire freaking concept of religion and bothers me to no end. A few (alleged) god-kings and demi-mortals is okay, but when you start introducing the main gods of the pantheon as NPCs I start cringing.

As someone who has used this trope a few times, including in Asura, I feel the need to defend it a bit. :P
I don't think it particularly ruins the concept of religion, personally. Just because the god is walking around doesn't mean that people always (or even usually) know where he is or what he's doing, and even when he is around, in the temple or whatever, it's not as though he has to be completely transparent in explaining just what's going on. There could even be gods who were seen to be walking around a generation or two ago, but nobody's seen them since then. Or, maybe, two or more gods that some believe are actually the same single being walking around, while others fiercely protest the claim, and of course the actual entity isn't going to be forthcoming about it. I also like when there true nature isn't clear, so they might just be aliens or something.

Basically, all I'm saying is, just because the gods are given incarnations doesn't mean they have to be available and particularly transparent about what they're doing. I think that the problem with the trope is when one automatically assumes that they do have to be-- which does ruin religion and it makes me cringe as well.

[Magnus Pym]

I had an image in my mind when I finished reading this thread.

A blank sheet on which a circle was drawn. Then animated dots fight each other eternally while always remaining in the circle, forgetting that the circle is, but a mere barrier that can be crossed easily to escape in the more open outside world. Where better opportunities await!

Weird eh? Of course someone who reads between the lines might find this a bit funny, or the exact opposite. I hope it happens.

[LD]

Kindling- have you looked at the old discussions about DivSet?  You may want to run a search. I think a description of DivSet is also on the wiki. I don't know if anyone mentioned this in this thread yet, but what you want to do seems like the epitome of DivSet rather than Kitchen Sink--as you have already noted that you wanted to avoid the negative aspects of Kitchen Sink.

[Superfluous Crow]

I second LD. I don't think I was part of the old discussion, but I have encountered the definition a few times. If I remember correctly DivSet is essentially the idea of constructing a setting that can accomodate any form of adventure/story as opposed to a setting with an ethos which is restricted to stories of a specific format and tone.

Yet I wonder whether there is a distinction of some kind between a "good" kitchen sink setting and a DivSet setting? One could be seen as element/idea accomodation while the other is tone/style accomodation. I don't know if this is a difference or, if it is, whether it is worth exploring.

[Kindling]

Yet I wonder whether there is a distinction of some kind between a "good" kitchen sink setting and a DivSet setting? One could be seen as element/idea accomodation while the other is tone/style accomodation. I don't know if this is a difference or, if it is, whether it is worth exploring.

This.

I am well aware that this does rehash some of the issues of the DivSet/Ethocentric schtick, but as Crow has so eloquently put it, the two issues don't quite line up exactly with each other.

[beejazz]

As one of the original anti-ethocentric arguers, I don't know if I like the divset terminology or concept, or where things went after I dropped out. Big part of my original idea is that tailoring a setting to a theme feels odd. Especially since what happens in game isn't the sole domain of the setting. If the theme is trust, it would be hard to make everything about trust. A *tone* can work, but that's different entirely.

The way I see it, there's multiple factors at play. There's tones, themes (which can be left out of my open-ended games), stuff (spaceships in a scifi), and something else I don't have a good name for (the difference between a romance and a mystery).

So a kitchen sink setting can have stuff from many genres (nuke-toting goblins in space) if it has a unifying tone or that last one (nuke toting goblins in space solve mysteries). And I think RPGs are uniquely good for this. The same rules apply across the board, and can unify the tone. So even if your characters are magic pegasi in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the system will decide if the tone is My Little Pony or The Road.