Why do people hate the forgotten realms?

[Squiddish]

I've noticed that a lot of people seem to hate the forgotten realms, or at least on these forums. Why is this? Is it just because they're the default setting and people want to be different? Is it because people haven't actually read FR lore and just assume it's all standard medieval fantasy?

[ad_hoc]

I disliked it in 3.x because it was the high magic setting. Every town had super high level NPCs.

I think it had more to do with the edition than the setting as now in 5e I quite like it as a generic fantasy setting.

[JNAProductions]

I've noticed that a lot of people seem to hate the forgotten realms, or at least on these forums. Why is this? Is it just because they're the default setting and people want to be different? Is it because people haven't actually read FR lore and just assume it's all standard medieval fantasy?

It's too crowded with high level dudes. Begs the question of why Elminster isn't handling this world-ending threat, rather than 4 level 8 Joe Schmoes.

[ad_hoc]

It's too crowded with high level dudes. Begs the question of why Elminster isn't handling this world-ending threat, rather than 4 level 8 Joe Schmoes.

Is Elminster around in 5e? And if so how powerful is he?

I just take the 5e books at face value. What you see is what you get. I haven't found any of the NPCs to be particularly powerful.

I mean, the most powerful ones I've seen have been in CoS which isn't even in the Forgotten Realms.

[NecroDancer]

I just think the FR is overused (mainly the sword coast part of the FR). I mean as good as a setting is it would be nice to have an adventure somewhere that isn't the sword coast (hooray for Tomb of Annihilation:smallbiggrin:).

[Mjolnirbear]

Reason the First: it's the most well known. And unimaginative fanboys always want to play create or meet their heroes.

Reason the second: omfg so tired. It's fun to know the lore and history but every edition there's a major shift and really why bother

Reason the third: BORED. The same elves, same dwarves, same story, same coast, gimme some Eberron fer Odin's sake!

I don't dislike it as such. It's got good story and a ton of lore. But it's like hearing that hit song a million times, a billion times. Change the frackin' record already

[Hrugner]

I don't like to use it because it's a bit too finished. I like to be able to move things around quite a bit without messing with someone's expectations of the world. I don't hate it, I just don't have a use for it.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Elminster's something of a problem narratively, but most high level heroic wizards generally are. Even the trope codifier Gandalf, to some extent. In my games I tend to hand wave it saying he's so busy dealing with world-ending threats on a regular basis that a lot of other apocalyptic events manage to slip his notice. Toril has some kind of extinction threat about every week, with so many villainous organizations running amok that only the presence of thousands of heroic adventurers keeps everything from circling the drain.

I imagine Elminster's standard day begins like "Wake up, exit my completely impenetrable, spell-proofed bedroom to go to the bathroom, kill the inevitable 3 balors waiting there, brush my teeth, have a wizard fight with the archlich hiding in the shower, use the toilet..."

Despite my handle here, I didn't always like Forgotten Realms. I considered it the boring little brother of Greyhawk in my early D&D days. It grew on me, though, and today I see it as an exemplar for why a lot of people play D&D. True high fantasy, strange locales and people, interesting lore, grand adventure, intrigue, all wrapped up in a very earnest package.

[Tetrasodium]

It's generic as hell. It's too cluttered with a random assortment of isolated multicultural medieval stasis that makes disney's foods of the world (https://www.eater.com/2015/8/26/9192203/epcot-world-showcase-ranked) seem like it's not only downright homogeneous; but also that the individual cultures have massive influence on each other by virtue of being places so geographically nearby places are nearby. it's cluttered with decades of new stuff & random rewrites that should have retconned or invalidated old stuff but somehow didn't. It's black and white, everything is either bad & needs to be killed, bad but not discovered yet so it can be killed, trying to end the world, or irrelevant dirt farmers & their rulers who are somehow powerful & super important while having no reason for either

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Battlestar is one of the few re-images I like. Playing in the forgotten realms I have an urge to look for Imoen I suppose lol.

I played Baldur's Gate already so I dunno if I want to play it again.

[SharkForce]

for me, it's the prolific nature of the high-level NPCs as well. not necessarily that they must show up constantly, but that they are almost always shoved into everything.

let's put it this way: how many super-powerful dragonlance characters can you think of. i mean, everyone knows raistlin (and by extension, fistandantilus). then you've got, like... some dragons... i remember the leader of the white robe mages is a guy named par-salian i think, he's probably pretty high level (and largely only gets involved with wizard of high sorcery matters). soth is pretty crazy high level, but he's obviously not going to be solving any world problems any time soon. dalamar is pretty high level, but again, good luck getting him to solve anything that doesn't threaten him directly. even most of the main characters in the original books, apart from raistlin you never really get a feeling they're crazy powerful. if i asked myself whether, say, goldmoon would be able to cast raise dead... honestly, i'm not really sure. i haven't kept up with the more recent stuff, which is probably for the better, because from what i can tell i might start liking it a lot less.

now let's head over to the forgotten realms. well, first off, you've got entire large organizations of super-powerful spellcasters; the witches of rashemen, the red wizards of thay, whatever the guys that run the mage guild in the baldur's gate 2 video game are called... most temples in any city of remotely significant size can probably raise people from the dead, and most cities will have multiple temples... then you've got smaller groups like the chosen of mystra, elminster & his apprentices & their apprentices, the seven sisters, the harpers... every nation seems to have at least one "court wizard" or equivalent, who is probably level 20 or at least close to it (unless the leader of the nation is personally a powerful spellcaster), the drow are almost exclusively led by level 20ish people in each house, and there's a whole bunch of them, plus a lot of their underlings are extremely powerful as well... i mean, it just starts to feel a bit much. probably one of the most widely-known characters (drizzt) just about single-handedly killed an ancient wyrm white dragon or something like that. no amazing plan, just sorta showed up with a bow and a couple scimitars, and killed an ancient wyrm dragon. in it's lair. you go ahead and try that some time with a level 20 warrior even, no crazy preparations, just go pick a fight with a dragon in it's lair and see how that goes for you... and i bet you'll find it doesn't go terribly well. but hey, in the forgotten realms, no problem, why would you need an adventuring party or insane levels of preparation for something like that, it's just a dragon, not nearly as powerful as the hordes of ridiculous NPCs.

then when you compare just about anything from the realms to any other setting power-wise, and you keep on seeing ridiculous differences. i was brought up on 2nd AD&D, and when you read the books that have all the wizard and priest spells and all the magic items, it seems like danged near every ridiculously powerful one comes from the forgotten realms. then i remember there was a book, faiths and avatars i think? anyways, had all the deities of the forgotten realms and their specialty priests, which were *supposedly* supposed to be the same power level as druids. was that ever a load of BS. way stronger than druids, and also way stronger than the priests of specific deities you might be able to create with the complete priest's handbook.

basically, somewhere along the way for me at least it feels like FR just forgot about the idea of balance, and didn't do so uniformly. wizards and priests got far more ridiculous stuff than anyone else, and it's not as fun playing D&D when half the party are at a completely different power level.

it just felt like a setting that had gotten out of hand. you couldn't just have a pretty awesome wizard, you had to have an epic level 20+ wizard. you couldn't have a small shrine to a god, everything had to be temples with dozens of full-blown clerics and several of them had to be able to cast any spell you might possibly want them to cast. every mages guild had to be led by an archmage and staffed by the most powerful mages as teachers, every organization needed to be led by level 20 NPCs, and they all had to have their very own broken thing about them, whether that be a ridiculously overpowered spell list or magic items that break the game or whatever else. it's like every NPC is a charicature of a DMPC. and not the good kind of DMPC, where they don't try to take over the game, but the worst kind of DMPC, where every time your group does something, the DMPC has to take center stage, and you should be grateful you were even allowed to sit in the audience and watch them be awesome.

i've spoken with people who like the forgotten realms, and they seem to mostly ignore that stuff, but to me, none of what the realms has to offer really offers enough to bother with ignoring that stuff... i mean, if you're going to ignore the most distinctive features of the realms, why not play in a different setting that doesn't have those features?

[Tetrasodium]

now let's head over to the forgotten realms. well, first off, you've got entire large organizations of super-powerful spellcasters; the witches of rashemen, the red wizards of thay, whatever the guys that run the mage guild in the baldur's gate 2 video game are called... most temples in any city of remotely significant size can probably raise people from the dead, and most cities will have multiple temples... then you've got smaller groups like the chosen of mystra, elminster & his apprentices & their apprentices, the seven sisters, the harpers... every nation seems to have at least one "court wizard" or equivalent, who is probably level 20 or at least close to it (unless the leader of the nation is personally a powerful spellcaster), the drow are almost exclusively led by level 20ish people in each house, and there's a whole bunch of them, plus a lot of their underlings are extremely powerful as well... i mean, it just starts to feel a bit much. probably one of the most widely-known characters (drizzt) just about single-handedly killed an ancient wyrm white dragon or something like that. no amazing plan, just sorta showed up with a bow and a couple scimitars, and killed an ancient wyrm dragon. in it's lair. you go ahead and try that some time with a level 20 warrior even, no crazy preparations, just go pick a fight with a dragon in it's lair and see how that goes for you... and i bet you'll find it doesn't go terribly well. but hey, in the forgotten realms, no problem, why would you need an adventuring party or insane levels of preparation for something like that, it's just a dragon, not nearly as powerful as the hordes of ridiculous NPCs.

then when you compare just about anything from the realms to any other setting power-wise, and you keep on seeing ridiculous differences. i was brought up on 2nd AD&D, and when you read the books that have all the wizard and priest spells and all the magic items, it seems like danged near every ridiculously powerful one comes from the forgotten realms. then i remember there was a book, faiths and avatars i think? anyways, had all the deities of the forgotten realms and their specialty priests, which were *supposedly* supposed to be the same power level as druids. was that ever a load of BS. way stronger than druids, and also way stronger than the priests of specific deities you might be able to create with the complete priest's handbook.

basically, somewhere along the way for me at least it feels like FR just forgot about the idea of balance, and didn't do so uniformly. wizards and priests got far more ridiculous stuff than anyone else, and it's not as fun playing D&D when half the party are at a completely different power level.

it just felt like a setting that had gotten out of hand. you couldn't just have a pretty awesome wizard, you had to have an epic level 20+ wizard. you couldn't have a small shrine to a god, everything had to be temples with dozens of full-blown clerics and several of them had to be able to cast any spell you might possibly want them to cast. every mages guild had to be led by an archmage and staffed by the most powerful mages as teachers, every organization needed to be led by level 20 NPCs, and they all had to have their very own broken thing about them, whether that be a ridiculously overpowered spell list or magic items that break the game or whatever else. it's like every NPC is a charicature of a DMPC. and not the good kind of DMPC, where they don't try to take over the game, but the worst kind of DMPC, where every time your group does something, the DMPC has to take center stage, and you should be grateful you were even allowed to sit in the audience and watch them be awesome.

i've spoken with people who like the forgotten realms, and they seem to mostly ignore that stuff, but to me, none of what the realms has to offer really offers enough to bother with ignoring that stuff... i mean, if you're going to ignore the most distinctive features of the realms, why not play in a different setting that doesn't have those features?

and basically none of those crazy powerful organizations have much (if any) business/interaction/interest in each other. It's like if the UN security council nations had no trade/politicking/competing interests/cultural cross polination etc for hundreds of years but mostly all shared borders the entire time.

[JAL_1138]

It tries too hard. The names are ridiculous (although, given some of the names in my native Kentucky, I don't know if I have room to complain...we've got Tyewhoppety, Thousandsticks, Black Gnat, Vortex, Stinking Creek, Lynch, Crummies, Monkey's Eyebrow, Hell-for-Certain...the list could actually go on quite a bit longer)...but still, FR names just bug me. Either they're ludicrous strings of syllables with bizzarre spellings and a plethora of apostrophes (like anything to do with the Drow, for example), or they've managed to shove "moon" in there as a prefix or suffix for a hundred different locations, or they beat you over the head with how hard they're trying to sound "medieval fantasy," like "Candlekeep" or "Waterdeep" or the like. Every place in Faerun, both in name and in the details, feels like it's trying to shout "LOOK, IT'S FANTASY! SEE HOW FANTASY IT IS?!" at the top of its lungs, but without any whimsy on the one hand or self-awareness on the other, or even reveling in the pastiche a'la Ravenloft.

Add to that the sheer volume of convoluted canon and the major upheavals between editions, and quantity of Mary Sues running about the place, and it really just grates on me.

[Anderlith]

For me it's a weird mix of too generic & too over written. Everything from the nation's to the people are largely generic cookie cutter versions. Cormyr is Camelot/Gondor, Waterdeep is every dark alleyed rogue's town. Etc

But then every corner of the map is filled. You don't have a lot of agency of making your own stuff, & if you do you have to move the set pieces to accommodate it. Like if I introduce a powerful mage character doing a lot in the world, I then have to explain why Elminster isn't there instead or why said random mage is better or more powerful than Elminster. Or if I just dont want a certain race/faction/class/God etc

[Temperjoke]

I don't hate it, per se, it's more that I'm getting over-saturated with FR stuff. I'm ready to see another world, without having to do a ton of work myself to get there.

[mephnick]

To me Greyhawk seemed like a legitimate setting that naturally flowed together with realistic interactions between the nations and regions. FR just seems like some BS kitchen sink they kept adding on to gor no reason. It's not as stupid as Golarion *shudder* but it's still a mess to me.

Of course I've been running my own settings for two decades so maybe I'm viewing Greyhawk with nostalgia tinted glasses.

[ad_hoc]

Most of these complaints sound like they are regarding the setting pre 5e.

As someone who ignored the Forgotten Realms until 5e I quite like it.

[Tetrasodium]

Most of these complaints sound like they are regarding the setting pre 5e.

As someone who ignored the Forgotten Realms until 5e I quite like it.

There is no fr book for 5e yet, just ones from older editions (https://www.google.com/search?q=forgotten+realms+pdf&oq=forgotten+realms+pdf&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.14490j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=forgotten+realms+player's+guide++pdf). So basically you are noting that people who sometimes/often actually know what's over there, who so & so, or what such&such is are the ones who have issues with the setting. as noted, there is no fr setting book, just a few books narrowed in on particular isolated areas within it

[Nicrosil]

It just feels so full. I feel like whenever I research something in faerun I have to wade through forty years of lore and retcons and retcons to the retcons. It's also really bland and generic. I mean, just look at the names! Waterdeep, Silverymoon, Red Larch, Hallwinter, Rockseeker, Adjective Noun, Adjective Noun, Adjective Noun. It has no real identity, nothing unique. It's just stuff smashed together to make a Fantasy, like they took the entirety of TVTropes index on fantasy and dumped it into a campaign world.

[JAL_1138]

It's not just the quantity of uberpowered NPCs and continent-spanning organizations, but the way they're done. Because you can do the same things, even the "fantasy kitchen sink" thing, and have it work.

The setting with the most powerful NPC of all, the Lady of Pain, and with Factions that dwarfed the Faerunian groups in size and scope, had a ton of proverbial blank space for a DM to do stuff in, built right into the premise (since the Outer Planes are infinite in size, and there are ways to travel to every world in the multiverse without spellcasting), and the Lady was just as likely—much more so, really—to fry you to bits for happening to be standing where her shadow passed over you or something as to do anything remotely helpful, so there was no need to explain much of why she was staying out of events, and faction politics and planar conflicts kept most of the other high-powered folks out of your hair. That, and what did fill the map aside from the blank space was practically oozing with personality, and managed to have shades of grey that were actually nuanced and interesting despite the setting revolving around alignment-as-metaphysical-fact.

Granted they pretty quickly set about mucking Planescape up with the Faction War module, and let's not even mention a certain module featuring a certain undead Villain Sue that managed to bork three settings at once...

[ZorroGames]

i started with OD&D and everybody wrote something for their world. Over time the good DMs/Settings gained traction. Then "modules" became available and "fantasy gentrification" began.

[Luccan]

Personally, don't hate it, but I've never seen the appeal. I've played some of the video games set there and they were fun, but nothing felt especially unique about the setting to justify how often it's used. I would like to see some actual books with different setting fluff and rules. Eberon, Athas, even just some info on what's up in Greyhawk these days. Something that isn't just "Someone basically set fire to [Waterdeep/Neverwinter/the Dalelands] again!"

[Sigreid]

Too well documented by which I mean it never really feels like you get to be the first anywhere.

Elminster was here syndrome

And I really lost all interest in it with the time of troubles storyline with the gods being shaken up every other week it seemed.

And, it never held a candle to greyhawk.

Edit: I think this can all be summed up with it being too shaped by the novels.

[JAL_1138]

Greyhawk wasn't without its own troubles...1e Greyhawk was terrific as a generic World Of Adventure to set a campaign in, with a bit of a sense of whimsy, wonder, discovery, and even a bit of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, mixed with a hefty dose of feeling grounded in terms of politics, national alliances, history, and a fair bit of grit. It also managed to do the "fantasy kitchen sink" thing well by just being bat-guano bonkers and joyously blatant with it. But 2e's decision to take it grimdark kind of sent it off the rails as far as I was concerned. It lost a lot of its charm and started to become a depressing slog where everything was always on the brink of ruin, or past the brink of ruin, and everyone was miserable all the time.

[Blue Duke]

Granted they pretty quickly set about mucking Planescape up with the Faction War module, and let's not even mention a certain module featuring a certain undead Villain Sue that managed to bork three settings at once...

it's strahd right ? please say its strahd and i'm not the only one that hates his entire existance and gets a cold shiver up my spine when either of my DM's points out they own Curse of strahd. follow on.....i'm so very tired of forgotten realms but i'm tired of modules in general even when the DM is makeing their own world to set them in because the modules are just endless dungeon after dungeon or 'and now you are a were rat because the party stalled and i wouldnt let you go find a priest because i refused to let the party split, DEAL WITH IT AND DONT COMPLAIN I'M JUST FOLLOWING THE MODULE!'.....FR has the whole High level NPC issue, it's also got so much of the map filled in.

[Asha Leu]

I don't hate it. I just find it kind of boring, and I'm really sick of how almost all official 5E content has been based in the Forgotten Realms so far. Considering how rarely 5E sourcebooks come out, its frustrating when the Realms are the only setting getting basically any content at all.

And I just find the Realms rather... dull. I have nothing against "generic" D&D settings - most of my own D&D games are set in them. But when I run a game in a standard, vanilla, pseudo-European-medieval setting, I can just use my own homebrew content. If I'm going to actually spend money on a campaign setting, I want something a bit more weird and unique, like Eberron or Dark Sun.

[oxybe]

I don't hate it, I just don't care for it.

Outside of it's NPCs it's a tightly packed with vaguely real-world analogues I just can't get excited about, that's been stuck in medieval stasis since forever and even though the world's been through numerous darn near apocalyptic events that rewrote the rules of their reality at least 3 times (IE: each edition change had a shakeup done because magic worked differently between 2>3, 3>4, 4>5) it's still basically the same place it's always been.

For me the realms aren't bad, they're just bland.

[TrinculoLives]

I'm not terribly familiar with the setting, but so far what I dislike about the FR is how the pantheon of deities changes around so often. I have some 3rd edition content that speaks about one set of gods, and then several of those gods are different or changed around in my 5th edition content.

By comparison, in a place like Middle Earth the Valar don't change their identities around every other decade. Ulmo is Ulmo, Manwe is Manwe: things are dependable.

I would very much prefer that in a setting: that the traditional archetypal deities remain un-tampered-with.

[BillyBobShorton]

It's trendy for kids and immature adults to hate mainstream, then act like it's not them following some trend, but this inner code of deeply rooted convictions.

[Dappershire]

I'm not terribly familiar with the setting, but so far what I dislike about the FR is how the pantheon of deities changes around so often. I have some 3rd edition content that speaks about one set of gods, and then several of those gods are different or changed around in my 5th edition content.

By comparison, in a place like Middle Earth the "gods-but-not-actually-gods" don't change their identities around every other decade. Ulmo is Ulmo, Manwe is Manwe: things are dependable.

I would very much prefer that in a setting: that the traditional archetypal deities remain un-tampered-with.

Gods fight. They kill. They eat each other. They pull off a mask and shout "Boo, I was pretending to be this God too the entire time!"

It allows for a Divine dynamic that is more approachable by mortal players.


As for the original question, I've loved FR from the moment someone dropped off a seachest full of books in my room when I was 7. Quarter century later and I still love FR.

It has something for everything, and everyone. High magic, low magic, magic is evil, magic is a part of everyone. Barbarian lands, orc lands, rogue lands. You want blood? I'll give you blood. Want subtlety? Watch out, your city's elders are up to something, time to throw your pretty face on.

Yes, their are high powered NPCs around every corner....being left alone. Because they are done adventuring.
You have beginning players? Great. Look what famous Drow is now the mysterious stranger they are to meet in the tavern.
You have experienced players, throw them a useless but powerful artifact. And now one of the many powerful evil or even not evil organizations are after you. Turn it around on them, destroy them, take over and lead their organization.

[Orion3T]

Most of these complaints sound like they are regarding the setting pre 5e.

As someone who ignored the Forgotten Realms until 5e I quite like it.

As someone new to D&D and only knowing the FR from the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series, I'm also enjoying exploring and learning about it. There's loads of stuff there to use (or not) entirely according to your own preference.

[tsotate]

I dislike it for many of the reasons others have covered above.

I hate it because the decision to shoehorn FR in where it wasn't wanted ruined DDO.

[Arkhios]

I don't hate it, nor do I particularly dislike it. It's just the same old song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFHjaVJEZqA) all over again and again.

It's the boredom mostly. And probably partly thanks to R.A. Salvatore's omnipotent heroes who just won't die, and always rise up to the challenge, and beat it. As someone before me said, change the record already. Preferably, change the author altogether. Keith Baker is a very noteworthy choice.

[hymer]

I'm currently running a 3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign on specific request from players. I've toned down the levels of everyone and there's no mention of Elminster the Seven Sisters in my campaign. What I'm down to disliking now, I think, is simply what I'd dislike about any world I didn't create myself, or at least had a guiding hand in. I don't feel so free to create and change, because I don't feel I'd grasp the implications and ramifications. I feel I have to do homework, because I only know the world so well, and some of my players know it a lot better. And then there are the numerous individual elements I'd never have in a campaign of my own reation that I have to rewrite, change, avoid, or justify their absence.

I don't dislike it particularly. But why follow other people's recipes, when I'm a perfectly competent cook myself, and I'd rather use the stuff I have in my pantries?

[JackPhoenix]

FR (and to lesser extent, Greyhawk) was always too generic to me, and (unlike Greyhawk) lack the sense of "living world". Stuff is... just there, it doesn't feel like it's interacting. Nations and organisations just kinda sit here, unless they are designated villain/hero for the month. If there's a spell that does x, it has no real effect on the world (unlike Eberron, where you can bet someone would try to use it to gain military or economic advantage over someone else). Races are the same old and boring I've seen in dozens of other settings. I don't like meddling gods/epic characters showing up every week to solve/cause problems, or conversely sitting on their asses when they could actually do something about the current problem (which is to say, they shouldn't exist at all, if their whole purpose is "Look at how cool this guy is! No, it's totaly not my self-insert, honest!")

But what made me HATE FR was introduction (I think?) adventure in 3e, where there was a note for GM, going something like "If your party is injured, have an old man chasing his dog walk by, waving a stick at it, shouting "Heel, heel!". The man is Elminster, the stick is Staff of Healing, and it will heal the whole party."

Plus that DDO thing tsotate mentioned.

[Madbox]

I don't hate FR. And my D&D experience is limited to 5e, so I'm not suffering from nostalgia. But when I see Spelljammer, or Eberron, or Planescape, well...

Steak makes a great dinner, but it gets old after having nothing but beef for two years. I think chicken or lobster sounds pretty good right about now.

[Findulidas]

I like how so many have said: I dont hate it, but....

I personally dont think its that interesting.

[JAL_1138]

it's strahd right ? please say its strahd and i'm not the only one that hates his entire existance and gets a cold shiver up my spine when either of my DM's points out they own Curse of strahd. follow on.....i'm so very tired of forgotten realms but i'm tired of modules in general even when the DM is makeing their own world to set them in because the modules are just endless dungeon after dungeon or 'and now you are a were rat because the party stalled and i wouldnt let you go find a priest because i refused to let the party split, DEAL WITH IT AND DONT COMPLAIN I'M JUST FOLLOWING THE MODULE!'.....FR has the whole High level NPC issue, it's also got so much of the map filled in.

I was referencing Vecna, and the utter piece of crap module called Die Vecna Die. Which manages to simultaneously bork Planescape, Ravenloft, and Greyhawk in ways that contradict established setting lore, requiring Iuz to be an easily-duped patsy, and requiring the Dark Powers and the Lady of Pain to stand back and let him do his thing BECAUSE VECNA instead of squashing him like a bug, which they should be capable of doing without even lifting a finger. And he ultimately wins--he does get booted out of Sigil, but he escaped Ravenloft successfully and ended up a deity back in Greyhawk.

[Logosloki]

I don't particularly dislike it. If there is to be a 5th edition roll-out of FR what I would like would be the entire world leveled back. Also, I would like some bleed through. To use an oft scoffed and proff'd remark "It feels like an MMO". In this aspect what I mean is that the world feels like it is a series of self-contained zones which almost entirely do not interact with each other. For the most part each zone is actually really nice. Each zone has a problem with trying to cater to low and high level adventures at the same time, so you end up with groups within a zone that should just be quietly or overtly dealing with everything that threatens that area instead of handing it to a crack team of multi-species murderhobos.

[Scots Dragon]

It's too crowded with high level dudes. Begs the question of why Elminster isn't handling this world-ending threat, rather than 4 level 8 Joe Schmoes.

You know, it's not as well known as the Oberoni Fallacy or the Stormwind Fallacy, but I'm gonna call that one the Simbul_of_Aglarond Fallacy (https://web.archive.org/web/20151005042327/http://community.wizards.com/forum/forgotten-realms/threads/1109636).

I am seriously tired of this exact statement, because it's basically the same as asking why Superman isn't solving all of the problems of all the other less-powerful Justice League members.

[Theodoxus]

I don't understand... are any of you playing with or for Ed Greenwood? Then who give's a rat's what's written. It's a template, nothing more. Use as much or as little as you want! Don't want dwarves fighting giants in Vaasa, then don't! Want Waterdeep to be called Haven-by-the-Sea instead? Done!

What I like about FR is the maps are done - the continents make sense, weather is earthlike predicable - a lot of time and effort went into the cartography, which is way more than I want to do.

There's tons to gleam from across 4 editions. So what if your players have more 'lore knowledge' regarding the realms than you do. You're the DM - it's your world to make up as you go. If one player says 'Hey, there should be an encampment of wemics here.' or 'Just on the other side of this mountain is a idyllic lake, wait, why is there an industrial town where the lake was?' You can simply reply "the world is a living breathing place. Your information is apparently outdated."

I get the desire to play Eberron, or Greyhawk or Dark Sun (especially Dark Sun) - but outside of the few class/race/NPCs that are fundamentally different from FR, there's not much stopping you from running them. Heck, Greyhawk works right out the box, I know, I was in a Red Hand of Doom campaign for a few months, full 5E rules, full Greyhawk setting. Worked fine.

It seems everyone griping about lack of new setting content just want to gripe because they have to do some work. Welcome to 1982, folks. Where games weren't handed to you on a silver platter for $49.99....

[ZorroGames]

I don't understand... are any of you playing with or for Ed Greenwood? Then who give's a rat's what's written. It's a template, nothing more. Use as much or as little as you want! Don't want dwarves fighting giants in Vaasa, then don't! Want Waterdeep to be called Haven-by-the-Sea instead? Done!

What I like about FR is the maps are done - the continents make sense, weather is earthlike predicable - a lot of time and effort went into the cartography, which is way more than I want to do.

There's tons to gleam from across 4 editions. So what if your players have more 'lore knowledge' regarding the realms than you do. You're the DM - it's your world to make up as you go. If one player says 'Hey, there should be an encampment of wemics here.' or 'Just on the other side of this mountain is a idyllic lake, wait, why is there an industrial town where the lake was?' You can simply reply "the world is a living breathing place. Your information is apparently outdated."

I get the desire to play Eberron, or Greyhawk or Dark Sun (especially Dark Sun) - but outside of the few class/race/NPCs that are fundamentally different from FR, there's not much stopping you from running them. Heck, Greyhawk works right out the box, I know, I was in a Red Hand of Doom campaign for a few months, full 5E rules, full Greyhawk setting. Worked fine.

It seems everyone griping about lack of new setting content just want to gripe because they have to do some work. Welcome to 1982, folks. Where games weren't handed to you on a silver platter for $49.99....

You make your own, start small (well, what the players know portion, other than rumor/tale,) and their knowledge of your world expands as they adventure. You also can do this by taking a "known" setting with a viable physical world and then cutting/name changing/cultural modifying the hell out of it. Easy? No. Player World Knowledge God? Also no.

[Grod_The_Giant]

There's a certain argument to be made for established settings where the PLAYERS can easily know as much as their CHARACTERS do about the people and places. Where the DM can say "he has the sign of the Red Wizards of Thay tattooed on his shoulder" and have everyone instantly grasp the meaning of that.

But.

The Forgotten Realms is simultaneously too big and too bland. There are literally decades of content to wade through if you want to know about a given thing in the setting. Everything is filled in and established and has centuries of history. But at the same time, most of it-- at least the commonly used places like the Sword Coast-- are the dullest, most generic fantasy you can imagine. Like, my-first-campaign-setting, just-took-a-map-and-made-up-vaguely-fantasy-names generic. There's no interesting hooks or cool ideas to it, just "hey guys, D&D!"

If I want a setting with a lot of detail, the Realms has TOO much detail, and it's not really interesting to read. So much I'll get lost and wind up contradicting things anyway. If I don't care about detail and just want some cool ideas for a setting, the Realms offers nothing I couldn't come up with on the fly mid-game. It fails both sides.

[Dr.Samurai]

I started playing D&D in the early 2000s, and I didn't know Forgotten Realms at all. I became interested after playing, and starting reading the Salvatore novels. I actually liked the stories for a time, and wanted to learn more about the setting. But there was just so much lore already there for me to go over. It just seemed intimidating and laborious to do; I wasn't *that* interested. Plus it seems FR has a lot of world-changing or setting-changing events. And the gods seem to interact a lot with the world, which seems very soap-opera like and doesn't interest me much.

Not long after I started playing, Eberron came out. I love Eberron's approach to deities, NPCs, magic/tech, and much more. And I got to start with it when there was literally *one* book with all the info you needed. I never looked back.

So I don't hate the Forgotten Realms. I just don't know it much beyond the novels, and don't really care to brush up. Eberron is where I'm at!

[Laurefindel]

I think it's "cool" to hate the Forgotten Realms, like it was cool to hate Lord of the Ring a few years back. I blame the hipsters...

but seriously, Forgotten Realms is a heavy setting. By that I mean that it has been very detailed over the years, perhaps overly so. It tries to include a bit of everything which can become overwhelming, and in some places counter-productive. In addition, there has been many novels written in FR that are considered canon, which cements the events and timeline in ways that can be more limiting than inspiring. Lastly, the poor FR get a world-altering event every edition change, which is a bit meta if you ask me.

But thing is, people feel like if they play FR, they NEED to take all this material as-is. FR is big enough, sand-boxy enough and flexible enough to be cherry-picked, customized, emphasized, and modified. It's an old school setting built with the old-school assumption that DMs will appropriate the setting and use it to their needs.

[Corsair14]

Mostly for me, they have shoehorned everything into FR and its pretty boring at this point. Further they worked on FR at the expense of the more interesting campaign settings like planescape, dragonlance, darksun or spelljammer. Yawn.

[hymer]

I don't understand... are any of you playing with or for Ed Greenwood? Then who give's a rat's what's written. It's a template, nothing more.

Since you seem to be adressing me too, I thought I'd reply.

No, I don't play with Ed Greenwood. But how about this: I play with one guy who has memorized the Time of Troubles novels, one guy who started playing in the Realms over twenty years ago, some time before the Time of Troubles, and another who has played every FR CRPG since 1996. These people all know a heck of a lot about the Realms, and between them they may know as much as five percent of what there is to now, an absolutely staggering amount. As the DM I know no more than any of these individuals, but I do have the advantage of being able to guess most of what will come up, and so I can research for a few hours before a session.
Every time I change something in the campaign, there's a debate over it. Every time something seems odd, there's an argument on whether I screwed up or I am putting down a clue. And every time someone brings up Elminster or Drizzt, there's an argument followed by half an hour's tension. And every time I forget a name or some connection to a place or an NPC, the players get confused.

Now, that's exaggerating. But I don't need any of that aggravation, and neither do the players. Some have very strong opinions about a setting they know extremely well, and I can't blame them. If they act on their knowledge, there's a risk they end up with false assumptions, and odds are they will blame the DM to whatever extent.
On a good day, none of this comes up. But on a bad day, this stuff will come up, and make a bad day all the worse.

There's also the internal contradiction of choosing a setting everyone knows, study it, and then change it so nobody can be certain of what they think they know.

[JAL_1138]

For all I've complained about FR, it had a few good bits. Undermountain is a classic and well-done megadungeon, for instance--it's a gold mine of bits and pieces to steal, reskin, and repurpose. You can make every dungeon in a campaign out of various parts cribbed from it and never repeat yourself or even make it obvious that that's what you've done.

And questions of cultural sensitivity aside, Al-Qadim and Maztica, technically part of the Realms, had some fun and unique material.

And it has Minsc, the Fountain of Memes. EVIL, MEET MY SWORD! SWORD, MEET EVIL!

[BillyBobShorton]

I love it. There's so much to explore and do. And kudos to WotC for their work on bringing many aspects and areas of the world to life over the years.

[Scots Dragon]

I love it. There's so much to explore and do. And kudos to WotC for their work on bringing many aspects and areas of the world to life over the years.

Technically speaking, TSR's to thank for most of that.

[Sigreid]

Greyhawk wasn't without its own troubles...1e Greyhawk was terrific as a generic World Of Adventure to set a campaign in, with a bit of a sense of whimsy, wonder, discovery, and even a bit of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, mixed with a hefty dose of feeling grounded in terms of politics, national alliances, history, and a fair bit of grit. It also managed to do the "fantasy kitchen sink" thing well by just being bat-guano bonkers and joyously blatant with it. But 2e's decision to take it grimdark kind of sent it off the rails as far as I was concerned. It lost a lot of its charm and started to become a depressing slog where everything was always on the brink of ruin, or past the brink of ruin, and everyone was miserable all the time.

My time with Grayhawk was AD&D 1e.

[Squiddish]

I imagine Elminster's standard day begins like "Wake up, exit my completely impenetrable, spell-proofed bedroom to go to the bathroom, kill the inevitable 3 balors waiting there, brush my teeth, have a wizard fight with the archlich hiding in the shower, use the toilet..."


Can I sig this?

There is no fr book for 5e yet, just ones from older editions (https://www.google.com/search?q=forgotten+realms+pdf&oq=forgotten+realms+pdf&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.14490j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&q=forgotten+realms+player's+guide++pdf). So basically you are noting that people who sometimes/often actually know what's over there, who so & so, or what such&such is are the ones who have issues with the setting. as noted, there is no fr setting book, just a few books narrowed in on particular isolated areas within it
Umm... the SCAG actually covers a lot more than the title would indicate. Not as much as I would like, but still a lot.

I'm not terribly familiar with the setting, but so far what I dislike about the FR is how the pantheon of deities changes around so often. I have some 3rd edition content that speaks about one set of gods, and then several of those gods are different or changed around in my 5th edition content.

By comparison, in a place like Middle Earth the Valar don't change their identities around every other decade. Ulmo is Ulmo, Manwe is Manwe: things are dependable.

I would very much prefer that in a setting: that the traditional archetypal deities remain un-tampered-with.
Well, a lot of that is 4e.
General timeline of the Forgotten Realms:
Up to 3.5e: Ah, it's all good, everything is fine, look at our setting.
4e: OH GOD WHY IS EVERYTHING MAGIC FIRE!? AN ENTIRE CONTINENT JUST DIED!! HOLY ABYSS!!! WHAT IS GOING ON!?
5e: Things are looking up!

I dislike it for many of the reasons others have covered above.

I hate it because the decision to shoehorn FR in where it wasn't wanted ruined DDO.

What is DDO?

I like how so many have said: I dont hate it, but....

I personally dont think its that interesting.

Have you read the lore? FR has:

Island of dinosaurs that will be the setting of the next adventure.
Kingdom of assorted snakes
Moonbases
A beholder that lives in an asteroid field
Towers that rebuild themselves after falling over
A giant cave system under the entire world (though not as much so as Mystara)




There's a certain argument to be made for established settings where the PLAYERS can easily know as much as their CHARACTERS do about the people and places. Where the DM can say "he has the sign of the Red Wizards of Thay tattooed on his shoulder" and have everyone instantly grasp the meaning of that.

But.

The Forgotten Realms is simultaneously too big and too bland. There are literally decades of content to wade through if you want to know about a given thing in the setting. Everything is filled in and established and has centuries of history. But at the same time, most of it-- at least the commonly used places like the Sword Coast-- are the dullest, most generic fantasy you can imagine. Like, my-first-campaign-setting, just-took-a-map-and-made-up-vaguely-fantasy-names generic. There's no interesting hooks or cool ideas to it, just "hey guys, D&D!"

If I want a setting with a lot of detail, the Realms has TOO much detail, and it's not really interesting to read. So much I'll get lost and wind up contradicting things anyway. If I don't care about detail and just want some cool ideas for a setting, the Realms offers nothing I couldn't come up with on the fly mid-game. It fails both sides.

Well, at first glance, yeah, it seems really generic. But then when you dive in, like with the SCAG, you see a lot of really interesting things just below the surface. See the list above.

As for the detail, yeah, FR probably has too many books. Easiest solution is to ignore them.

Mostly for me, they have shoehorned everything into FR and its pretty boring at this point. Further they worked on FR at the expense of the more interesting campaign settings like planescape, dragonlance, darksun or spelljammer. Yawn.
That's fair (especially considering they don't do as much as they should be with the interesting parts of FR).

[XmonkTad]

I started d&d with 3.5, and even though I kept playing 3.5 till 2014, I never touched FR. It seemed like there was too much to know, and I really liked the "core" 3.5 setting, which felt very well supported and very flexible.

I have read through the sword coast adventurer's guide, but that's really only because it's one of the very few splats right now. Since I'm looking at doing AL stuff, I'm warming up to FR. But maybe that's because I never really heard of Elminster until this thread.

[Tetrasodium]

I dislike it for many of the reasons others have covered above.

I hate it because the decision to shoehorn FR in where it wasn't wanted ruined DDO.

so much about ddo ticked me off because of that. The worst part is how much of it had no freaking reason for being done

Eberron has 13 moons and a glowing(?) siberys ring. like so (http://math-of-eberron.tumblr.com/post/88583079059/how-big-are-eberrons-moons). DDO has one moon & no siberys ring
The city of stormreach is a big & dangerous place. in DDO, it's a newbie friendly market
in Eberron, the twelve houses are involved in stuff & most of the houses are kinda shady in more than one way. In ddo they are nice friendly places welcoming to outsiders but not involved in a damned thing really.
In Eberron you've got Droaam & the Znir pact Gnolls. in DDO you've got the Gnolls copied from FR
In eberron, monstrous races are pretty heavily integrated (https://twitter.com/HellcowKeith/status/857239715455447040) into the society they live in. In DDO, they use FR's "quick kill it for breathing while monstrous" standard with the exception of one or two quest givers that send you off to go kill their entire clan for being FR inspired "evil".
In Khorvaire, there is a lot going on & Xen'drik is kind of a dark mysterious continent of a fallen giant society that has pretty much nothing at all in common with FR. In DDO, almost everything takes place in Xen'drik where anything & everything that could be forced in from FR was forced in as ill fittingly as possible


The most frustrating part is thatFR is still forcing itself into everything else. Look at the "Artificer" that might as well be released as "Tinkerer", gunsmith ffs? nobody in eberron would even consider making a weapon that fires a lead ball out of a tube with an explosive charge for the simple fact that it would be easier, safer, & more convenient to just make even a weak cantrip charged wand.

[Sigreid]

In the end I do understand why WOtC is FR all the time. I believe I read somewhere that the D&D team is 10 people. That's not a very large group to be dealing with even one setting and all the ongoing content it takes to make a viable long term product.

Also explains why there's no FR setting or current map. They probably just don't have anyone to do it.

[bulbaquil]

You know, it's not as well known as the Oberoni Fallacy or the Stormwind Fallacy, but I'm gonna call that one the Simbul_of_Aglarond Fallacy (https://web.archive.org/web/20151005042327/http://community.wizards.com/forum/forgotten-realms/threads/1109636).

I am seriously tired of this exact statement, because it's basically the same as asking why Superman isn't solving all of the problems of all the other less-powerful Justice League members.

If this ever comes up, I am tempted to make a brief one-shot where the characters start out at level 20 and, while trying to take care of the demigod that's threatening the entire multiverse, are approached by a low-level adventuring party who could really use their help in thwarting the Hobgoblin King who's threatening the out-of-the-way village the lowbie party started in. (They even promise the level-20s a share of the loot - worth perhaps a few hundred GP each!)

[JumboWheat01]

It's not hatred for me, it's boredom, really, especially with the Sword Coast. The new adventure being set in Chult at least gives a breath of fresh air to Faerun, since so many things seem to ignore that which isn't part of the Sword Coast regions.

Heck, even as generic as Greyhawk may be, it would interest me because it's different from the Sword Coast.

Admittedly, half my love of Eberron (even the little I've played of it in video games alone,) is because it's not the Sword Coast. The other half is how it subverts so much, and I do love me a good subversion.

[Tanarii]

Forgotten Realms is awesome as long as you completely ignore the godawful novels (all of em) and Mary Sue NPCs (all protagonists, and most antagonists). And all the terrible video games (all of them except NWN, and even then the solo campaigns were full of garbage).

In other words, ignore the majority of the 'Lore'. Use FR sourcebooks only, which are very useful for skimming some background of a region or city, then dropping your adventure in that area.

In other words, it's fantastic if you are running an off-the-cuff campaign, and just need FR setting as a backdrop for your own campaign to give it some feeling of not being empty behind the curtain. But the huge downside is too many people have read books or played video games set there, and then bring that junk to the gaming table.

[NecroDancer]

I can't wait for the long awaited return to Blackmoor or Birthright!

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't hate the Forgotten Realms, they just BORE me. It feels like there's nothing I can do there. Murder a god? Yeah, someone did that last week. Destroy the world? Elminster deals with that every other day. Discover a new land? We're on contact with every minor village within a the next two hemispheres.

Part of it might be because, when I wanted to explore some settings a year and a half ago I decided to get one standard and two out there ones. So I picked up Dark Sun, Planescape, and Birthright.

Dark Sun I picked up because I knew it was awesome, and I thought a post apocalyptic world might be nice. Plus, while the Dragon Kings are insanely strong wizards that can kill most starting PCs in an instant, the entire beginning of the setting is 'gods? Tyr doesn't think they're that immortal'. It then builds a setting that is slightly ruined by the early focus on getting to army scale.

Planescape interested me because my experience was that it was mad ideas in a universe so large that any idea could be found. But unlike the Forgotten Realms it wasn't the intimidating kind of large, where there's 200 pages on every region and a listing of which villages have access to which spells, but rather 'here's slightly less than 30 planes of reality, I wonder what's there. No don't look at me, go and create your own worlds, here's a home base'. Plus they had a really cool player race right there in the boxed set (the quarter-fiend Tieflings, not the silly 'altered human' ones from 4e onwards). It's a world of infinite possibilities, and whenever you think you've got it worked out someone sends you to the 741st layer of the abyss (it's sandwiched between layers 21 and 54, easy to miss) to return some hellcows or something.

Then Birthright basically turned me off the Forgotten Realms. No need to give everyone their preferred type of elf, there's one type of elf and you can take it or leave it. There's 8ish gods, each of which gives a slightly different flavour of priest in line with their portfolio and outlook, and none of them are core 2e clerics (not all balanced, but all interesting). The dwarves might be loyal and hard workers, but are also cheerful and willing to have a good singsong (and don't need bushy beards to be dwarves). The only bad thing is the divine right of kings aspect, and just having the state of a monarch's kingdom be related to their rule rather than their alignment and bloodedness moves it into an in-universe theory. The setting feels relatively small like Dark Sun does, limited to one area of the world, but that area has enough vagueness for me to feel fine slotting in my own domains. Oh, and the local uberpowerful elf who hates humans and wants to kill them all? In 2e terms a Fighter 16/Mage 15, powerful but not insanely so for someone likely near or over 2000 years old.

So why do I dislike Forgotten Realms? Because I want to run Birthright, which just feels more interesting to me (and although it has medieval status, that can be solved by stating that obviously people updated the equipment used in legends, and the old gods died in the local bronze age).

[Honest Tiefling]

My experience with Forgotten Realms is predominately 3rd edition, so please tell me if any of the following issues have been fixed:

1). The focus on white people. My group isn't all white, and while 5e might have fixed some problems trying to introduce a setting to people where the black people worship dinosaurs that eat them and live in a jungle...That's just a hard sell. The fact that the people of Netheril, Illuskans and good-aligned Chondathans tend to be paler in skin tone then the rest of the world isn't helping. The fact that Elminster and the Seven Sisters of Mystra are all white (except the elf, which is a creature of nordic mythology and a non-standard skin color) is not helping this feeling of Mighty Whitey. The fact that Calimshan is one of the few places with non-white people that's focused on and is a place of constant slavery being allowed by supposedly good aligned gods (or at least it was in 3rd edition) is just not helping me try to use this setting.

And I never got how Waterdeep is such an important place when it is so far away from everything.

2). The faux-european places are dull as crap. If I am going to have a game in not-Europe, I want it to be a highly detailed and logical Not-Europe. The Forgotten Realms is neither. There's more detail to whatever Mary Sues are in the place then basic ideas like crops, farming, laws, etc.

3). The gods are stupid. From what I can tell, if you read the novels clerics tend to be treated as moronic zealots purely devoted to their god and not common sense. Why would you do this in a setting where you need a god to not suffer a horrible fate? The fact that dead children automatically go to this fate is really freaking dark as well. In 3rd, they had stupid dogmas that would be easily exploitable or very detrimental. I'm glad this part got taken out.

4). Ed Greenwood is creepy as ****. I really hope they took out all of the brothels (which suspiciously NEVER had male or other genders of workers) that were called 'festhalls' in 3rd. I'm not sure how every settlement had so many prostitutes. It's not really canon, but it does sour me on it.

5). Evil is less of an omnipresent looming threat and more of a gang of morons. Why does Shar even HAVE followers? Do they get promised things? Half the time evil powers are more focused on trying to murder each other and letting Team Good have a victory. Evil powers in a DnD setting should not have the same modus operandi or personality as Starscream.

[Scathain]

Yeah I have to say I understand why people desire content separate from FR, I'm eager for some new material. However, I absolutely agree that FR is a world meant to be changed and tailored to the DM.
See, back when my world was nothing more than a FR rip off, I focused on the things I liked: red wizards of thay, zhentarim, and yuan-ti (sidenote: holy **** Chult here we come!). I played up these aspects of the lore because they fit the theme I was going with. After some time I had written so much OC content (I.e. Destroying waterdeep and killing most of the gods) that I decided to start anew. I kept the Faerun bits I liked, and got rid of everything else.
And that's what I think FR is good for (outside of AL): fledgling DM's looking to experience a world that they can tailor to their whims. If it seems generic, that's because it's meant to be. Just like with any good adventure module, they give you the important bits to start your story, and then leave it up to YOU to make it your own.

[JumboWheat01]

The dwarves might be loyal and hard workers, but are also cheerful and willing to have a good singsong (and don't need bushy beards to be dwarves).

But how would you know it's a dwarf and not a large halfling?

[Laurefindel]

4). Ed Greenwood is creepy as ****. I really hope they took out all of the brothels (which suspiciously NEVER had male or other genders of workers) that were called 'festhalls' in 3rd. I'm not sure how every settlement had so many prostitutes. It's not really canon, but it does sour me on it.

I'm right with you about the creepy omnipresent brothels, but several had male prostitutes as well (at least in 2e they did...) I know because it shocked the teenager me back then... (that was 20+ years ago, so please try not to judge me)

[DanyBallon]

Having started playing D&D in the AD&D 2nd era and FR didn't appealed much to me at that time, DragonLance, Darksun and Ravenloft were my setting of choice, when not playing homebrew, which was what I played most. My lore of FR at that time came from Baldur's Gate, the Spellfire card game and a few novel I read.
When 3e came around I discovered Greyhawk through the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, and found out a setting fitting best my taste for medieval fantasy. The LGG was just perfect in that it was detailed enough to have a good grasp of what the world was and vague enough for players and DMs to make Greyhawk their own. While at the same time, WotC was releasing more and more products related to FR, providing too much details on the world which turned me off.
Having skipped 4e, I wasn't really up to date with FR, and was trying to fit the first few official adventure in Greyhawk as it was still my prefered setting, but being of the lazy type, I didn't enjoy having to reshape the story to suit my preferred setting. When the SCAG came out, I was more than pleased by that book that remind me much of the old LGG, especially in that it focuse on the Sword Coast, thus leaving the weird stuff out of it. Now allow I have a book that gave me just enough lore on the Realms and is not too developped to prevent me to embrace FR and make it my own.

So while I still prefer Greyhawk, I'm now at peace with FR and have no problem adventuring on the Sword Coast.

[Rynjin]

To be honest, my problem is that I can't be ****ing bothered to learn all the stupid minutiae of the setting that apparently all its fans care about. I don't particularly care what Cyrus did in the year 1213 FER or whatever the hell timeline they use.

So without the minutiae, I just look at the surface level stuff. Who are the gods: Boring generic archetypes. Bane being the worst offender.

What are the places: Elf-land. Dwarf-land. Ethnic-stereotype-land(s). And who could forget The Big Chill and Spooky-Underground-Elf-Land?

Interesting conflicts? All happened in the backstory, and I don't want to read 100 novels plus setting books, splatbook snippets, and modules to get it. I can count on the fingers of zero hands the number of Forgotten Realms games I've played in that weren't set "during the time of such and such crisis". Nobody runs games in "present day" Faerun, or "blank slate" Faerun they always expect me to know that no, THIS is the part of the timeline where such and such god has so and so portfolio, not 100 years later where it's different and he's actually allies with GOds X, Y, and Z even though they're enemies now...

To be frank, I don't give a **** about the 40 years of layered history and find it an active impediment to me enjoying what little merit there is in a generic Elves Art Better Than Thou At Everything setting.

Complain how you will about Golarion being much the same, but Paizo's policy of not letting the APs affect the world "canonically" saves it the fate of being as bloated as FR.

[dejarnjc]

I like the Forgotten Realms because its a high magic setting and there's a feeling of "there's always a bigger fish". I also like that many parts of it are very detailed. I don't have to use ALL the detail but it provides plenty of maps and other information that I can use as inspiration. I wouldn't like it as much though if my players knew more than me about the setting and argued with me about it though. That'd be a deal killer.

[Anonymouswizard]

1). The focus on white people. My group isn't all white, and while 5e might have fixed some problems trying to introduce a setting to people where the black people worship dinosaurs that eat them and live in a jungle...That's just a hard sell. The fact that the people of Netheril, Illuskans and good-aligned Chondathans tend to be paler in skin tone then the rest of the world isn't helping. The fact that Elminster and the Seven Sisters of Mystra are all white (except the elf, which is a creature of nordic mythology and a non-standard skin color) is not helping this feeling of Mighty Whitey. The fact that Calimshan is one of the few places with non-white people that's focused on and is a place of constant slavery being allowed by supposedly good aligned gods (or at least it was in 3rd edition) is just not helping me try to use this setting.

I had the opposite problem. Because I live in the UK, which is still hilariously white (no, seriously, I've joked that my school as monochrome because it rounded to 100% white students) all my groups have been 100% white. So when I wanted a change of scenery and, having nobody that into accuracy, took a standard fantasy setting, changed things slightly, and dropped it in a savannah with loads of dark skin tones a player complained at not being able to play a white person. It's a shame, player input had just about made it a decent setting, humans only, early steampunk/clockpunk technology, and a focus on scholarism over mysticism.

Another group of mine had everyone default to white because most of our games were set in the UK, but nobody complained when the GM said 'actually, as you're a native of X your skin is likely more Y' when we played a fantasy game.

EDIT: I should point out that most of my fantasy settings are primarily white with a good helping of middle easterners and a justification for people to play other races, while in my science fiction settings I advance biotech to the point where any colourations are possible. Want to be a blue skinned human? Go ahead.


Yeah I have to say I understand why people desire content separate from FR, I'm eager for some new material. However, I absolutely agree that FR is a world meant to be changed and tailored to the DM.
See, back when my world was nothing more than a FR rip off, I focused on the things I liked: red wizards of thay, zhentarim, and yuan-ti (sidenote: holy **** Chult here we come!). I played up these aspects of the lore because they fit the theme I was going with. After some time I had written so much OC content (I.e. Destroying waterdeep and killing most of the gods) that I decided to start anew. I kept the Faerun bits I liked, and got rid of everything else.
And that's what I think FR is good for (outside of AL): fledgling DM's looking to experience a world that they can tailor to their whims. If it seems generic, that's because it's meant to be. Just like with any good adventure module, they give you the important bits to start your story, and then leave it up to YOU to make it your own.

Part of my problem is that, if I want these bits of lore, I can just steal them and use a setting without the rest. I like the idea of a bunch of uberspecialist wizards, but that doesn't mean I need Thay. Meet the Magenta Wizards of Tay, and as I'm running it for my home group the bit it's obviously from the Forgotten Realms doesn't matter because it's just me going 'hey, I like these classes/organisations, I'm going to slot them in'.

What I loved about the 3.X Player's Handbook is that it had just enough greyhawk for a default setting, but there were no places or anything. The gods were Greyhawk gods, but I didn't notice that and thought they were a generic fantasy pantheon. When the DMG had the Red Wizards in it I just thought 'oh, that's cool, I'll have to add in an order of Red Wizards at some point' (never did, I've stopped running D&D myself).

I find new GMs get a lot better if you tell them to take what they like from wherever they want, and keep the rest vague. Why are the Chaos Gods in a world defined by the struggle between good and evil dragons? I don't know, but as long as I'm not told 'make whatever you want' and have my idea of a Cleric of Kelemvor shot down (changing the god slightly because I wanted a different take on 'death priest') I'll make a character that fits in and yell 'Blood for the Blood God' along with everything else.

[Scots Dragon]

I personally quite like the Forgotten Realms for one thing, one statement in the book that is fundamentally and overwhelmingly important and appears in almost no other setting; it's canonically an unreliable narrative. You want to change or reinterpret stuff? Go right ahead. The books actually encourage DMs to do exactly this for the sake of occasionally surprising the players.

It's not the only reason I like the setting, but it is a big reason.

[Waterdeep Merch]

My experience with Forgotten Realms is predominately 3rd edition, so please tell me if any of the following issues have been fixed:

1). The focus on white people. My group isn't all white, and while 5e might have fixed some problems trying to introduce a setting to people where the black people worship dinosaurs that eat them and live in a jungle...That's just a hard sell. The fact that the people of Netheril, Illuskans and good-aligned Chondathans tend to be paler in skin tone then the rest of the world isn't helping. The fact that Elminster and the Seven Sisters of Mystra are all white (except the elf, which is a creature of nordic mythology and a non-standard skin color) is not helping this feeling of Mighty Whitey. The fact that Calimshan is one of the few places with non-white people that's focused on and is a place of constant slavery being allowed by supposedly good aligned gods (or at least it was in 3rd edition) is just not helping me try to use this setting.

And I never got how Waterdeep is such an important place when it is so far away from everything.

2). The faux-european places are dull as crap. If I am going to have a game in not-Europe, I want it to be a highly detailed and logical Not-Europe. The Forgotten Realms is neither. There's more detail to whatever Mary Sues are in the place then basic ideas like crops, farming, laws, etc.

3). The gods are stupid. From what I can tell, if you read the novels clerics tend to be treated as moronic zealots purely devoted to their god and not common sense. Why would you do this in a setting where you need a god to not suffer a horrible fate? The fact that dead children automatically go to this fate is really freaking dark as well. In 3rd, they had stupid dogmas that would be easily exploitable or very detrimental. I'm glad this part got taken out.

4). Ed Greenwood is creepy as ****. I really hope they took out all of the brothels (which suspiciously NEVER had male or other genders of workers) that were called 'festhalls' in 3rd. I'm not sure how every settlement had so many prostitutes. It's not really canon, but it does sour me on it.

5). Evil is less of an omnipresent looming threat and more of a gang of morons. Why does Shar even HAVE followers? Do they get promised things? Half the time evil powers are more focused on trying to murder each other and letting Team Good have a victory. Evil powers in a DnD setting should not have the same modus operandi or personality as Starscream.

1. Actually, it would be more glaring if it wasn't. The reason we have different races of humans in the real world is due to people evolving separately from one another due to being landlocked. Until the invention and use of ships, the path from Africa to, say, Europe, was a comparatively tiny strip of land by Egypt. The Americas were settled via the land bridge between what is now the northeast of Russia and Alaska thousands of years ago. Because of this, certain evolutionary advantages based on the environment appeared in each separated group of humans. Point in case, when those boundaries stop existing thanks to modern technology and convenience, the features of the human race will likely reach a certain medium between the disparate parts instead of the variety we know now. At least from continent to continent, given the lack of boundaries in the setting, it's unlikely you'd find much variety in genetics.

Personally, I use multiple human races and hand-wave this in FR and practically every other setting by saying 'Don't ask. No, it doesn't make sense if you stop to think about it. But we have variety in our world, and the practical limitations don't necessitate forcing reality here. Be who you want to be, and I'll include a wide variety of NPC's. I won't even describe their skin color most of the time, so imagine them as you will.'.

As for Waterdeep, it's because of its specific location between multiple trading partners along the Sword Coast. It's a natural port of call between Luskan, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, the Long Road, the High Road, Trade Way, etc. It's not entirely necessary for any of this trade, but they've managed to make themselves useful to merchants from all of these disparate lands to the point where practically everything passes through them at some point.

2. Can't argue too much here. Sometimes it's enough to say "I want generic fantasy Europe, but I don't want to try very hard making it. I'll just use the one everyone else has already built up."

3. Yep. I like to keep the god-game out of my games as much as possible, aside from maybe one major antagonist once in a while. I ascribe to the Greco-Roman viewpoint, where the gods do crazy things beyond mortal kenning. And are also prone to extreme selfishness and idiocy with massive repercussions, because wow did all that power corrupt them fast.

4. It's historically accurate, but I still agree that it doesn't have a place at most D&D tables. I have a group that is okay with the occasional sexual theme, but I keep things subtle and use 'cut to black' when I do. It's creepy and in poor taste for most groups, and shouldn't be a core part of the setting. This barely sees any play in my games.

5. Most fantasy evil groups are generally like this. Hell, most villains period, in any fiction. It's poor storytelling, but not unique. It's also easily fixed by any DM annoyed by it. Shar has followers because it's a corrupting, addictive force that goes after magically adept people at their emotional weakest. That's not canon at all, but it suddenly makes her clergy interesting, relate-able, and even haunting. This is definitely a problem, there's no defense for that, but it doesn't get in the way of my enjoyment usually.

[Honest Tiefling]

1. Actually, it would be more glaring if it wasn't.

Except that as a high magic setting, there should logically be more races. Furthermore, Tethyrians/Cali****es/Turmish are all present in various areas of the Sword Coast/Cormyr, but just don't get a lot of the spotlight and when they do...They're more morally grey then the Mary-Sue-of-the-Moment homeland.


As for Waterdeep, it's because of its specific location between multiple trading partners along the Sword Coast.

Which would make sense...If Waterdeep was the center of trade for the Sword Coast, NOT the largest and most metropolitan city in the world.

[rooneg]

Honestly, I'm mostly fine with the Realms. It's a fine enough generic western fantasy setting to plop some adventures in, especially since I mostly play Adventurers League games, where seriously we just need an arbitrary place to stick stuff, the details are not terribly relevant.

What I don't like about it is the way they've advanced the timelines so darn much over the years. I actually enjoyed a bunch of the books back in the day, and now that lore is pretty useless for present day stuff in the realms, except it kind of isn't, since they keep bending over backwards to keep stuff around that they like. It strains credulity in so many ways! I mean either jump forward 100 years or don't jump forward 100 years, but if you're going to do it, accept that fact that all your short lived characters are going to die! Working around the problem by making every interesting NPC you cared about seemingly immortal is just lazy.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Except that as a high magic setting, there should logically be more races. Furthermore, Tethyrians/Cali****es/Turmish are all present in various areas of the Sword Coast/Cormyr, but just don't get a lot of the spotlight and when they do...They're more morally grey then the Mary-Sue-of-the-Moment homeland.

This problem is as old as the genre. The Haradrim are an example of how magical diversity can be... well, morally objectionable by modern standards. Not that it has to be THAT blatant, but you'd have to take great care when designing a setting not to cause issues like this. I can't find a reason to blame the writers for not wanting to stick their foot into the ring here, much as rather than try to explain it I just don't and let the break in suspension of disbelief occur freely. I'd rather spend my time making fun things than spend all my time making things more plausible. I'm not playing the game for diversity, diversity is just a thing that can make the game more fun.


Which would make sense...If Waterdeep was the center of trade for the Sword Coast, NOT the largest and most metropolitan city in the world.

Most of the most metropolitan cities in the world were founded on or near ports, because the excess money from trade deals naturally leads to an increase of population, which together tends to lead to progress. London, Hong Kong, New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, Sydney, etc.

[Tetrasodium]

on the "It's mostly white" problem people are talking about, I'm a little confused for a couple reasons. First of all is the fact that I can't recall many npc/village discriptions actually talking about skin tone beyond drow. Second of all, when that guy is 4 feet tall. that one is three feet tall & looks like a child, that one is three feet tall & has green skin, that one is a bit taller than you but has scales and can bite your head off easily, that other one has red skin & a tail. that one over there can blast you with fire from his breath weapon, that other one could flatten you to a pulp with that tree he calls a club, that guy has funny ears & will outlive your grandkids, so on & so forth... the color of skin tone of that guy who's just like you is pretty irrelivant in the whole scheme of things

[Honest Tiefling]

Most of the most metropolitan cities in the world were founded on or near ports, because the excess money from trade deals naturally leads to an increase of population, which together tends to lead to progress. London, Hong Kong, New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, Sydney, etc.

Problem is, Waterdeep is on one extreme corner of the world and I don't think there's much trade across the Trackless Sea. So the largest city is very far away from most major centers of civilization with no direct water route to them in an era before coal power. One would presume that such a center of trade would be...In the center of trade.

[SharkForce]

You know, it's not as well known as the Oberoni Fallacy or the Stormwind Fallacy, but I'm gonna call that one the Simbul_of_Aglarond Fallacy (https://web.archive.org/web/20151005042327/http://community.wizards.com/forum/forgotten-realms/threads/1109636).

I am seriously tired of this exact statement, because it's basically the same as asking why Superman isn't solving all of the problems of all the other less-powerful Justice League members.


If this ever comes up, I am tempted to make a brief one-shot where the characters start out at level 20 and, while trying to take care of the demigod that's threatening the entire multiverse, are approached by a low-level adventuring party who could really use their help in thwarting the Hobgoblin King who's threatening the out-of-the-way village the lowbie party started in. (They even promise the level-20s a share of the loot - worth perhaps a few hundred GP each!)

the thing is... there isn't one 'superman' in the forgotten realms. and it isn't just small problems that they're ignoring.

why isn't elminster traveling to some back-of-beyond region to defeat the tribe of 20 goblins? because it isn't his problem. but it *is* the problem of whoever the local equivalent of elminster is, and you can be sure they have one, because *everyone* either has a few named superpowerful characters, or an entire organization of slightly less superpowerful characters, or both.

this isn't superman not solving everything, this is the entire justice league ignoring a bunch of major problems and letting them be handled by the crazy guy in some nowhere town who owns an assault rifle and a bulletproof vest.

[Scots Dragon]

the thing is... there isn't one 'superman' in the forgotten realms. and it isn't just small problems that they're ignoring.

why isn't elminster traveling to some back-of-beyond region to defeat the tribe of 20 goblins? because it isn't his problem. but it *is* the problem of whoever the local equivalent of elminster is, and you can be sure they have one, because *everyone* either has a few named superpowerful characters, or an entire organization of slightly less superpowerful characters, or both.

this isn't superman not solving everything, this is the entire justice league ignoring a bunch of major problems and letting them be handled by the crazy guy in some nowhere town who owns an assault rifle and a bulletproof vest.

By the time it becomes relevant, you're not the crazy guy in the nowhere town who owns an assault rifle and a bulletproof vest, you're another superhero. At the levels that you're ready to deal with the larger problems, chances are that the Justice League isn't turning up because the local Superman's like, 'Oh, the Flash has got this one... I guess I can focus on repairing the Phantom Zone projector and fixing that bit of the ceiling in the Fortress of Solitude from the last fight with General Zod for now.' The fact of the matter is as well, chances are the wizard in his tower might well be using your party as the solution to the quest as someone who's less famous and noticeable and wouldn't attract too much attention from various less savoury forces. Or because their attention is caught up elsewhere with other matters, because they're bloody well busy.

Malchor Harpell would solve the problem of that local orcish warlord, but not only do you happen to be doing the job well enough already, he's got to deal with the fact that someone just opened a portal to the the Nine Hells and there are Pit Fiends and such pouring out of there so someone had better get on with closing it.

And when you progress to high enough level, Elminster and the Simbul and Malchor aren't your superiors, they're your peers.

[Anonymouswizard]

So the solution to 'there's at least one powerful NPC per region' is... 'each region tends to have at least one apocalypse incoming per week, they're all too busy to deal with this one'? Why don't we just get to the point where level 10 is legendary and so these 20th level wizards/20th level fighters/20th level clerics aren't having to clean Balrogs out of the toilet bowel every five minutes.

[Pex]

In the times I've played in a Forgotten Realms world, including now, never once has Elminster or any of the infamous characters of the books made an appearance. Forgotten Realms has only been the setting. The campaign is always and only about the PCs. The adventures are our own even if a module is used. There is no baggage of the books to ruin or influence anything. It's just the setting, and I have no problem with that at all.

[Memoria]

4). Ed Greenwood is creepy as ****. I really hope they took out all of the brothels (which suspiciously NEVER had male or other genders of workers) that were called 'festhalls' in 3rd. I'm not sure how every settlement had so many prostitutes. It's not really canon, but it does sour me on it.

You might want to find out what FR is actually like at Ed Greenwood's table (tons of info available at the Candlekeep forum, where he posts and his posts are regularly archived). There are a number of differences between the FR he created on his own and the FR that the big companies have been willing to publish.

The "real" FR is, as far as I can tell, extremely bisexual - and not just in the blink and you miss it kind of way that that info in the books has been - and full of gender-changing and gender fluidity and so on. There's still lots of brothels and non-brothel orgies (including sex as religious activity) and sex in general, but it's a bit more complex worldbuilding than what you seem to be thinking.

[Scots Dragon]

So the solution to 'there's at least one powerful NPC per region' is... 'each region tends to have at least one apocalypse incoming per week, they're all too busy to deal with this one'? Why don't we just get to the point where level 10 is legendary and so these 20th level wizards/20th level fighters/20th level clerics aren't having to clean Balrogs out of the toilet bowel every five minutes.

It might not necessarily be a local issue at all. Many of the high-level wizards spend a considerable amount of time dealing with matters on other planes, and are thus often away from their towers or dealing with more personal large-scale threats, and indeed many of the threats they face are in more of a cold war scenario. Elminster doesn't get involved... because if he got involved in every battle then many of his personal enemies in the Zhentarim might get involved as well, or have an opening to strike somewhere that he would otherwise be defending.

The fact of the matter is that for every Superman in the Forgotten Realms, there's a General Zod, a Doomsday, a Lex Luthor, a Brainiac, and a Darkseid or two.

And ultimately it's important to remember; there are maybe three or four high level named non-evil magic users active in the vicinity of the Sword Coast. That's even counting dead ones. There are at least three or four entire organisations containing high level evil magic users, including the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim, the Twisted Rune, the Red Wizards, and to a lesser degree the Cowled Wizards, active in the vicnity of the Sword Coast.

[Tanarii]

In the times I've played in a Forgotten Realms world, including now, never once has Elminster or any of the infamous characters of the books made an appearance. I'm envious. The only FR tables I've ever sat at where that hasn't happened are my own, and AL (since they are technically set in AL). Every damn home game I've been in has. And I'm embarrassed to say once of I let the players browbeat me into them getting an audience with him eventually. I'm going to claim the inexperience of youth. :smallredface:

Hell, it's even the reason I left the NwN persistent world I played on for years. I was adventuring with a friend in a remote corner, and the world GMs decided to launch their weekly server-wide adventure by having elminster drop in and give us a message to take to whatshisname ruler of neverwinter warning him of a threat. /sigh


However, I absolutely agree that FR is a world meant to be changed and tailored to the DM.
See, back when my world was nothing more than a FR rip off, I focused on the things I liked: red wizards of thay, zhentarim, and yuan-ti (sidenote: holy **** Chult here we come!). I played up these aspects of the lore because they fit the theme I was going with. After some time I had written so much OC content (I.e. Destroying waterdeep and killing most of the gods) that I decided to start anew. I kept the Faerun bits I liked, and got rid of everything else.
And that's what I think FR is good for (outside of AL): fledgling DM's looking to experience a world that they can tailor to their whims. If it seems generic, that's because it's meant to be. Just like with any good adventure module, they give you the important bits to start your story, and then leave it up to YOU to make it your own.Yep. When I got my hands on the AD&D 1e Forgotten Realms Boxed Set, I'd never read an FR novel, nor played one of their games. It was my first campaign setting (BECMI Known World gazetteers were my second) and it was an absolutely amazing resource to a ten year old budding DM.

When I tried reading the Drizzt and other FR novels shortly after that, I was appalled at their low quality writing, cliche plots, and Mary Sue characters. Even as a teenager I could spot how bad they were. Luckily I didn't let it out me off the setting. It's still a fantastic 'adapt for quick and dirty campaigns' setting.

[Honest Tiefling]

You might want to find out what FR is actually like at Ed Greenwood's table (tons of info available at the Candlekeep forum, where he posts and his posts are regularly archived). There are a number of differences between the FR he created on his own and the FR that the big companies have been willing to publish.

THAT IS WHERE I FOUND OUT HE IS CREEPY. NOPE.

I am a little afraid to find out what he said about bisexuality. I don't MIND sexual themes, but I have some limits.

[JackPhoenix]

Eberron has 13 moons and a glowing(?) siberys ring. like so (http://math-of-eberron.tumblr.com/post/88583079059/how-big-are-eberrons-moons). DDO has one moon & no siberys ring

While Ring of Siberys is still missing (though given Stormreach is located near equator, depending on thickness, it would look just like a thin line in the sky), there are more moons visible in some locations (but no idea why not everywhere)... I counted 6 in Cerulean Hills.


The city of stormreach is a big & dangerous place. in DDO, it's a newbie friendly market

That has more to do with the design of the game. Public areas are safe, but instanced quests have the city full of dangers, from kobolds in the harbor through Sharn Syndicate in the marketplace (notably, while harbor quests are mostly sewers, Syndicate adventure path takes places in tavern, slums, city houses and Kundarak bank), to worse things scattered around the city (and there was a big devil invasion in the marketplace years ago, too bad nothing like that happens these days.


In Eberron, the twelve houses are involved in stuff & most of the houses are kinda shady in more than one way. In ddo they are nice friendly places welcoming to outsiders but not involved in a damned thing really.

Agree with that. While the houses have their own quests, there's nothing suspicious going on. CotSF is engaged in shadier stuff than dragonmarked houses!


In Eberron you've got Droaam & the Znir pact Gnolls. in DDO you've got the Gnolls copied from FR

Well... it's Xen'drik, not Droaam, so that's somewhat justified. Attack on Stormreach adventure path involves Droaam invasion (for some reason), but it mostly consists of kobolds, orcs and ogres (and you get to kill Sora Katra. Yeah)


In eberron, monstrous races are pretty heavily integrated (https://twitter.com/HellcowKeith/status/857239715455447040) into the society they live in. In DDO, they use FR's "quick kill it for breathing while monstrous" standard with the exception of one or two quest givers that send you off to go kill their entire clan for being FR inspired "evil".

Agree with that, though situation is a little different in Stormreach than in Khorvaire... mostly the traditional "monsters" don't live there. You get drow, kobolds... and that's about it, with few minotaurs scattered through the game.


In Khorvaire, there is a lot going on & Xen'drik is kind of a dark mysterious continent of a fallen giant society that has pretty much nothing at all in common with FR. In DDO, almost everything takes place in Xen'drik where anything & everything that could be forced in from FR was forced in as ill fittingly as possible

Fully agreed. DDO missed it's potential, or rather, the content is very hit and miss. On one hand, you have Inspired, Lord of Blades (yeah) takeover of Cannith manufactory and some giants and drow... on the other, you have orcs attacking farmers and kidnapping people, standard tribal evil hobgoblins, and the whole Lolth thing...

If they made a ship back to Khorvaire instead of making a portal to FR... bleh

Good thing that it sounds like Tomb of Annihilation would be easy to port to Eberron. Although I'm not looking forward to any 5e book to be released anymore.

[Anonymouswizard]

It might not necessarily be a local issue at all. Many of the high-level wizards spend a considerable amount of time dealing with matters on other planes, and are thus often away from their towers or dealing with more personal large-scale threats, and indeed many of the threats they face are in more of a cold war scenario. Elminster doesn't get involved... because if he got involved in every battle then many of his personal enemies in the Zhentarim might get involved as well, or have an opening to strike somewhere that he would otherwise be defending.

While it's not exactly what I said, that is close to the 'apocalypse of the week' territory.

On the Mystical Cold War front, I tend to like those settings. Heck, I'm building an Urban Fantasy setting inspired by Night Watch, although going for an explicit Law versus Chaos setup rather than Light versus Dark. However, that doesn't require uber-powerful NPCs at all, and in my opinion actually works much better when it's between organisations with some moderately powerful people than with a few of very powerful individuals. To me Night Watch works as a magical cold war because in addition to the powerful Others at the top manipulating everyone they can there's a bunch of lower level Others going around doing the actual cold warring and monitoring of the other low level Others. Heck, in Night Watch there's a decent amount of effort put into making sure the war doesn't go hot, because there's no way to tell what will happen and if there'll be a human society at the end of it, a lot of the manipulating I've encountered so far seems to be a case of 'allowing me to do this without breaking the truce'. (sorry, I just dislike cold wars that are between people)


The fact of the matter is that for every Superman in the Forgotten Realms, there's a General Zod, a Doomsday, a Lex Luthor, a Brainiac, and a Darkseid or two.

Sorry, not apocalypse of the week. Apocalypse-causing supervillain of the week sounds more like it.


And ultimately it's important to remember; there are maybe three or four high level named non-evil magic users active in the vicinity of the Sword Coast. That's even counting dead ones. There are at least three or four entire organisations containing high level evil magic users, including the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim, the Twisted Rune, the Red Wizards, and to a lesser degree the Cowled Wizards, active in the vicnity of the Sword Coast.

And now you're just making evil sound incompetent. To me this is a better argument for 'why FR isn't worth bothering with' than 'apocalypse of the week club' was.

[Tetrasodium]

While Ring of Siberys is still missing (though given Stormreach is located near equator, depending on thickness, it would look just like a thin line in the sky), there are more moons visible in some locations (but no idea why not everywhere)... I counted 6 in Cerulean Hills.



That has more to do with the design of the game. Public areas are safe, but instanced quests have the city full of dangers, from kobolds in the harbor through Sharn Syndicate in the marketplace (notably, while harbor quests are mostly sewers, Syndicate adventure path takes places in tavern, slums, city houses and Kundarak bank), to worse things scattered around the city (and there was a big devil invasion in the marketplace years ago, too bad nothing like that happens these days.



Agree with that. While the houses have their own quests, there's nothing suspicious going on. CotSF is engaged in shadier stuff than dragonmarked houses!



Well... it's Xen'drik, not Droaam, so that's somewhat justified. Attack on Stormreach adventure path involves Droaam invasion (for some reason), but it mostly consists of kobolds, orcs and ogres (and you get to kill Sora Katra. Yeah)



Agree with that, though situation is a little different in Stormreach than in Khorvaire... mostly the traditional "monsters" don't live there. You get drow, kobolds... and that's about it, with few minotaurs scattered through the game.



Fully agreed. DDO missed it's potential, or rather, the content is very hit and miss. On one hand, you have Inspired, Lord of Blades (yeah) takeover of Cannith manufactory and some giants and drow... on the other, you have orcs attacking farmers and kidnapping people, standard tribal evil hobgoblins, and the whole Lolth thing...

If they made a ship back to Khorvaire instead of making a portal to FR... bleh

Good thing that it sounds like Tomb of Annihilation would be easy to port to Eberron. Although I'm not looking forward to any 5e book to be released anymore.
Wrt the xendriik not droaam thing, monstrous races are everywhere in some small to not so small percent of the local population except ddo. House tharashk mercenaries are all over, except ddo. LLoth isn;t a thing in eberron & that quest you mention (I couldn't recall the name from when I played) is pretty much the height of how obnoxious & lazy the FR aspects duct taped on into eberron was. You go to droaam once, the house Tharashk arena where everything tries to kill you & you return the favor, you can't go out to explore any of droaam or even get the chance to see some of the "kennels" resulting in yet another parasitic FR injection into eberron. I can't really even get that upset while saying no when players try to inject FR stuff into an eberron table because FR is like some kind of highly contagious antibiotic resistant parasite carried plague that keeps being spread around in official sources

[Memoria]

THAT IS WHERE I FOUND OUT HE IS CREEPY. NOPE.

Then it's a bit disingenuous to go around claiming the guy's a creep who only writes women NPCs in brothels and whatnot if you've supposedly been reading the very forum where he talks about what his setting is actually like.


I am a little afraid to find out what he said about bisexuality.

I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean in the context of what I said.


I don't MIND sexual themes, but I have some limits.

Suit yourself, but yelling in caps and saying things about FR and its creator that aren't true because you happen to not like the level of sexuality in the setting isn't necessary.

[Honest Tiefling]

Then it's a bit disingenuous to go around claiming the guy's a creep who only writes women NPCs in brothels and whatnot if you've supposedly been reading the very forum where he talks about what his setting is actually like.

Then we simply have a different opinion of what that forum is like. I admit, I exaggerated my response for comedic value, not to offend.

That sentence meant that I am not so sure that I wanted to know what the stance of bisexuality is in the Realms, but if it is as valid as you say, perhaps you should describe it?

[JackPhoenix]

Then it's a bit disingenuous to go around claiming the guy's a creep who only writes women NPCs in brothels and whatnot if you've supposedly been reading the very forum where he talks about what his setting is actually like.

You mean like this (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?291731-Of-Sues-Best-Unspoken) infamous thing? (note that the original source of that quote is down, but the quote is enough)

[Anonymouswizard]

You mean like this (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?291731-Of-Sues-Best-Unspoken) infamous thing? (note that the original source of that quote is down, but the quote is enough)

Not good, secondly sentence of the quote and I'm already finding mistakes (and I'm not solid on some of the stuff in the first sentence). I mean, the concept is actually one I agree with in theory, a place where love/sex is treated more like it is in modern times and considered unusual because of it, including a ruler who potentially takes that to extremes, but it just gets extremely creepy and wish fulfilmentesque to me.

Now I won't pretend I have a lot (or any) experience in these matters in the real world, but it all just feels unrealistic and wrong to me, taken to stupid extremes.

[Âmesang]

WORLD OF GREYHAWK® will always be my favorite… though mainly because I "grew up" on 3e where it was the default setting making it the easier for me to latch on to; being one of the original settings helps, too.

With that said I do enjoy FORGOTTEN REALMS® since, like GREYHAWK®, there's just so much lore attached to it to be inspired by… even fairly mundane bits, such as Greenwood's runefinger and Thundaerl's universal taster spells (see "The Wizards Three"). I've even got a Tethyrian-descended half-moon elf bard who's even been permitted to learn Verrekath's shadow crown due to its connection with the Tethyrian people (even if, mechanically, it probably wouldn't do anything… no Shadow Weave in 5e? …advantage on Performance skill checks would still be a thing, I imagine).

Still… I am kind of tired that (nearly) every Adventurer's League adventure has been set in Faerûn. Yeah, Curse of Strahd was a fun diversion, but unfortunately my group's referee has decided to run Yawning Portal in Faerûn—he's a great guy, they're a great group… but I want GREYHAWK®! I want EBERRON®! Heck, I'd even take DRAGONLANCE®—kenders aside, I think taking the test of High Sorcery sounds like a memorable challenge.

(It's why I've been trying to paint my figurines to be… setting neutral? Though it's also fun giving 'em setting specific flavor, like a spotted blade to represent Oerthblood.)

[GPS]

What are the places: Elf-land. Dwarf-land. Ethnic-stereotype-land(s). And who could forget The Big Chill and Spooky-Underground-Elf-Land?
The Creative Design Team needs to hire this guy to name settings!

[pwykersotz]

I personally love Forgotten Realms. I have never played in it once, but I love it all the same.

I find the depth of lore inspiring. I pick and choose the things that I like most at the time and roll them right into my game. Of course, the same can be said about any number of other campaign settings, but Forgotten Realms is rather rich with detail by comparison. I've picked apart a ton of the campaigns, the deities, the NPC's, and the setting locations to steal all those rich, rich details. Good stuff.

Regarding race/gender/sexuality: If it bugs you, change it. How hard is it to roll a die and reassign the names and skin colors of the Faerun factions to the cultures? As someone else pointed out, the racial diversity in D&D is obscene. Or do the books make such a demand on x characters being y color that it's completely inextricable? I've never seen such a thing, but then I don't read the novels. I got into D&D too late. My threshold for bad fantasy was already maxed out. :smalltongue:

But regarding Ed Greenwood and that quote about what amounts to a lust pit, whatever. In D&D I've seen emperors draped with women, Drow matriarchs draped with men, A ruling caste of exclusively gay men, and a pure matriarchy of lesbian women. Now find/replace the various races into those molds and I've probably seen it. All this in addition to more classic social structures as well. My GM loves to kingdom build with unique and interesting social setups, and we have a very diverse playerbase who contribute too.

That said, if it actually offends you and ruins your enjoyment of the game or story, just remove it. I felt JKR's comment about Dumbledore's sexuality to be entirely irrelevant to the character one way or the other, so I ignore it. Jack Harkness lost out on diversity of "interest" pretty cleanly to John Hart (freaking poodles, man), and so I pretend they're a bit more competitive in that regard. Just memorize the words: Headcanon accepted.

[JAL_1138]

The Creative Design Team needs to hire this guy to name settings!

...they're still better than the actual names in FR.

[Anonymouswizard]

...they're still better than the actual names in FR.

I'm just waiting to open a Forgotten Realms book and see the name 'Moongar'den MooneyMoon Moonkeep'.

The only Forgotten Realms names I really like are Candlekeep (which sounds descriptive, castle of the scholars or something) and Baldur's Gate (which sounds like it was named after a thing called Baldur's Gate or something similar). Then again, I'm likely to name a location 'Elfforest' because I suck at names.

EDIT: then again, I believe there a place in England where the name translates as 'hillhillhill hill'.

[Sigreid]

I'm just waiting to open a Forgotten Realms book and see the name 'Moongar'den MooneyMoon Moonkeep'.

The only Forgotten Realms names I really like are Candlekeep (which sounds descriptive, castle of the scholars or something) and Baldur's Gate (which sounds like it was named after a thing called Baldur's Gate or something similar). Then again, I'm likely to name a location 'Elfforest' because I suck at manes.

All people, places, things, animals and monsters are most appropriately named Bob.

[NecroDancer]

What are the places: Elf-land. Dwarf-land. Ethnic-stereotype-land(s). And who could forget The Big Chill and Spooky-Underground-Elf-Land?



May I add this to my signature please?

[Âmesang]

That does remind me of wanting to have something like a "Keep Calm at Calm Keep," or some variant spelling. :smalltongue:

[raygun goth]

If this ever comes up, I am tempted to make a brief one-shot where the characters start out at level 20 and, while trying to take care of the demigod that's threatening the entire multiverse, are approached by a low-level adventuring party who could really use their help in thwarting the Hobgoblin King who's threatening the out-of-the-way village the lowbie party started in. (They even promise the level-20s a share of the loot - worth perhaps a few hundred GP each!)

The problem here isn't that Superman exists. It's that there's a Superman and a Martian Manhunter for every half-nickel town. You'll be a low level adventuring party working on the hobgoblin thing when you realize the captain of the guard (whose job is literally this hobgoblin problem) is a level 13 wizard and he's not doing a damn thing about it. That's not even getting into what a scry and die cold war would look like (protip: FR isn't it, despite having all the tools in every other burg).

My issues with FR are complex and long-winded, but I'm gonna try to be short.

Number one is (because we're all getting to name fallacies randomly here now) the EPCOT fallacy, where 300 AD Turkey is right next to 900s Britain is right next to 1100s France is right next to 1700s Spain (and there's like five of those in different parts of the continent) and they're not fighting. Or talking. Or trading. Or anything. Because every damn country is a self-contained zone with magic(!) customs or something that acts like an utterly different setting - sure, there's that chart on the 3e setting that lists all the imports and exports but they're all basically the same. Also, FR appears to want to have a post-Columbian world but doesn't appear to have the cojones to let the fantasy-Americas exist as anything other than blood-drinking savages the Amn can beat up for fun that they blew up because I don't know, either unfortunate implications or maybe having to deal with actual verisimilitude was too complicated for the people writing it.

The elves have super-secret interstellar contact but somehow aren't running this joint openly.

Gods can apparently pretend to be other gods? This is probably the dumbest thing ever - AHA you thought you were all Chaunteans but really it was ME, DIO! I. No. It is counter to how gods in FR actually work, that is, your faith juice goes to the person you're praying to. If you stamp and address a letter to a particular god, it goes to that god. Bane cannot disrupt the holy mail service without bending the entire cosmology over his knee and at that point he's getting kickbacks from sexing up AO on the weekends and doesn't need to steal your worshippers.

They did get rid of Lantan, the (potentially second) most interesting place in the whole bunch. Though that's not too terrible, Lantan needs to be its own setting anyway. Not Eberron - they had actual electricity in Lantan.

It's got freakish monster races, beholders running anachronistic crime rings, Lovecraftian terrors sleeping under just about every city, and aliens. It's got actual Egyptians. From Egypt, even. There are teleporting kaleidoscope xenomorphs that all they wanna do is guard treasure piles and will hunt you relentlessly just to get it back and not kill you. Basically FR gets this huge fantasy toolbox and doesn't do anything interesting with it. It has never done anything interesting, and I've read almost everything since the beginning, back when the big spooky vague threat was non-spellcasting crazy old men who think beholders are really keen.

You know something I wanna see with FR? I wanna see all the hype about elves just be hype. Like Amn sends a flotilla to Evermeet and two weeks later it's like the damn Meiji reconstruction over there. The elves have to actually worry about things. Multiple countries have to think long and hard about their own fears. Maybe the evil windsocks in the desert (is it still a desert? I don't know, it's boring as hell) aren't as mean as we thought. Is Elminster even still alive? Are any of these super powerful badasses that nobody seems to check on except each other still alive? Someone go check.

The only interesting thing I even remember ever coming out of FR was the Whole Realms Catalogue, which read like a list of reasons why this setting ought to be knee-deep in its industrial revolution at this point.

That'd at least have moral quandaries worth shaking a stick at that couldn't be immediately solved by two spells.

[JAL_1138]

I'm just waiting to open a Forgotten Realms book and see the name 'Moongar'den MooneyMoon Moonkeep'.

The only Forgotten Realms names I really like are Candlekeep (which sounds descriptive, castle of the scholars or something) and Baldur's Gate (which sounds like it was named after a thing called Baldur's Gate or something similar). Then again, I'm likely to name a location 'Elfforest' because I suck at names.

EDIT: then again, I believe there a place in England where the name translates as 'hillhillhill hill'.

I suck at names as well, so to avoid the "Elfforest" problem, I steal them. Or, at least, I steal the methods people have tended to use to name places historically. The trick is often simply not to try too hard to make it sound "fantasy," and instead think of it from the perspective of a native. And then run what you come up with through the ways place names change over time, to greater or lesser degrees. Occasionally run one from modern times back a bit through the changes instead of starting from a root and moving forward. And throw in some named in a more modern/New World style.

Wikipedia has some reasonably-decent articles on toponymy.

[SharkForce]

I suck at names as well, so to avoid the "Elfforest" problem, I steal them. Or, at least, I steal the methods people have tended to use to name places historically. The trick is often simply not to try too hard to make it sound "fantasy," and instead think of it from the perspective of a native. And then run what you come up with through the ways place names change over time, to greater or lesser degrees. Occasionally run one from modern times back a bit through the changes instead of starting from a root and moving forward. And throw in some named in a more modern/New World style.

Wikipedia has some reasonably-decent articles on toponymy.

of course, ironically you'll actually end up with a lot of places named "elfforest" or equivalent (though in their native language)... the town on a hill will be named hilltown (or hilton, or whatever). the city founded by sara the miller will be called sarasburg. and so on :P

(turns out people not being very good at coming up with impressive and unique sounding names isn't just an RPG problem ;) )

[Rynjin]

May I add this to my signature please?

Go for it!

[Psikerlord]

High magic kitchen sink setting, with too much history to make it your own, awash with high level NPCs who ultimately make the PCs redundant at best and irrelevant at worst. That's my take on why FR is generally disliked by more experienced gamers.

[djreynolds]

I've noticed that a lot of people seem to hate the forgotten realms, or at least on these forums. Why is this? Is it just because they're the default setting and people want to be different? Is it because people haven't actually read FR lore and just assume it's all standard medieval fantasy?

IMO, FR seems the D&D fantasy standard... and players are bored of it, possibly. Its also tough to keep up with all the history changes and novels. But it pretty standard D&D.... players grow restless and bored.

The other settings also involve lots of the mystic type powers that "younger" players seem to enjoy more, at least at my table. The new classes and powers are fresh and exciting.

I like Greyhawk, FR, and dragonlance.... but that's an age thing. I've grown up with the standard dungeon crawl scenario.

[JAL_1138]

of course, ironically you'll actually end up with a lot of places named "elfforest" or equivalent (though in their native language)... the town on a hill will be named hilltown (or hilton, or whatever). the city founded by sara the miller will be called sarasburg. and so on :P

(turns out people not being very good at coming up with impressive and unique sounding names isn't just an RPG problem ;) )

To an extent. But that's still preferable to coming off like you're simultaneously trying too hard and yet not putting in much effort, whilst bashing the audience over the head with a mallet with "FANTASY!" stenciled on the business end of it.

Just gonna leave this list, taken from the Forgotten Realms Wiki's list of place names...

Moon Pass, Moondeep Sea, Moongleam Tower, Moonlit Tower, Moonlands, Moonsea, Moonshae Isles, Moonwater, Moonshadow Hall, Moonsilver House, Moonstone Mask, Moonstone Palace, Moonvines, Moonwater, Moonwood, Silverymoon...

[Corsair14]

Ugg and now they have a new adventure path in FR. I hear that they only have like 10 guys on staff working on D&D. Understandable that its just a side line project to their Magic cash cow. But most writers don't live anywhere near their editors. They Skype and email. How hard would it be to hire one shot contract writers to work on sideline settings ? Note I say hire as I doubt WoTC or any company would put up with the headache of using already made fan done material. There's an amazing 5e Planescape conversion that looks professional as well as an really in depth adventure available for DL. The talent and inspiration is out there. It wouldn't even be a long term project as 90% of the material is already available. Just a conversion book or PDF even with races and alternative classes updated for 5e. And yes we can do it ourselves or use the ones out there but sometimes that is a bit of a pain. Go do a search for the Summoner class converted for 5e and you will find quite a few ranging from OP to wet tissue paper. A SCAG type book would conceivably work for every world except maybe Dark Sun which would need its own Monstrous manual(because they are that different) and a Psionics book. Even Spelljammer would work in a SCAG size book, the only thing really needed are updated ship and combat stats. Lets face it the monsters from 2nd for the most part update easily to 5e. I did a 5e Undermountain campaign and barely consulted any 5e books and used most of the stats right out of the original box set.

There are active communities of almost every campaign setting produced. Along with the "Must buy everything" crowd, no matter which campaign setting produced, it would sell a single well priced SCAG book. Ravenloft, Planescape, and Dragonlance would be simple conversions and for the most part the data is out there. I don't know enough about Ebberon to say anything. Spelljammer with its ship focus would be a bit more complicated thus more in need of a book. Dark Sun just needs its own setting and to forget about the travesty that was 4e and go back to its 2e root box set before the revision. That's 3 books(setting, monstrous manual, psionics books) that rabid dark sun fans would step on each other to get hold of and the psionics book could be used for multiple settings. But no, we get more FR crap.

[2D8HP]

Most of these complaints sound like they are regarding the setting pre 5e.

As someone who ignored the Forgotten Realms until 5e I quite like it.


I played 1e, and ignored 2e, 3.5, and 4e (I did buy some 3e though), so the "Realms" were new to me.

I'm not married to "The Realms" because I can barely read the type in the SCAG, and I just don't like The Factions.
Assasins and Thieves Guilds are OK, and I can't quite articulate why, but these international continent spanning Avenger/Hydra/Superfriends/CONTROL/KAOS/MI--7/SPECTRA-ish claptrap bug me.

I'd prefer a setting without the "Factions".

I bought the 2e Code of the Harper's that has type I can actually read, and ho boy, Marty Stu central!

I like set-ups like:
“In the Year of the Behemoth, the Month of the Hedgehog, The Day of the Toad."

"Satisfied that they your near the goal of your quest, you think of how you had slit the interesting-looking vellum page from the ancient book on architecture that reposed in the library of the rapacious and overbearing Lord Rannarsh."

“It was a page of thick vellum, ancient and curiously greenish. Three edges were frayed and worn; the fourth showed a clean and recent cut. It was inscribed with the intricate hieroglyphs of Lankhmarian writing, done in the black ink of the squid. Reading":
"Let kings stack their treasure houses ceiling-high, and merchants burst their vaults with hoarded coin, and fools envy them. I have a treasure that outvalues theirs. A diamond as big as a man's skull. Twelve rubies each as big as the skull of a cat. Seventeen emeralds each as big as the skull of a mole. And certain rods of crystal and bars of orichalcum. Let Overlords swagger jewel-bedecked and queens load themselves with gems, and fools adore them. I have a treasure that will outlast theirs. A treasure house have I builded for it in the far southern forest, where the two hills hump double, like sleeping camels, a day's ride beyond the village of Soreev.

"A great treasure house with a high tower, fit for a king's dwelling—yet no king may dwell there. Immediately below the keystone of the chief dome my treasure lies hid, eternal as the glittering stars. It will outlast me and my name,"

And what first got me hooked on RPG's was this set-up:

100 years ago the sorcerer Zenopus built a tower on the low hills overlooking Portown. The tower was close to the sea cliffs west of the town and, appropriately, next door to the graveyard.
Rumor has it that the magician made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower. The town is located on the ruins of a much older city of doubtful history and Zenopus was said to excavate in his cellars in search of ancient treasures.

Fifty years ago, on a cold wintry night, the wizard's tower was suddenly engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their rnaster had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower.
Needless to say the tower stood vacant fora while afterthis, but then the neighbors and the night watchmen comploined that ghostly blue lights appeared in the windows at night, that ghastly screams could be heard emanating from the tower ot all hours, and goblin figures could be seen dancina on the tower roof in the moonlight. Finally the authorities had a catapult rolled through the streets of the town and the tower was battered to rubble. This stopped the hauntings but the townsfolk continue to shun the ruins. The entrance to the old dungeons can be easily located as a flight of broad stone steps leading down into darkness, but the few adventurous souls who hove descended into crypts below the ruin have either reported only empty stone corridors or have failed to return at all.
Other magic-users have moved into the town but the site of the old tower remains abandoned.
Whispered tales are told of fabulous treasure and unspeakable monsters in the underground passages below the hilltop, and the story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of the older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.
Portown is a small but busy city 'linking the caravan routes from the south to the merchscant ships that dare the pirate-infested waters of the Northern Sea. Humans and non-humans from all over the globe meet here.
At he Green Dragon Inn, the players of the game gather their characters for an assault on the fabulous passages beneath the ruined Wizard's tower.

[ZorroGames]

IMO, FR seems the D&D fantasy standard... and players are bored of it, possibly. Its also tough to keep up with all the history changes and novels. But it pretty standard D&D.... players grow restless and bored.

The other settings also involve lots of the mystic type powers that "younger" players seem to enjoy more, at least at my table. The new classes and powers are fresh and exciting.

I like Greyhawk, FR, and dragonlance.... but that's an age thing. I've grown up with the standard dungeon crawl scenario.

Seems like a revamp of generic fantasy from "the beginning" of Chainmail (not an "incarnate evil thing") but anytime you draw age stereotype from a small sample you risk missing other data. I like the map and some of the "now" background but honestly, if, God Forbid, I was possessed and DM'ed again "surgery" would be necessary. I do like many aspects of the classes/subclasses in 5th Edition but plastic surgery for the background would be mandatory. That "creation/recreation" aspect of nations popping in and out would be the first to go. Definitely unnecessarily complicated (Complex good, Complicated bad.)

[ZorroGames]

2D8HP,

those spoilers were nice.

[Anonymouswizard]

I suck at names as well, so to avoid the "Elfforest" problem, I steal them. Or, at least, I steal the methods people have tended to use to name places historically. The trick is often simply not to try too hard to make it sound "fantasy," and instead think of it from the perspective of a native. And then run what you come up with through the ways place names change over time, to greater or lesser degrees. Occasionally run one from modern times back a bit through the changes instead of starting from a root and moving forward. And throw in some named in a more modern/New World style.

Wikipedia has some reasonably-decent articles on toponymy.

I mean, I tend towards descriptive names, which seem to be the most common in my experience, hence Elfforest, which is what the humans of Riverton named it. The embed call it something eighteen syllables long that roughly translates as 'our home not theirs'.


Note I say hire as I doubt WoTC or any company would put up with the headache of using already made fan done material.

Honestly if they're not going to provide material for settings I actually use (and am converting to non-D&D systems because that's sometimes easier) then I don't see why they can't open some settings that aren't Forgotten Realms to DMsGuild. I'd love to see conversions on there where you need the old 2e or 3e books to play (did 4e have any new, non generic settings, all I remember is Netir Vale), the people who made them can get a bit of cash for their efforts and WotC can make cash from the conversions and PDFs of books people don't have. Heck, there's an Arabian part of the Forgotten Realms I've been considering buying the 2e sourcebook for, I own and like 2e enough to run it without a conversion.

Actually, if they did that I'd likely put up my (not overly brilliant) Dark Sun and Birthright conversions up. I didn't like the only DS conversion I could find when I went looking (Defilers and Preservers as subclasses?), so there's likely room for one more conversion.

[mgshamster]

EDIT: then again, I believe there a place in England where the name translates as 'hillhillhill hill'.

Found it ("https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill). Apparently it's a ghost word and wasn't actually used outside of giving an example of tautological words.

However, the La Brea Tar Pits is a real example, as "La Brea" means "the tar." So it's called the The Tar Tar Pits. :)

[LtPowers]

I am kind of tired that (nearly) every Adventurer's League adventure has been set in Faerûn.

Well it's kind of tricky to put AL in different settings since portability of characters is one of the founding principles of AL. Look at all the rules and convolution they had to put in just to allow a small portion of Ravenloft to be used.


Powers &8^]

[Âmesang]

Fortunately there was an old AD&D adventure, Castle Spulzeer, that could send adventurers from Faerûn to Ravenloft, so it made for a handy explanation for how my character in Curse of Strahd ended up there.


However, the La Brea Tar Pits is a real example, as "La Brea" means "the tar." So it's called the The Tar Tar Pits. :)
Now we just need La Brea Tar Sauce to sell at concession stands. :smalltongue:

[LtPowers]

So what I'm gathering from this thread is that FR is too complicated and there's too much history to learn, and at the same time it's too generic and nothing ever happens in it.


Powers &8^]

[Tanarii]

So what I'm gathering from this thread is that FR is too complicated and there's too much history to learn, and at the same time it's too generic and nothing ever happens in it.It's only 'generic' in that it's been the 'default' D&D setting since AD&D 2e. (Edit: And was heavily supported even in AD&D 1e.) It's defined D&D far more than Greyhawk or the Known World (aka Mystara) ever did by this point.

[Scots Dragon]

So what I'm gathering from this thread is that FR is too complicated and there's too much history to learn, and at the same time it's too generic and nothing ever happens in it.


Powers &8^]
Basically it's just not to some peoples' tastes and they start trying to come up with reasons as to why it's bad as opposed to them just not liking it.

So...

It's bad because there are [meaningless-at-this-point overused term derived from parody Star Trek fan fiction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-GIY9RTqU)]s all over the place in here and my character doesn't feel important. Let's ignore for a second that the Circle of Eight, Raistlin Majere, the Sorcerer Kings, Count Strahd von Zarovich, the Factols, and other such also exist in the other settings, it's just that in the Forgotten Realms they're... well, not even more powerful, really. They're basically on the same level and involvement as the Circle of Eight, but I don't see people complaining much about Mordenkainen or Tenser, and in fact far more often I see people saying that the handling of the Circle of Eight is somehow better despite there being little-to-no functional difference.

It's bad because it's overcomplicated and has too much history to learn that's hard to parse and locks you into over-specific interpretations. Even though every central campaign setting book up to and including the 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting included a sidebar which said that the material was merely what certain in-universe people thought their world was like and which 'everyone knows' to be true, but which doesn't have to be accurate.

It's bad because it's generic and nothing ever happens there, despite the fact that it's really no more or less generic than anything else in Dungeons & Dragons, and in fact part of the reason we have our current definition of generic fantasy is in fact largely due to a combination of various things that influenced or were influenced by Dungeons & Dragons. If you wanted something that wasn't generic Medieval European fantasy, I'm gonna have to ask exactly what else you were expecting from Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, you might want to check out a different role-playing game entirely if the whole swords and sorcery millieu isn't really your thing.

[Tanarii]

It's bad because there are [meaningless-at-this-point overused term derived from parody Star Trek fan fiction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-GIY9RTqU)]s all over the place in here and my character doesn't feel important. Let's ignore for a second that the Circle of Eight, Raistlin Majere, the Sorcerer Kings, Count Strahd von Zarovich, the Factols, and other such also exist in the other settings, it's just that in the Forgotten Realms they're... well, not even more powerful, really. They're basically on the same level and involvement as the Circle of Eight, but I don't see people complaining much about Mordenkainen or Tenser, and in fact far more often I see people saying that the handling of the Circle of Eight is somehow better despite there being little-to-no functional difference.Raistlin is a PC (as in expected to be actively played by a player). Count Strahd is a BBEG the players are expected to survive. The Circle of Eight are retired PCs, and yeah people DO complain about them for pretty much the same reasons they complain about many Elminster and the Blackstaff and Drizzt.

The difference being the circle of eight aren't just some author's wish fullfillment surrounded by godawful writing. (The fan fic analogy is accurate, because that's pretty much what FR novels are. Published Fan Fic.) The circle of eight were actually characters who were played in a relatively brutal campaign, and managed to survive. They're definitely still a form of wish fullfillement, but the players earned their way into power. It wasn't just handed out for narrative / story / plot reasons. Of course, many DMs still use them the same ham-handed way, because they weren't in that original campaign.

[Scots Dragon]

Raistlin is a PC (as in expected to be actively played by a player). Count Strahd is a BBEG the players are expected to survive. The Circle of Eight are retired PCs, and yeah people DO complain about them for pretty much the same reasons they complain about many Elminster and the Blackstaff and Drizzt.

The difference being the circle of eight aren't just some author's wish fullfillment surrounded by godawful writing. (The fan fic analogy is accurate, because that's pretty much what FR novels are. Published Fan Fic.) The circle of eight were actually characters who were played in a relatively brutal campaign, and managed to survive. They're definitely still a form of wish fullfillement, but the players earned their way into power. It wasn't just handed out for narrative / story / plot reasons. Of course, many DMs still use them the same ham-handed way, because they weren't in that original campaign.

How can the Forgotten Realms be published fan fiction when it was a setting created whole-cloth in the 1960s by Ed Greenwood and only later adopted for Dungeons & Dragons?

What's it even fan fiction of?

And here's the thing... Elminster is not a wish fulfillment character by definition because to label him as such is completely misinterpreting his original intended story role. He's the old wise sagely wizard who guides the heroes on their quests and journeys and who serves as narrator of various stories and provider of information within the setting. It wasn't until much later that Ed Greenwood was commissioned to write him as a protagonist, and in those stories he chose specifically to focus on Elminster's backstory as a young adventurer rather than as the big world-shaking force he would later become, at least to start off with.

Elminster is basically meant to be the Gandalf or Merlin of the setting, and that's fine. Most of the time when Ed Greenwood gets to choose the types of stories and lore he writes, he barely even mentions Elminster at all as a character and spends far more time talking about random minor people and facts of the Forgotten Realms to flesh it out. He'll talk about various examples of heroes and villains who met amusing ends, the specific goings on in various clergies across the Realms, who the most and least corrupt noble houses of Waterdeep are, and stuff that's generally useful to fleshing out a setting in flavour terms. All that Elminster was supposed to be in that context was as the immortal sagely wanderer who was old enough that he knew a little bit about everything and thus could provide a narrative framing device.

[JAL_1138]

I mean, I tend towards descriptive names, which seem to be the most common in my experience, hence Elfforest, which is what the humans of Riverton named it. The embed call it something eighteen syllables long that roughly translates as 'our home not theirs'.


For an example of what I might do with mine, not really folowing toponymic principles closely but just trying to change it a bit, if I started with Elfforest, depending on the local accent, it could mutate a few different ways over the years. You could get something like Elfhurst, or a dozen variations, if they tend to accent "Elf" and shorten the second syllable of "forest"--Alfirst, Elforst, Aleforst, Helverst, etc., etc., so on and so forth, and they might drop the "T" at the end eventually, possibly ending up with "Alfors." Later on they might add in a redundancy since the name mutated so much, and end up calling it "Alfors Wood."

[Corsair14]

[/QUOTE]Honestly if they're not going to provide material for settings I actually use (and am converting to non-D&D systems because that's sometimes easier) then I don't see why they can't open some settings that aren't Forgotten Realms to DMsGuild. I'd love to see conversions on there where you need the old 2e or 3e books to play (did 4e have any new, non generic settings, all I remember is Netir Vale), the people who made them can get a bit of cash for their efforts and WotC can make cash from the conversions and PDFs of books people don't have. Heck, there's an Arabian part of the Forgotten Realms I've been considering buying the 2e sourcebook for, I own and like 2e enough to run it without a conversion.

Actually, if they did that I'd likely put up my (not overly brilliant) Dark Sun and Birthright conversions up. I didn't like the only DS conversion I could find when I went looking (Defilers and Preservers as subclasses?), so there's likely room for one more conversion.[/QUOTE]

I am in 100% agreement with you. If they are not going to do the job themselves then let fans handle it. But for some reason this idea has eluded them. When I said headache I meant the more legal aspects of them using user content in an official capacity. I love DMs guild. The 5e Ravenloft MM was great.

I think the issue a lot of people don't seem to get thinking its content or whatever, is it the world. They seem content to only use FR. There are other worlds(and planes) out there. The Curse of Strahd book was almost a slap in the face from what I have seen to people wanting Ravenloft. That's a ravenloft thing, not a generic world thing. Did they even mention the Dark Powers being in control of the plane? You cant get more Ravenloft specific than Count Strahd. They shoehorn everything into FR and forget the rest of the important settings. That in my opinion is why most people hate FR. Next thing you know, there is going to be an adventure path with a God King taking over (insert random FR desert here) demanding sacrifices from every city within a thousand miles.

[rooneg]

I think the issue a lot of people don't seem to get thinking its content or whatever, is it the world. They seem content to only use FR. There are other worlds(and planes) out there. The Curse of Strahd book was almost a slap in the face from what I have seen to people wanting Ravenloft. That's a ravenloft thing, not a generic world thing. Did they even mention the Dark Powers being in control of the plane? You cant get more Ravenloft specific than Count Strahd. They shoehorn everything into FR and forget the rest of the important settings.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Curse of Strahd was IN RAVENLOFT. It's in a separate demiplane, they didn't just drop it into the Forgotten Realms.

[Tanarii]

How can the Forgotten Realms be published fan fiction when it was a setting created whole-cloth in the 1960s by Ed Greenwood and only later adopted for Dungeons & Dragons? Ed Greenwood's writing is Fan Fiction of the crap going on in his head. :smalltongue: Seriously though, I've never read anything worse than Elminster in Hell. It's the definitive example of how not to write, fan fic or otherwise. (Just like The Guyver is the definitive example of how not to make a movie.)


Elminster is not a wish fulfillment characterHe certainly became one.

But there's just no excuse for Drizzt. Different author, same low quality writing & wish fullfillment. The problem holds true for all FR books I ever read. TSR was a master of finding hack writers.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well it's kind of tricky to put AL in different settings since portability of characters is one of the founding principles of AL. Look at all the rules and convolution they had to put in just to allow a small portion of Ravenloft to be used.

If only there was a setting that connected to all other settings. One based around a Great Wheel that contained plants for each alignment, and that allowed you to walk anywhere of you knew the route. A setting with its own words, a 'Planar Cant' if you will.


Basically it's just not to some peoples' tastes and they start trying to come up with reasons as to why it's bad as opposed to them just not liking it.

Or we're trying to give reasons for why we just don't like it, so people can understand why and, if they're WotC or people running games for us, give us settings more suited to our tastes.

If you like FR then great, but don't say that I'm trying to come up with reasons why it's bad rather than saying why I dislike it.


For an example of what I might do with mine, not really folowing toponymic principles closely but just trying to change it a bit, if I started with Elfforest, depending on the local accent, it could mutate a few different ways over the years. You could get something like Elfhurst, or a dozen variations, if they tend to accent "Elf" and shorten the second syllable of "forest"--Alfirst, Elforst, Aleforst, Helverst, etc., etc., so on and so forth, and they might drop the "T" at the end eventually, possibly ending up with "Alfors." Later on they might add in a redundancy since the name mutated so much, and end up calling it "Alfors Wood."

Interesting, I'll have a proper look at how it all works later.

[pwykersotz]

It's bad because there are [meaningless-at-this-point overused term derived from parody Star Trek fan fiction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-GIY9RTqU)]s all over the place in here and my character doesn't feel important. Let's ignore for a second that the Circle of Eight, Raistlin Majere, the Sorcerer Kings, Count Strahd von Zarovich, the Factols, and other such also exist in the other settings, it's just that in the Forgotten Realms they're... well, not even more powerful, really.

That link is pretty freaking awesome. I'm about to click through everything in the channel. Thank you, both seriously for the interesting content, and sarcastically for the timesink I'm about to delve into. :smallsigh:

[Corsair14]

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Curse of Strahd was IN RAVENLOFT. It's in a separate demiplane, they didn't just drop it into the Forgotten Realms.

I had heard that they did and it was very generic. Did they at least put some detail into it and enhance the horror aspects of it, horror checks, red widows and all that good(evil) stuff? Did familiars still tend to bite you on the ass doing what they think is in your best interest regardless your actual alignment?(one of my favorite parts of RL)

[rooneg]

I had heard that they did and it was very generic. Did they at least put some detail into it and enhance the horror aspects of it, horror checks, red widows and all that good(evil) stuff? Did familiars still tend to bite you on the ass doing what they think is in your best interest regardless your actual alignment?(one of my favorite parts of RL)

I haven't actually run the adventure, so I'm the wrong person to ask about it, but it's absolutely not set in the forgotten realms. The adventurers league season associated with that hardcover has a whole mechanic for getting stuck in ravenloft associated with it.

[Sigreid]

Basically it's just not to some peoples' tastes and they start trying to come up with reasons as to why it's bad as opposed to them just not liking it.

So...

It's bad because there are [meaningless-at-this-point overused term derived from parody Star Trek fan fiction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-GIY9RTqU)]s all over the place in here and my character doesn't feel important. Let's ignore for a second that the Circle of Eight, Raistlin Majere, the Sorcerer Kings, Count Strahd von Zarovich, the Factols, and other such also exist in the other settings, it's just that in the Forgotten Realms they're... well, not even more powerful, really. They're basically on the same level and involvement as the Circle of Eight, but I don't see people complaining much about Mordenkainen or Tenser, and in fact far more often I see people saying that the handling of the Circle of Eight is somehow better despite there being little-to-no functional difference.

It's bad because it's overcomplicated and has too much history to learn that's hard to parse and locks you into over-specific interpretations. Even though every central campaign setting book up to and including the 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting included a sidebar which said that the material was merely what certain in-universe people thought their world was like and which 'everyone knows' to be true, but which doesn't have to be accurate.

It's bad because it's generic and nothing ever happens there, despite the fact that it's really no more or less generic than anything else in Dungeons & Dragons, and in fact part of the reason we have our current definition of generic fantasy is in fact largely due to a combination of various things that influenced or were influenced by Dungeons & Dragons. If you wanted something that wasn't generic Medieval European fantasy, I'm gonna have to ask exactly what else you were expecting from Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, you might want to check out a different role-playing game entirely if the whole swords and sorcery millieu isn't really your thing.

Just thought I'd point out that in all the time I've been playing ive never seen Mordakin, Tenser, et AL from Greyhawk presented as more than semi-mythic heroes of legend. You knew there spells, you sometimes came across their works, but you never knew where they were, what they were up to, or even if they were alive. And I played a lot of AD&D modules.

[JAL_1138]

Interesting, I'll have a proper look at how it all works later.

A thought I just had, that I think I might use...after "Elfforest" mutates to "Alfors," it goes a bit further and ends up "Alfirs." With the elves having been nearly driven out of their ancestral home, the locals firmly believe the pure-fiction folk etymology that it was named for the purely-coincidental high percentage of fir trees and other evergreens, from a purported early settler's quip/complaint of "This forest is all firs!" and thereby writing the elves out of the area's history, so they don't think twice about expansion and logging as if they own the place by right.

[Honest Tiefling]

However, the La Brea Tar Pits is a real example, as "La Brea" means "the tar." So it's called the The Tar Tar Pits. :)

Contra Costa county literally means 'The other coast'. El Cerrito means 'Little hills'. Or California itself, which was named for an Amazon queen from a novel. I guess that last one is inventive, just weird.

Still better then Des Moines...Which I think should be an inspiration for a name of a place in my next setting.

Also, I think a setting can have a past that is far too convoluted for use while still having no current events that lend itself well to adventure. It's a problem in a lot of homebrew settings I've made seen.

[JAL_1138]

Contra Costa county literally means 'The other coast'. El Cerrito means 'Little hills'. Or California itself, which was named for an Amazon queen from a novel. I guess that last one is inventive, just weird.

Still better then Des Moines...Which I think should be an inspiration for a name of a place in my next setting.

Also, I think a setting can have a past that is far too convoluted for use while still having no current events that lend itself well to adventure. It's a problem in a lot of homebrew settings I've made seen.

Kentucky has a place called Hell for Certain, named for a quip from a visiting missionary. "Where have you been?" "I don't know, but it was Hell, for certain." There's also Black Gnat, so named because a newly-painted church ended up swarmed with black gnats near the time of the town's founding. There's even a town called "Whynot," presumably named for the question the settlers asked themselves about starting a town there, but possibly mutated from Wyandot (Iroquois tribe).

EDIT: Some research indicates Whynot was named because the locals kept bickering over the name of the post office, several families trying to name it after themselves or local geographic features. After the umpteen-hundredth time someone piped up with "Why not—" intending to follow it with a suggestion, the exasperated townsfolk settled on "Whynot."

[Corsair14]

If you want weird names look no further than the American West. I have been to "Truth Or Consequences" and had green burritos(highly recommended BTW) at the gas station at Why, AZ.

[Ralanr]

Personally I just think Eberron is cooler conceptually and that D&D is only using FR because they want people to think about a generic fantasy setting when thinking of D&D.

FR seems to be their most popular "generic" fantasy setting so why not use it?

[Knaight]

Personally, I'm really sick of elves and dwarves and halflings, of the same pseudo-Tolkien tropes repeated over and over without any of what made Tolkien's works good, and of fantasy history based on an incredibly shallow understanding of the historical period behind it. FR has all of that in spades, and it's all dull. Then when it introduces something a bit unique it's often poorly thought through, with the Wall of the Faithless and it's ridiculous implications for a generally goodish creator god being a perfect example.

[Ralanr]

Personally, I'm really sick of elves and dwarves and halflings, of the same pseudo-Tolkien tropes repeated over and over without any of what made Tolkien's works good, and of fantasy history based on an incredibly shallow understanding of the historical period behind it. FR has all of that in spades, and it's all dull. Then when it introduces something a bit unique it's often poorly thought through, with the Wall of the Faithless and it's ridiculous implications for a generally goodish creator god being a perfect example.

And the community tends to hate new stuff sometimes. Like Dragonborn.

[Honest Tiefling]

And the community tends to hate new stuff sometimes. Like Dragonborn.

Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. Maybe an earlier introduction via Planescape?

[Âmesang]

Just thought I'd point out that in all the time I've been playing ive never seen Mordakin, Tenser, et AL from Greyhawk presented as more than semi-mythic heroes of legend. You knew there spells, you sometimes came across their works, but you never knew where they were, what they were up to, or even if they were alive. And I played a lot of AD&D modules.
If I remember correctly the pre-Pathfinder Paizo adventure path, Age of Worms, featured a particular high-level Gandalf-esque guide who, if played in GREYHAWK®, could be replaced with Tenser.

One thing I like about Mordenkainen and company is the fact that they have so many spells named after them; if you're playing an arcane caster (especially one from GREYHAWK®) I find it makes for a simple goal to be just like them—to not only go on such legendary adventures and face such horrific threats but to also craft spells of your own making (within the purview of the game's referee, of course).

Of course in that same token I find it fun to crack open a FORGOTTEN REALMS® or DRAGONLANCE® source to find spells crafted by Elminster, Dalamar, &c.

[Ralanr]

Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. Maybe an earlier introduction via Planescape?

I blame it on, "Can pass for human well enough."

[Laurefindel]

Just gonna leave this list, taken from the Forgotten Realms Wiki's list of place names...

Moon Pass, Moondeep Sea, Moongleam Tower, Moonlit Tower, Moonlands, Moonsea, Moonshae Isles, Moonwater, Moonshadow Hall, Moonsilver House, Moonstone Mask, Moonstone Palace, Moonvines, Moonwater, Moonwood, Silverymoon...

Yes, everything is "moon" something around Silverymoon! Mind you, you can make the same exercise with common keywords like "iron" or "dark" in broadly developed settings like Greyhawk and Eberron and yield similar results.

[Sigreid]

If I remember correctly the pre-Pathfinder Paizo adventure path, Age of Worms, featured a particular high-level Gandalf-esque guide who, if played in GREYHAWK®, could be replaced with Tenser.

One thing I like about Mordenkainen and company is the fact that they have so many spells named after them; if you're playing an arcane caster (especially one from GREYHAWK®) I find it makes for a simple goal to be just like them—to not only go on such legendary adventures and face such horrific threats but to also craft spells of your own making (within the purview of the game's referee, of course).

Of course in that same token I find it fun to crack open a FORGOTTEN REALMS® or DRAGONLANCE® source to find spells crafted by Elminster, Dalamar, &c.
Never did much with Pathfinder and don't hold TSR or WOTC accountable for their choices. And I agree about the spells.

[hymer]

Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. Maybe an earlier introduction via Planescape?

Perhaps it's because of the subconscious image of how they came to be. An incubus or succubus going at it with a mortal? Anywhere from hot to acceptable, and an age-old image. A dragon and a human? Too much like bestiality.

[Laurefindel]

Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. Maybe an earlier introduction via Planescape?

Totally. Colorful and varied tieflings à la DiTerlizzi popularized the race. Standardized, cookie-cutter tiefling à la 4e D&D are as boring as dragonborn if you ask me...

[Tanarii]

Yes, everything is "moon" something around Silverymoon! Mind you, you can make the same exercise with common keywords like "iron" or "dark" in broadly developed settings like Greyhawk and Eberron and yield similar results.Somehow the Known World (mostly) managed to avoid that, even though it's quite the definition of 'Kitchen Sink' campaign setting. :smallbiggrin:

[JAL_1138]

Yes, everything is "moon" something around Silverymoon! Mind you, you can make the same exercise with common keywords like "iron" or "dark" in broadly developed settings like Greyhawk and Eberron and yield similar results.

Not just around Silverymoon--the Moondeep Sea is in the Underdark, the Moonshae Isles are quite a ways southwest from it off the Sword Coast, the Moonsea is its own region and body of water off to the southeast...

[KorvinStarmast]

i started with OD&D and everybody wrote something for their world. Over time the good DMs/Settings gained traction. Then "modules" became available and "fantasy gentrification" began. Yeah, every DM had their own world. It was neat.

Greyhawk wasn't without its own troubles...1e Greyhawk was terrific as a generic World Of Adventure to set a campaign in, with a bit of a sense of whimsy, wonder, discovery, and even a bit of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, mixed with a hefty dose of feeling grounded in terms of politics, national alliances, history, and a fair bit of grit. It also managed to do the "fantasy kitchen sink" thing well by just being bat-guano bonkers and joyously blatant with it. I still have all that stuff.

Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. I have no use for Tieflings, just as I have little use for gnomes. But neither is as awful as Kender ...

One thing I like about Mordenkainen and company is the fact that they have so many spells named after them; Over at the Canonfire site the are some extended articles on the various named spells. Interesting for D&D trivia nuts. It apparently got started by Jack Vance (https://theevilgm.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/a-brief-history-of-vancian-magic/).

[Knaight]

And the community tends to hate new stuff sometimes. Like Dragonborn.

The D&D community is extremely resistant to playing majorly different games sometimes, yes. Many of the rest of us bailed on D&D for exactly that reason - it got stale, the same tropes got tiring, and we wanted to do something else, maybe keeping D&D in the mix (or giving it a quick shot when new editions came out), but not using it as anything close to a primary game.


Yeah, every DM had their own world. It was neat.
This is still pretty common - people are constantly talking about "my setting". It seems a bit weird to me - why is "setting" so often singular?

[Honest Tiefling]

Actually, weren't Shifters/Goliaths/Warforged/Changelings rather popular? I've seen complaints about Warforged, but mostly that they don't fit. Not so much the other three, and Goliaths did make their way into the SCAG.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The D&D community is extremely resistant to playing majorly different games sometimes, yes. Many of the rest of us bailed on D&D for exactly that reason - it got stale, the same tropes got tiring, and we wanted to do something else, maybe keeping D&D in the mix (or giving it a quick shot when new editions came out), but not using it as anything close to a primary game.


This is still pretty common - people are constantly talking about "my setting". It seems a bit weird to me - why is "setting" so often singular?
A lot of people I know only really build or customize one, because it represents a significant amount of time to build one up well. Much easier to keep reusing it, building on all your past experiences in that setting, than to create new ones wholesale each time. Even when DM's create multiple, one is usual their main setting.

I love designing worlds too much to settle down like that and be a one setting man, but others take their vows more seriously.


Actually, weren't Shifters/Goliaths/Warforged/Changelings rather popular? I've seen complaints about Warforged, but mostly that they don't fit. Not so much the other three, and Goliaths did make their way into the SCAG.
I've never heard anyone complain about anything but the Warforged. And the Changelings one time, and only that one time.

Though I wonder if the Shifters got a pass just because no one ever plays Shifters.

(sorry to all those Shifter players out there, whoever you six people are)

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. Maybe an earlier introduction via Planescape?

It depends, if we're talking about classic Tieflings, the quarter fiends with a thousand looks, who can fill any role from 'angsty over my heritage' to 'Tiefling stole forty cakes' to 'what, you never seen a bat winged Paladin before Berk?', then I adore them for the variety. Heck, they even feel like they're drawing from myth, I know there's legends where supernatural beings, be they demons or fairies, have part mortal kids. Certainly feels more believable to me than elves having kids with humans.

If we're talking about 4e+ 'pact born' Tieflings, then they're not Tieflings. Or at least, not the ones I fell in love with. Why do we need a race that looks entirely the same, what happened to human skin tones, prehensile toes, goat legs, and so on? So now I'm descended from nobles of some ancient empire? What about Jeff, who's the end result of a farmer accidentally spending a year in the nine hells? Wizards schools used to have to stress the importance of protection when summoning demons. Why can't a man have just decided to settle down with the nice lawful evil girl with the horns and smouldering eyes?

On the other hand, I'm a big meh on Dragonborn. I don't dislike then, bit I'd rather just use lizardfolk.


Not just around Silverymoon--the Moondeep Sea is in the Underdark, the Moonshae Isles are quite a ways southwest from it off the Sword Coast, the Moonsea is its own region and body of water off to the southeast...

I suspect there's a city called Moon Moon, which orbits the moon (not to be confused with Moonmoon, which is just what the moon is called near Silvery moon).

[Scots Dragon]

Actually, weren't Shifters/Goliaths/Warforged/Changelings rather popular? I've seen complaints about Warforged, but mostly that they don't fit. Not so much the other three, and Goliaths did make their way into the SCAG.

To be fair, goliaths come from a D&D 3.5E generic sourcebook (Races of Stone) and are the kind of obscure mountain dwelling people who could always have been there and not noticed 'cause they're the obscure mountain dwelling people. They also fit in with the general aesthetic of classic fantasy, being something almost but not quite like an orc or hobgoblin in general style. Worst thing you could say about them is that they're quite possibly redundant next to half-orcs and such in general, but that's really a shallow complaint at best because gnomes, halflings, and dwarves all exist without much of a problem.

As for the other races and the hypothetical insertion into the Forgotten Realms, I don't think any of them would be unfitting. No, not even warforged, because there are like a half-dozen different ancient wizardly empires stretching back thousands of years, and saying that they're the rediscovered and recently awakened invention of one of those, or possibly the creation of a more modern eccentric wizard, shouldn't be too difficult.

Fitting in the other Eberron races should be pretty easy. The shifters and changelings are pretty obvious as people who are basically half-races, with the shifters being part-lycanthrope and the changelings being part-doppelganger, and they might not necessarily be called shifters or changelings but the basic concept would almost certainly exist. And the kalashtar are, like in their Eberron core portrayal, an offshoot of humans with a strong amount of psionic powers. Quite possibly existing entirely in obscure numbers where psionic powers are somewhat more popular than arcane magic.

Naturally playing one of the non-Faerûn races can also easily be justified by the fact that the setting is canonically filled with planar portals and your character's origin could well just be 'I stumbled through a gateway somewhere near the border of Breland and I now have absolutely no idea where I am.'

[Naez]

I personally dislike it because it has too much lore. There's not enough room to write my own story without running into 15 lore reasons it wouldn't work. Also I'm not reading all that crap just so I can have fun DMing, with some FR fanboy at the table piping in with "Actually..." because they know more about the setting than I do.

[Scots Dragon]

I suspect there's a city called Moon Moon, which orbits the moon

There are a few, like Stardock, the Rock of Bral, something merely called the Castle, something else merely called the Citadel, Dragon Rock, and the Eye of the Sky, but none called Moon Moon.

I love Spelljammer.

[KorvinStarmast]

This is still pretty common - people are constantly talking about "my setting". It seems a bit weird to me - why is "setting" so often singular? I'll tell you why. The world I began to build in 1978-1979, and which got things added to it over the years (when I was inspired) is obviously never going to be completed. World building gets to be addictive, and it feeds itself. For quite a few years I ran adventures using the 1e World of Greyhawk and placing modules and my own adventures into it, because it was easier to do so and because I got hooked on modules. That, and I did a whole lot of filling in the blanks on a map of Tekumel as I ran three years worth of Empire of the Petal Throne games. (Not your stereotypical European story there!)

(As an example for what goes into world building, see Robin Hobb's world, the Six Duchies and other areas, of the Farseer stories and the Live Ship stories. What's awesome to me is that she built a second world for the Soldiers Son series ... it wasn't bad, but had nowhere near the depth of the other)

The critical thing I found in setting/world building was the need to have a lot of empty space between knots of civilization (maybe the old Outdoor Survival model just got ingrained in me) so that there is ample room to put a major adventure into that is "out in the wilderness" as well as adventures that take place in more or less civilized lands.

-----------

Musing. A few decades ago I read a load of FR novels. Finder's books; the Azure Bonds; The Cleric Quintet; the Crystal Shard and its follow on stories, and of curse the first three Drzzt books. I eventually just lost my taste for them. There were a few others by Elaine Cunningham I read that I can't recall just now, one involved a guy with a Slavic name on his vision quest. read the first Dragon lance series, the twins trilogy, and a few others before I finally had to stop. Krynn wasn't doing it for me.

[Rynjin]

Then when it introduces something a bit unique it's often poorly thought through, with the Wall of the Faithless and it's ridiculous implications for a generally goodish creator god being a perfect example.

Ugh. The Wall of the Faithless is what cemented my hatred of the gods in FR. In any other setting I could just ignore them and let them be bland somewhere else as long as I didn't play a Cleric. But no, I need to read up on them, find one that matches my alignment, and occasionally pretend to worship one of the lifeless mother****ers because there's mechanical consequences if I don't.


If I remember correctly the pre-Pathfinder Paizo adventure path, Age of Worms, featured a particular high-level Gandalf-esque guide who, if played in GREYHAWK®, could be replaced with Tenser.

Yes. He prefers to be called "Manzorian" in the AP because he basically wants to be left alone, but kinda gets roped into things. He's pretty much a non-entity for most of the AP so far (we're in book 6 or 7 now), but occasionally gives us a lift somewhere or does some Divinations when we ask questions.

He's pretty much played as being a fairly selfish guy, is why he won't help as much as he could. We are the "prophecized heroes" after all, and he put in his hours already.

Gave us some pretty sweet loot for selling him part of an artifact we had no real use for though.

It didn't bother me as much as some other instances in other settings or games where on multiple occasions the GM has had to throw out specific contrived circumstances for why Elminster can't help or whatever. Tenser isn't busy elsewhere, he didn't lose his magic, he isn't saving his strength for later...he's just kind of a prick. The Bard and Cleric (because Greyhawk doesn't eat fun, you're allowed to have gods like Ollidamara) metaphorically tweak his nose constantly, which is fun.

[Âmesang]

One thought that comes to mind—and it's probably as lame of an excuse as any—is that if the super special awesome NPCs solved everyone's problems then how could everyone else be expected to grow? How did they grow if their forebears solved their problems for them?

……reminds me of Son Goku from Dragon Ball. :smalltongue:

[lunaticfringe]

The gods, you have to have a religion or you are screwed for eternity, it's very Good always wins, don't get me started on Chosen nonsense, Mary Sues abound, the Novels affect the world, Cool things always get screwed over (Undermountain, Skullport), too many cooks in the kitchen.

A lot of this is older edition stuff as mentioned, but it gives people pause when something new comes out. They are already in **** This Mode. Current lore is pretty vague compared to previous edition which I like and they built in loop hole in case you a have a Canon Head in your group.

Still not a huge fan but it could be (and has been) worse.

[Sigreid]

Yes. He prefers to be called "Manzorian" in the AP because he basically wants to be left alone, but kinda gets roped into things. He's pretty much a non-entity for most of the AP so far (we're in book 6 or 7 now), but occasionally gives us a lift somewhere or does some Divinations when we ask questions.

He's pretty much played as being a fairly selfish guy, is why he won't help as much as he could. We are the "prophecized heroes" after all, and he put in his hours already.

Gave us some pretty sweet loot for selling him part of an artifact we had no real use for though.

It didn't bother me as much as some other instances in other settings or games where on multiple occasions the GM has had to throw out specific contrived circumstances for why Elminster can't help or whatever. Tenser isn't busy elsewhere, he didn't lose his magic, he isn't saving his strength for later...he's just kind of a prick. The Bard and Cleric (because Greyhawk doesn't eat fun, you're allowed to have gods like Ollidamara) metaphorically tweak his nose constantly, which is fun.

That's actually kind of awesome!

Player: "Mr. All Powerful Wizard, please help us stop Tiamat from entering and conquering the world!"

All Powerful Wizard: "Why? That crazy chick is no threat to me and she knows it."

[Ralanr]

That's actually kind of awesome!

Player: "Mr. All Powerful Wizard, please help us stop Tiamat from entering and conquering the world!"

All Powerful Wizard: "Why? That crazy chick is no threat to me and she knows it."

"I've got more important stuff to do anyway. Like gardening."

"But...the world!"

"The world needs more heroes kiddo. Plus I won't always be around to stop X from doing Y."

[Sigreid]

"I've got more important stuff to do anyway. Like gardening."

"But...the world!"

"The world needs more heroes kiddo. Plus I won't always be around to stop X from doing Y."

"Pfft. I've got nicer houses than this on a dozen more interesting worlds. It'll be fine."

[Tanarii]

"The world needs more heroes kiddo. Plus I won't always be around to stop X from doing Y."Seriously. How else are potential minio... uh, henchmen supposed to gain levels, if you do everything for them? Gotta leave them some opportunities to save the world. You can always step in at the last second if they eff it all up.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think I need to run the Realms, but turn Elminster into a senile old man who is creating more problems then he can solve. "The world will always need more heroes, Illiandriel!" "...That's not my name and I'm not an elf." "Good to hear!"

[Ralanr]

I think I need to run the Realms, but turn Elminster into a senile old man who is creating more problems then he can solve. "The world will always need more heroes, Illiandriel!" "...That's not my name and I'm not an elf." "Good to hear!"

So the main questline turns into playing hitman against a senile wizard?

I like that actually.

[JAL_1138]

I think I need to run the Realms, but turn Elminster into a senile old man who is creating more problems then he can solve. "The world will always need more heroes, Illiandriel!" "...That's not my name and I'm not an elf." "Good to hear!"

Pretty much Fizban, but actually senile?

A senile 20th-level Wizard could be horrifying.

"Get off my lawn!"

"It's a public square, sir—"

"GET OFF MY LAWN!" *Meteor Swarm* *city is on fire, thousands dead*

[Waterdeep Merch]

I think I need to run the Realms, but turn Elminster into a senile old man who is creating more problems then he can solve. "The world will always need more heroes, Illiandriel!" "...That's not my name and I'm not an elf." "Good to hear!"


So the main questline turns into playing hitman against a senile wizard?

I like that actually.

I've always liked 'magic corrupts'-type stories, like in Athas to some extent. It could be pretty awesome if constant magic usage eventually leads to mental breakdowns and insanity, meaning every powerful mage in the setting eventually becomes completely inept and insane. Imagine the damage that could cause to a world's stability, having your crazy grandpa flatten a city looking for his lost wand, which was in his robe the whole time.

[NecroDancer]

The reason high level NPCs don't stop the BBEG is because it's much more entertaining to watch the low level heroes try instead.

[Anonymouswizard]

The reason high level NPCs don't stop the BBEG is because it's much more entertaining to watch the low level heroes try instead.

I know want to run a game where the PCs and campaign villains are contestants on some reality show. They go through a dungeon, and everything just seems normal except for a lot of scrying the wizard can pick up. Finally, after months/years of hard work they make it to the BBEG's lair, punch his face in and close the portal to the Nine Hells he was planning to use to summon Asmodeus to the world, and Elminster pops up, congragulates them on being the first party to defeat the villain's plot, and gives them each 1,000,000gp and a trip to whatever destination they want.

[Sigreid]

Pretty much Fizban, but actually senile?

A senile 20th-level Wizard could be horrifying.

"Get off my lawn!"

"It's a public square, sir—"

"GET OFF MY LAWN!" *Meteor Swarm* *city is on fire, thousands dead*

"Brave heroes! Your quest is to get the Archmage Elminster to the old folks home before he hurts himself or shatters our reality."

[lunaticfringe]

I know want to run a game where the PCs and campaign villains are contestants on some reality show. They go through a dungeon, and everything just seems normal except for a lot of scrying the wizard can pick up. Finally, after months/years of hard work they make it to the BBEG's lair, punch his face in and close the portal to the Nine Hells he was planning to use to summon Asmodeus to the world, and Elminster pops up, congragulates them on being the first party to defeat the villain's plot, and gives them each 1,000,000gp and a trip to whatever destination they want.

So X Crawl in Standard Fantasy Setting in stead of Weird Modern Earth?

[Ralanr]

Pretty much Fizban, but actually senile?

A senile 20th-level Wizard could be horrifying.

"Get off my lawn!"

"It's a public square, sir—"

"GET OFF MY LAWN!" *Meteor Swarm* *city is on fire, thousands dead*

This made my day.

[Shadow_in_the_Mist]

Now, personally, I don't hate the Forgotten Realms. I first cut my D&D teeth on Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights, I have a fondness for the setting. But, I can understand why people complain about its prominence and even bash it. Beyond any personal arguments that've been brought up before this point - overabundance of canonical heroes, mostly - there's one big issue.

The Forgotten Realms is tired.

Faerun has been released in every single edition of D&D. There are more Forgotten Realms splatbooks in total than there are for almost any other two settings combined, saving Dragonlance, which was the only one with equivalent popularity in its time. And almost every single one of those splatbooks can be found or is already in a player's possession. There's not information overload, but it's just overdone in terms of things to use.

In the three years 5e has been printing, we've had Hoard of the Dragon Queen (set in Faerun), the Rise of Tiamat (set in Faerun), Princes of the Apocalypse (set in Faerun), Out of the Abyss (set in Faerun), Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (a campaign sourcebook dedicated to Faerun), Curse of Strahd (set in the Demiplane of Dread), Storm King's Thunder (set in Faerun), Volo's Guide to Monsters (heavily Faerun flavored), and Tales From the Yawning Portal (setting neutral). And ahead of us we have Tomb of Annihilation (set in Faerun) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (heavily Faerun flavored).

For comparison, within the three years of its initial printing, 4e gave us campaign & player's guides for Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Dark Sun, 6 planar sourcebooks (Manual of Planes, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, Shadowfell, Heroes of Shadow, Demonomicon), a Dark Sun adventure, an Eberron adventure, a Forgotten Realms adventure, twelve Nentir Vale adventures, an Underdark sourcebook, two Draconomicons, an Undead sourcebook, two gear sourcebooks, a mini-adventures sourcebooks, two new Player's Handbooks, and class expansions for every class released up to that point! Not counting the stuff in Dragon & Dungeon Magazine - I know some Ravenloft purists will sneer down their noses at it, but at least we got new domains of dread instead of yet another remake of the original Ravenloft adventure module!

It's not that Faerun is a bad setting, because, really, it's not. The Forgotten Realms is the most popular and iconic established D&D setting for a reason, and it's a definitive example of the D&D style of high fantasy.

But, come on, seriously, give us a break! We're sick of it! Steak isn't a bad thing, but eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, for three years is a little too much!

That's why people are bashing the Forgotten Realms: because it's overplayed at this point. We want something new. We want a Sigil Adventurer's Guide, or a Manual of the Planes at least, for more cosmological gameplay options! We want a Khorvaire Player's Guide, so we can go back to Eberron instead of the Sword Coast! We want a Starfarer's Manual, to bring Spelljammer back to life!

We're tired of the same old dungeoning crawling stories. They're the staple of D&D, but they're well and truly played out at this point. Until Faerun gets a rest, people aren't going to stop kicking it in the ribs.

[Ralanr]

Now, personally, I don't hate the Forgotten Realms. I first cut my D&D teeth on Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights, I have a fondness for the setting. But, I can understand why people complain about its prominence and even bash it. Beyond any personal arguments that've been brought up before this point - overabundance of canonical heroes, mostly - there's one big issue.

The Forgotten Realms is tired.

Faerun has been released in every single edition of D&D. There are more Forgotten Realms splatbooks in total than there are for almost any other two settings combined, saving Dragonlance, which was the only one with equivalent popularity in its time. And almost every single one of those splatbooks can be found or is already in a player's possession. There's not information overload, but it's just overdone in terms of things to use.

In the three years 5e has been printing, we've had Hoard of the Dragon Queen (set in Faerun), the Rise of Tiamat (set in Faerun), Princes of the Apocalypse (set in Faerun), Out of the Abyss (set in Faerun), Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (a campaign sourcebook dedicated to Faerun), Curse of Strahd (set in the Demiplane of Dread), Storm King's Thunder (set in Faerun), Volo's Guide to Monsters (heavily Faerun flavored), and Tales From the Yawning Portal (setting neutral). And ahead of us we have Tomb of Annihilation (set in Faerun) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (heavily Faerun flavored).

For comparison, within the three years of its initial printing, 4e gave us campaign & player's guides for Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Dark Sun, 6 planar sourcebooks (Manual of Planes, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, Shadowfell, Heroes of Shadow, Demonomicon), a Dark Sun adventure, an Eberron adventure, a Forgotten Realms adventure, twelve Nentir Vale adventures, an Underdark sourcebook, two Draconomicons, an Undead sourcebook, two gear sourcebooks, a mini-adventures sourcebooks, two new Player's Handbooks, and class expansions for every class released up to that point! Not counting the stuff in Dragon & Dungeon Magazine - I know some Ravenloft purists will sneer down their noses at it, but at least we got new domains of dread instead of yet another remake of the original Ravenloft adventure module!

It's not that Faerun is a bad setting, because, really, it's not. The Forgotten Realms is the most popular and iconic established D&D setting for a reason, and it's a definitive example of the D&D style of high fantasy.

But, come on, seriously, give us a break! We're sick of it! Steak isn't a bad thing, but eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, for three years is a little too much!

That's why people are bashing the Forgotten Realms: because it's overplayed at this point. We want something new. We want a Sigil Adventurer's Guide, or a Manual of the Planes at least, for more cosmological gameplay options! We want a Khorvaire Player's Guide, so we can go back to Eberron instead of the Sword Coast! We want a Starfarer's Manual, to bring Spelljammer back to life!

We're tired of the same old dungeoning crawling stories. They're the staple of D&D, but they're well and truly played out at this point. Until Faerun gets a rest, people aren't going to stop kicking it in the ribs.

It's almost like Wizards forgot they had other settings.

[Scots Dragon]

It's almost like Wizards forgot they had other settings.

Considering that even back during the D&D 3E era they farmed out Dragonlance and Ravenloft to other companies, treated Greyhawk as something to just steal the pantheon from and that's basically it, and basically neglected Planescape, Spelljammer, Birthright, Mystara and Dark Sun entirely...

This is not exactly a new problem.

[Ralanr]

Considering that even back during the D&D 3E era they farmed out Dragonlance and Ravenloft to other companies, treated Greyhawk as something to just steal the pantheon from and that's basically it, and basically neglected Planescape, Spelljammer, Birthright, Mystara and Dark Sun entirely...

This is not exactly a new problem.

...
They have so much. So much to work with. I don't even know what birthright is!

I may never see Eberron.

[Anonymouswizard]

...
They have so much. So much to work with. I don't even know what birthright is!

I may never see Eberron.

Brightright is at first glance a pretty standard fantasy. Elves, dwarves, and all that jazz.

Some time ago (I like to think about 1000 years, the book doesn't say) the old gods, who used to directly interfere with the world, got into a big war with the evil god of evil. This caused all the gods to die, and their godly essence went into the people gathered there (because the gods brought armies along, it makes sense they way they phrase it). The nearest eight became the new gods, while those further away got less power. Those who got less power either became monsters (who sometimes create weaker versions of themselves), especially if their power came from the evil god, or just gained some special abilities. Those who didn't become monsters became known as 'blooded', and being blooded is something that can be passed onto your children.

Then the blooded people, who bonded with the land they ruled, began fighting over who ruled the world. There was a great big empire, which ended 500 years ago, and now there's about five different kingdoms/regions each with many subregions generally ruled over by blooded kings.

There's some interesting stuff that isn't generally mentioned, such as it restricting the full mage class from unblooded humans (although the magician class is interesting, it's a double specialist that swears off all spells above 2rd level bar illusion and divination). Characters can be blooded or unblooded as the player chooses.

[SharkForce]

eh, hate to go all "hipster" on you, but i don't hate FR because we've gotten nothing but for the past 3 years. i don't think i've hated it since before it was popular to hate it or anything like that (i'm sure plenty of people hated it before me), but i've definitely been uninterested for a lot longer than 3 years. for example, i remember not really caring personally about the fact that 4th edition FR basically destroyed the setting, but thinking that wow, would i ever be angry if WotC cared enough to ruin any of the settings that i loved. my distaste for it extends at least as far back as the 3.x years. i wasn't super familiar with it in 2nd AD&D (my group didn't play in them), but i do remember consistently noticing that it seemed like the writers just didn't seem to be very good at balancing the game since most of the more broken stuff i knew of came from the forgotten realms.

and again, the prolific ridiculously high level NPCs. i cannot stress this enough. not just that elminster and pals are there, but like i said, every temple seems to have a powerful priest who can cast anything you might need as well as a few lesser priests, every mage guild has dozens of ridiculously powerful NPCs, every magic shop is run by a retired high level adventurer and has some of the most powerful weapons imaginable in stock and doesn't need to worry about robberies because even though the thieve's guilds are all full of high-level thieves, the town guard has a bunch of high level characters too and besides nobody wants to mess with whoever is making all these near-artifact magic items for sale, which you gotta figure is a concern when the magic shop seems to have no problem getting epic-tier loot... they must have some pretty close ties to the guy making all those items. besides, the thieve's guild must be shopping there anyways, because they all have 2-5 magic items if they're anyone of even the remotest significance in the guild. as will anyone else of even the tiniest significance. does the person have a name? well, they must be a high-level character with PC-class levels and a bunch of magic items, don't mess with them.

[Scots Dragon]

...
They have so much. So much to work with. I don't even know what birthright is!

I may never see Eberron.

Well to be fair, Eberron's the baby of the group and wasn't even introduced until the D&D 3.5E era.

In any case, here's a wee run down of the settings for the unfamiliar, since I'm assuming at least a few of the people in here might well be new to the whole D&D thing and wondering what some of us grognards are even talking about (not including some of the more obscure things that are over-complicated as to how they even tie in, like Blackmoor);

Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance are the big three of the old days, all introduced with campaign setting books and boxed sets during the AD&D 1E years. They're close to varying types of classical fantasy, with Greyhawk having more of a Howard, Vance, and Moorcock-inspired sword and sorcery flair, Dragonlance being far more in bed with Tolkien-inspired epic quests to save the world, and the Forgotten Realms arguably being somewhere directly between the two. Hence its popularity.

As a sidenote to this you have Mystara. This is the scarcely-mentioned illegitimate child of Dungeons & Dragons, despite the fact that it's absurdly popular in certain circles. It was the assumed default setting of the old Basic Dungeons & Dragons material. It was pretty cool, with a variety of interesting nations and odd connections to the real world, including the fact that its continental layout was similar to how our own world looked around 150 million years into the past.

You also had Ravenloft in this time, but it was an isolated adventure module back then and not a fully-fledged setting as of yet. When it did get its own setting, it became a weird extradimensional plane of gothic horror, where divine magic could at any moment fail and where the place was ruled by cruel, capricious dark lords who were if anything prisoners of this place and the torments it could inflict upon them.

Moving on with more AD&D 2E stuff, Birthright was a fairly standard fantasy setting, but with the twist that it focused around the heroes being rulers of various domains by virtue of divine bloodlines, with something of a Fisher King set-up for the most part. Not really my bag, personally,

Dark Sun was in effect a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, and owed a lot to the ideas behind stuff like Dying Earth and similar, where defiling magic had stripped the world bare of all plant and nearly all animal life, and the scorching heat of an over-powerful sun had dried up most of the water. It's best described as Tomb of Horrors, the campaign setting, because basic survival for more than a few minutes is bloody well difficult and characters start with hugely augmented ability scores and stats, as well as getting to start at 3rd level simply to have a chance to survive anything at all.

Planescape and Spelljammer could on some level be called meta-settings. They were weird and fantastical ways for settings like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms to interact with each-other, and in the process characters could run into weird stuff between the settings. With Planescape these were various extradimensional locations like the Astral Plane, and various incarnations of heaven and hell taken directly from a myriad of mythological interpretations. Central to this was the City of Sigil. For Spelljammer, this was magical spaceships travelling the void, with the solar systems of various settings contained within crystal spheres where more old-fashioned folkloric and mythological notions of how space and the planets worked were in fact literally true. For instance Greyhawk's crystal sphere has a geocentric arrangement.

There was also Council of Wyrms, where you could play a dragon. I kinda want to see this one updated first.

In the D&D 3E years, we had two major campaign settings introduced. The first was a tie-in to the Legend of the Five Rings game called Rokugan, and the second was of course the now very famous Eberron. I'm not a huge fan of Eberron personally; I find the fact that there are no real canonical novels or comics attached to it to be somewhat offputtish, since honestly one of them ain draws of a campaign setting for me has always been the way characters interact with the world at large, specifically because I got into this stuff by way of novels and video games to begin with. I was playing Baldur's Gate and reading some of the novels years before I even knew what polyhedral dice were.

Eberron by definition literally cannot have this, so I find it really, really hard to get invested.

[Ralanr]

I personally like Eberron because of it. It's like a toy box that you can put away when done. Then take out for a whole new adventure.


Edit: also cause Dungeonpunk.

[Scots Dragon]

I personally like Eberron because of it. It's like a toy box that you can put away when done. Then take out for a whole new adventure.


Edit: also cause Dungeonpunk.

Honestly while I'm really, really tired of that word, I don't even think it fits for Eberron. For me the term 'punk' describes that there are probably actual literal punk attitudes with regards to the actual setting itself, and while Eberron sometimes fails to have a tone, the tone it does definitely have isn't punk. It's pulp. Eberron is fundamentally a two-fisted adventure setting along the lines of 1930s pulp adventure stories. It's got a lot in common with Indiana Jones for instance. When it does go darker, it often goes for a more hard-boiled film noir style.

I thus posit that Eberron isn't dungeonpunk at all. It's dungeonpulp, much as genres like steamgoth and cybergoth have started to turn up.

[Ralanr]

Honestly while I'm really, really tired of that word, I don't even think it fits for Eberron. For me the term 'punk' describes that there are probably actual literal punk attitudes with regards to the actual setting itself, and while Eberron sometimes fails to have a tone, the tone it does definitely have isn't punk. It's pulp. Eberron is fundamentally a two-fisted adventure setting along the lines of 1930s pulp adventure stories. It's got a lot in common with Indiana Jones for instance. When it does go darker, it often goes for a more hard-boiled film noir style.

I thus posit that Eberron isn't dungeonpunk at all. It's dungeonpulp, much as genres like steamgoth and cybergoth have started to turn up.

Pulp probably fits it better. I tend to just use punk because that's how I've seen it described.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly while I'm really, really tired of that word, I don't even think it fits for Eberron. For me the term 'punk' describes that there are probably actual literal punk attitudes with regards to the actual setting itself, and while Eberron sometimes fails to have a tone, the tone it does definitely have isn't punk. It's pulp. Eberron is fundamentally a two-fisted adventure setting along the lines of 1930s pulp adventure stories. It's got a lot in common with Indiana Jones for instance. When it does go darker, it often goes for a more hard-boiled film noir style.

I thus posit that Eberron isn't dungeonpunk at all. It's dungeonpulp, much as genres like steamgoth and cybergoth have started to turn up.

Heck, I tend to use the terms 'steampulp' and 'cyberpulp' these days.

[VoxRationis]

I myself dislike Eberron far more than the Forgotten Realms (though perhaps that's because I haven't much exposure to sue-ishness from NPCs there, having been exposed only to one FR novel), for two overarching reasons:
1) It's dedicated to the parts of 3rd edition I like the least. Players are more important than the NPCs by virtue of being players, with allied NPCs deliberately neutered. Magical items are common and part of the general consumer culture. Clerical alignment isn't an issue, which isn't so much of a problem in and of itself, but leads to everyone in the 3.5 forum expecting it as general practice and whining at the very suggestion of having a character of any of the conduit classes (cleric, druid, warlock, whatever) lose power for doing something their patron doesn't like.
2) It seems to have been made with the sort of thinking that I thought was cool when I was 12. They go to great effort to make magical analogues of 20th-century technology, rather than just, you know, have magic. It makes little sense for a magic system to bend over backwards to emulate technological concepts that don't exist in-universe. Monster races have relaxed alignment restrictions, so the DM can stick in NPCs of whatever monster they think is cool and do "gotcha" moments when the players interpret it as an enemy. Overarching cultural norms and societal institutions more resemble the modern day than ancient periods, which since I can't actually see the characters involved, makes me feel like I'm not actually in a fantasy setting. (That particular issue infected the rest of 3.5 as things went on, resulting in books like Cityscape and Complete Mage being filled with quotes from low-level NPCs that sound like gas station attendants, rather than residents of pre-modern cities.)

Not that FR doesn't have any issues.

[Ralanr]

Your second reasoning is kinda one of the reasons I like it.

It adheres to my inner child of cool stuff. Magic powered trains and what not.

[Tetrasodium]

and the second was of course the now very famous Eberron. I'm not a huge fan of Eberron personally; I find the fact that there are no real canonical novels or comics attached to it to be somewhat offputtish, since honestly one of them ain draws of a campaign setting for me has always been the way characters interact with the world at large, specifically because I got into this stuff by way of novels and video games to begin with. I was playing Baldur's Gate and reading some of the novels years before I even knew what polyhedral dice were.

Eberron by definition literally cannot have this, so I find it really, really hard to get invested.

Thorn of breland (https://www.goodreads.com/series/45745-thorn-of-breland)
Dreaming Dark (https://www.goodreads.com/series/40656-the-dreaming-dark)
each three books. There are some written by someone else too but I haven't read them. The biggest & most important part of those books is that the people in them mostly are not really anyone particularly special & when big names pop up like The daughters or Merrix, they aren't directly taking any particular interest in the comparative nobodies beyond maybe being in the same room watching the big name give a speech or react believably to PC interference in something mysterious probably bad & less important than continuing whatever they disrupted things hoping to do

[pwykersotz]

I myself dislike Eberron far more than the Forgotten Realms (though perhaps that's because I haven't much exposure to sue-ishness from NPCs there, having been exposed only to one FR novel), for two overarching reasons:
1) It's dedicated to the parts of 3rd edition I like the least. Players are more important than the NPCs by virtue of being players, with allied NPCs deliberately neutered. Magical items are common and part of the general consumer culture. Clerical alignment isn't an issue, which isn't so much of a problem in and of itself, but leads to everyone in the 3.5 forum expecting it as general practice and whining at the very suggestion of having a character of any of the conduit classes (cleric, druid, warlock, whatever) lose power for doing something their patron doesn't like.
2) It seems to have been made with the sort of thinking that I thought was cool when I was 12. They go to great effort to make magical analogues of 20th-century technology, rather than just, you know, have magic. It makes little sense for a magic system to bend over backwards to emulate technological concepts that don't exist in-universe. Monster races have relaxed alignment restrictions, so the DM can stick in NPCs of whatever monster they think is cool and do "gotcha" moments when the players interpret it as an enemy. Overarching cultural norms and societal institutions more resemble the modern day than ancient periods, which since I can't actually see the characters involved, makes me feel like I'm not actually in a fantasy setting. (That particular issue infected the rest of 3.5 as things went on, resulting in books like Cityscape and Complete Mage being filled with quotes from low-level NPCs that sound like gas station attendants, rather than residents of pre-modern cities.)

Not that FR doesn't have any issues.

I agree, never liked Eberron myself. I love my sci-fi, but I don't want magic to be technology. Your points resonate with me.

[Sigreid]

Well to be fair, Eberron's the baby of the group and wasn't even introduced until the D&D 3.5E era.

In any case, here's a wee run down of the settings for the unfamiliar, since I'm assuming at least a few of the people in here might well be new to the whole D&D thing and wondering what some of us grognards are even talking about (not including some of the more obscure things that are over-complicated as to how they even tie in, like Blackmoor);

Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance are the big three of the old days, all introduced with campaign setting books and boxed sets during the AD&D 1E years. They're close to varying types of classical fantasy, with Greyhawk having more of a Howard, Vance, and Moorcock-inspired sword and sorcery flair, Dragonlance being far more in bed with Tolkien-inspired epic quests to save the world, and the Forgotten Realms arguably being somewhere directly between the two. Hence its popularity.

As a sidenote to this you have Mystara. This is the scarcely-mentioned illegitimate child of Dungeons & Dragons, despite the fact that it's absurdly popular in certain circles. It was the assumed default setting of the old Basic Dungeons & Dragons material. It was pretty cool, with a variety of interesting nations and odd connections to the real world, including the fact that its continental layout was similar to how our own world looked around 150 million years into the past.

You also had Ravenloft in this time, but it was an isolated adventure module back then and not a fully-fledged setting as of yet. When it did get its own setting, it became a weird extradimensional plane of gothic horror, where divine magic could at any moment fail and where the place was ruled by cruel, capricious dark lords who were if anything prisoners of this place and the torments it could inflict upon them.

Moving on with more AD&D 2E stuff, Birthright was a fairly standard fantasy setting, but with the twist that it focused around the heroes being rulers of various domains by virtue of divine bloodlines, with something of a Fisher King set-up for the most part. Not really my bag, personally,

Dark Sun was in effect a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, and owed a lot to the ideas behind stuff like Dying Earth and similar, where defiling magic had stripped the world bare of all plant and nearly all animal life, and the scorching heat of an over-powerful sun had dried up most of the water. It's best described as Tomb of Horrors, the campaign setting, because basic survival for more than a few minutes is bloody well difficult and characters start with hugely augmented ability scores and stats, as well as getting to start at 3rd level simply to have a chance to survive anything at all.

Planescape and Spelljammer could on some level be called meta-settings. They were weird and fantastical ways for settings like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms to interact with each-other, and in the process characters could run into weird stuff between the settings. With Planescape these were various extradimensional locations like the Astral Plane, and various incarnations of heaven and hell taken directly from a myriad of mythological interpretations. Central to this was the City of Sigil. For Spelljammer, this was magical spaceships travelling the void, with the solar systems of various settings contained within crystal spheres where more old-fashioned folkloric and mythological notions of how space and the planets worked were in fact literally true. For instance Greyhawk's crystal sphere has a geocentric arrangement.

There was also Council of Wyrms, where you could play a dragon. I kinda want to see this one updated first.

In the D&D 3E years, we had two major campaign settings introduced. The first was a tie-in to the Legend of the Five Rings game called Rokugan, and the second was of course the now very famous Eberron. I'm not a huge fan of Eberron personally; I find the fact that there are no real canonical novels or comics attached to it to be somewhat offputtish, since honestly one of them ain draws of a campaign setting for me has always been the way characters interact with the world at large, specifically because I got into this stuff by way of novels and video games to begin with. I was playing Baldur's Gate and reading some of the novels years before I even knew what polyhedral dice were.

Eberron by definition literally cannot have this, so I find it really, really hard to get invested.

Nice summary Narsil. I'll just add that for some of us Grayhawk is the definitive D&D setting because it was basically Gygax's world.

[JAL_1138]

Eberron is the kind of setting I should like, as there are several aspects of it I like--monster races aren't necessarily Always EvilTM, people bother to look at engineering applications for magic (something that's gotten me banned from playing gnomes at more than one table), etc.--but the specific implementation of those things, and much of the setting fluff, just aren't to my liking. Various and sundry reasons, most of them either personal taste or nitpicky rather than any general comment on quality, although it too strikes me as "trying too hard" in a lot of ways. That, and everyone wanting to shoehorn Warforged in where they don't fit thematically ever since it hit kind of irks me to the point it sours me on the setting, although that's hardly the setting's fault.

The thing I always liked about Spelljammer is that it didn't give a single solitary f#%^. It wasn't afraid to look stupid (it has talking Ferengi-wannabe merchant penguins whose enforcers ride idiotic cowardly flying pigs and call themselves the Deathsquealers, for Pete's sake, and of course it's also the setting that brought us the Giant Space Hamster and variants thereof), and didn't try to be cool, didn't seem to care one whit about being taken seriously, and while it very obviously had its tongue firmly in cheek, it also wasn't drowning in irony either. And it ended up crazystupidawesome for it. Not a single f#%^. It's gloriously bonkers. I can barely read just the Monstrous Compendium entries without breaking into a grin.

[MeeposFire]

For me Greyhawk and Dragonlance fill a very similar niche as FR and so if I was going to play a game in that vein I would take FR. I am just not impressed with Greyhawk or Dragonlance after playing them (of those two I apreciate Dragonlance more than Greyhawk despite the Gygax connection). If I had to choose one of the settings designed by the original two developers I would take what eventually became Mystara.

Ebberon has been one of my favorites. For the kind of stories I like to tell it is ideal.

FR is fun when I want to go a bit more traditional or if I want to get really direct with deities (which I did not think would be as fun as it is).

[DragonSorcererX]

I don't hate FR, it is just that the Forgotten Realms are a MESS with all those reboots, novels and Spelljammer stuff mixed into it, I'm reading the 2e Draconomicon and it is really funny to see the sages of Faerun discussing that crystal spheres stuff seriously... (nothing against Spelljammer though, only the hippos with guns).

[JAL_1138]

I don't hate FR, it is just that the Forgotten Realms are a MESS with all those reboots, novels and Spelljammer stuff mixed into it, I'm reading the 2e Draconomicon and it is really funny to see the sages of Faerun discussing that crystal spheres stuff seriously... (nothing against Spelljammer though, only the hippos with guns).

The Giff amuse me, because their fondness for MOAR DAKKA that doesn't favor their species' inherent abilities in the slightest (and guns are in fact awkward to use for them due to their physiology) for cultural/psychological reasons is a nice bit of semi-plausible incongruity.

And also, hippo-people who dress like third-world generals and British explorers in the artwork is just funny in and of itself.

To me they're an example of everything right with Spelljammer. They're a gloriously, magnificently stupid and amusing idea, but without trying too hard to be funny.

[Rynjin]

Thorn of breland (https://www.goodreads.com/series/45745-thorn-of-breland)
Dreaming Dark (https://www.goodreads.com/series/40656-the-dreaming-dark)
each three books. There are some written by someone else too but I haven't read them. The biggest & most important part of those books is that the people in them mostly are not really anyone particularly special & when big names pop up like The daughters or Merrix, they aren't directly taking any particular interest in the comparative nobodies beyond maybe being in the same room watching the big name give a speech or react believably to PC interference in something mysterious probably bad & less important than continuing whatever they disrupted things hoping to do

The Tim Waggoner Blade of the Flame novels were my intro to Eberron, and they were pretty good. Well, the first two. Haven't read the third.

If they weren't "canon"...so what? All of the canon novels is part of what makes FR such a pain. It both limits writers in what they can do, and when they do do something allowed it just adds another bit of pointless lore to the setting.

[Scots Dragon]

Nice summary Narsil. I'll just add that for some of us Grayhawk is the definitive D&D setting because it was basically Gygax's world.

I'd say Blackmoor personally because that was Dave Arneson's work, but yeah. I actually really like Greyhawk myself and will take every chance I can to at least vaguely reference the fact that the two settings are canonically linked to one-another through various methods. The fact that Elminster and Mordenkainen are canonically drinking buddies who share stories about various weird bits of magic or monsters they've run into lately, for instance.

[Anonymouswizard]

The Tim Waggoner Blade of the Flame novels were my intro to Eberron, and they were pretty good. Well, the first two. Haven't read the third.

If they weren't "canon"...so what? All of the canon novels is part of what makes FR such a pain. It both limits writers in what they can do, and when they do do something allowed it just adds another bit of pointless lore to the setting.

Heck, I'd say them not being canon is better, I think that the lack of a hard metaplot is the best thing for a setting. It means that Jeff Novelboy can play in Dave Settingbookonly's game and Dave can 100% legitimately (compared to like 80% with canon novels) respond to complaints with this is how I'm running it.

Heck, having a fixed 'start date' for everything mean the novels are just one person's interpretation of the setting. We've arguably seen several 'canon' versions of Eberron, one for each author. But a commitment to having no game products advance the timeline (or at least make any major changes) means that I don't have to keep up with what Eliminster is doing this week just so I'm not adventuring in the same town as him.

Heck, that's another thing I like about Eberron, a lack of powerful NPCs. We've had Forgotten Realms, where there's twentieth level wizards holding 'will carry skeels for food' signs, we've had Dark Sun which is set up so the only canon high level characters are villains, let's have a setting where 13th level is impressive instead. Sure, there are uberpowerful NPCs in Eberron, but when they're few and far between it's easy to argue that the 12 people who could also deal with this threat haven't heard of it.

[Solaris]

I don't particularly care for the Realms, but I wouldn't say I hate the setting... if we ignore the Elminster problem. It's just that I prefer my own settings (most of which are specialized to the sorts of game I'd like to run, rather than making the mistake of trying to be everything for everyone) or something I'm more fond of like Dragonlance or Eberron.

That, and that hack Salvatore hasn't gotten his mitts on those. Drizzt, killing Chewie, Drizzt's posse, killing Chewie, that stupid and godawful module The Accursed Tower, killing Chewie... There's nothing he's made that I really enjoy.

Honestly, The Accursed Tower is one of those things that exemplifies everything bad about the Forgotten Realms. It's a 1st-level module that has the players go out and find a sunken tower... and along the way they're helped by Drizzt and meet a few of Drizzt's buddies, none of whom are actually doing anything and could very easily go through and clear out all the monsters in the tower. The module even introduces Drizzt by having him save the party from a pack of monsters.

Take out the named characters, though, and it's a perfectly serviceable dungeon crawl.


Yeah, never really got why Tieflings seem to have avoided that fate. Maybe an earlier introduction via Planescape?

I suspect it's mostly due to how dragonborn were introduced.

The first iteration of the race was presented in Races of the Dragon and waffled between body horror nightmare fuel and sueism. That rather damaged the potential for their popularity, considering how mind-splinteringly awful they were. I guess 'do it like tieflings/aasimar, but with dragons!' was just a little too lame an idea.
Too bad they went with the worst concept I've seen attached to dragon-like PCs. It's even worse than half-dragons, conceptually. With half-dragons, the mind starts to rationalize how something like that could happen without being too squicky (I suspect polymorph spells get involved). With 3E dragonborn, thinking about it makes it all the more horrible. The awful has multiple levels, each squickier than the last.
I suspect the pictures of the archetypal characters transformed into dragonborn didn't help. They invoke body horror tropes, because the only thing recognizable about those characters is their outfits. Everything else about them was erased. That's... rather off-putting for a PC race.

The next iteration was introduced in the fandom-dividing 4E. While I rather like that version, it was damaged by association with 4E and everything WotC did with it.

[Wampyr]

I find the Forgotten Realms to be quite bland, but this is likely because I've used it and seen it used time and time again. The Realms is such a recognizable setting that it always feels familiar. Sure, familiarity is not as exciting as the wonder of exploring a setting that has not been the baseplate of countless hired authors and cheap, twenty-page adventures, but it is always suitable. Nearly anything can be inserted seamlessly into the Realms, making it great for inexperienced dungeon masters, and the adherence to other iconic fantasy setting templates outside of Dungeons and Dragons allows new players to feel right at home.

My point is that the Forgotten Realms is not necessarily bad, but it was sucked dry a while ago. Personally, I use it for introducing new players to the game.

[Tetrasodium]

The Tim Waggoner Blade of the Flame novels were my intro to Eberron, and they were pretty good. Well, the first two. Haven't read the third.

If they weren't "canon"...so what? All of the canon novels is part of what makes FR such a pain. It both limits writers in what they can do, and when they do do something allowed it just adds another bit of pointless lore to the setting.

agreed. I don't know or care if the thorn of breland/dreaming dark books were cannon or not because the main characters were not major world shaping high level npc's so it doesn't matter either way. Although I always thought sharn to be kind of a silly concept before reading the first dreaming dark book when the characters traveled to sharn. Both the sense of scale as well as things like the level of multiracial integration really clicked

[Kobard]

I myself dislike Eberron far more than the Forgotten Realms (though perhaps that's because I haven't much exposure to sue-ishness from NPCs there, having been exposed only to one FR novel), for two overarching reasons:
1) It's dedicated to the parts of 3rd edition I like the least. Players are more important than the NPCs by virtue of being players, with allied NPCs deliberately neutered. Magical items are common and part of the general consumer culture. Clerical alignment isn't an issue, which isn't so much of a problem in and of itself, but leads to everyone in the 3.5 forum expecting it as general practice and whining at the very suggestion of having a character of any of the conduit classes (cleric, druid, warlock, whatever) lose power for doing something their patron doesn't like.(1) I would argue against the idea that players in Eberron are more important by the simple virtue of being PCs. Actually, I would argue that it's quite the opposite. NPCs in Eberron often have more power than PCs by virtue of their connections. Sure, a PC may be more powerful than a level 1 aristocrat/level 1 sorcerer on paper, but there was very much a different in-game reality in which that same 1 Ari/1 Sor was also an important Brelish noble who carried far more political and military clout than a PC, regardless of their level.

(2) Magical items as "part of the general consumer culture" speaks to the magnificent world building of Eberron that too often gets ignored in nearly all fantasy settings: people will use what resources they have to their socio-economic advantage. Eberron presents a fantasy world where people actually labor and work. Guilds do things. They produce goods and they can do so with magic because it exists as a resource for them to do so. This does speak a bit to your second point below, but this results in Eberron being both "medieval" and "modern." This is largely because Eberron recognizes that this sort of industrial development would not necessarily be chronologically even.

(3) Cleric players may believe that a loss of their character's power is not subject to their deity, but their conduct, however, subject to the power of their church, which for some unknown reason gets forgotten by many who take a cavalier approach with their characters. And in the Eberron Campaign Book, it does say that a cleric's clerical status is (generally) more important than their relationship with their deity. But the same section does say that casting an evil spell is an evil act and that a cleric's alignment can change as a result of that, but the deity does not revoke their clerical powers. Again, this is, however, is not equivalent to saying that their actions have no consequences, particularly when it comes to the relationship between the cleric and their church.


2) It seems to have been made with the sort of thinking that I thought was cool when I was 12. They go to great effort to make magical analogues of 20th-century technology, rather than just, you know, have magic. It makes little sense for a magic system to bend over backwards to emulate technological concepts that don't exist in-universe. Monster races have relaxed alignment restrictions, so the DM can stick in NPCs of whatever monster they think is cool and do "gotcha" moments when the players interpret it as an enemy. Overarching cultural norms and societal institutions more resemble the modern day than ancient periods, which since I can't actually see the characters involved, makes me feel like I'm not actually in a fantasy setting. (That particular issue infected the rest of 3.5 as things went on, resulting in books like Cityscape and Complete Mage being filled with quotes from low-level NPCs that sound like gas station attendants, rather than residents of pre-modern cities.)(1) They do just have magic, but Eberron is also built from the recognition that people, who are not necessarily the PCs themselves, would apply magic for improving their standards of living, war and defense, and trade. This is a common criticism that I have heard lobbed against D&D settings, especially from newcomers to the game: i.e., why isn't anyone actually using this magic to do useful things with it? Eberron presumes that people do. The lightning rail is really the only real modern analogue - not 20th century- since what we think of trains actually came in the earliest parts of the 1800s. The elemental airship, for example, is hardly a 20th century analogue for a airplane, but maybe a dirigible, but it's more of a flying seaship, which is a concept hardly exclusive to Eberron.

(2) I don't see how monsters have more lax alignment restrictions is necessarily a bad thing, particularly given some of the more culturally problematic implications from alignment essentialism. I may like good vs. evil, but I also like recognition that the D&D world exists in shades of grey. It really helps with my immersion as opposed to any faux-"gotcha moments" as you describe.

(3) I would certainly not call the Renaissance/High Medieval Europe period that is cited as the inspiration for most fantasy "ancient." Overarching cultural norms and societal institutions are fairly all over the place in Eberron. In some respects it's more modern and in other ways not. The same is true for most D&D fantasy settings, especially as the D&D becomes a more inclusive hobby. And I will certainly admit that Eberron's pulp adventure aesthetic is inspired by the early 19th century (WW1, Doc Savage, etc.) and earlier eras of human history. And as an obvious point, neither Eberron, nor any given fantasy setting, would have the same cultural norms as our human history - medieval, modern, or otherwise - due to the complete absence of the particular historical institutions, events, and traditions that so uniquely shaped and defined our particular sense of cultural norms (e.g. the rise of the Christian church and other faiths, classical Greco-Roman cultural hegemony, the Enlightenment, etc.).

[EvilAnagram]

I know a lot of people pick their favorite setting based on aesthetic preferences or nostalgia, but I like to look at settings from a gamist perspective: does this setting enable adventuring in an interesting way?

Some of my personal favorites are favorites because they do such a great job enabling adventuring. The 4e Points of Light, for example, is a nebulous collection of loosely-coherent histories and legends stamped on am amorphous continent. It's lack of firm lines allows you to more actively participate in the world building, both as player and DM. Spelljammer works in a similar way.

Eberron goes in the exact opposite direction: it is a perfect and incredibly detailed photograph of a world on the edge, ready to fall apart at any moment. It asks you to take this image and run with it, and it provides plenty of ways to get yourself in trouble.

Forgotten Realms, however, is not a setting built around making gaming easier. It's a cool setting, in a generic way, but it stretches itself thin trying to be everything. It has to fit the books' canon, it has to mold to the newest design philosophy of WotC, it has to have the newest races and the latest classes. It tries too hard, and over the years the history has gotten so concrete it's hard for players to find room to make their own impact.

[VoxRationis]

(1) They do just have magic, but Eberron is also built from the recognition that people, who are not necessarily the PCs themselves, would apply magic for improving their standards of living, war and defense, and trade. This is a common criticism that I have heard lobbed against D&D settings, especially from newcomers to the game: i.e., why isn't anyone actually using this magic to do useful things with it? Eberron presumes that people do. The lightning rail is really the only real modern analogue - not 20th century- since what we think of trains actually came in the earliest parts of the 1800s. The elemental airship, for example, is hardly a 20th century analogue for a airplane, but maybe a dirigible, but it's more of a flying seaship, which is a concept hardly exclusive to Eberron.

I'm not saying that sufficiently available magic wouldn't be deployed in utilitarian ways, but coming up with faux-trains, for example, is just dumb. The magic system had to be twisted around in order to develop this new invention which exists for the purpose of imitating industrial Earth technology. Someone with the magic of a D&D setting that really wanted to transport goods and people over long distances quickly wouldn't make a magic item hundreds of kilometers long, susceptible to sabotage over its great length and requiring negotiations with land use and everything like that; rather, they'd make teleportation circles or carpets of flying, or abuse planar travel in some creative way. As Vaarsuvius said (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0344.html), I find the implementation here haphazard at best.

[Ralanr]

I'm not saying that sufficiently available magic wouldn't be deployed in utilitarian ways, but coming up with faux-trains, for example, is just dumb. The magic system had to be twisted around in order to develop this new invention which exists for the purpose of imitating industrial Earth technology. Someone with the magic of a D&D setting that really wanted to transport goods and people over long distances quickly wouldn't make a magic item hundreds of kilometers long, susceptible to sabotage over its great length and requiring negotiations with land use and everything like that; rather, they'd make teleportation circles or carpets of flying, or abuse planar travel in some creative way. As Vaarsuvius said (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0344.html), I find the implementation here haphazard at best.

But that wouldn't provide many jobs or competition, plus wizards have better things to do than get high enough level to play goods transporter all day.

I agree that teleportation is something that'd be used (reminds me of a D&D comic where someone points out that in a city of stairs no one would just lug stuff up thousands of steps). But economically it makes more sense to have a delivery system that supports engineers and security as it passes through separate areas.

Granted I'm justifying rule of cool.

[Kobard]

I'm not saying that sufficiently available magic wouldn't be deployed in utilitarian ways, but coming up with faux-trains, for example, is just dumb. The magic system had to be twisted around in order to develop this new invention which exists for the purpose of imitating industrial Earth technology. Someone with the magic of a D&D setting that really wanted to transport goods and people over long distances quickly wouldn't make a magic item hundreds of kilometers long, susceptible to sabotage over its great length and requiring negotiations with land use and everything like that; rather, they'd make teleportation circles or carpets of flying, or abuse planar travel in some creative way. As Vaarsuvius said (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0344.html), I find the implementation here haphazard at best.Just like anything with sufficiently advanced technology wouldn't make technological items hundreds of kilometers long, susceptible to sabotage over its great length and requiring negotiations with land use and everything like that? House Orien does have teleportation. It's just more expensive and inefficient than the lightning rail. And as a result of the destruction of a number of key lines, they are focusing more on the teleportation side of things to remain competitive with House Lyrander's air and seas shipping.

Also, how are magic carpets more sensible or more intuitive than magic trains that amount to large cargo carriages connecting major cities and trade routes? :smallconfused:

[MeeposFire]

agreed. I don't know or care if the thorn of breland/dreaming dark books were cannon or not because the main characters were not major world shaping high level npc's so it doesn't matter either way. Although I always thought sharn to be kind of a silly concept before reading the first dreaming dark book when the characters traveled to sharn. Both the sense of scale as well as things like the level of multiracial integration really clicked

No Ebberon novel are "cannon". They are only cannon for its own set of stories and your setting if you want to add that. That was done on purpose and I do agree that it is a good idea for the general setting.

Oddly I do the same for FR. I do think the extent that people involved with FR have to contort everything to fit every edition change and novel ever written has harmed the setting in terms of what they have to publish as the setting. I run it as Ebberon and I take the setting as it was in AD&D and then add what I like from other editions of it and use my edition of choice. So I could play a campaign based on Baldurs Gate computer game which was AD&D but play it using 4e or 5e rules. I just use what I like which is mostly not later Realms material.

[Anonymouswizard]

Heck, I can believe that a 3rd level character can be skilled enough to fix a magic train. On that note.

IIRC in 3.5 Eberron level 10 is considered legendary, or at least worthy of great renown. Minimum level to teleport? 9. Reasonable that teleportation might exist as a high end 'fast transport/delivery service' with the maybe couple of hundred mages who can do it. Minimum level to know you'll land where you want? 13, probably a handful of mages of that power level. Unless it's urgent I'll take the magic train, thank you very much. The minimum level to set up a permanent teleportation link between two cities? Which I'm unlikely to do or allow between me and a city I don't like, I should point out. 17th level. Unfortunately Jeff the archmage isn't available to set up the teleportation circle, he's busy researching how to make a teleportation orb, or adventuring with his mates, or sorting out the monstrous fungi in his his garden, or working for your rivals, or manipulating the king, or...

On the other hand, if you can get enough high level magicians, welcome to the Tippyverse, which assumes a very different magical revolution to Eberron's (which, as far as I can tell, is based on low level magic being extremely common rather than high level magic solving problems). There's nothing wrong with Tippyverse concepts either, although they're even less likely to already as an official product.

[Tetrasodium]

I'm not saying that sufficiently available magic wouldn't be deployed in utilitarian ways, but coming up with faux-trains, for example, is just dumb. The magic system had to be twisted around in order to develop this new invention which exists for the purpose of imitating industrial Earth technology. Someone with the magic of a D&D setting that really wanted to transport goods and people over long distances quickly wouldn't make a magic item hundreds of kilometers long, susceptible to sabotage over its great length and requiring negotiations with land use and everything like that; rather, they'd make teleportation circles or carpets of flying, or abuse planar travel in some creative way. As Vaarsuvius said (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0344.html), I find the implementation here haphazard at best.


You are missing that just because members of house Orien (?) are able to operate the travel gateway network of teleport circles that rich people can use to transport to other permanent gateways, house Cannith cannot operate it. House Cannith can however say "I bet I could put these bits & bobs together in order to mke a high speed shipping network that is orders of magnitude faster than travel by coach & significantly less expensive than travel by horseback. We are going to make an even bigger fortune!". as a result you now have the House Orien gateways and the House Cannith built lightning rail, -and- the House Cannith built airships operated by House Lyrander because each group is able to do something that the others cannot in that transport/shipping triangle.



Heck, I can believe that a 3rd level character can be skilled enough to fix a magic train. On that note.

IIRC in 3.5 Eberron level 10 is considered legendary, or at least worthy of great renown. Minimum level to teleport? 9. Reasonable that teleportation might exist as a high end 'fast transport/delivery service' with the maybe couple of hundred mages who can do it. Minimum level to know you'll land where you want? 13, probably a handful of mages of that power level. Unless it's urgent I'll take the magic train, thank you very much. The minimum level to set up a permanent teleportation link between two cities? Which I'm unlikely to do or allow between me and a city I don't like, I should point out. 17th level. Unfortunately Jeff the archmage isn't available to set up the teleportation circle, he's busy researching how to make a teleportation orb, or adventuring with his mates, or sorting out the monstrous fungi in his his garden, or working for your rivals, or manipulating the king, or...

On the other hand, if you can get enough high level magicians, welcome to the Tippyverse, which assumes a very different magical revolution to Eberron's (which, as far as I can tell, is based on low level magic being extremely common rather than high level magic solving problems). There's nothing wrong with Tippyverse concepts either, although they're even less likely to already as an official product.

Right, nobody can really cast teleport & there is no large scale personal teleport service as a result. However, members of house Orien with a greater mark of passage can once per day. More importantly, members of House Orien born with any mark of passage can operate a gateway circle more often just as they can operate a sending stone all day long an unlimited number of times

[JackPhoenix]

Thorn of breland (https://www.goodreads.com/series/45745-thorn-of-breland)
Dreaming Dark (https://www.goodreads.com/series/40656-the-dreaming-dark)
each three books. There are some written by someone else too but I haven't read them. The biggest & most important part of those books is that the people in them mostly are not really anyone particularly special & when big names pop up like The daughters or Merrix, they aren't directly taking any particular interest in the comparative nobodies beyond maybe being in the same room watching the big name give a speech or react believably to PC interference in something mysterious probably bad & less important than continuing whatever they disrupted things hoping to do

He's right, though, that the novels aren't canon. FR novels are established part of setting lore, Eberron novels are more like "stuff that could've happened in the setting".

Which is what I like about Eberron (and conversely, what made me dislike Warcraft): all lore I need is in the splatbooks. I don't have to deal with "But this village was destroyed when Mary Sue#358 fought Overpowered Villain#982 in the book XXX! And we're in year YYYY, book ZZZ clearly states that the area we've just got through was just empty wilderness, the inn we've visited was founded 20 years later!" I don't have to buy 20 books of dubious storytelling to be up to date on the current state of the setting.

However, I still steal bits from the novels I've read to put in my game as a part of the background. It's inspiration, not requirement... it's no different from me coming up with reasons why the Mourning happened... There's no canon answer, so the players can't argue that things didn't happened like that, and I can make the reason different in each campaign I run without confusing them. What's in the setting books is true, everything else can change.

[Zippdementia]

I've noticed that a lot of people seem to hate the forgotten realms, or at least on these forums. Why is this? Is it just because they're the default setting and people want to be different? Is it because people haven't actually read FR lore and just assume it's all standard medieval fantasy?

I like that it is a world of dungeons, with ancient tombs and passageways filled with rich stories (and more mundane riches). The problem I have with it is all the political factions, because I feel it requires the DM to study more before jumping in. The modules are full of "here's how the harpers feel" and "this is what the zhentarim are trying to do." It fits well with the Witcher 3 and Skyrim feel that DND5 tries to promote, but such a prebuilt world can make GMs feel hesitant to mess around with it too much, or make their own content, for fear they'll get some detail wrong.

But then, when I play, I pretty much ignore all of that. I keep Waterdeep as a major city and pretty much everything else I just set in "generic fantasy land somewhere over here to the left of Waterdeep."

[Laurefindel]

I don't have to buy 20 books of dubious storytelling to be up to date on the current state of the setting.

Yeah, I can't keep up with the lore introduced in novels either.

But honestly, you really don't *have* to read any of the novels to enjoy FR. Just pick your favourite edition of the Realms and play with that book. Who cares if you're not up to date with what the setting is supposed to be 5 years after the base year of the splat book. Kill off elminster as your first act of DMing if he's that much trouble. Nobody is twisting your arm to read anything.

D&D is not a competition of who masters the setting the most. FR has several issues, but that of the novels is easily solved by ignoring them IMO.

[Draco4472]

I think it's less that people hate the setting, and more of that fact that 5e has only used the FR setting for their products (Curse of Strahd technically being an exception), and people are sick of it.

[Anonymouswizard]

Right, nobody can really cast teleport & there is no large scale personal teleport service as a result. However, members of house Orien with a greater mark of passage can once per day. More importantly, members of House Orien born with any mark of passage can operate a gateway circle more often just as they can operate a sending stone all day long an unlimited number of times

Eh, I'm not that familiar with Eberron, I was just trying to reason out why magic trains might be considered a reasonable alternative to teleport networks. It sounds like Eberron actually goes with 'few people can operate the teleport network -> monopoly on teleportation -> magic railroad introduced as a cheaper alternative to try and steal some of the transportation market'. Works well and I should brush up on my dragonmarks before talking about Eberron in future.

[MeeposFire]

Generally speaking there are not enough scions that are powerful enough to use teleport and not enough uses to do what really needs to be done. The lightning rail allows easy transport for many people and a lot of goods to major cities across the continent especially before the war. Orien does most of the transporting not just teleporting and the lightning rail they also do over the road caravans (because most towns are NOT on the rail line only the major cities). Other houses like Lyrander do air ship service to try to compete but it is only competitive for certain sectors of the economy.


As for the hate I see very little hate from the general gaming pubic. The hate is much more common here than it is in the gaming stores and the like that I have been in. Anecdotal of course but also makes sense since if FR was so generally hated they would not use it.

[SharkForce]

Yeah, I can't keep up with the lore introduced in novels either.

But honestly, you really don't *have* to read any of the novels to enjoy FR. Just pick your favourite edition of the Realms and play with that book. Who cares if you're not up to date with what the setting is supposed to be 5 years after the base year of the splat book. Kill off elminster as your first act of DMing if he's that much trouble. Nobody is twisting your arm to read anything.

D&D is not a competition of who masters the setting the most. FR has several issues, but that of the novels is easily solved by ignoring them IMO.

for the people who have mentioned this as being the problem, it seems mostly the concern is that their players have read everything and know every exhaustive detail and are going to be constantly pointing out the differences.

with that said, why would I want to play in a campaign setting if I'm not actually going to use it? if I'm going to need to build my own setting, why start from the forgotten realms which has all kinds of connections I don't want?

[SiCK_Boy]

Not being part of the "hater" (or even just the "I don't like it") camp, I cannot speak for those people.

I love this setting, in good part because I've been following it for many years, have read through a huge amount of books and material, and as such, I feel like it is a known/familiar setting for me.

But I can understand how it would be intimidating to some (although I would like to argue that the 5th edition stuff has been exclusively concentrated on the Sword Coast for the last 3 years, so it is a relatively limited space to learn about). I'm less inclined to agree with those who state that the setting is so developed that there is no more room for a DM to create new stuff (if you want room to create your stuff, why even look at a pre-designed setting in the first place?), or those who claim that major NPC are an issue (these NPC exist in ALL the settings).

But the part I really don't get, however, is how some people express a fear, or an issue, with the possibility that, as DM, they will be facing players that are more knowledgeable than them about the setting and, even, about having player "force them" to include things or characters that they don't want in their version of the FR.

Seriously, if that is your main issue with the Forgotten Realms, your problem is with your players, not with the setting or the publisher. I would never consider pulling **** like that on my DM as a player, and I cannot even conceive why a player would do that. It's one thing to let the DM know about your expectation as a player (ex: it would be cool if we could meet Elminster in Shadowdale), but there is just no way, as a player, you should feel entitled to "force" the DM to include that NPC if he doesn't want to. The DM just has to state that the NPC is not there, end of story

[DragonSorcererX]

Eberron goes in the exact opposite direction: it is a perfect and incredibly detailed photograph of a world on the edge, ready to fall apart at any moment. It asks you to take this image and run with it, and it provides plenty of ways to get yourself in trouble.

This what I like about Eberron.


Forgotten Realms, however, is not a setting built around making gaming easier. It's a cool setting, in a generic way, but it stretches itself thin trying to be everything. It has to fit the books' canon, it has to mold to the newest design philosophy of WotC, it has to have the newest races and the latest classes. It tries too hard, and over the years the history has gotten so concrete it's hard for players to find room to make their own impact.

And this is what I dislike about FR, it is not "Plug n' Play"...

[SharkForce]

those NPCs don't exist to nearly the same degree in other settings, or at least not the ones i've seen. now, perhaps that's because there haven't been as many specific details written about those other settings, because i have to admit there always seem to be absurdly high-level NPCs all over the place in adventurs, and the same often happens when someone provides details about a city or any location, so that probably doesn't help. for whatever reason, a lot of writers felt the need to put ridiculous high level adventurers all over the place.

but in the settings i like, that doesn't happen nearly as often. in birthright, for example, there are a decent number of level 5-10 NPCs detailed, but very few even in the low teens (and only a handful in the high teens, most of which were ancient beings of some kind, usually being the things that needed solving, and since there weren't dozens of level 20 characters sitting around you knew exactly why they hadn't been solved). and those level 5-10 characters are generally busy (typically they're the leaders of kingdoms, businesses, churches, etc, and have the bloodline of a god, though a few are key lieutenants of those people), and since the crisis at hand is generally not world-ending (birthright just didn't feature that kind of scenario prominently), it's perfectly reasonable for them to stay focused on their own part of the setting (that said, if there is a problem in their part of the setting, they'll deal with it to the best of their ability). and their own part of the setting can easily be half a dozen provinces or more, not to mention they're usually involved with their neighbours in some way, plus the handful of other decently leveled NPCs in that area (one might control the area politically, while another two or three might have control of merchant's guilds or thieve's guilds, yet others might be key religious leaders trying to become the main religion of each region fighting even against other churches of the same deity, and you might have one or more wizards squabbling over control of the ley lines as well). in fact, most likely you *were* one of those named higher level people, that was actually the default idea behind the setting that you would be one of those local lords/merchants/etc, so if you ever wondered why one of those people weren't solving the problem, you only had yourself to blame for their inactivity :P

so no, not every setting has something like elminster, let alone the sheer number of high level NPCs that forgotten realms has.

[Tetrasodium]

Eh, I'm not that familiar with Eberron, I was just trying to reason out why magic trains might be considered a reasonable alternative to teleport networks. It sounds like Eberron actually goes with 'few people can operate the teleport network -> monopoly on teleportation -> magic railroad introduced as a cheaper alternative to try and steal some of the transportation market'. Works well and I should brush up on my dragonmarks before talking about Eberron in future.

The beauty from a GM standpoint is that you don't really need to know everything to an exhaustive level. There are 5 nations that used to be part of one unified nation for the last ~1000 years, but the last hundred or so have been a civil war originally started over a murky & contested line of succession. The nations are all pretty distinct (ie karnath turned to necromancy & has a lot of undead soldiers, zilargo is gnomeland, Breland had the most cropland & pulled through pretty well compared to most of the others but still got beat up. Breland is most like generic urban to rural fantasyish. Breland had the old spy network & is part of what helped it in the war. Thrane is heavily influenced by the church of the silver flame[think church of pelor mixed with catholic church sorta but more grounded]), Cyre is basically a magically irradiated wasteland known as the mournlands for the most part. Much of what remained of cyre was seized by Darguun (warlike goblinoids) & droaam (feudal society of monstrous races everyone expects to fall apart that keeps defying expectations & remaining stable). There are a few other regions like the eldeen reaches (dinosaur riding halflings) & such. The main religions are Soverign host (a pantheon of all the goodish gods), the dark six (the little e evil gods of the pantheon after a schism at some point in the past.), & the silver flame (a monotheistic hardline church dedicated to keeping evil in check/eradicating evil). Alaso are a couple cults blood of vol (for personal empowerment & pretty decent all things considered), emerald claw (former mercenary hard line wing of blood of vol), cults of dragon below (eek bad guys,just kill em before they kill more people types). nobody is really good or bad & you ca n always shade in things by saying "how would x & y get along"

[lunaticfringe]

The beauty from a GM standpoint is that you don't really need to know everything to an exhaustive level. There are 5 nations that used to be part of one unified nation for the last ~1000 years, but the last hundred or so have been a civil war originally started over a murky & contested line of succession. The nations are all pretty distinct (ie karnath turned to necromancy & has a lot of undead soldiers, zilargo is gnomeland, Breland had the most cropland & pulled through pretty well compared to most of the others but still got beat up. Breland is most like generic urban to rural fantasyish. Breland had the old spy network & is part of what helped it in the war. Thrane is heavily influenced by the church of the silver flame[think church of pelor mixed with catholic church sorta but more grounded]), Cyre is basically a magically irradiated wasteland known as the mournlands for the most part. Much of what remained of cyre was seized by Darguun (warlike goblinoids) & droaam (feudal society of monstrous races everyone expects to fall apart that keeps defying expectations & remaining stable). There are a few other regions like the eldeen reaches (dinosaur riding halflings) & such. The main religions are Soverign host (a pantheon of all the goodish gods), the dark six (the little e evil gods of the pantheon after a schism at some point in the past.), & the silver flame (a monotheistic hardline church dedicated to keeping evil in check/eradicating evil). Alaso are a couple cults blood of vol (for personal empowerment & pretty decent all things considered), emerald claw (former mercenary hard line wing of blood of vol), cults of dragon below (eek bad guys,just kill em before they kill more people types). nobody is really good or bad & you ca n always shade in things by saying "how would x & y get along"

The Eldeen Reaches are Hippie to Insane Druid Forestville, Talenta Plains are Halfling Jurassic Park.

[Tetrasodium]

The Eldeen Reaches are Hippie to Insane Druid Forestville, Talents Plains are Halfling Jurassic Park.



I think you are right. The best part is that neither has a FR style library of bull **** to screw up everywhere else if you make a mistake like that. but given that they are on opposite ends of khorvaire (http://web.mit.edu/kbyers/Public/dnd/khorvaire-map-colored.jpg), it's not really a mistake likely to come up to a relevant degree in a game beyond "hmm you sure? yea maybe" type thing. The same applies to the houses & such.

[MeeposFire]

The beauty from a GM standpoint is that you don't really need to know everything to an exhaustive level. There are 5 nations that used to be part of one unified nation for the last ~1000 years, but the last hundred or so have been a civil war originally started over a murky & contested line of succession. The nations are all pretty distinct (ie karnath turned to necromancy & has a lot of undead soldiers, zilargo is gnomeland, Breland had the most cropland & pulled through pretty well compared to most of the others but still got beat up. Breland is most like generic urban to rural fantasyish. Breland had the old spy network & is part of what helped it in the war. Thrane is heavily influenced by the church of the silver flame[think church of pelor mixed with catholic church sorta but more grounded]), Cyre is basically a magically irradiated wasteland known as the mournlands for the most part. Much of what remained of cyre was seized by Darguun (warlike goblinoids) & droaam (feudal society of monstrous races everyone expects to fall apart that keeps defying expectations & remaining stable). There are a few other regions like the eldeen reaches (dinosaur riding halflings) & such. The main religions are Soverign host (a pantheon of all the goodish gods), the dark six (the little e evil gods of the pantheon after a schism at some point in the past.), & the silver flame (a monotheistic hardline church dedicated to keeping evil in check/eradicating evil). Alaso are a couple cults blood of vol (for personal empowerment & pretty decent all things considered), emerald claw (former mercenary hard line wing of blood of vol), cults of dragon below (eek bad guys,just kill em before they kill more people types). nobody is really good or bad & you ca n always shade in things by saying "how would x & y get along"

Droaam actually was land owned by Breland (it is located on the western side of Breland which is the opposite side as Cyre was located). What you would be thinking are the Valenar which were mercenary elves that worship the spirits of their ancestors brought in by Cyre to fight on their behalf in the war. The Valenar eventually decided that in payment for their blood being spilled that they get what they said was old land of theirs and took a chunk of Cyre as their own.

[Tetrasodium]

Droaam actually was land owned by Breland (it is located on the western side of Breland which is the opposite side as Cyre was located). What you would be thinking are the Valenar which were mercenary elves that worship the spirits of their ancestors brought in by Cyre to fight on their behalf in the war. The Valenar eventually decided that in payment for their blood being spilled that they get what they said was old land of theirs and took a chunk of Cyre as their own.

your right. Valenar is basically savage warlike elves :D

[lunaticfringe]

I think you are right. The best part is that neither has a FR style library of bull **** to screw up everywhere else if you make a mistake like that. but given that they are on opposite ends of khorvaire (http://web.mit.edu/kbyers/Public/dnd/khorvaire-map-colored.jpg), it's not really a mistake likely to come up to a relevant degree in a game beyond "hmm you sure? yea maybe" type thing. The same applies to the houses & such.

Yeah it's not a huge deal, I don't know the Dragonmarked Houses for ****.

Cannith are Humans who make stuff. (Probably spelled wrong)
Half Orcs Find Stuff (Thrask?)
I think there are 2 Halfling Houses and I know Healing is one of them if there is two.
Dwarves do Wards and Abjuration?
One Elf (or Half Elf idk) split into 2 houses but it's the same mark, Ninja Spy Stuff.

[JumboWheat01]

Yeah it's not a huge deal, I don't know the Dragonmarked Houses for ****.

Cannith are Humans who make stuff. (Probably spelled wrong)
Half Orcs Find Stuff (Thrask?)
I think there are 2 Halfling Houses and I know Healing is one of them if there is two.
Dwarves do Wards and Abjuration?
One Elf (or Half Elf idk) split into 2 houses but it's the same mark, Ninja Spy Stuff.

I only know the ones in DDO off the top of my head.

Humans have Cannith (Making,) Deneith (Guarding,) Orien (Transportation) and Tharashk (Finding, shared with Half-Orcs.)

Dwarves have Kundarak (Warding.) They're also bankers.

Elves have Phiolan (Shadow.) They share the mark with Thuranni, and don't like each other.

Halflings have Jorasco (Healing) and one that starts with G that I can't spell that's based around Housing.

Half-Elves have Lyrandar (Storm) and they're competing with Orien for transportation.

Gnomes have Sivis (Scribing.)

The second halfling one is the only one I know off the top of my head that's not in DDO, because I just like halflings that much. I also know that the Drow Elves do NOT halve a mark. Since it's supposed to be a sign of destiny or some stuff, that doesn't bode well for the drow.

[lunaticfringe]

I only know the ones in DDO off the top of my head.

Humans have Cannith (Making,) Deneith (Guarding,) Orien (Transportation) and Tharashk (Finding, shared with Half-Orcs.)

Dwarves have Kundarak (Warding.) They're also bankers.

Elves have Phiolan (Shadow.) They share the mark with Thuranni, and don't like each other.

Halflings have Jorasco (Healing) and one that starts with G that I can't spell that's based around Housing.

Half-Elves have Lyrandar (Storm) and they're competing with Orien for transportation.

Gnomes have Sivis (Scribing.)

The second halfling one is the only one I know off the top of my head that's not in DDO, because I just like halflings that much. I also know that the Drow Elves do NOT halve a mark. Since it's supposed to be a sign of destiny or some stuff, that doesn't bode well for the drow.

Neat. Nobody ever wanted to play Dragonmarked in our games so they were just fancy NPCs.

[IShouldntBehere]

Too many elves. I hate elves.

[Tetrasodium]

Neat. Nobody ever wanted to play Dragonmarked in our games so they were just fancy NPCs.

the cost for them in 3.5 was too high since you needed to take a feat for each tier & stuff that reuired dragonmark to use was super rare or pretty pointless in most games. I've heard keith baker in some of his recent podcasts mention how he has a bunch of spells ritualable for relevant dragonmark holders, it's not normally a ritual spell but there is a ritual that works if the caster has a mark from the right house. I hope they do some of that kind of thing for eberron in 5e

[MeeposFire]

Neat. Nobody ever wanted to play Dragonmarked in our games so they were just fancy NPCs.

Gallanda was the other halfling house and is about hospitality and were originally using their power to give travelers safe places to rest at any place at any time along with food and drink. They now operate hotels and the like.

Half elves also have Medani which are great at finding danger and stopping it. They have skills at detection and so make for good security and investigation.

Tharashk is the half orc (and human) house and are the house of finding and so make excellent bounty hunters, tracking, and surveyors. They have also started recruiting "monsters" from Droaam to compete with Deneith in the mercenary market.

[furby076]

I grew up reading FR books. My first d&d game was the Finders Stone. I was so excited when my DM made my ranger a harper. I played most of the video games, going back to SSI for the PC. The next time a D&D game comes out for PC, unless its online world like WoW, I'm all over it.

i ain't embarassed to say, I LOVE ME SOME FR. Followed by Dragonlance and then Darksun. I also really like Eberron (might be cause i played a ten year single campaign there)

[Ralanr]

Too many elves. I hate elves.

Ay. The best elves are usually the dead ones. But you get one or two you can rely on.

[Anonymouswizard]

Ay. The best elves are usually the dead ones. But you get one or two you can rely on.

Second best thing Spelljammer invented was the ability to fire living elves into stars. Always wondered how the gods would react if my character went on a mission to round up every elf in the system and eject them from the crystal sphere.

[Sigreid]

Ay. The best elves are usually the dead ones. But you get one or two you can rely on.

Played a Qualinesty elf noble ranger in a Dragon Lance campaign back in 2e that hated nobles and felt elves were the root of all evil. DM didn't really know how to handle that. :smallbiggrin:

[Kobard]

Eh, I'm not that familiar with Eberron, I was just trying to reason out why magic trains might be considered a reasonable alternative to teleport networks. It sounds like Eberron actually goes with 'few people can operate the teleport network -> monopoly on teleportation -> magic railroad introduced as a cheaper alternative to try and steal some of the transportation market'. Works well and I should brush up on my dragonmarks before talking about Eberron in future.At this point, it would be self-competition. House Orien is the Dragonmarked House with the de facto monopoly on businesses pertaining to land transportation, teleportation, and couriers. Teleportation, however, comes with high fees.

The creation of the Lightning Rail was a collaborative innovative effort between House Cannith (Mark of Making -> magical engineering and artifice) and House Sivis (Mark of Scribing -> elemental binding and contracts), though House Orien became the ones responsible for running it. The first lightning rail was created in 811 YK, and King Jarot, the last reigning king of Galifar, began expanding the Lightning Rail in 845 YK. The Last War began in 894 YK and ended in 996 YK, so the main lines of the Lightning Rail were likely constructed during the time of unification when there was less need for multinational diplomacy for negotiating the construction.

The Mournlands, a magical anomaly covering the entirety of the old nation of Cyre, destroyed a number of key Lightning Rail lines across the continent. Also towards the end of the War, House Cannith and House Sivis also created flying ships that allowed House Lyrander (Mark of Storm -> air/sea shipping and weather) to transport goods (and troops) across the sky quicker than House Orien could across land. These two recent disadvantages has resulted in House Orien looking into making teleportation more economically feasible.



Halflings have Jorasco (Healing) and one that starts with G that I can't spell that's based around Housing.House Ghallanda (Hospitality) -> inn keepers.


Half-Elves have Lyrandar (Storm) and they're competing with Orien for transportation.There is also House Medani (Detection), which is the house with the detectives who are on too-close-for-comfort terms with the kingdom of Breland.


I also know that the Drow Elves do NOT halve a mark. Since it's supposed to be a sign of destiny or some stuff, that doesn't bode well for the drow.The dragonmarks only appear on races who live in Khorvaire, which pertains to the Dragon Prophecy, which is one of the great unsolvable mysteries of the setting. It's why the dragons have such a keen interest in watching Khorvaire. Of course, this may not bode well for shifters, changelings, kalashtar, warforged, or even the longtime goblinoid inhabitants who all lack dragonmarks. But I believe they were not given dragonmarks primarily so that the old playable races could have cool stuff that would make them worth playing.

[JackPhoenix]

The dragonmarks only appear on races who live in Khorvaire, which pertains to the Dragon Prophecy, which is one of the great unsolvable mysteries of the setting. It's why the dragons have such a keen interest in watching Khorvaire. Of course, this may not bode well for shifters, changelings, kalashtar, warforged, or even the longtime goblinoid inhabitants who all lack dragonmarks. But I believe they were not given dragonmarks primarily so that the old playable races could have cool stuff that would make them worth playing.

Perhaps not. Dragonmarks didn't appeared at the same time, and if the theory there must be 13 marks is correct, there's still hope for other races. Propably not warforged (as they are constructs), and lady Vol still has her mark, even if its inactive at the moment. However, if someone managed to take her down, perhaps a new mark would appear to replace the Mark of Death, or that mark would find a new host race.

On the other hand, Thuranni-Phiarlan split may also lead to Mark of Death reappearing. They are elves, and it's not inconcievable that they mixed their blood with house of Vol in the far past. As far as we know, that sort of thing leads to aberrant marks, but maybe there's pure enough Vol bloodline hiding amongst Thuranni... and once again, perhaps it's Vol's Ultimate Dragonmark that prevents the re-emergence of Mark of Death somehow...

And honestly, as far as I'm concerned, this was one of two biggest sins of 4e Eberron. Having dragonmarks available to anyone, regardless of race (the other being Baator forced into the cosmology)

[Squiddish]

I think the people worried about the sheer amount of lore should remember that FR almost always has an unreliable narrator. As a DM, this means you can play around. As a player, this means you can make your character a similarly unreliable narrator.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I think the people worried about the sheer amount of lore should remember that FR almost always has an unreliable narrator. As a DM, this means you can play around. As a player, this means you can make your character a similarly unreliable narrator.

"I attack the hobgoblin."

"Ha! It's a decoy! It explodes, you die!"

"Ah, but was I attacking the hobgoblin? No. I am at the inn, quaffing mead."

[JumboWheat01]

"I attack the hobgoblin."

"Ha! It's a decoy! It explodes, you die!"

"Ah, but was I attacking the hobgoblin? No. I am at the inn, quaffing mead."

I can see a high level wizard doing that. "Oh, there goes another Simulacrum. Blasted things, they don't grow on trees!"

[NecroDancer]

"I attack the hobgoblin."

"Ha! It's a decoy! It explodes, you die!"

"Ah, but was I attacking the hobgoblin? No. I am at the inn, quaffing mead."

Fool! the mead is actually poison!

D&d the Batman Gambit

[KorvinStarmast]

A senile 20th-level Wizard could be Hilarious.
"Get off my lawn!"
"It's a public square, sir—"
"GET OFF MY LAWN!" *Meteor Swarm* *city is on fire, thousands dead* (Grandma's Voice) And that's why we can't have nice things like magic: it's dangerous.

I've always liked 'magic corrupts'-type stories, like in Athas to some extent. Yes. The price of power. (A personal favorite of mine are Robin Hobb's stories of the Farseer's, and how magic fits into that. Magic exacts a price ...)
The reason high level NPCs don't stop the BBEG is because it's much more entertaining to watch the low level heroes try instead. Absolutely. See Gandalf for a fine example. :smallbiggrin:

As a sidenote to this you have Mystara. Not a bad world at all.


You also had Ravenloft in this time, While I appreciate the world building that went into this, I never really liked Ravenloft.


Dark Sun was in effect a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, At the time, it was a needed antidote to the bloat in D&D.

Planescape and Spelljammer could on some level be called meta-settings. Planescape is surely an interesting creation, however, the times I played in it the game simply felt too urban.

If anyone wants something new, find a pdf version of the original Empire of the Petal Throne, I think the maps are included in that, and start at level 1. (A box looks like it costs about 300 bucks on ebay: my box only has the cover remaining, and the rule set is very much used and marked up. Maps still in great shape).

The feel of Tekumel is definitely a nice change from medieval fantasy.

[ZorroGames]

(Grandma's Voice) And that's why we can't have nice things like magic: it's dangerous.
Yes. The price of power. (A personal favorite of mine are Robin Hobb's stories of the Farseer's, and how magic fits into that. Magic exacts a price ...) Absolutely. See Gandalf for a fine example. :smallbiggrin:
Not a bad world at all.

While I appreciate the world building that went into this, I never really liked Ravenloft.
At the time, it was a needed antidote to the bloat in D&D.
Planescape is surely an interesting creation, however, the times I played in it the game simply felt too urban.

If anyone wants something new, find a pdf version of the original Empire of the Petal Throne, I think the maps are included in that, and start at level 1. (A box looks like it costs about 300 bucks on ebay: my box only has the cover remaining, and the rule set is very much used and marked up. Maps still in great shape).

The feel of Tekumel is definitely a nice change from medieval fantasy.

Yes, Science Fantasy would be different.

[JAL_1138]

Yes, Science Fantasy would be different.

Most of the science part of Tékumel happened thousands of years prior; some ancient tech still works, and is highly valuable, but most of the setting is at medieval tech, and there's magic and demons.

Greyhawk, Mystara, and Blackmoor (largely where Greyhawk and Mystara get theirs) have sci-fi elements thrown in, too. The City of the Gods, wrecked spacecraft...

The first published adventure for any RPG, ever, "The Temple of the Frog," in Supplement 2: Blackmoor, had a villain who was a human-looking extraterrestrial (with a spaceship, via which he still occasionally had to send falsified reports, IIRC. I don't recall if he was actually a human, or had his appearance altered so he could fit in), who was initially sent to observe and report, but ended up going bad and leading a temple of frog-cultists breeding an army of mutant frog-creatures to unleash on the world. Players could find his still-functional craft.

Tékumel's main difference is far less in the sci-fi elements in the backstory and much more in how thorough Barker was in setting up the various unique cultures, including a full conlang for one of them, and the fact that much of it is drawn from Indian, Middle-Eastern, and Meso-American myth and culture (and not in stereotypical pastiche like Al-Qadim and Maztica were). If you totally ignored the sci-fi bits, it would still have a wildly different feel and aesthetic than pseudo-Medieval-European fantasy.

[DragonSorcererX]

the cost for them in 3.5 was too high since you needed to take a feat for each tier & stuff that reuired dragonmark to use was super rare or pretty pointless in most games. I've heard keith baker in some of his recent podcasts mention how he has a bunch of spells ritualable for relevant dragonmark holders, it's not normally a ritual spell but there is a ritual that works if the caster has a mark from the right house. I hope they do some of that kind of thing for eberron in 5e

There was the Heir of Siberys PRC who made you into a badass, specially if you were from House Lyrandar, it gave you Storm of Vengeance 1/Day! Imagine that in 5e!

[Nifft]

I'm on the fence about the Forgotten Realms.

I've greatly enjoyed the video games which came out of the FR franchise: the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games have provided a lot of fun, and the video game format makes a lot of lore shoehorning and NPC railroading totally forgivable.

I've been pretty frustrated by tabletop games set in the Realms, though.

In a single-player video game, it's kinda interesting having a deep lore monologue which tells you all about these super-interesting NPCs (who each have a life story, and who make tragic mistakes, unlike you oh mighty and heretofore unknown hero CHARNAME). The story is about the NPCs, and they all either help CHARNAME or they die and the PCs loot their history-laden corpses.

That sort of NPC-centric story is fine in a single-player video game, where the plot is linear so the player's choices CANNOT matter that much, but it's awful on a tabletop.

So: I have generally positive feelings towards FR, but I don't want to play there in a non-video game.

[Hagashager]

As others have said. FR has a very large number of Uber Heroes who are written into most storylines of the setting. If, by chance, they're not, then the players themselves often insist they be encountered as cameos.

FR is also a VERY high magic setting, I almost think "Medieval Fantasy" is not the best definition for FR, it's closer, if not outright, a Magitek setting with characters enjoying living standards comparable to modern reality, just with magic instead of technology.

MY problem though, which I've not seen be mentioned, is the oversaturation of DIVINE powers and the complete irrelevance of mortal characters. Even stories that seemingly have humble setups (stop a bandit group) inevitably spiral into comsic conspiracies involving the gods conniving against each other and the mortal characters succeeding largely because a god willed it.

[mephnick]

MY problem though, which I've not seen be mentioned, is the oversaturation of DIVINE powers and the complete irrelevance of mortal characters. Even stories that seemingly have humble setups (stop a bandit group) inevitably spiral into comsic conspiracies involving the gods conniving against each other and the mortal characters succeeding largely because a god willed it.

My main problem with it. My setting has no real gods (although some high CR planar beings are pretty close) so everything that happens is the respinsibility of mortals or things that can be challenged.

So to jump into FR with it's diety shenanigans is very hard for me.

[Laurefindel]

As others have said. FR has a very large number of Uber Heroes who are written into most storylines of the setting. If, by chance, they're not, then the players themselves often insist they be encountered as cameos.

Well, the big wigs are part of the storyline because of the novels, but if you take the setting as described in the 3.0 Forgotten Realms campaign setting book, as DR 1372 (using that example because I'm not familiar with 4e setting and 5e doesn't really have a full campaign book), the head honchos don't take that much of a big place in the setting.

They are described as leaders; Allustriel is pushing for her alliance with other cities, Khelben (sp?) is splinting his group from the harpers, Vandergaast is passing on his mantle of war-wizard in chief, Elminster is... chillin' in his village. Those are actually fertile grounds for more adventure, I never felt they were upstaging the PCs. Yet.

[Scots Dragon]

Well, the big wigs are part of the storyline because of the novels, but if you take the setting as described in the 3.0 Forgotten Realms campaign setting book, as DR 1372 (using that example because I'm not familiar with 4e setting and 5e doesn't really have a full campaign book), the head honchos don't take that much of a big place in the setting.

They are described as leaders; Allustriel is pushing for her alliance with other cities, Khelben (sp?) is splinting his group from the harpers, Vandergaast is passing on his mantle of war-wizard in chief, Elminster is... chillin' in his village. Those are actually fertile grounds for more adventure, I never felt they were upstaging the PCs. Yet.

To add to that, there are specific sidebars and sections dealing with this particular topic.

I refer again to the Simbul_of_Aglarond Fallacy (https://web.archive.org/web/20151005042327/http://community.wizards.com/forum/forgotten-realms/threads/1109636), with an extract from the post in question.


According to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, the population of Faerûn consists 68,000,000 inhabitants. Therefore, in an average Forgotten Realms campaign consisting of four players, there are a minimum number of 67,999,996 corresponding NPCs. According to the Dungeon Master's Guide, 50% of all randomly generated NPCs will be of a chaotic evil, neutral evil, or lawful evil alignment. That in turn means that on average there are 33,999,998 potential NPC villains for a good or neutral oriented party to slay, thwart, or capture; or alternatively for the PCs to be slain, be thwarted, or be captured by.

By contrast, there are 9 named Chosen of Mystra in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and arguably less than 12 (alive, dead, in-between, or otherwise out of the picture) Chosen of Mystra in total who have been named and/or given statistics in subsequent 3E/3.5 official Forgotten Realms accessories and web enhancements.

Therefore, not only do we have the statistically illogical possibility of the Player Characters ever randomly encountering, being aided, or being confronted by such a character, we likewise have the supremely illogical possibility of such NPCs acting as an automatic impediment, plot-foil, or spotlight stealer for the adventure, or as the only line of defense against the forces of evil.

Even if each of the 9 named and listed Chosen of Mystra in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting suddenly and illogically chose to drop everything at hand and devote ALL their efforts to tracking down, ambushing, and neutralizing 1 random evil aligned NPC villain per day---be it a 2nd level Aristocrat who has imprisoned the 1st level party, or a 30th level archwizard who could one day threaten Faerûn itself---it would take them 10,350 years to kill every evil being in Faerûn who had been in existence at the time they began such an endeavor. Incidentally, in a fraction of that time frame the entire population of evil beings in Faerûn would have been replaced as more beings are born (whose alignments will be just as random as those who had birthed them), and in turn gain experience and power over the years, and fill the vacant roles of conqueror king, corrupt baroness, thief extraordinaire, vile cultist, foul necromancer, or any of a dozen fantasy campaign villain clichés.

That of course is ignoring the rather obvious fact that non-player characters of the power and position of Mystra’s Chosen have an infinite number of other things that aught to be occupying their time, apart of single-handedly "ruining" an adventure before it begins; such as ruling a country, and/or heading an organization, and/or instructing apprentices, and/or creating new spells and magic items, and/or tending to the Weave, and/or pursuing the goals of their patron Goddess, and/or dealing with their own agendas, foes, and goals (as opposed to the agendas, foes, and goals of the PCs), or even in the case of a few of the Chosen--the rather simplified daily agenda that comes with being outright dead.

[Ninja-Radish]

Personally, I hate the Realms as well, though I use them in my game only because 5E doesn't have any other setting books. These are my reasons for Realms hate:

1. Too urban and settled, there are basically no unexplored areas left. I love running exploration games.

2. Too many uber NPCs. I hate them all and pretend they don't exist in my campaign.

3. Too generic and filled with tropes. I prefer more unusual settings like Dark Sun, Eberron, and Planescape.

That said, I'm not passionately anti-Realms. It just doesn't inspire me as a DM. I come up with stories in spite of the setting, not because it gives me cool ideas.

[JumboWheat01]

I see Dark Sun get brought up quite often. Just what is the Dark Sun setting?

[Nifft]

I see Dark Sun get brought up quite often. Just what is the Dark Sun setting?

1/ A topic for a different thread -- this one is pretty specific in its topic.

2/ Alternately, my friend Google could tell you all about Dark Sun.

[Arkhios]

I see Dark Sun get brought up quite often. Just what is the Dark Sun setting?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun

[Millstone85]

I see Dark Sun get brought up quite often. Just what is the Dark Sun setting?In short, it is postapocalyptic D&D. You mages, you blew it up! The desert is harsh, cities are worse. That kind of thing.

[lunaticfringe]

I see Dark Sun get brought up quite often. Just what is the Dark Sun setting?

You gon die.

The Psionics Setting, I say this because the Handbook was almost required.

Home of deadliest module in D&D which ends with a massive chance to troll the party if they make it that far. Which they won't.

[Rynjin]

Home of my favorite playable race, the Thri-Kreen.

They're bug people. They LOVE elves. Especially with a bit of barbecue sauce.

[JumboWheat01]

I don't see how there's enough meat on an elf to cook up, much less flavor without overpowering it.