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lowkey13
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Yes, FR is the default and is considered the most popular campaign setting.On the other hand... Forgotten Realms ("FR") is the default? I was hoping that I could get a little input from the knowledgeable people here.
1. Why was FR chosen as the default? I understand that 5e had a lot of feedback, so is this the most popular campaign setting in general?
There's lots of things to dislike about FR. I personally detest the pantheons of gods of FR. The entire setting has a certain feel to it that just doesn't fit for a lot of people. Doesn't mean anything other than its not for you.2. This is more of a question, perhaps, to enlighten me- why do I hate FR so much? I love different campaign settings. Spelljammer and Planescape to connect them, home-brew, Greyhawk, Eberron, Krynn, Al-Qadim/Kara-Tur (yes, I know that they may be considered "part" of FR, but they are standalone), and so on. But ever since FR came out, I disliked everything about it. I hated Elminster. I hated the mythos and the world. I hated, hated, hated Drizzt.
There's a lot of possibilities that its impossible to tell without more input from yourself. Have you tried playing a video game like Balder's Gate or Neverwinter Nights set in the Realms?I honestly don't remember why I disliked it so intensely, which is odd, and it looks like there will be a lot of material coming down the pipeline. Thoughts?
1. Why was FR chosen as the default? I understand that 5e had a lot of feedback, so is this the most popular campaign setting in general?
As the others say, FR is by far the most popular campaign setting. WotC has run surveys, even recently, and the results are the proof.
FR is also a campaign setting that has tons of material already published. So it may be easy to pick a well-established region and write an adventure there, tying it to already existing organizations, power groups and famous characters. Not to mention that they could just even pick some old material, publish a 5e conversion of it with minimal design effort, and a lot of people will buy it.
FR also has novels and video games, so it might be easier to pull customers from one media to another.
2. This is more of a question, perhaps, to enlighten me- why do I hate FR so much?
A few possible reasons (whether truthful or not) might be:
- the metaplot, which gets in the way of people playing campaigns that are supposed to influence the history of the Realms
- uber-powerful NPC heroes who could always easily save the day, but they can't otherwise the PC have nothing to do, but they also might if the PC fail... all of which might make the PC feel like they are not really the protagonists of the story, but kids to be tutored into predefined outcomes
- uber-powerful NPC villains who you would like the PC to kill, but if you do then they'll be there again in next book because the authors haven't killed them... except sometimes they do, but then it wasn't part of your story
- if you try to DM a game of FR, there is always someone at the table who knows more than you and can make you look bad
- the setting is so huge that it has nearly everything imaginable... too many ingredients in the same soup, and the soup risks tasting of nothing
- when the edition changes, rules are reflected into cataclismic events, often in moronic ways of cosmic proportions
- the world is so full of magic and magic items that it's hard not to be forced to play high-magic or lose some suspension of disbelief
And this is from someone who actually like FR.
edit: The realms feels like it was made to have stories be told to you, not stories you help build...
Are there any ideas as to what will happen with the FR setting in the future with 5e? As I stated before, I'm running my own homebrew campaign set in Greyhawk right now (converted Phandelver, going to run converted I3-I5 next), but I'm wondering about long term. Do the references to other campaign worlds in the core books mean that they plan on settings for 5e there?