Agreed. Also, the frequency with which they apparently deal with Realms-shattering disasters successfully is one of the classic Mary Sue traits, "Incredible Deeds Done Off-Screen".
Well, its not -quite- done off scene, since we have novels and other media covering it. So, I think they avoid that Mary Sue trap by virtue of the simple fact that the Realms are a crappy place to live, constantly under the threat of some evil force bringing an end to the world. I mean, hells. The forces of light have just been -lucky- so far with all the crap going on. All they need to do is lose one battle, and the world is covered in darkness. Stretches believability after a while, but there it is.
Right, but if your storyline is Tiamat going on a rampage over the Sword Coast, one of them takes on a bit more urgency than the others.
The loss of the Weave is very urgent. Or do you want Shar the dark goddess to be ascendant as well as Tiamat? And, frankly, to the people of the three dwarven kingdoms, two human city-states, and one elven forest battling the orcs feel that starving to death from a seige is kind of an urgent problem to them. After all, if its not solved, they'll be dead faster.
Tell them to priorize all you want - they already have their priorities. Its just not the same ones. You want to complain about people without urgency? How about the dragons and the factions bickering over how to fight the Cult of the Dragon? They're already on the scene.
Which is the issue with ultimately, the NPC's HAVE to get involved, because it's not like they're just going to let the party fail and see their world get destroyed. Even if the PC's run in there and blow themselves up, an NPC is going to be concerned at some point, come in, and presumably not let the bad guys win. And then go back to killin' orcs.
If they failed their personal mission, it'd be the end of the world for a lot of folk.
And I detect no small amount of disdain for orcs. Lets take a moment and reflect - orc warlords
are world threatening disasters. Take a look at them in other settings. Sauron is the inspiration for Gruumph One Eye. Gannon from the Legend of Zelda games is basically an orc warlord. There's some people that don't think there's danger from the orc hoards, but the simple fact of the matter is that, storywise, they're as much of a threat to everyone as a goddess or demonlord made manifest. Evil Overlords are bad, no matter the flavor.
At that point, why bother with the Realms at all? Why not just write your own campaign setting?
Because there's more to the Realms than two NPCs. And that's really the issue here, I think. People aren't complaining about Everis Cale, Farideh, or Manshoon. Or any of the other random archmages or power players in the game.
Put another way, the uber-NPC's were written as exceptional characters, but any PC ranger is a ranger in a world where Drizz'zt is already a ranger, any PC wizard is a wizard in a world where Elminster is already a wizard. And neither of those two yobbos is supposed to be what the story you're telling at your table is about, but they're also kind of impossible to avoid.
They're actually absurdly easy to avoid. See, its not a question of uber-NPCs at this point. Its a question of the PCs ever bothering to do anything but run away and get help from someone bigger than them. Why help the village under goblin threat if you can go to a local city-state and request troops? Other than the time involved, the difficulty in finding said help, need to actually convince them to actually help and not do something else, all the while leaving said village expodesed to being raided and slaughtered?
Really, any enemy in the game can be brought down with enough longbows and people to shoot them. Why don't we go get a militia for every problem, then? Going for help is not a reaction that most adventurer parties develop. Let alone tracking down some large name and dragging it in. And, during the times when that happens, do you know what I like to call it?
Plot hook
The Simbul is not good. She is Chaotic Neutral. She is also sort of insane. And the main reason Thay avoided attacking. Her subjects are terrfied of her too.
Might as well tell you she is not Queen anymore.
She's actually beyond dead. Her soul has kinda been obliterated, so good luck with her doing anything at all anymore.
It honestly looks more like complaints about something just because it's popular. It's "hip" to hate Elminister. It's Geek Cool to bag on Drizz't. In a setting where you have tens of thousands of pages of details - an entire Encyclopedia Britannica level of detail about the setting, getting fixated on two characters seems a bit myopic.
Agreed.
There are actually three novel lines going on right now - Drizz't, Elminster, and Farideh (Chosen of Asmodeus). During the Sundering, we had three other Chosen come into play - Everis Cale (Chosen of Mask), a Kleef (Chosen of Helm), and Stedd (a Chosen of Lathander). Each has a set of powerful allies. These are all heroes that are active in the Realms
right now.
Why is no one complaining about Farideh, Everis, Kleef, or Stedd's group ruining everything? What about Minsc and Boo? They're back and hanging out in Balder's Gate, last I checked.