Well, I find it an incoherent mess. But I've disliked it for a long time, even before the 4e/5e changes. I just don't like the stuff on it, super NPCs running around, the factions, the excessive focus on a single peninsula, the "everybody picks a god", the gods walking the earth, how it is a thinly refluffed version of the real world, along with extremely simplistic analogues of real world cultures, and most of all the wall, that evil wall.
I'm starting to use fantasy Egypt a lot more now. Might use Rome avd Greece more as well.
Is that what happened? I could never figure out where in the timeline 5E was supposed to sit.The complete chaos of 4E and the hurried 5E retcons made things even worse. It simply does not feel like a coherent world because frankly it isn't.
The FR is ok(ish) when you cut out a very small part of it and ignore the rest. But taken as a whole it is just a gigantic mess with its "everything even remotely related to fantasy gameplay must be in it" kitchen sink approach. The complete chaos of 4E and the hurried 5E retcons made things even worse. It simply does not feel like a coherent world because frankly it isn't.
Any particular resources you use or are you just going with your own knowledge of mythology and history?
I ask because I've had an idea for a campaign setting in the back of my mind for quite a while which is situated around the Mediterranean using the myths of the various locations to fill out the available races as well as throwing in a bunch of free license to set up some areas as unique. As an example:
Egypt
Rulers: Tiefling
Religion: Demon worshippers (Taken from R.E Howard's Stygia and expanded upon. Not sure if I want to use the Egyptian Pantheon as the Demons or have their worship underground), Bes (worshipped by the slaves and halflings as a protector deity)
Common Races: Tieflings, Humans (slaves building the tiefling monuments), Halflings (Taking the place of Kushites. Raids, and are raided by, Egypt)
If the world is so large that none of that other stuff has any impact on the campaign at all, then the PCs feel small and unimportant. By the time I hit level 20 in a game, I expect to have seen just about everything worth seeing in the world.What's wrong with kitchen-sink settings? Especially when not everything exists in every location?
And City State of the World Emperor, though not very large in geographical terms when compared to the others, is just chock full of DM goodness and adventure ideas.