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[Parmandur]

I don't understand the whole Realms/Greyhawk anger thing. I never have. Aren't they both fairly generic fantasy worlds? What's the big deal?

They are both generic, but both have individual character. Economically, there has turned out not to be room for both, hence fan rage.

 

[MechaPilot]

Because WotC did a poll, and FR was heads, torso, and feet more popular than every other setting. Is it likely due to FR getting more spotlight than any other setting since 2e? Sure, quite possible. Doesn't change the fact that, unfortunately, it's the most popular D&D setting.

Every other published setting. Homebrew was more popular than FR, but WotC doesn't own homebrew.

 

[Hussar]

I don't understand the whole Realms/Greyhawk anger thing. I never have. Aren't they both fairly generic fantasy worlds? What's the big deal?

Well, a lot of that is carry over from a long time ago. Obviously, when 1e changed over to 2e and Gygax's ouster from TSR, Greyhawk basically got shelved. And, of course, FR was then brought very, very much into the foreground. There's still a lot of hard feelings from fans over this. Throughout 2e, the system that is known for its settings, Greyhawk got very little loving and what little it got was largely crap. The Greyhawk 2e modules were bad to worse - Puppets? Gargoyles? Yeesh.

Then 3e comes along and Greyhawk gets a big shot in the arm. It's the base setting for the game! Wow. And then... well... nothing. Paizohawk probably has more actual 3e support than Greyhawk ever got in 3e. WotC, despite making Greyhawk the baseline setting, pretty much buried it in later books. And, then, FR gets what, half a dozen or more beautiful full color source books including the FRCS.

Add that to 4e's complete retreat from Greyhawk and now 5e hasn't exactly done anything either, and Greyhawk fans are a pretty bitter bunch. And, honestly, they have a point. Forgotten Realms has gotten encyclopedias worth of material. Thousands of pages of support across now four editions and the better part of thirty years. Greyhawk has gotten pretty much taken out behind the barn and a gun put in its ear.

 

[Hussar]

Every other published setting. Homebrew was more popular than FR, but WotC doesn't own homebrew.

Well, to be fair, there is not such thing as a "homebrew" setting as a single thing. Homebrew is limited to a single table and pretty much means that those who homebrew have taken themselves out of the market.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not generating buzz on En World, maybe. I dunno. The FB Dragonheist site has 2000 members and is pretty active, with posts by Mr. Greenwood on occasion. The https://www.reddit.com/r/WaterdeepDragonHeist/ subreddit has 1800 users and new posts daily. It's sitting in the mid 400's on Amazon.com, what, six months after release? DotMM and Dragonheist are the top two modules WotC has out in terms of sales on Amazon right now. There's a couple of dozen supplementary adventures and background products for Dragon Heist on DM's Guild, many of them done by Guild Adepts.

How much better do you expect a module to do? What would you consider "generating buzz"?

Why are you asking me this? I am merely responding to a thread where the lack of buzz topic came up, and like others, offer my suggestions for explanations. Why don't you go talk to the poster that started this (sub-)topic.

 

[eyeheartawk]

But here in Germany a lot of players have prejudices against them. May be it is the influence of Aventurien (The Black Eye´s Setting), I don´t know. I recently convinced some players in a forum that there is more to the Realms than they might have heard. I recommended some novels (especially Murder in Cormyr), wrote some articles...and now they bought all the old stuff especially FRCS 3E.

I don't get this. Aventuria really isn't all that different from FR. They both are pretty vanilla fantasy.

 

[SkidAce]

Well, to be fair, there is not such thing as a "homebrew" setting as a single thing. Homebrew is limited to a single table and pretty much means that those who homebrew have taken themselves out of the market.

Running homebrew for over 30 years has not taken me out of the market. I like examples and I scavenge parts.

View attachment 103550

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, to be fair, there is not such thing as a "homebrew" setting as a single thing. Homebrew is limited to a single table and pretty much means that those who homebrew have taken themselves out of the market.

Well, not really.

I've read a big reason for the dominance of the Realms is that lots of homebrewers accept that setting as an acceptable source for their homebrewed worlds.

That is, something like: of all 5E customers, half is using their own world, 25% are using Forgotten Realms and then every other setting is in the low single-digit numbers.

So if half of homebrewers consider Realms content acceptable for their worlds, a whopping 75% of all customers are potential buyers of Realms material, many many many times the next best selling setting.

This certainly explains why WotC keeps publishing Realms books in my mind.

And it means homebrewers aren't necessarily out of the market. Instead, they probably contribute to the continued dominance of Forgotten Realms.

 

[Nebulous]

Well, a lot of that is carry over from a long time ago. Obviously, when 1e changed over to 2e and Gygax's ouster from TSR, Greyhawk basically got shelved. And, of course, FR was then brought very, very much into the foreground. There's still a lot of hard feelings from fans over this. Throughout 2e, the system that is known for its settings, Greyhawk got very little loving and what little it got was largely crap. The Greyhawk 2e modules were bad to worse - Puppets? Gargoyles? Yeesh.

Then 3e comes along and Greyhawk gets a big shot in the arm. It's the base setting for the game! Wow. And then... well... nothing. Paizohawk probably has more actual 3e support than Greyhawk ever got in 3e. WotC, despite making Greyhawk the baseline setting, pretty much buried it in later books. And, then, FR gets what, half a dozen or more beautiful full color source books including the FRCS.

Add that to 4e's complete retreat from Greyhawk and now 5e hasn't exactly done anything either, and Greyhawk fans are a pretty bitter bunch. And, honestly, they have a point. Forgotten Realms has gotten encyclopedias worth of material. Thousands of pages of support across now four editions and the better part of thirty years. Greyhawk has gotten pretty much taken out behind the barn and a gun put in its ear.

You know, I had totally forgotten that GH was the base setting for 3e! I think I assumed it was FR, and still recall just how badass that FR sourcebook was for 3rd edition. I admit i don't know much about Greyhawk, but I'm sorry the setting doesn't get much support. It must have been very flavorful or people wouldn't be so upset.

 

[Nebulous]

Well, not really.

I've read a big reason for the dominance of the Realms is that lots of homebrewers accept that setting as an acceptable source for their homebrewed worlds.

That is, something like: of all 5E customers, half is using their own world, 25% are using Forgotten Realms and then every other setting is in the low single-digit numbers.

So if half of homebrewers consider Realms content acceptable for their worlds, a whopping 75% of all customers are potential buyers of Realms material, many many many times the next best selling setting.

This certainly explains why WotC keeps publishing Realms books in my mind.

And it means homebrewers aren't necessarily out of the market. Instead, they probably contribute to the continued dominance of Forgotten Realms.

We have used the FR setting for many, many years, ever since the little gray box. But neither myself or my players are what you would call hardcore realmsfans. Other than a few early D&D novels back in the 80s and early 90s, and later on with Baldur's Gate and especially Icewind Dale (damn I love me some Icewind Dale!) I don't follow any published canon about what happens there. Doesn't really matter to us, it's just a shared world with landmarks and cities that we are familiar with. I ran Phandelver, Princes and Tomb, all set in the FR, but they could have been anywhere really - desolate town, large hill lands, a jungle.