D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[hawkeyefan]

I'll also go ahead and agree with you guys about that....I don't really want them to do anything with Greyhawk. I prefer they leave it alone.

I think this is also because I really don't see Greyhawk as needing much in the way of mechanical support. It hews pretty closely to the PHB of just about any edition, really.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Demetrios1453]

I believe [MENTION=5100]Mercule[/MENTION] is talking about the 3e Gazeteer. A 32ish page product that was similar to the original GH folio meant as a primer for the setting of Oerth at 3.0's release. I have it on a shelf around here somewhere.

Frankly, I think it is the better product for a DM to start a GH campaign. But my lack of enthusiasm for the LGG is no secret 'round these parts

Oh ok, my bad. I remember seeing that book and thinking that it looked like little more than a very abbreviated version of the LGG...

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[Caliban]

I agree completely. I mean- just look at the material on Vecna. It's all in just three sections- on the hand and the eye of Vecna, and the sword of Kas.

It is so brilliantly evocative, while telling you almost nothing. Seriously, what do you know?

1. The name Vecna still inspires fear.
2. The spirit of Vecna might still roam the material plane (or maybe not?).
3. Only Vecna's hand and eye remain.
4. Vecna was a "supreme" (?) lich.
5. Kas destroyed Vecna with the sword, while Vecna killed Kas for his betrayal.

That's it. Everything else? Up to you, man.

And for people who like to create their own stuff, that's perfect. Just enough to spark an idea and they can run with it.

But a lot of people want or need more than a spark to get things going. And some people...just want to know everything, with no ambiguity. They want it locked down and certain. They love lore that's been set in stone so they can be an authority. It gives them a warm tingly feeling.

And those people are willing to spend money on books, spend hours researching things online or discussing the finer points of Elminster's journey from orphaned boy to Chosen of Mystra.

And if you are willing to spend money on it...WOTC will make it for you. Which leads to the over abundances of realms lore.

Same thing would have happened to Greyhawk (and did happen to a lesser extent - look at the mountains of stuff produced for the Living Greyhawk campaign, it's just more easily ignored).

 

[JeffB]

I don't want to go too far with GH talk , but I will add briefly

I would also prefer they leave GH alone. Completely. I do not trust WOTC to do it justice.

I really like FTA, in the same way I like the new Star Trek movies. Alternate timeline kind of thing. The material Carl wrote was Ace. It just was written for the setting nobody wanted to see change/d.

As I age, I have a harder time with the "fixes" brought about by WOTC in 1998 and beyond. It's the same thing as The Sundering. :handwave: everything is all just peachy-keen now. Nothing to see here. Like the Realms, I will take the original box, please.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mercule]

As I age, I have a harder time with the "fixes" brought about by WOTC in 1998 and beyond. It's the same thing as The Sundering. :handwave: everything is all just peachy-keen now. Nothing to see here. Like The Realms, I will take the original,please.

I could take this a few different ways. WotC is definitely more capable of running a sustainable business. I'm not always in agreement with the creative decisions, though.

Heck, as excited as I was about 3E, at the time, I look back on it, now, as a stepping stone to 5E, at best, and something that I can't imagine ever playing again -- I'd definitely rather go back to AD&D. But... I do like 5E and, two or three years in, still think it's the best version of D&D so far.

The fluff is something else, entirely, though. Since the moment WotC stepped in, they've seemed largely unable to inspire without proscribing. Any time a fluff explanation is given in a rule book, it's done at far too concrete of a level. Mearls, in particular, seems to suffer from this. I love the rules he creates, but Psionics is a great example of him not being able to say, "who knows, but here are some theories." It was like there had to be an official explanation of the psionic origin with anything else being a call out to a house rule.

If you're talking about settings, I'd say that Eberron is probably the best they've done. I don't necessarily mean the subjective bits around whether you like warforged or not, but around how much support to give. Actually, even Eberron was over-supported, in some ways, and suffered from the "here's an answer to the question you didn't know you didn't care if it was answered". Greyhawk may have had the right amount of information for what it is, but it was never really the default setting. And the Realms is being pushed with all the finesse of an argument between Sam Kinneson and Gilbert Gottfried. Everything else has just kind of bet dropped on its head.

 

[prosfilaes]

This is objectively wrong. I've read the novels where he did stuff. I've read portions of the Realms lore where he did stuff. It may not have been played out, but he did in fact adventure and gain levels that way.

I read that Daniel Boone killed a bear when he was was only three, but that didn't happen, either. And, yes, in the fiction, Elminister did adventure, but that doesn't mean other high-level NPCs adventured.

Show me one. So far you've only shown a couple that had only a few of them written down, but it still had them. Show me one that not only has no NPC of 15th level or higher written down, but says that none exist.

That's interesting; other people are saying that people can just remove Elminister from Forgotten Realms if we want, and you're saying that there will always be high-level characters. I don't know why that any setting would explicitly say that there are no NPCs over level x, because you just don't write any for that setting, and leave it up to the DM to put them in or not as they will.

 

[JeffB]

I could take this a few different ways. WotC is definitely more capable of running a sustainable business. I'm not always in agreement with the creative decisions, though.

Heck, as excited as I was about 3E, at the time, I look back on it, now, as a stepping stone to 5E, at best, and something that I can't imagine ever playing again -- I'd definitely rather go back to AD&D. But... I do like 5E and, two or three years in, still think it's the best version of D&D so far.

The fluff is something else, entirely, though. Since the moment WotC stepped in, they've seemed largely unable to inspire without proscribing. Any time a fluff explanation is given in a rule book, it's done at far too concrete of a level. Mearls, in particular, seems to suffer from this. I love the rules he creates, but Psionics is a great example of him not being able to say, "who knows, but here are some theories." It was like there had to be an official explanation of the psionic origin with anything else being a call out to a house rule.

If you're talking about settings, I'd say that Eberron is probably the best they've done. I don't necessarily mean the subjective bits around whether you like warforged or not, but around how much support to give. Actually, even Eberron was over-supported, in some ways, and suffered from the "here's an answer to the question you didn't know you didn't care if it was answered". Greyhawk may have had the right amount of information for what it is, but it was never really the default setting. And the Realms is being pushed with all the finesse of an argument between Sam Kinneson and Gilbert Gottfried. Everything else has just kind of bet dropped on its head.

Yeah, I think we are of like mind here. Even as regards Eberron. I don't like everything about the setting, but they did a dang fine job with it. Secrets of Xen'drik is probably my favorite thing WOTC has ever done with any setting. I wish they would do MORE "Eberrons" and keep Perkins away from anything TSR did first

 

[Mercule]

In my perfect world, though, the APs would be a little more agnostic as to campaign setting. And then additional FR material would be released (a la SCAG) that isn't a campaign setting. I don't mind if FR is a default setting, in the sense, maybe, of using place names. But embedding too much FR lore in the APs makes it a lot harder to use them without serious effort, which makes them useless.

This. I think that, for people who like the Realms or are wholly indifferent, it's easy to miss that there's actually a pretty good level of effort for some of the adventures. That's fine, for some of them -- I'm not saying they should never produce modules that pretty much must be run in the Realms. I'd just like, as I've put it before, some corner of D&D where I don't have to deal with the Realms.

This thread has also made me realize that I probably don't actually have any problem with the Realms of 5E being the vanilla setting. It's a suitably blank canvas to launch people on filling in the gaps. My biggest issue is that it's ubiquitous and inescapable. I also have some issues with the Realms from previous editions and some of the detailed lore is not to my liking, but that's more the original wound, the exclusiveness in 5E is the festering around that wound.

I'd be unhappy with any setting being this prominent, but it'd be a lot better (IMO) to jettison the Realms and create something without the baggage. Then, use that setting at the same level as in PotA. I'm sure others would disagree and, maybe, the Nentir Vale experiment showed that there's no market for building an "implied setting". Or, maybe 4E just wasn't particularly viable.

Edit: Just to clarify the above couple of paragraphs, I don't think the Realms of 5E are horrible. If they weren't constantly in your face, I wouldn't mind them. I also don't think it's possible to get just the Realms of 5E. Where from existing fans bringing old info forward or new fans digging deeper, the Realms will always carry their weight with them.